From: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org (idealcopy-digest) To: idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Subject: idealcopy-digest V1 #26 Reply-To: idealcopy@smoe.org Sender: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk idealcopy-digest Thursday, April 9 1998 Volume 01 : Number 026 Today's Subjects: ----------------- RE: Re: A Greeting (Live at the Roxy) [Steve Boismaison ] re: a greeting [paul camuzard ] Re: A Greeting [Aaron Mandel ] Re: A Greeting ["Mack" ] Re: Document and Eyewitness ["Jeffrey with 2 f's Jeffrey" Subject: RE: Re: A Greeting (Live at the Roxy) On Mon, 6 Apr 1998 13:51 John H. Hedges said: > >The first thing I heard, actually, was "Live at the Vortex" in 1979 or >thereabouts, which had 12XU on it and one other track which I now forget. At the risk of being of being perceived as a rock'n'roll trainspotter........ I think the reference is to "Live at the Roxy" and the other track is "Lowdown". The Wire tracks are worth hearing for Colin's introductions. Most of the other bands' tracks start with typical punky "1,2,3..go" type intros. "Lowdown" by contrast starts with an almost whispered "Pay attention. We're Wire." Wire several steps of the competition ahead already ! Rest of the album is pretty woeful (Slaughter and the Dogs, Eater, Adverts, Unwanted, XRay Spex, Johnny Moped - all either performing under par or having a low par to perform up to) though the Buzzcocks tracks are rather good. Steve. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 11:13:56 +0200 From: Steve Boismaison Subject: Document and Eyewitness It looks like the Document and Eyewitness set isn't the most popular piece of plastic out there ! I was an eyewitness at the two gigs that made up the collection. Here is my document. The first (chronologically) was that which formed the 12" 45. This was at the Prince Charles Theatre, just off Leicester Square, London. Support was by "The The", then unknown. I particularly remember the opening to Wire's set, where Colin was armed with a syndrum. He was belting this thing and making weird noises with it whilst pulling faces to match. "Witness to the Fact" was being performed for the first time and I remember Colin reading the words off a piece of paper on the floor. It was an excellent gig, all round, Wire's enjoyment was obvious and this transferred to the audience. Somehow the performance has not fully translated to vinyl. The second was at the Electric Ballroom, Camden, London on 29th Feb 1980. This was I believe, Wire's farewell concert and the place was heaving. Support was by those Teutonic funsters, Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft, who were absolutely kicking that night. Some of their set turned up on their first album "Die Kleinen und die Bosen". Any Wire fans out there remember DAF as fondly as I do ? There was terrific anticipation as Wire's set was awaited. This soon turned to confusion as a boorish, dinner jacketed MC came on stage to introduce the band. Wire then taunted the crowd by introducing the much requested "12XU" and as the crowd erupted ecstatically they played a brief snippet thereof before stopping abruptly. Throughout the set Wire swapped instruments, demolished kitchen appliances with sledgehammers, got tied up with illuminated birds, wore paper hats while chanting gibberish, were seen holding plastic chickens and doing all manner of unfathomable things. Through the course of the event, the crowd response went from excited to bewildered to seething angry, before degenerating into shrugged shoulders and an early move to the exit . The place was near empty towards the latter stages of the set. There may have been valid artistic rationale to the events, but my impression was that Wire were deliberately out to antagonise and provoke. They certainly didn't make too many friends that night. In retrospect it was an interesting performance, though at the time I was well pissed off. Surprisingly, this set translated to vinyl quite well, sounding considerably better musically than I remember it being. Steve. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 03:42:41 -0700 (PDT) From: paul camuzard Subject: re: a greeting >*who you are >*when/where did you discover Wire >*favorite album(s) >*least favorite(s) (just to get us all yelling at each other) Hi! I'm Paul , a 39 year old french guy who first heard about wire back in '79. I saw them live in the 80s at the London Clarendon Hotel (?) .Must have been june 86 or something. Then again at Finsbury park some time later. My favourite album must be "chairs missing" but I like most of what they did anyway, including various solo projects. I have no least favourite. every had its own gems. Paul. _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 15:58:56 -0400 (EDT) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: A Greeting On Tue, 7 Apr 1998, Natsuko Sano wrote: > What about A.C. Marias? It seems that their album has been unnoticed > or ignored even among Wire fans. I believe it is great though. bought it in my first year of wire fandom, got it home, hated it. it's hard to even say why, now; in any case, i took it right back to the store and asked if i could exchange it. the clerk, who has always been very sincere (unlike the sorts who say "oh, good choice" whenever you buy a record they don't recognize) said "are you sure? it's a very good record." i said yes, and didn't see a copy again for many years, by which time i regretting not keeping it for completist reasons, and bought the thing with all due speed. i sort of like it, but the songs are too similar to each other, and angela's voice just doesn't seem to have much color. a ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 15:29:00 -0500 From: "Mack" Subject: Re: A Greeting >> What about A.C. Marias? It seems that their album has been unnoticed >> or ignored even among Wire fans. I believe it is great though. actually one of my faves as well - don't miss the cd single of 'one of our girls' which has a rousing 10 minute cover of lou reed's 'vicious' the one time i met bruce in the bar below cabaret metro here in chicago, he was very positive about the record - which had not been released at the time of all the music of the period, i find this one holds up particuarly well ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 22:41:49 -0500 (CDT) From: "Jeffrey with 2 f's Jeffrey" Subject: Re: Document and Eyewitness On Wed, 8 Apr 1998, Steve Boismaison wrote: > It looks like the Document and Eyewitness set isn't the most popular piece of plastic out there ! > > I was an eyewitness at the two gigs that made up the collection. Here is my document. Thanks for the, uh, eyewitness document. But the description actually brings out for me why I don't listen to D&E that often: it sounds very much like 1/2 of the performance. You know even from only listening to it, even if you've never read about the performance, that much more is happening than can be captured on vinyl. (That and the rather shitty sound, of course...) None of this is to say there aren't stunning musical moments on D&E (I, at least, said only it was among those I listened to least - not that it was bad) - "ZEGK HOQP" and "Piano Tuner..." strong among them in memory. - --Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n Department of English http://www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee :: American people like their politics like Pez-- :: ::small, sweet, and coming out of a funny plastic head::::::Dennis Miller:: ------------------------------ End of idealcopy-digest V1 #26 ******************************