From: owner-harbinger-digest@smoe.org (harbinger-digest) To: harbinger-digest@smoe.org Subject: harbinger-digest V2 #7 Reply-To: harbinger@smoe.org Sender: owner-harbinger-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-harbinger-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk harbinger-digest Sunday, July 13 1997 Volume 02 : Number 007 HARBINGER DIGEST To post, mail harbinger@smoe.org To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe harbinger-digest To get list info file, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: info harbinger-digest Today's Subjects: ---------------- (harbinger) Sarah Mc [Honoku@aol.com] Re: (harbinger) Sarah Mc [Casey ] (harbinger) Paula Cole on Live with Regis & Kathie Lee ["Jessica K. Bacon] Re: (harbinger) Paula Cole on Live with Regis & Kathie Lee [RaisnGrrl@aol] Re: (harbinger) Paula Cole on Live with Regis & Kathie Lee [Jason Subject: Re: (harbinger) Sarah Mc > Sarah McLaughlan will be on mtv's 120 min sunday/monday 12 BTW: it's Sarah *McLachlan* :) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= / casey@tisd.net / \ \ / "If I shed a tear, I won't cage it ... if I feel a rage I won't / \ deny it ... I won't fear love" \ / -Sarah McLachlan; 'Fumbling Towards Ecstasy' / =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - ------------------------------ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe harbinger Digest, further unsub and problems FAQ at: http://www.netaxs.com/~jgreshes/lists/harbinger.html For This Fire kinda-lyrics write Riphug@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 12:11:03 -0500 From: "Jessica K. Bacon" Subject: (harbinger) Paula Cole on Live with Regis & Kathie Lee >Paula will be appearing on Live with Regis & Kathie Lee on Monday, July >28th. I'm pretty sure she'll be doing her new single "I Don't Want To >Wait". I hope so, anyway. I think I reached my saturation level with >"WHATCG?" about six or seven appearances ago. How do you get tickets? I just might have to take a sick day.....Hmmmm... Jessica - ------------------------------ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe harbinger Digest, further unsub and problems FAQ at: http://www.netaxs.com/~jgreshes/lists/harbinger.html For This Fire kinda-lyrics write Riphug@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 12:56:04 -0400 (EDT) From: RaisnGrrl@aol.com Subject: Re: (harbinger) Paula Cole on Live with Regis & Kathie Lee It's very hard to get tickets for Regis & Kathie Lee this soon. There's like a 1yr. waiting list... but, you can get stand-by tickets for the show. You have to get there at around 5am or earlier and stand in line for stand-by tickets. Sometimes a few people get in, so you should get there as early as you can. Good luck! I'm gonna go to the show, but not for stand-by tickets. I want to meet Paula again, so i'm gonna get there early and wait for her. So i'm really excited about just going to see her. I can't wait until Lilith Fair comes here too. See ya. Tina :) - ------------------------------ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe harbinger Digest, further unsub and problems FAQ at: http://www.netaxs.com/~jgreshes/lists/harbinger.html For This Fire kinda-lyrics write Riphug@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 13:05:53 -0400 (EDT) From: Jason Subject: Re: (harbinger) Paula Cole on Live with Regis & Kathie Lee How about if you call and say you're a flight attendant, you know Frank, and you'd really like a ticket? ;) Jason On Sat, 12 Jul 1997 RaisnGrrl@aol.com wrote: > It's very hard to get tickets for Regis & Kathie Lee this soon. > There's like a 1yr. waiting list... but, you can get stand-by tickets for > the show. You have to get there at around 5am or earlier and stand in line > for stand-by tickets. Sometimes a few people get in, so you should get there > as early as you can. Good luck! > I'm gonna go to the show, but not for stand-by tickets. I want to > meet Paula again, so i'm gonna get there early and wait for her. So i'm > really excited about just going to see her. I can't wait until Lilith Fair > comes here too. See ya. > > > Tina :) > > ------------------------------ > To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: > unsubscribe harbinger > > Digest, further unsub and problems FAQ at: > http://www.netaxs.com/~jgreshes/lists/harbinger.html > For This Fire kinda-lyrics write Riphug@aol.com > - ------------------------------ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe harbinger Digest, further unsub and problems FAQ at: http://www.netaxs.com/~jgreshes/lists/harbinger.html For This Fire kinda-lyrics write Riphug@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 17:20:10 -0400 From: "Kenn Carpenter" Subject: (harbinger) Paula in August issue of REQUEST magazine (Article included in post) Without question, this is the best article about Paula to date. Paula seems much more at ease and notably more forthcoming about herself. I'm going to type out the article (below) so that you can all read it now, but you're most likely going to want to get a copy of it to hold on to. Suprisingly, it comes from August issue of REQUEST magazine. Sam Goody isn't good for much else - their music selection sucks - but last month they had a nice cover story about Sarah McLachlan (including one truly gorgeous photo of Sarah (the one with the red floral background)) and *now* they've knocked off this wonderful article (albeit not a cover story) about Paula. So, without further ado (or express permission from anyone at REQUEST), here's the article: ************************************************************************************* INTO THE LIGHT Paula Cole shakes off her dark past with the cathartic, feverish This Fire. by Sara Scribner Paula Cole is the picture of perfect serenity as she settles into a chair at a hotel restaurant in Los Angeles. Her fresh-scrubbed face carries not a hint of makeup, its only adornment a tiny diamond nose stud the size of a speck of sand. Her dark hair is casually tied up in a careless scrunch, and her long black cotton dress and hemp-colored jean jacket would fit in on a university campus as well as they do in the lobby of this sleek, Japanese-themed hotel. Looking at the calm yet shy singer behind the disillusioned yet willowy Top 40 hit "Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?" and thriving second album, the combustible This Fire, it is hard to believe that the phrases "nervous breakdown," "dark period," even "couldn't get a date" are part of her vocabulary. But they are, and then some. The singer slips out of Birkenstock-style sandals, tucks her feet into the crook of her chair's seat, and orders lunch on a day off from filming the video for "I Don't Want To Wait." "It's so normal for me to be in a dark period," she says. "Looking at the world through compassionate eyes you perceive a lot of suffering, and you can't help but take it on sometimes." Talking to Cole, you might wonder how this sensitive artist became the toast of the VH1 set; sometimes it's hard to believe that she chose to become an entertainer at all. And it's almost impossible to think of this artist as the person who emotes like a madwoman on This Fire, who delves into cathartic, feverish, sensual ranting. At one point, she eerily plays her voice backward on "Tiger," and the result sounds like a cross between speaking in tongues and a reversed heavy-metal mantra. If still waters run deep, then Cole might bring you within range of the bottom feeders in the deepest trench of the Indian Ocean. When the waiter tells Cole that the tomato soup contains dairy products, she settles for miso and a salad. "I became a vegan about a year-and-a-half ago, but I've been a vegetarian since I was 14," Cole says. "I was raised on meat, raised in a totally lower-middle-class, eat-out-of-the-can, Kraft-macaroni-and-cheese, beans-and-franks kind of household. Eating meat just seemed horrible to me; it took a while to realize that [being a vegetarian] was an option." There were other options that didn't seem apparent to her early on. The singer's route was hardly a straight arrow aimed directly at MTV, Hard Rock Live!, Top 40 radio, and featured spots on surefire attention-getting tours. (She's on the all-female Lilith Fair tour with Sarah McLachlan, Jewel, and Emmylou Harris this summer.) Cole, an iconoclast at heart, took a long, circuitous, sometimes midnight-dark road to get where she is today. Though the path was dotted with trailer parks and prom-queen crownings, hermetic periods of fervent work and a stint singing backup with Peter Gabriel for throngs of Germans, record-company wrangles and triumphs, she did it her way - finally - with This Fire. "I learned how to stand on my own two feet and stand up for myself," Cole says, referring to the making of the album that followed her trouble-plagued debut, Harbinger. "I'm a very opinionated musician, and a lot of times what happens in the industry is, there are a lot of older, mostly male businessmen who want to hold the young girl by the hand and make decisions for her instead of nurturing the true decision-maker inside and allowing that girl to be her own woman." Cole grew up in Rockport, Massachusetts, a small artistic community that occupies a tiny peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean north of Boston. She grew up in a trailer park. Her father was an entomology student who got through school by juggling three jobs while pursuing his Ph.D. "Every day he was staring in a microscope at a petri dish. Once day, he just went nuts," she says. Her father recovered, but dropped his studies. "I'm glad he did, because if he had that ego-wielding Ph.D., he might not be the compassionate father that I know now." Creativity was fostered in the family: One of her dad's jobs was playing bass in a polka band ("I used to see him on record covers"), and her mother is an artist. "There was very little radio and television around the house," Cole says. "But my mom played piano and sang, and my dad played bass, piano, guitar, banjo, and harmonica. They made music in my home, and that met my needs." Though she was a straight-A student, Cole found herself on the fringes of pop culture: "In seventh grade, the cliques begin to form and your popularity means your life suddenly, and music becomes this fashion statement. People used to walk up to each other and go, 'What radio station do you listen to?' And I realized, my God, I have no idea! I was so unhip. Everyone was listening to 'COZ, kick-ass rock 'n' roll. I hated most of the music." Her disdain for the pop world might have pushed the self-described superachiever to become class president three years in a row -- "I still have anxiety dreams about it," she says, chuckling -- which led to her being crowned prom queen. "I organized the prom, and I think that's why they named me prom queen -- I had to be there. But I couldn't get a date. It's good, because you realize early on how superficial it all is." Cole explored her musical talents at summer camps, and it was one of her camp instructors who started her on the path that would eventually lead her to Boston's prestigious Berklee College of Music. "He taught the jazz choir, and one day he asked me, 'Have you ever heard of scat singing?' He told me to just make things up, and it was so easy for me, so natural, that he was just blown away. I won all these awards and did these spotlights in concerts. That gave me so much self-confidence." At Berklee, Cole was the only white kid in the gospel choir, but she eventually turned away from what she calls "the meditative, connected-to-the-earth" quality of gospel to immerse herself in jazz. Cracking the harsh whip that had made her an honor student, she drove herself into an abstract, analytical world that became bleak and impossible. "Nervous breakdown -- that's such a classic Western term. People have breakdowns all the time," she says. "We repress and we repress until you can't deal with it anymore. So, sure, I've had my moments when I've just demolished everything in my room back in college. Boy, that was probably the height of my repression." "I wouldn't characterize her as a dark personality," says Steve Prosser, assistant chair of the Ear Training Department at Berklee. "When I first met Paula, I thought she was driven in a good way, but that it wasn't coming from a negative place. She always had a good idea of what she wanted to do. She loved to learn and to express herself. I first heard her when she came in to audition to me, and she just had a wonderful voice." "I burdened myself with a lot of pressure," Cole says. "Jazz seemed to be the hardest thing that I could possibly do, so I wanted to do that. I wanted to be this great vocal improviser in the sky -- the new Chet Baker. But I stopped loving it because I became so overly cerebral about it and so analytical about everything that was coming out of my mouth that it was constant flagellation. 'Oh, that sucks. Oh, that sucks. Oh - you suck!' I was so miserable." While still in college, she was offered a deal with the jazz label GRP, but turned it down. After graduating from Berklee, Cole worked as a waitress during the day and sang in hotel lounges at night and at weddings on the weekends. Not surprisingly, it didn't make her feel much better. She finally moved to San Francisco, holing up in an apartment for months to break from jazz and write the soul-purging songs on 1994's Harbinger, released on the Imago label. Recorded with a sultry pop sheen, the album's lyrics document Cole's dark troubles, from the brokenhearted "I Am So Ordinary" to "Bethlehem," a trip back to the teenage prom queen of her past: "Now I'm only 16 and I think I have an ulcer/I'm hiding my sex behind a dirty sweatshirt/I've lost five pounds these past few days/Trying to be class president and get straight A's/Well, who gives a shit about that anyway?" Many who heard the pain-riddled Harbinger did give a shit, including singer Peter Gabriel, who was handed a copy before the album was released. Impressed by what he calls her "enormous energy," Gabriel left a message on her answering machine one day: "This is Peter Gabriel. Would you join our tour?" The slot offered was prime, replacing Sinead O'Connor on his Secret World tour. "That was a beautifully timed moment," Cole says. "I was this holed-up hermit just writing songs. I was thrown into the fire. One rehearsal and then I had to sing in front of 16,000 Germans. It was a mind-blower." It was a high-profile gig, and Gabriel spotlighted the newcomer frequently, but Harbinger met with troubles when it was released. Imago (whose other artists included Aimee Mann and Henry Rollins) was struggling to stay afloat; the album received little attention and couldn't be found in stores. But eventually Cole was picked up by Warner Bros., and she moved to New York City, where she worked through a spiritual renewal, studied yoga, and gleaned wisdom from a Vietnamese Buddhist monk named Thinh Nhat Hahn. The flowering is obvious on "Tiger," the declarative intro to This Fire: "I've left Bethlehem, and I feel free...I'm so tired of being shy, I'm not that girl anymore, I'm not that straight-A anymore." But This Fire wasn't all smooth transitions and spiritual blossoming. She had been romantically involved with a member of her band (she won't say who), and she had to completely regroup when they broke up. "When [the relationship] was gone, the band was gone," she says. That hurdle overcome, Cole then scrapped everything and started over, manning the boards for This Fire herself - a bold move for any artist, a highly unusual one for a female. Joe McEwen, senior vice president of A&R at Warner Bros. was surprised when her manager called him with the news. "She had started the record with a coproducer, and she had gotten halfway through," McEwen says. "But I supported her. I thought she'd do a good job, and she did." "[That she would produce her own album] makes a lot of sense," Prosser says. "She is not someone who would rely on someone else's musical aesthetic. She listens, but she has her own sense of what she wants for herself. Once I brought something [into class] and she just said, 'Ah, I'm not really into doing this.' It wasn't an ego thing or anything, but she just knew exactly what she wanted." "It was hard," Cole says, "because we had already spent $80,000 making the second record [when I] realized that my vision wasn't intact. [Starting over] was one of the bravest things that I ever did." Her transformation is also clear from This Fire's cover photo of Cole, naked and floating ona swing, a far cry from the gloomy, guarded, arms-crossed portrait on Harbinger. "I just feel so much stronger," she explains about the choice to pose nude. "And a lot of that is women's issues; when you start to sprout breasts and you're becoming visibly a more sensual person, guys say things when you walk down the street. I started slumping into my shoulders." "A lot of it is being a woman in the world. I had to get through that darkness in order to feel beautiful. My first record had so many horrible photo shoots, and I argued with my president because I felt that he kept gravitating toward sexualized pictures. I was not ready, and that could not be imposed on me. Ironically, I've arrived at my own source of strength. And I love myself from the inside out, as corny as it seems." For now, bravery for Cole means simply dealing with the press swarm spawned by "Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?" and relaxing at home on her days off, which are getting fewer and fewer. So, what's her life like at home? "Really quiet. Really private and still," she says. "I do a lot of yoga. I love to garden, so even in New York City I have a little garden that I've cat-proofed, so my cat friends hang out there." But she's still reeling a bit from the overwhelming attention of what she calls 'that little novelty hit" "Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?," with its bitter, sarcastic bite that some fans take literally. "It reveals a lot about the listener," she says. "In concert, some guys raise their beers and cheer when I get to the line, 'I will wash the dishes while you go have a beer.' That's OK. That's really OK. Hopefully good art will appeal to many different people, and people will realize that I'm not just about "Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?' There's a lasting artist here. In a decade, I think that will be pretty clear." ************************************************************************************ The article is accompanied by a beautiful half-page shot of Paula, sitting barefoot and blackclad at a piano. - ------------------------------ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe harbinger Digest, further unsub and problems FAQ at: http://www.netaxs.com/~jgreshes/lists/harbinger.html For This Fire kinda-lyrics write Riphug@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 18:29:53 -0400 From: "Kenn Carpenter" Subject: (harbinger) A New Paula Cole Website I wasn't planning to announce this quite yet, but since it came up on the Sarah McLachlan list, I thought I should probably let all of you know now, too. I'll be adding a new Paula website to the internet by the end of summer/early fall. I've contracted with an independent server who operates out of Lansing, Michigan and they are going to host my site. I'll be meeting with the owner of the company during my trip back to Michigan next week for Lilith Fair to iron out the details with him. Right now, the portion of the site dedicated to Paula is tentatively titled "A Little Bit Of Thunder." In addition to Paula, I will also have pages dedicated to Tara MacLean and Poppy Z. Brite (a brilliant author I've mentioned here in the past), among other personal interests. When I know for certain what the URL is and I have finished up the inline images for the site, I will be well on my way to having the site up and running. The biggest part of the HTML documents is already finished. Once it's functional, I'll post the URL to the list. I'll be anxious to get your responses once it's on-line.... Peace. Kenn - ------------------------------ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe harbinger Digest, further unsub and problems FAQ at: http://www.netaxs.com/~jgreshes/lists/harbinger.html For This Fire kinda-lyrics write Riphug@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 20:04:46 -0400 From: "Kenn Carpenter" Subject: (harbinger) Paula on Hard Rock Live! For those of you who missed it before (don't blink or you'll miss her whole three-song set again!), Paula's appearance on Hard Rock Live! is going to be rebroadcast at 1:00 Sunday morning. That's tonight. :) Kenn - ------------------------------ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe harbinger Digest, further unsub and problems FAQ at: http://www.netaxs.com/~jgreshes/lists/harbinger.html For This Fire kinda-lyrics write Riphug@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 20:28:10 -0400 (EDT) From: RaisnGrrl@aol.com Subject: (harbinger) Paula at Jones Beach ok.... i just have a quick question.... does anyone know if Paula will be performing at Jones Beach??? I had heard that she was, but it's not on the Lilith Fair web page. Tina :) - ------------------------------ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe harbinger Digest, further unsub and problems FAQ at: http://www.netaxs.com/~jgreshes/lists/harbinger.html For This Fire kinda-lyrics write Riphug@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 20:55:05 -0400 (EDT) From: HunterXTC@aol.com Subject: Re: (harbinger) A New Paula Cole Website kenn--- i didnt know you were a poppy z brite fan???!!!! lost souls is one of my favorite books!!! just another reason why he is beyond awesome ..... counting the days till blossom lillith 5 to be exact!!! spanish - ------------------------------ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe harbinger Digest, further unsub and problems FAQ at: http://www.netaxs.com/~jgreshes/lists/harbinger.html For This Fire kinda-lyrics write Riphug@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 22:57:19 -0400 (EDT) From: Honoku@aol.com Subject: Re: (harbinger) Paula in request thanks kenn, that was alot of effort to bring us the article, i appreciate it - ------------------------------ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe harbinger Digest, further unsub and problems FAQ at: http://www.netaxs.com/~jgreshes/lists/harbinger.html For This Fire kinda-lyrics write Riphug@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 00:53:17 -0400 (EDT) From: Honoku@aol.com Subject: Re: (harbinger) Sarah Mc i had better stop trying to spell Sarah Mc's last name, idon't seem to be able to get it right ever. - ------------------------------ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe harbinger Digest, further unsub and problems FAQ at: http://www.netaxs.com/~jgreshes/lists/harbinger.html For This Fire kinda-lyrics write Riphug@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 00:08:00 -0700 (PDT) From: Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan Subject: Re: (harbinger) Sarah Mc[L] On Sun, 13 Jul 1997 a poor soul wrote: > i had better stop trying to spell Sarah Mc's last name, idon't seem to be > able to get it right ever. Actually, the proper abbreviation is "McL" or "Mc L". (Sorry; couldn't resist; but it's true. :-) It's always Dark. Light only hides the Darkness. Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan (619) 535 - 0546 athanatos@UCSD.edu 132.239.147.2 < , > http://weber.ucsd.edu/~dmckiern http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Mc_Kiernan - ------------------------------ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe harbinger Digest, further unsub and problems FAQ at: http://www.netaxs.com/~jgreshes/lists/harbinger.html For This Fire kinda-lyrics write Riphug@aol.com ------------------------------ End of harbinger-digest V2 #7 *****************************