From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V17 #237 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Wednesday, September 2 2009 Volume 17 : Number 237 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Eb Kennedy ["Nectar At Any Cost!" ] Re: Eb Kennedy [kevin studyvin ] Further off-topic [kevin studyvin ] Re: REAP [James Dignan ] Re: Further off-topic [HwyCDRrev@aol.com] Re: Further off-topic [kevin studyvin ] Re: "Follow The Money" [Marc ] Re: REAP [kevin studyvin ] Re: "Abbey Road Now" CD with Robyn Hitchcock "I Want You (She's So Heavy)"; [James Dignan ] Van Halen Accused of Ticketmaster Scalping Scheme [HwyCDRrev@aol.com] Re: Van Halen Accused of Ticketmaster Scalping Scheme [2fs ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:14:02 -0700 From: "Nectar At Any Cost!" Subject: Re: Eb Kennedy i wouldn't say that i'm anti-technology, per se. i think it'd be more accurate to say that any technology can only be justified if its use is sustainable. i suppose it's an open question whether any technology could be justified. at a minimum, i'd think that any technology which allows us to live outside of our ecological niche is probably not sustainable. i, for one, consider it to be a part of his canon. i think he does, too, given it's the only one of "his" movies for which he's contributed a DVD commentary. by the way, amazing film fact of the moment: in the commentary for *Waltz With Bashir*, director ari folman says that his lead animator is equally proficient drawing with right and left hands; and that, given how quickly he finished all of his drawings, he (folman) assumes that he was drawing simultaneously with his right and left hands. well, *i* think that's pretty amazing. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 15:01:27 -0700 From: kevin studyvin Subject: Re: Eb Kennedy > i wouldn't say that i'm anti-technology, per se. i think it'd be more > accurate to say that any technology can only be justified if its use is > sustainable. > > i suppose it's an open question whether any technology could be justified. > at a minimum, i'd think that any technology which allows us to live outside > of our ecological niche is probably not sustainable. > How long would you say we've been outside of our niche? I entirely agree that this is the case, and that it's only a matter of time until the Big Correction; question is, when did we go off the rails, so to speak? The Industrial Revolution? The invention of agriculture? The building of cities? It's an interesting question. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 15:43:12 -0700 From: kevin studyvin Subject: Further off-topic Just been giggling at last nite's Craig Ferguson. He was in rare form, bitching about CBS and flirting with Emily Deschanel. Learn all about the World's Greatest Diner Contest... ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 10:48:56 +1200 From: James Dignan Subject: Re: REAP On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 3:02 PM, wrote: > http://www.billboard.com/#/news/noel-gallagher-quits-oasis-1004007681.story > on the subject of Oasis, I've just watched an interesting and intermittently hilarous documentary about the 90s britpop era called "Live forever". Mildly recommended (I'd give it about six and a half out of ten). James - -- James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- =-.-=-.-=-.- You talk to me as if from a distance .-=-.-=-.-=-. -=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time .-=- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 18:50:31 EDT From: HwyCDRrev@aol.com Subject: Re: Further off-topic i was too tired last night i heard it was the 1st show in HD with a new set + lights and everything ! and Craig is never off-topic in my book My Bob Dylan Examiner Column http://www.examiner.com/x-21829-Bob-Dylan-Examiner my blog is "Yer Blog" http://fab4yerblog.blogspot.com/ http://robotsarestealingmyluggage.blogspot.com/ In a message dated 9/1/2009 6:48:43 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, kstudyvin@gmail.com writes: Just been giggling at last nite's Craig Ferguson. He was in rare form, bitching about CBS and flirting with Emily Deschanel. Learn all about the World's Greatest Diner Contest... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 15:58:58 -0700 From: kevin studyvin Subject: Re: Further off-topic On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 3:50 PM, wrote: > i was too tired last night > i heard it was the 1st show in HD > with a new set + lights and everything ! > > and Craig is never off-topic in my book > Same old set. Cool new intro. There are more lights - he kept referring to the "two new lights." Various technical problems - somebody ran out with a card announcing that Emily D's key light was out, which he gleefully shared with the audience. He was really in his element. One of the funniest ones I've seen. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:00:33 -0400 From: Marc Subject: Re: "Follow The Money" Nectar At Any Cost! wrote: > has more info, with citations. > for what it's worth, the article was written by a > germ-theory-believer-slash-vaccination-opponent. > > That's Neil Z. Miller, for those who don't want to read the links. The problem, it seems, is that despite the claims of scientists, folks want to believe folks like Neil Miller, who isn't a scientist (he has a degree in psychology) but still sees fit to try to understand epidemiological data and even causitive studies. Very often, despite long publication records, folks like Miller don't have a clue what they're talking about and they repeat half-truths and worse even after they have long been discredited because they make their livings on a particular form of advocacy. They church up their papers with scientificy-looking references, but that simply disguises that they tremendously cherry-pick their studies without commenting on various important aspects of the study that may or may not make it applicable to their point or spend any time examining what may be the technical limitations of the study. Because of this, they often misrepresent what the conclusions of the study really were, or at the very least cite studies as authoritative when they really aren't. Miller, like most of the anti-vac folks, resort to authority when it is convenient like this, but don't really have a framework for understanding which authorities are actually authoritative and that's where the trouble begins. They are self-appointed "experts" that are quite convincing to the non-scientists because they have appealing messages (in his case, his central anti-vaccine creed is that because current incidences of vaccine-targeted diseases are low that it is safer to stop vaccinating than to be faced with the risks, ones he exaggerates greatly in other sources, of the vaccine itself). Also, they position themselves as mavericks, Lone Voices in the Wilderness against the giant conspiracy of Big Pharma and Modern Medical Science. Like Moon Landing conspiracy theorists, I have a hard time buying what they're selling because in order for them to be correct entire generations worth of chemists, biologists, geneticists, virologists, epidemiologists, pharmacologists, etc., would have been doctoring up the evidence and coming to wrong solutions and only the Lone Voice has the wherewithal to see through the smoke and speak The Truth. As these aren't exactly issues that science has ignored over the last 50 years or so, I'm thinking (using Occam's Razor) that it's a lot more likely the Lone Voice guy is just some crackpot than there be a conspiracy that large. At least, if there is that conspiracy I would consider it an extraordinary claim, and thus it should require extraordinary proof, not the slap-dash sort of pseudo-scientific report like the one that is linked to above. I won't belabor all the various bits of wrongness I found even at a cursory glance at the data (ok, maybe one: cherry picking of a timeframe to try to highlight a given dataset does not prove causation or even necessarily correlation.), but I will say that when choosing non-scientific sources for these sorts of arguments won't win you any points in my mind, Eddie. Marc ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 16:00:32 -0700 From: kevin studyvin Subject: Re: REAP On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 3:48 PM, James Dignan wrote: > On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 3:02 PM, wrote: >> >> >> http://www.billboard.com/#/news/noel-gallagher-quits-oasis-1004007681.story >> > > on the subject of Oasis, I've just watched an interesting and intermittently > hilarous documentary about the 90s britpop era called "Live forever". Mildly > recommended (I'd give it about six and a half out of ten). > > James Saw that a while back. It was pretty fun. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 11:02:23 +1200 From: James Dignan Subject: Re: "Abbey Road Now" CD with Robyn Hitchcock "I Want You (She's So Heavy)"; >>HwyCDRrev@aol.com wrote: >> > kstudyvin@gmail.com writes: >> >> a cover picture of . . . a confused-looking Brian Wilson. >> > is there any other kind ? >Yes, but they are of other people named Brian Wilson. Such a comment cannot go unpunished: James - -- James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- =-.-=-.-=-.- You talk to me as if from a distance .-=-.-=-.-=-. -=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time .-=- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 23:59:17 EDT From: HwyCDRrev@aol.com Subject: listening to a higson Author & Musician Terry Edwards Let's Get this Show on the Road!!! Let's Get this Show on the Road!!! Author & Musician Terry Edwards gives it a go for Madness Central It's impossible to have partaken of popular music over the last three decades without running into Terry Edwards. Having worked with the likes of Tom Waits, Robyn Hitchcock, and Nick Cave, not to mention our lads in Madness, be it Bedders in BUtterfield 8, the Wonderful sessions, and all manners of Terry Edwards All-Stars line ups, if you've missed out on Terry Edwards you must have been living in a deep cave on one of the most frigidly desolate moons of Jupiter with your thumbs tightly in your ears and your eyes glued permanently shut. Collaboration isn't the end game for Terry, though. He's got his own record label (Sartorial), he's more than adept as a pianist, guitarist, trumpeter and saxophonist, he's proven his chops as a songwriter, and just this month he's added published author to his resume. Some might suspect Terry is the most diversely interesting person we've talked with here at Madness Central. We were lucky to hit Terry up at this juncture, to get his angle on being such an omni-gifted musician/songwriter as well as getting his take on the more timely subject of his "Madness' One Step Beyond (33 1/3)" paperback (polite plug: In Stores Now!). Is Terry Edwards an interesting bloke? If you didn't think so before, see if you disagree by the end of this interview. Interview by Jonathan Young and Steve Bringe go here : http://www.madness-central.com/interviews/TerryEdwards.html My Bob Dylan Examiner Column http://www.examiner.com/x-21829-Bob-Dylan-Examiner my blog is "Yer Blog" http://fab4yerblog.blogspot.com/ http://robotsarestealingmyluggage.blogspot.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 02:08:49 -0700 From: kevin studyvin Subject: tbd OK, now here's some code so simple even an ignoroid like me can get the joke: http://cdc.comicgenesis.com/d/20010401.html np Sonic Youth: The Destroyed Room - now with 25% more Diamond Sea... ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 07:00:03 EDT From: HwyCDRrev@aol.com Subject: Van Halen Accused of Ticketmaster Scalping Scheme Van Halen Accused of Ticketmaster Scalping Scheme Posted on Sep 1st 2009 10:00AM by John D. Luerssen Comments (8) Print | Email More Van Halen allegedly worked with scalpers during its fall 2007 tour in order to pull down an extra $1 million, according to a new report by the Wall Street Journal. The financial paper says the band was involved in farming out of up to 500 of the best seats from about 20 of its concerts with original frontman David Lee Roth to secondary ticket brokers. In a move that was part of a Ticketmaster initiative named "Project Showtime," the desirable tickets were pulled from the company's system and passed directly to private sellers. These secondary ticketing firms reportedly kept 30 percent of the inflated sale price for themselves and pushed the remaining 70 percent back to Ticketmaster, the band and its handlers. According to reporter Ethan Smith, the move by Ticketmaster was in effort designed to capture a piece of the sky-high prices charged by scalpers, which can exceed a ticket's face value by hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars. Van Halen's manager Irving Azoff -- who was the CEO of Front Line Management, which Ticketmaster then co-owned, and who now serves as Ticketmaster's chief executive -- is said to have spearheaded the scheme. "Project Showtime" fell apart because of distrust between participants, but not before the secondary ticket brokers were given tickets to scalp for Van Halen with Azoff's blessing. Azoff has since condemned ticket scalping in the press and distanced himself in the practice after the subsequent merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation, which occurred earlier this year. _http://bit.ly/b7yXm_ (http://bit.ly/b7yXm) (Spinner) My Bob Dylan Examiner Column _http://www.examiner.com/x-21829-Bob-Dylan-Examiner_ (http://www.examiner.com/x-21829-Bob-Dylan-Examiner) my blog is "Yer Blog" _http://fab4yerblog.blogspot.com/_ (http://fab4yerblog.blogspot.com/) _http://robotsarestealingmyluggage.blogspot.com/_ (http://robotsarestealingmyluggage.blogspot.com/) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 08:53:27 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Van Halen Accused of Ticketmaster Scalping Scheme On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 6:00 AM, wrote: > Van Halen Accused of Ticketmaster Scalping Scheme > Posted on Sep 1st 2009 10:00AM by John D. Luerssen > > > _http://bit.ly/b7yXm_ (http://bit.ly/b7yXm) (Spinner) > > I'm just glad Van Halen isn't a band I'd care about - because I hate wishing hell were real so a band I cared about could be roasted in flames eternally. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.wordpress.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 09:13:51 -0700 From: kevin studyvin Subject: Re: Van Halen Accused of Ticketmaster Scalping Scheme On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 6:53 AM, 2fs wrote: > On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 6:00 AM, wrote: > >> Van Halen Accused of Ticketmaster Scalping Scheme >> Posted on Sep 1st 2009 10:00AM by John D. Luerssen >> >> >> _http://bit.ly/b7yXm_ (http://bit.ly/b7yXm) (Spinner) >> >> > I'm just glad Van Halen isn't a band I'd care about - because I hate wishing > hell were real so a band I cared about could be roasted in flames eternally. > It's just about letting market forces deliver the highest quality of life for everyone... ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 16:57:56 +0000 (UTC) From: michaeljbachman@comcast.net Subject: Re: Van Halen Accused of Ticketmaster Scalping Scheme - ----- Original Message ----- From: "2fs" To: "we scoff at angry bears!" Sent: Wednesday, September 2, 2009 9:53:27 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Re: Van Halen Accused of Ticketmaster Scalping Scheme On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 6:00 AM, wrote: > >Van Halen Accused of Ticketmaster Scalping Scheme >> Posted on Sep 1st 2009 B 10:00AM by John D. Luerssen > > > >_http://bit.ly/b7yXm_ (http://bit.ly/b7yXm) B (Spinner) > > Jeff wrote: >I'm just glad Van Halen isn't a band I'd care about - because I hate wishing >hell were real so a band I cared about could be roasted in flames eternally. I'm with you on the merits of VH Jeff! Although I must confess I do have a vinyl copy of their second album that I bought over 30 years ago. Michael B. NP Kelly Willis - What I Deserve . ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 13:27:24 EDT From: HwyCDRrev@aol.com Subject: Big Star - Box set, interview Big Star: Keep An Eye On The Sky September 01, 2009 by Russell Hall In Review Big Star Keep An Eye On The Sky Rhino Records (R2 519760) Grade: 5 Stars http://www.goldminemag.com/article/big_star_keep_an_eye_on_the_sky/ Along with their contemporaries The Raspberries, Big Star practically invented American power-pop by reconfiguring ingredients from the British Invasion. Adding some Memphis-based components, Big Star created radio-ready music that was richer, deeper and more sophisticated than the typical hits of the day. This long overdue box set reaffirms and expands upon the Big Star legacy. Comprised of four discs housing nearly 100 tracks, the set intersperses demos, alternate mixes and a smattering of previously unreleased songs among familiar fare from the bandbs three official studio albums. Disc 4 features highlights from three live sets the group performed (without Chris Bell) at Lafayettebs Music Room in Memphis in January 1973. Ironically, because the audience was there primarily to see headliners Archie Bell and the Drells and was therefore quiet while Big Star was on-stage, the performances boast a clean fidelity they otherwise would not possess. Chronologically arranged, the set spans the years 1968 to 1975, tracing the arc of the Big Star story from founder Chris Bellbs nascent pre-Big Star work, through what should have been the bandbs glory years, and concluding with what essentially were Alex Chilton solo recordings compiled under the Big Star banner. Demos and alternate versions of such classics as bBack of a Carb and bO My Soulb prove fascinating, but the heart of the set is a series of demos made by Chilton for what eventually became Big Star Third. Given the fractured nature of Third, itbs startling to hear superbly crafted, elegant versions of bBlue Moon,b bNightime,b bJesus Christ,b and other songs delivered by Chilton as he accompanies himself on acoustic guitar. In keeping with its reputation for thoroughness, Rhino supplements the set with annotations, liner notes, rare and never-before-seen photos, and essays that provide historical context. Especially insightful are comments from R.E.M.bs Peter Buck, who observes that Big Star put a bmodern spinb on music from the b60s, crafting something that was blyrically more fractured, and bmusically more angular.b Tellingly, no commentary from Chilton is included, a fact that only deepens the mysteries surrounding Big Star and their fascinating story. Alex Chilton Talks About The Big Star Legacy In a 2001 Goldmine cover story, Alex Chilton gave a rare interview in which he addressed an array of topics, ranging from his years with the Box Tops to his influence on such artists as R.E.M. and the Replacements. Much of the discussion centered on Chiltonbs years with Big Star, a subject about which the normally recalcitrant Chilton was unusually candid. Chilton also provided the back-stories to several Big Star classics, offering "who-wrote-what" assessments of the bandbs songs in the way John Lennon famously did, with regard to Beatles songs, in an interview with Playboy. Below are excerpts: Your songwriting changed directions and became more pop-oriented when you teamed up with Chris Bell in Big Star. Alex Chilton: Well, Chrisb band was already in place when I joined. And they werenbt very big on R&B, or black music, at all. So I just sort of did what the original concept of their band was. I tried to present things that were compatible with the concept of this group that was already in place. When I say bthey,b I guess Ibm really referring to Chris. I just tried to get with Chrisbs stylistic approach as well as I could. And then, even after he left the band, I sort of stayed with the basic concept that he originated. Can you characterize what you brought to the band, from a music standpoint, and what Bell brought to the band? AC: All the songs were written more or less separately. It was Chrisbs idea that we share credit on the tunes, although they were all written pretty much independently. Is it true that he called you in 1975, after he had left Big Star, and wanted to work together again? AC: Chris and I got together a lot in the years before he died. I donbt know whether he wanted to work together or not. I donbt really remember that being the case. I mean, musicians get together to do things all the time, on all sorts of bases. I personally had no intentions of ever getting together in a band with anybody again, pretty much. I mean, when he left our band, we were going to hang it up. It was only sort of an afterthought that we made a second album at all. Why was Third b recorded in 1974 but released in 1978 b billed as a Big Star album, rather than a solo album? AC: I didnbt do the billing. That album was sold by the production company to a record company that called it what they wanted to. We never titled the record, and we never decided what the group name was ... we certainly were not intending to call ourselves Big Star, if in fact we were intending to call ourselves anything. Much has been made of Sister Lovers being a "dark" album. Were you thinking, at the time, that you were making an album that was bleak, or that had a despairing tone? AC: I was just throwing ideas at the wall. The idea was to choose, at the end, what to use. But then, in the end, I was pushed out of the process. The producer, Jim Dickinson, took over the entire thing, and then he chose. That project was taken out of my hands at the critical moment where all decisions about what to use and what not to use were being made. I mean, I was just writing things, and doing things. The plan was to cooperatively decide what got used, but I got pushed out. That album is regarded as a masterpiece. Are you saying that, in your hands, it could have warranted being more highly regarded than it is? AC: No, Ibm not saying that. Ibm just saying it wasnbt the record I intended to make. Ibm not sure what record I did intend to make. I was going to make that decision in the end. As I said, I was throwing ideas left and right, and I was going to choose them later. But I was never allowed to do that. Is it gratifying to you that so much of your work has influenced other songwriters who are in fact great songwriters themselves? AC: Well, all in all I sort of look at the Big Star records as being a little bit innovative, you know? And by that I mean in a mostly musical sort of way, and not so much in a literary sense. I look at the tunes that we wrote, and I think that some of them b a few of them b are pretty good. I listen to the music, and I think that some of it shows a good musical mind at work. Thatbs what I think is good about those records. I see them as being the work of sort of young, fairly promising musical minds. Ibm not as crazy about them as a lot of Big Star cultists seem to be. I think theybre good, but then again, I think Slade records are good, too. Alex Chilton on Big Star songs: bFeelb: That was Chrisbs song, pretty much all the way through. He had it all together, and I think I came up with the little melody line for the bBb section of that, where he says bI feel like Ibm dying.b I also think I wrote the line, bnever gonna live again.b bIn the Streetb: Keith Sykes, a folk singer I knew who lived in New York, was messing around with a lick that he had sort of lifted from Blind Willie McTell. I thought it was a neat lick, and I used it in bIn the Street.b So that was mine, although Chris contributed two notes of melody to it, on the bBb section there where it says, bNot a thing to do but talk to you.b I had a little bit of a different melody line there, and Chris changed that melody line. And unlike in most cases, where whoever the songwriter was usually sang the song, Chris sang lead on that tune. And sang it really well, too. "O My Soul": Chris was gone from the band by then, but we worked on that song together. There are several sections to that tune. In the first section, I believe he wrote the line, "I lose control," and he wrote, "Webve got all time." And then, in the second section, I think Chris sort of came up with that melody for the second section of the tune. And maybe that first line: "Youbre really a nice girl." "Life Is White": I remember Chris and Andy and I got together several times for writing sessions, and some of those things were more cooperative efforts than anything on the first record. On the first record, Chris and I would come to each other with songs almost entirely written, if not entirely written, and the other might make a change, or just one little contribution here or there. But in the case of the second album, some of itbs a little blurry to me, although this song, musically, is my idea pretty much altogether. But like I say, itbs a little vague to me. I think Chris and Andy might have contributed some things. For instance, I know the title line, and the lyrics to that, is either Chrisbs or Andybs. "Ballad of El Goodo": That was mine. I donbt think Chris had anything to do with the composition of that one bBack of A Carb: Chris wrote that first line of melody. With this tune and bO My Soul,b the track, and all the chords, were already in place. bBack Of A Carb was another case where I didnbt really have much of a melody going on top of the existing tune, and Chris contributed that first line of melody. The opening was in place; Chris just laid the melody line over the top of it. And Andy wrote of a lot of the words for bBack of a Car.b I didnb t really have much going [lyrically] on that tune. I think Andy was the major lyric writer on that one. My Bob Dylan Examiner Column http://www.examiner.com/x-21829-Bob-Dylan-Examiner my blog is "Yer Blog" http://fab4yerblog.blogspot.com/ http://robotsarestealingmyluggage.blogspot.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2009 21:15:30 -0500 From: michael wells Subject: Re: Eb Kennedy > How long would you say we've been outside of our niche? I entirely agree that this is the case, and that it's only a matter of time until the Big Correction; question is, when did we go off the rails, so to speak? Right about the time of "Hi Infidelity." > Van Halen's manager Irving Azoff -- who was the CEO of Front Line Management, which Ticketmaster then co-owned, and who now serves as Ticketmaster's chief executive -- is said to have spearheaded the scheme Shocked - shocked! - I am that Irving Azoff would be associated with *anything* untoward. The man is a paragon of upright business practices. MW ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V17 #237 ********************************