From: owner-goths-digest@smoe.org (goths-digest) To: goths-digest@smoe.org Subject: goths-digest V2 #109 Reply-To: goths@smoe.org Sender: owner-goths-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-goths-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk goths-digest Wednesday, August 12 1998 Volume 02 : Number 109 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: regis and kathie lee ["Larry Davis" ] ... [Happy Fantom ] leechwife [Happy Fantom ] How we quit the forest interview [foxmulder@juno.com (Chris L Smith)] Re: ... [foxmulder@juno.com (Chris L Smith)] Another article on rasp [foxmulder@juno.com (Chris L Smith)] interview pt 3 [foxmulder@juno.com (Chris L Smith)] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Aug 1998 15:19:24 -0400 From: "Larry Davis" Subject: Re: regis and kathie lee 8/11/98 2:37 PM HEY!!! I just joined the goths list. Glad 2 B here, as Rasputina is the most original, cool, obsessive band I've ever come across + loved, and I like MANY artists. Anyways, I never saw any TV appearances by our lovelies, but I heard about them. I'd like copies too. I did witness them live 2 years ago, opening 4 Kula Shaker at Irving Plaza, and I was stunned. I never saw any band like them before, although I did read about them in the press, and that Michael Stipe is a big fan, so I was curious enough not 2 want 2 miss them. I didn't know how 2 react, respond, etc. I did buy the CD, "Thanks For The Ether" either right before or after the show. At the time, I didn't fully "get" their music, and it came across like a weird novelty at first. A few months later, I rummaged thru my CDs, like I usually do, 2 weed out the junk + sell them. Anyways, at the time (+ I emphasize "at the time"), our lovelies didn't make it out of that category. I was aware of their Marilyn Manson tour, and the subsequent "Transylvanian Regurgitations" EP, which I didn't buy then. Cut to late July, 1998. I had been seeing articles on the making of the new CD, and an early awareness campaign on the part of SONY, that the new CD was coming soon, postcards in the Lilith Fair tour program, etc. Then, I was in my friend's record store in Huntington, and I came across an interesting promotional, unmarked, untitled (on the front at least) item!! I looked at it, and it was the picture-book promo of the new Rasputina CD. He let me borrow it, and if I liked it, I'd pay him the following week. Soooo, I popped it on with no expectations, and I just FLIPPED!! The new album is a MINDBOGGLER!! Love it 2 DEATH!! My faves: "The New Zero", "Trenchmouth", "Dwarfstar" (it's like "Warm Leatherette" by the Normal, dontcha think??), "The Olde HeadBoard" (of COURSE), "Leechwife" (I DO hear similarities between that and Ozzy's "Crazy Train"!! LOVE Ozzy!!), "Sign Of The Zodiac", and "Diamond Mind" just CRACKED me UP!! THEN, my friend, recording artist/ singer /songwriter /multi- instrumentalist Richard X.Heyman told me that on his next record, he wants 2 learn 2 play cello!! Sooo, I told him + his wife Nancy, who works at Sony in the international department, that he should take lessons from Rasputina, as they record for her label, and they're from NYC, so perfect access!! Anyways, she received regular copies of "How We Quit The Forest", and she sent me one!! I flipped out!! :-) The CD-ROM stuff is among the coolest, most gorgeous I've EVER seen!! It's the picture-book promo come to life!! THEN, this past Sunday, I was with friends in my friend's store again, and, d'ya know what I came across?? A promo 12 inch VINYL record of "The Olde Headboard" with 5 special mixes!! VERY cool!! Columbia's going all out on promo items on this new record, aren't they?? BTW, yesterday, I bought back "Thanks For The Ether" (it took me a LOOONG time, 2 years!!??!!, but I LOVE it!!) AND for the first time, "Transylvanian Regurgitations", which ROCKS!!! I'm FOREVER a devoted goth, there's no turning back. I'm happily hopeless!! Love ya's Melora, Julia, + Agnieszka!! Can't WAIT for a new tour!! Love your corsets + Melora, your cool, gold, fake eyelashes on your blinking eyes are just beautiful!! Gotta run. Later lovelies... Larbone - -------------------------------------- Date: 8/10/98 6:23 PM To: Larry Davis From: Posby On Mon, 10 Aug 1998, Shayna Nova wrote: > > >i am looking for someone who has the video with rasputina on regis and > kathie > >lee so that maybe i can get a copy. i'll pay for the tape and shipping. > also > >the girls on conan would be nice if nobody has regis. please mail > me.thank > >you. > > > i didn't know they were on regis OR conan a friend of mine saw them on Regis & Cathy Lee. he said that Regis called their music "witchy". he didn't tape the show, so I don't know if he's telling the truth... I guess it was around the time "Thanks for the Ether" came out... - -Posbina * . . * *** . . ** * . .. * . ** ... . * * . * . The scene wasn't what it used to be. * . * .... . * ... * .. The scene is _never_ what it used to be. * . .. * . * * . * * . . . * * . . * . -Rasputina * . . - ------------------ RFC822 Header Follows ------------------ Received: by ny.ddbn.com with ADMIN;10 Aug 1998 18:21:04 -0400 Received: from smoe.org [204.167.97.154] by siren.shore.net with esmtp (Exim) id 0z60G4-0006dB-00; Mon, 10 Aug 1998 18:17:40 -0400 Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) by smoe.org (8.8.7/8.8.7/listq-jane) with SMTP id SAA05370; Mon, 10 Aug 1998 18:17:19 -0400 (EDT) Received: by smoe.org (bulk_mailer v1.5); Mon, 10 Aug 1998 18:17:19 -0400 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by smoe.org (8.8.7/8.8.7/listq-jane) id SAA05356 for goths-outgoing; Mon, 10 Aug 1998 18:16:51 -0400 (EDT) Received: from jumping-spider.aracnet.com (root@jumping-spider.aracnet.com [205.159.88.14]) by smoe.org (8.8.7/8.8.7/daemon-mode-relay2) with ESMTP id SAA05351 for ; Mon, 10 Aug 1998 18:16:43 -0400 (EDT) Received: from shell2.aracnet.com (IDENT:posby@shell2.aracnet.com [205.159.88.20]) by jumping-spider.aracnet.com (8.9.1/8.9.0) with SMTP id PAA23103; Mon, 10 Aug 1998 15:15:04 -0700 Date: Mon, 10 Aug 1998 15:16:34 -0700 (PDT) From: Posby To: Shayna Nova cc: goths@smoe.org Subject: Re: regis and kathie lee In-Reply-To: <19980810143123.16558.qmail@hotmail.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-goths@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 19:39:52 -0400 (EDT) From: Happy Fantom Subject: ... hello, ...just a couple of things... someone said that Things Im Gonna Do is a cover? the cd booklet says all songs were written by Melora except for You Dont Own me and Diamond mind. also, the words to diamond mind were written by melora, the music by julia kent. also, how do we know it's julia who sings the song? I thought it was Melora doing her best Joan Rivers impression... also, the book does not credit Julia with any vocals whatsoever. one last thing, in their Thank You Section, the ladies thank the E! channel. anybody know anything about this? i actually watch it alot...and have never seen rasputina mentioned. just curious toriniss, steve ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 19:51:14 -0400 (EDT) From: Happy Fantom Subject: leechwife ok, here are some cool excerpts from that musician article, just thought you'd guys would be interested (sorry i cant post the whole article...i tried looking for it online but couldnt find it): "A few songs were so beautiful that we didn't do anything more than tighten the arrangements a little bit. In a way those became the most important because they serve as breathing spaces that let the heavier tracks settle into place" -Chris vrenna *** This array of amps helped the cellists emulate guitar songs - a trick Rasputina often does but seldom acknowledges. "We only did that on Leechwife," Creachy [um note from me, its creager, get it right!;)] grudgingly admits, "but that's because the song is so sarcastic. Chris was very excited about it, like, 'this is the cheesiest song i've ever heard!'" Vrenna laughs. "The whole thing was to make that track sound like a rock band. We had fuzz bass, lead and rhythm guitar, all on cellos." **** "Vocalists don't want to sing a song six or seven times. They'll sing it and go, 'I was a little off. Run it through a tuner. I'm going to dinner.' Nobody wants to perform their song, but this album is as live as possible. Because that's what Rasputina is." -Chris Vrenna sorry i could only post the highlights and not the whole thing... toriniss, steve ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 21:07:32 EDT From: foxmulder@juno.com (Chris L Smith) Subject: How we quit the forest interview I found a very informative interview with Melora, Chris, and Critter on the net. It's rather large so I split it into three sections. I'll post it in its entirety on our web site in a day or two. Chris _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 21:17:06 EDT From: foxmulder@juno.com (Chris L Smith) Subject: Re: ... On Tue, 11 Aug 1998 19:39:52 -0400 (EDT) Happy Fantom writes: > >hello, > >...just a couple of things... > >someone said that Things Im Gonna Do is a cover? Sorry, I was typing that while I was really tired.......I was wrong! >also, the words to diamond mind were written by melora, the music by >julia kent. also, how do we know it's julia who sings the song? I thought >it was Melora doing her best Joan Rivers impression... also, the book >does not credit Julia with any vocals whatsoever. If that IS melora, that's one hell of an accent. Chris _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 21:07:32 EDT From: foxmulder@juno.com (Chris L Smith) Subject: Another article on rasp Here's another article, which I think is kinda cool since it explains "The New Zero" which is about....Billy Corgan???? - Chris "The goth girls with cellos known as Rasputina make a few subtle shout-outs on their forthcoming new album, How We Quit the Forest, due Aug. 4 on Columbia . Their subjects? Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan, Rose Kennedy, Lesley Gore, and even Tattoo -- er, Herve Villechaize -- from Fantasy Island.With song titles like "The New Zero" and "Dwarf Star," it's not hard to figure out what's about who. When asked if "The New Zero" is about Corgan, Rasputina's Melora Creager tells us, "I will admit when I was working on the song, on the music or the chorus, I was like, 'Oh, that sounds like Smashing Pumpkins.'" Then she thought better of it. "I'm like, 'Oh, fuck him, I'll show him "Zero." It's the new "Zero."'" So is she the "New Zero?" "No, no, just a fictitious one."As for the song "Rose K.," about the Kennedy matriarch, Creager explains, "A lot of times in popular music, we write about the same things over and over again, and aging is one of those things. The tragedy of old age is something I was thinking about. It's kind of an Alzheimer's ballad, just the imagery of the near- to- vegetable state of Rose Kennedy, and it's like everyone's always fighting over the furniture or something."Creager says she wrote "Dwarf Star" simply because she had Villechaize in her mind, while the Lesley Gore ode is in her cover of Gore's hit, "You Don't Own Me," which Creager sings with delightful sarcasm. "I'm drawn to these kinds of sarcastic, coy, cloying songs," she says. "It's more about the music to me, but I like those snotty words." " _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 21:07:32 EDT From: foxmulder@juno.com (Chris L Smith) Subject: interview pt 3 Interview pt 3 Critter WE: Had you had much experience miking live strings? Crit: Actually, I have. When I was in college I used to go around and tape recitals, so I got some school-of-hard-knocks there. In a rock context I worked with a couple different cello projects. Most of the music I do is that varied, but throwing a cello into the mix isn't all that unusual. WE: Were you familiar with Rasputina's music when you got involved with this project? Crit: Not at the time. Someone sent me a tape. I knew Chris from long ago. WE: As you listen to demos or previous albums, are you already thinking about microphones, placement, and so on? Crit: The way it was delivered, Chris did a bunch of demos at home. That was nice, because I had kind of a concept of how the tonality would end up. From there I could figure out exact-ly how I wanted to mic things. WE: On hard-core tracks like "Leechwife,"what was the challenge in selecting and placing mics? Crit: A lot of that stuff came from using a direct and plugging it into the amp. It's amazing how guitar-like a cello actually sounds going through an amp. It even has advantages in that it can sustain for quite a while. Most of the sound on stuff like that is a function of dialing up an amp sound and letting them play off of that. We had a collection of shitty little amps that were pulled from everywhere. WE: So for distorted sounds you miked the cellos going into amps, and then you'd mic the amps as well. Crit: For the most part, yeah. It went down one of three ways: Either we had a direct cello signal that we could distort through pedals, and then an amp sound, and then there was room ambience that was also direct. WE: On something like "Rose K,"you have a pretty traditional chamber sound. What mics did you choose for that, and where did you put them? Crit: On a couple of them that were more like orchestra things, we had three remotes. I probably set up 414s for the overheads as a room mic. There was a bunch of different rooms at the studio, so we could get different ambiences, depending on the context. Then I had a collection of old tube mics; I primarily used a Neumann 57, an 87, and a 47. We also had an RCA Something 77, one of those classic ribbon mics with that weird diamond shape. We used that on a lot of stuff also. WE: Was there any miking for Chris' drum samples? Crit: For the most part it was coming out of his Emulator or E64. He had done a bunch of tracks where he ran stuff through pedals and recorded them as audio passes. WE: What was the general approach to blending and/or separating each cello part? Crit: Part of it was the fact that there were three cellos. On the first album she played a lot of the parts herself, using the same cello, so timbres were very similar. On this one, because they had three instruments with different tonalities, there was an emphasis on trying to match mics. The RCA, which has a warm ribbon sound, was usually used on bass. WE: "Watch TV"was the only track with a piano. How did you mic that one? Crit: That was an interesting one. We had set up with the concept of a distorted piano, but it didn't seem to fit with the cellos in that space of the song. We ended up miking the piano clean, with two 414s in stereo over the hammers. I'm fond of distorting the SSL channels as a distortion source, because you can use the EQ instead of fine-tuning stuff. So we had that running in the background, which gave it a similar raw feel. At one point you had a cross-fade into a completely distorted piano. It still gave the distorted feel with sort of a depth to it, but it had the clean to cut through and blend with the cellos. The challenge on most of this record was trying to match the cellos with the electronics without sounding awkward. WE: A lot of that had to do with sound, but it also had to do with playing. Chris did a good job of enhancing the string parts without getting in the way. Crit: Yeah, he has a great sense of arrangement. WE: What worked best for vocal mics? Crit: I think we used the 47 for most of it. A Telefunken 251 was excellent too, but it was mostly either a 47 or a 414 where noise was concerned; the 47 had a bit of a noise issue with it. It was basically run through an LA2A (?) into Pro Tools. WE: There were no other instruments on the album? Crit: "No guitars were used in the making of this record"[laughs]. A lot of this was an attempt to be experimental and see what came up. A lot of the sample sources from Melora reflect her unique taste. It was interesting to see how Chris fit them into the cello parts. We kept trying to come up with ways of miking a cello, whether throwing mics on the floor or putting them in some weird corner. There was a garage attached to the back, and at one point I had a couple of mics in the bed of a pickup. _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ------------------------------ End of goths-digest V2 #109 ***************************