From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V18 #124 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Sunday, June 27 2010 Volume 18 : Number 124 Today's Subjects: ----------------- All Hail The Ebster ["Nectar At Any Cost!" ] All Hail The Ebster ["Nectar At Any Cost!" ] Re: All Hail The Ebster [Miles Goosens ] Re: All Hail The Ebster [Sebastian Hagedorn ] I loved this [Jill Brand ] Re: I loved this [Jeremy Osner ] My Favorite Buildings [Jeremy Osner ] Re: My Favorite Buildings [kevin studyvin ] Re: The Smiths [ross ] Scott [kevin studyvin ] Re: The Smiths [2fs ] Re: Scott [2fs ] Re: Scott [kevin studyvin ] Re: The Smiths [kevin studyvin ] Re: Scott [2fs ] Re: Scott [kevin studyvin ] Re: Scott [2fs ] Robyn Hitchcock Live at The Assembly Rooms on 2001-08-04 at archive.org ["Stewart C. Russell" Subject: All Hail The Ebster Deadwood > Sopranos ...> y'all may recall that i absolutely despised *Deadwood*. have never seen *The Wire*. (i'd for some reason thought that to've been a network show. guess i was thinking of...something else.) so my HBO ratings would be: *Sopranos* > *Curb Your Enthusiasm* > *Entourage* i feel that *Entourage* has higher peaks than *Enthusiasm* -- indeed, that its peaks are very nearly the equal of *The Sopranos*'. but its lows are also rather lower (though certainly still very watchable). <... missed the beginning of the Album Book Club! It's probably a good one for me to crack into after reading the commentaries anyway, having been "meh" on the Smiths for a long time and probably needing to take another listen.> to my knowledge, the only smiths song i've ever heard is the MTX's cover of "What Difference" -- which i love. yes, of course, i've always known that i'd need at some point or other to check them out. and now, thanks to this thread, i've downloaded their discography, and will get to it in fairly short order. also thanks to this board (alas, this project has been about a dozen years in the making): i've downloaded a 28-disc kinks disco, and the plan is to listen to one title per day beginning on july 1st. i've got, and love, the *Come Dancing* comp; and i've got, and kinda like just-okay, *Village Green*. but, that's it. by the end of july, however, i hope to've become an afficianado! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2010 09:40:54 -0700 From: "Nectar At Any Cost!" Subject: All Hail The Ebster Deadwood > Sopranos ...> y'all may recall that i absolutely despised *Deadwood*. have never seen *The Wire*. (i'd for some reason thought that to've been a network show. guess i was thinking of...something else.) so my HBO ratings would be: *Sopranos* > *Curb Your Enthusiasm* > *Entourage* i feel that *Entourage* has higher peaks than *Enthusiasm* -- indeed, that its peaks are very nearly the equal of *The Sopranos*'. but its lows are also rather lower (though certainly still very watchable). <... missed the beginning of the Album Book Club! It's probably a good one for me to crack into after reading the commentaries anyway, having been "meh" on the Smiths for a long time and probably needing to take another listen.> to my knowledge, the only smiths song i've ever heard is the MTX's cover of "What Difference" -- which i love. yes, of course, i've always known that i'd need at some point or other to check them out. and now, thanks to this thread, i've downloaded their discography, and will get to it in fairly short order. also thanks to this board (alas, this project has been about a dozen years in the making): i've downloaded a 28-disc kinks disco, and the plan is to listen to one title per day beginning on july 1st. i've got, and love, the *Come Dancing* comp; and i've got, and kinda like just-okay, *Village Green*. but, that's it. by the end of july, however, i hope to've become an afficianado! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2010 12:09:34 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: All Hail The Ebster On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 11:40 AM, Nectar At Any Cost! wrote: > also thanks to this board (alas, this project has been about a dozen years > in the making): i've downloaded a 28-disc kinks disco, and the plan is to > listen to one title per day beginning on july 1st. i've got, and love, the > *Come Dancing* comp; and i've got, and kinda like just-okay, *Village > Green*. but, that's it. by the end of july, however, i hope to've become > an afficianado! You're not going to find a much bigger advocate of post-peak Kinks than me, but even at my most enthusiastic, I could never put the COME DANCING comp over VGPS. But I'm totally psyched that you're doing this! Best rock consecutive album sequence: FACE TO FACE -> SOMETHING ELSE - -> VGPS -> ARTHUR -> LOLA VS POWERMAN & THE MONEY-GO-ROUND -> MUSWELL HILLBILLIES. And there's a boatload of ace b-sides, EPs, and the PERCY soundtrack from that period too. later, Miles - -- over a year of feeling guilty about not blogging enough! http://readingpronunciation.blogspot.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2010 19:49:07 +0200 From: Sebastian Hagedorn Subject: Re: All Hail The Ebster - -- Nectar At Any Cost! is rumored to have mumbled on 26. Juni 2010 09:40:54 -0700 regarding All Hail The Ebster: > Deadwood > Sopranos ...> > > y'all may recall that i absolutely despised *Deadwood*. have never seen > *The Wire*. (i'd for some reason thought that to've been a network show. > guess i was thinking of...something else.) so my HBO ratings would be: > > *Sopranos* > *Curb Your Enthusiasm* > *Entourage* I have yet to watch "Curb Your Enthusiasm", but I tried watching "Entourage" a while back and hated it. Given that you hated "Deadwood" we may just have to agree to disagree on that, but out of curiosity: what's the attraction to you? To me it seemed like vapid guys behaving like assholes. I didn't see the humor in that - I only watched two episodes, IIRC. - -- Sebastian Hagedorn Am alten Stellwerk 22, 50733 Kvln, Germany http://www.uni-koeln.de/~a0620/ "Being just contaminates the void" - Robyn Hitchcock ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2010 15:30:44 -0400 (EDT) From: Jill Brand Subject: Hatful of Hollow Since others have asked about whether Hatful of Hollow is a better album than the Smiths debut album, I would wholeheartedly say "yes"! It has much of the original album (albeit, with rougher versions) on it + How Soon Is Now, William It Was Really Nothing, This Night Has Opened My Eyes (which I used to use in my ESL class), Back to the Old House, and Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want (a song I adore, but one that I can't listen to for a while in that my daughter used it for the choreography for her art supplement for her college applications - and I heard it MUCH TOO MUCH!). So yeah. But I wasn't asked about that album. Most bands break up when I already can't stand them anymore. The Smiths were not at the pinnacle of wonderfulness by the end (The Queen is Dead still tops them all for me), but I still loved their work. Still sad about Pete Quaife. Jill ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2010 15:37:27 -0400 (EDT) From: Jill Brand Subject: I loved this "I wanted to add this. Pete Quaife in Melody Maker magazine "we just let the whole flower power, LSD, love thing flow over (our) head......It changed a lot of good blokes, who everybody rated, into creeps....You still can't beat going to the pictures, a couple of pints and a fag (cigarette). The Kinks all agree that Sunday dinner is the greatest realization of heaven" 1967" I already forgot you wrote this in the last digest, but I want to say that this captures it all. Thanks for this. Jill ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2010 15:49:57 -0400 From: Jeremy Osner Subject: Re: I loved this A pleasant appreciation of Quaife and of the Kinks song "Big Sky" is at The song in my head today, http://thesonginmyheadtoday.blogspot.com/2010/06/big-sky-kinks-r.html J On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 3:37 PM, Jill Brand wrote: > "I wanted to add this. Pete Quaife in Melody Maker magazine "we just let > the whole flower power, LSD, love thing flow over (our) head......It > changed a lot of good blokes, who everybody rated, into creeps....You > still can't beat going to the pictures, a couple of pints and a fag > (cigarette). The Kinks all agree that Sunday dinner is the greatest > realization of heaven" 1967" > > I already forgot you wrote this in the last digest, but I want to say that > this captures it all. Thanks for this. > > Jill ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2010 16:58:40 -0400 From: Jeremy Osner Subject: My Favorite Buildings Found a interesting cover of it, and also a reading which supplements it nicely. http://readin.com/blog/?id=2299 Jeremy ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2010 14:27:22 -0700 From: kevin studyvin Subject: Re: My Favorite Buildings On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 1:58 PM, Jeremy Osner wrote: > Found a interesting cover of it, and also a reading which supplements > it nicely. http://readin.com/blog/?id=2299 > > Jeremy > Nicely observed, as always. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2010 18:41:01 -0400 From: ross Subject: Re: The Smiths Last night I heard this album for the first time. I googled the lyrics for each song as it played to get a better sense of the song. Normally, lyrics don't start to sink in until a few listens. In 1980, I was done with school (i.e. no student radio stations) and the local radio scene had degraded to the point where I was unlikely to hear anything that was not designed to move a lot of units. I had retreated from the heavily commercial/head-banger music that was all you could hear on the radio by exploring jazz, neo-classical, ethnic music, folk and other non-rock styles. There was almost no way the Smiths were going to come to my attention at the time. * That's a shame, because hearing them now, I think they could have placed among my favourites. Something started to annoy me after a few songs. Morrissey uses the same trick over and over again -- leaving the melody unresolved at the end of a line. It's a very effective technique, but it does start to get old when it's used so often. It seems odd to me that Stewart should dismiss the last two tracks, because they offer some relief from the unresolved melodic line trick. "Out of tune and out of time"? I didn't hear that! I'll be checking out the rest of their output now. *almost, because my girlfriend's brother, Montreal's only alternative D.J., introduced me to Robyn in those days. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2010 16:42:19 -0700 From: kevin studyvin Subject: Scott Having encountered far too many reverential mentions of Scott Walker over the years but never consciously heard him in action, I snatched up the 30th Century Man DVD I spotted at the library recently, and have just finished watching it. Two things come to mind: (A) there's something very wonderfully wrong with that boy, and (2) I'll never hear Bowie in quite the same way again. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2010 19:15:51 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: The Smiths On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 5:41 PM, ross wrote: > > Something started to annoy me after a few songs. Morrissey uses the same > trick over and over again -- leaving the melody unresolved at the end of a > line. It's a very effective technique, but it does start to get old when > it's used so often. It seems odd to me that Stewart should dismiss the > last two tracks, because they offer some relief from the unresolved melodic > line trick. > He does that less frequently on later records. The other obvious characteristic on the first album, again less frequent later, is Morrissey's tendency to constrict his melodies to a couple-few notes. I think this was his way of dealing with his limitations at the time as a vocalist. (If you hear him now, he's become quite a good singer: there's no way he could have handled the line up to the high note in "Something Is Squeezing My Skull" back then, whereas now he does so with great panache. And probably a nice ganache for dessert.) - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.wordpress.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2010 19:16:34 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Scott On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 6:42 PM, kevin studyvin wrote: > Having encountered far too many reverential mentions of Scott Walker over > the years but never consciously heard him in action, I snatched up the 30th > Century Man DVD I spotted at the library recently, and have just finished > watching it. Two things come to mind: (A) there's something very > wonderfully wrong with that boy, and (2) I'll never hear Bowie in quite the > same way again. > Bowie's admiration for Walker is quite strong and, sometimes, very obvious! - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.wordpress.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2010 19:36:55 -0700 From: kevin studyvin Subject: Re: Scott On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 5:16 PM, 2fs wrote: > On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 6:42 PM, kevin studyvin > wrote: > > > Having encountered far too many reverential mentions of Scott Walker over > > the years but never consciously heard him in action, I snatched up the > 30th > > Century Man DVD I spotted at the library recently, and have just finished > > watching it. Two things come to mind: (A) there's something very > > wonderfully wrong with that boy, and (2) I'll never hear Bowie in quite > the > > same way again. > > > > Bowie's admiration for Walker is quite strong and, sometimes, very obvious! > Oh hell yes. Suddenly the entire "Berlin trilogy" sounds very different and just that little bit derivative. Something tells me I'll be doing a lot of Walker-related browsing for a while... ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2010 19:38:15 -0700 From: kevin studyvin Subject: Re: The Smiths > now he does so with > great panache. And probably a nice ganache for dessert.) > > Gotta love a nice ganache. Preferably raspberry. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2010 23:35:46 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Scott On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 9:36 PM, kevin studyvin wrote: > On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 5:16 PM, 2fs wrote: > >> On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 6:42 PM, kevin studyvin >> wrote: >> >> > Having encountered far too many reverential mentions of Scott Walker >> over >> > the years but never consciously heard him in action, I snatched up the >> 30th >> > Century Man DVD I spotted at the library recently, and have just >> finished >> > watching it. Two things come to mind: (A) there's something very >> > wonderfully wrong with that boy, and (2) I'll never hear Bowie in quite >> the >> > same way again. >> > >> >> Bowie's admiration for Walker is quite strong and, sometimes, very >> obvious! >> > > Oh hell yes. Suddenly the entire "Berlin trilogy" sounds very different > and just that little bit derivative. > > I wouldn't go that far. First, I'm pretty long-since over the whole problem with "originality" in rock, even "art rock" - composers and musicians borrow and steal, so what? More to the point, while Scott Walker was clearly a huge influence on Bowie, I don't think the Berlin trilogy actually *sounds* much like Walker - bits, maybe, but not as if it's a wholesale rip. Plus, while Walker has the edge as soundscaper and avant-garde composer, Bowie's the better songwriter per se* - Bowie's genius on those albums is to bring in a lot of heavy duty sonics (assist to Eno, of course) while grounding them in his distinctive songwriting sensibility. Bowie's underrated as a musician, I think: he's very good at, on the one hand, finding ways to make relatively conventional chords & melodies sound fresh, and on the other, make rather odd chord sequences and melodies flow organically rather than sound awkward. * I don't think Walker, from the '80s onward, was all that interested in writing "songs" in the traditional sense...so it's sort of an unfair comparison. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.wordpress.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2010 23:24:37 -0700 From: kevin studyvin Subject: Re: Scott > >> Bowie's admiration for Walker is quite strong and, sometimes, very > >> obvious! > >> > > > > Oh hell yes. Suddenly the entire "Berlin trilogy" sounds very different > > and just that little bit derivative. > > > > > I wouldn't go that far. First, I'm pretty long-since over the whole problem > with "originality" in rock, even "art rock" - composers and musicians > borrow > and steal, so what? > > Well, OK - first, this is an absolutely virgin response to a powerful musician I've never encountere before, so there's likely to be some dramatic sort of language that further exposure would/will inevitably temper. Additionaly it's not exactly a secret that Bowie's a notorious magpie who's always on the lookout for a good idea to nick. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, because it's one of the characteristics that make him so endlessly interesting; watching to see what he's lifted and from whom has always been part of the fun. But what's important is that what he nicks he incorporates into his process and makes it part of the Wonderful World of Bowie - he may borrow your hammer and my jigsaw, but what he builds with them is entirely and unmistakably his own. > More to the point, while Scott Walker was clearly a huge influence on > Bowie, > I don't think the Berlin trilogy actually *sounds* much like Walker - bits, > maybe, but not as if it's a wholesale rip. > > Actually it was specifically a vocal sound I was focussed on - I've been playing Lodger a lot recently, and going through the Walker documentary I kept hearing vocal mannerisms that were so similar to the tone and phrasing of DB's vocals on Lodger that it was quite striking. Also, there were interview segments in the film with both Bowie and Eno talking about how smitten they were with the last Walker Brothers album, Nite Flights, from 1978, and the couple of audio clips from it included in the film again sounded quite similar to moments from Lodger - which Bowie and Eno were, in fact, working on at the time that Walker Brothers disc was released. So, again, I am absolutely not perpetrating so monumental a gaffe as to suggest that David Bowie and Brian Eno, of all people, would need to steal from a Walker Brothers album because they had no idea what to do with themselves, but I can easily see them hearing these really fascinating tracks and being impressed enough that the sound would inevitably percolate through here and there, however subliminally, into the tracks they were recording themselves. > Plus, while Walker has the edge as soundscaper and avant-garde composer, > Bowie's the better songwriter per se* - Bowie's genius on those albums is > to > bring in a lot of heavy duty sonics (assist to Eno, of course) while > grounding them in his distinctive songwriting sensibility. Bowie's > underrated as a musician, I think: he's very good at, on the one hand, > finding ways to make relatively conventional chords & melodies sound fresh, > and on the other, make rather odd chord sequences and melodies flow > organically rather than sound awkward. > > What Bowie's always been, first and foremost, is a pop musician, however refined and intellectual his attitude and approach to that craft, and for the most part a great one (if we just sort of overlook most of the 80s), and it's pretty clear to me on first blush that Walker is anything but and has never really wanted to be. He's evidently interested in art songs that are about as refined as they can get and still be properly called songs, but he obviously left the rock & roll world way behind decades ago and isn't interested in looking back, while our Mr. Bowie is firmly ensconced down there in the muck (while steadfastly gazing at the stars). > * I don't think Walker, from the '80s onward, was all that interested in > writing "songs" in the traditional sense...so it's sort of an unfair > comparison. > Well, again, not a comparison I was trying to make. Just an initial response to a powerful stimulus. And a week from now I may want to take it all back, anyway. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 27 Jun 2010 02:07:28 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Scott On Sun, Jun 27, 2010 at 1:24 AM, kevin studyvin wrote: > >> > Oh hell yes. Suddenly the entire "Berlin trilogy" sounds very different >> > and just that little bit derivative. >> > >> > >> I wouldn't go that far. First, I'm pretty long-since over the whole >> problem >> with "originality" in rock, even "art rock" - composers and musicians >> borrow >> and steal, so what? >> >> Well, OK - first, this is an absolutely virgin response to a powerful > musician I've never encountere before, so there's likely to be some dramatic > sort of language that further exposure would/will inevitably temper. > Additionaly it's not exactly a secret that Bowie's a notorious magpie who's > always on the lookout for a good idea to nick. I'm not saying that's a bad > thing, because it's one of the characteristics that make him so endlessly > interesting; watching to see what he's lifted and from whom has always been > part of the fun. But what's important is that what he nicks he incorporates > into his process and makes it part of the Wonderful World of Bowie - he may > borrow your hammer and my jigsaw, but what he builds with them is entirely > and unmistakably his own. > Exactly, yes. Actually it was specifically a vocal sound I was focussed on - I've been > playing Lodger a lot recently, and going through the Walker documentary I > kept hearing vocal mannerisms that were so similar to the tone and phrasing > of DB's vocals on Lodger that it was quite striking. > That seems fair as well. Bowie's always approached singing more or less as an actor - and I think Walker's singing around then was *similar* to some things he'd approached before, but it gave him some new nuances of character & shading to incorporate. > Also, there were interview segments in the film with both Bowie and Eno > talking about how smitten they were with the last Walker Brothers album, > Nite Flights, from 1978, and the couple of audio clips from it included in > the film again sounded quite similar to moments from Lodger - which Bowie > and Eno were, in fact, working on at the time that Walker Brothers disc was > released. So, again, I am absolutely not perpetrating so monumental a gaffe > as to suggest that David Bowie and Brian Eno, of all people, would need to > steal from a Walker Brothers album because they had no idea what to do with > themselves, but I can easily see them hearing these really fascinating > tracks and being impressed enough that the sound would inevitably percolate > through here and there, however subliminally, into the tracks they were > recording themselves. > Actually it's probably not so subliminal! Both Bowie and Eno are honest enough to frequently acknowledge influences - to the extent of, oh, that part was me trying to do what (say) the bass part in such-and-such a song did. Part of my response might be influenced by a comment elsehwere, in response to some critic arguing that Bowie (on _Earthling_) was "for the first time" a follower rather than an innovator...which is hooey: Bowie didn't originate glam, or soul-inflected rock, or the sort of semi-ambient art song of the Berlin trilogy, etc.; there are clear antecedents for most of his stylistic twists & turns. His genius is...wait, what you wrote above is exactly what I would write here, so we'll just go back to that part again! (Don't then reread the whole thing again, lest you risk being caught in an endless loop.) - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.wordpress.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 27 Jun 2010 13:07:33 -0400 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: Robyn Hitchcock Live at The Assembly Rooms on 2001-08-04 at archive.org First recorded outing of Briggs in the wild! Robyn Hitchcock The Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh 2001-08-04 AUD AUD > lapel mic > Sharp MD-SR50 MD (mono mode) MD-SR60 > Marantz PMD-620 > Audacity > FLAC (analogue connection from MD to PMD-620) Note: recording is *MONO*, and is 24-bit FLAC. Setlist: 1 talk: "not horribly caramelized or mellow" 2 Surgery 3 talk: "clint eastwood, for it is he" 4 A Man's Gotta Know His Limitations, Briggs 5 talk: "exciting and miserable time" 6 Wax Doll 7 talk: "a totem of misery" 8 The Veins Of The Queen 9 talk: "watch out for igor the dragon" 10 Viva! Sea-Tac 11 Glass Hotel 12 talk: "the only reason we can have, um, courtney cox" 13 Queen Elvis 14 I Am Not Me 15 Raymond Chandler Evening 16 talk: "good news: charles knocked out" 17 Sally Was A Legend 18 talk: "that amp contained a dybbuk" 19 Only The Stones Remain 20 Nightfall Encore: 21 encore intro: "got another half hour" 22 Gene Hackman 23 The Ghost In You 24 talk: "already preparing to go somewhere else" 25 Think For Yourself Audience recording by Stewart C. Russell, http://scruss.com/ ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V18 #124 ********************************