From: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org (idealcopy-digest) To: idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Subject: idealcopy-digest V3 #53 Reply-To: idealcopy@smoe.org Sender: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk idealcopy-digest Friday, March 3 2000 Volume 03 : Number 053 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Introduction ["giluz" ] Re: idealcopy-digest V3 #51 [Howard Spencer ] Re: RFH gig ["giluz" ] Re: RFH gig ["Stephen Jackson" ] Re: RFH gig ["Stephen Jackson" ] Wire at the RFH [Miles Goosens ] Further gigs [Chris.Ray@medas.co.uk] Re: Wire at the RFH [paul.rabjohn@ssab.com] Re: Further gigs [paul.rabjohn@ssab.com] set list ["Holstein, Brian" ] Fw: Wire at the RFH ["Stephen Jackson" ] Re: RFH gig [Ian Grant ] Re: Wire supports ["MackDaddyD" ] Magnetophone ["Mark McQuitty" ] RFH [Vince Barnard ] anniversary + administrative stuff [Miles Goosens Subject: Re: Introduction wrote: > so what did colin play/do with minimal then? p > > That was in Tel-Aviv in 1986, just after the release of Minimal's "Raging Souls" (produced by Colin). The material was of this album and some older Minimal songs. Colin was mostly with his back to the audience or almost non-visible at the back of the stage. I don't remember much, this being almost 15 years ago. I remember that he played with them throughout most of the show, and that they didn't play anything special - something like Wire or Colin songs - it was just the Minimal Compact songs with the addition of a very good guitar player (it could be that he played some keyboards as well, I don't remember.) I can't decide if this was the best Minimal gig I've seen, because all of them were so good and different from the rest. The Colin / Malka gig of last year was almost identical to their live album. After that, Minimal Compact's Sami Birnbach (DJ Morpheus) gave an excellent DJ set. I've got one more thing to say about the RFH gig: No one seemed to mention that the venue itself might have been unsuitable to that kind of gig. Even though the whole concept of the support and the Wire performance itself had a very arty attitude, something that fits the RFH, the venue was too cold and too big. It might have fitted something like Psychic TV, but it didn't fit Wire and the support acts as well. One of the reasons why, of all the support acts, I thought Immersion were the best was that apart from their excellent music, their lack of visibility on stage (just 2 swaying shadows) caused the audience to concentrate on the video screen and to ignore the venue itself. It's much harder to do that when you're just 4 men with guitars on a big empty stage. Considering all that, I think it was quite awsome. giluz > ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ > Subject: Introduction > Author: MIME:gil@nettalk.co.il at INTERNET > Date: 02/03/2000 01:54 > > > Hi, > > I wrote some messages to the list before, but did not introduce myself yet. My name is Gil Luz. I'm a 31 years old computer programmer / part-time musician from Israel. I've been a Wire/Colin Newman fan since the mid-eighties. My favourite Wire albums are Chairs Missing / 154 / Drill. Colin Newman's A-Z is one of my all-time favourites, but I like his Swim stuff as well. I've never seen Wire live before the RFH gig - I've only seen Colin perform with Minimal Compact in 1986 and Colin and Malka in Israel last year. > > giluz > > ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2000 10:44:32 +0000 From: Howard Spencer Subject: Re: idealcopy-digest V3 #51 "I think we're making a big deal out of something which is much smaller: It was, after all, only a gig. Any conclusions that are drawn from this evening about Wire's future are a bit too early. What I do know is that I've seen Wire live, that they sounded fresh and good, and that I enjoyed it." Spot on. Ditto John's comments about sit down gigs - for the same reason I don't go to football much anymore - no fun to be plagued by idiots and have no means of escape. Good mobile phone story related to me by a mate: comedy gig, over-confident comedian hands his mobile to punter in the front row. It rings, presumably the prelude to a joke - and the would-be stooge calmly drops the thing into his pint of lager! Comedian has sense of humour crisis - clearly wants to punch the bloke but realises this would be professional suicide. wish I'd been there. This IS related to Wire cos I reckon they'd probably find it funny... Howard ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 12:56:17 +0200 From: "giluz" Subject: Re: RFH gig "Stephen Jackson" wrote: > >well. 70's punk is far more mainstream-oriented today than it was in the > >80's. On the other hand, some of the 80's stuff sounded a bit dated. = > >Wire shouldn't have sounded so right and authentic playing their 70's > >songs now. Can anyone try to explain why is that so? > > Because the technology employed in the eighties is now out of date, whilst > the more conventional use of bass, guitars and drums does not sound markedly > different (other than recording quality) than it did 30-40 years ago. > A Linn drum sounds like an eighties instrument, whilst an acoustic drumkit > today sounds like an acoustic drumkit in 1985, which IMO, is why the 80's > Wire albums sound like 80s albums, but the Harvest records are a little more > timeless. If Wire had slipped "I am the Fly" out in 1995, everyone would > have thought they were ripping off Menswear. > > Steve. > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Out of the Void. > > > You're right there, but still - it has been almost 10 years since I heard a guitar-based band playing something new and exciting. If I listen to guitar music today, it is usually something from the late 70's-early 80's. To hear this stuff performed live today is a bit anachronistic to my opinion, Still, I didn't get that sense out of the Wire gig, nor did I have a sense of nostalgia, which is great, but still makes you wonder why it sounded like that. giluz ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 10:40:18 -0000 From: "Stephen Jackson" Subject: Re: RFH gig >well. 70's punk is far more mainstream-oriented today than it was in the >80's. On the other hand, some of the 80's stuff sounded a bit dated. = >Wire shouldn't have sounded so right and authentic playing their 70's >songs now. Can anyone try to explain why is that so? Because the technology employed in the eighties is now out of date, whilst the more conventional use of bass, guitars and drums does not sound markedly different (other than recording quality) than it did 30-40 years ago. A Linn drum sounds like an eighties instrument, whilst an acoustic drumkit today sounds like an acoustic drumkit in 1985, which IMO, is why the 80's Wire albums sound like 80s albums, but the Harvest records are a little more timeless. If Wire had slipped "I am the Fly" out in 1995, everyone would have thought they were ripping off Menswear. Steve. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Out of the Void. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 11:21:16 -0000 From: "Stephen Jackson" Subject: Re: RFH gig >You're right there, but still - it has been almost 10 years since I heard a >guitar-based band playing something new and exciting. If I listen to guitar >music today, it is usually something from the late 70's-early 80's. To hear >this stuff performed live today is a bit anachronistic to my opinion, Still, >I didn't get that sense out of the Wire gig, nor did I have a sense of >nostalgia, which is great, but still makes you wonder why it sounded like >that. I'm not sure about "new" but I find the guitar music of a band like Super Furry Animals very exciting. Elsewhere though, things can be a little retro I guess, and I guess that's why, like you, most of my guitar music comes from late 70's and 80's (Gang of Four, Magazine, XTC etc), but I still feel that there is little more exciting than the sounds of guitars, which is why I'm quite happy for Wire to pick them up again. Steve. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Out of the Void. - -----Original Message----- From: giluz To: IdealCopy Date: 02 March 2000 10:53 Subject: Re: RFH gig > >"Stephen Jackson" wrote: > > >> >well. 70's punk is far more mainstream-oriented today than it was in the >> >80's. On the other hand, some of the 80's stuff sounded a bit dated. = >> >Wire shouldn't have sounded so right and authentic playing their 70's >> >songs now. Can anyone try to explain why is that so? >> >> Because the technology employed in the eighties is now out of date, whilst >> the more conventional use of bass, guitars and drums does not sound >markedly >> different (other than recording quality) than it did 30-40 years ago. >> A Linn drum sounds like an eighties instrument, whilst an acoustic drumkit >> today sounds like an acoustic drumkit in 1985, which IMO, is why the 80's >> Wire albums sound like 80s albums, but the Harvest records are a little >more >> timeless. If Wire had slipped "I am the Fly" out in 1995, everyone would >> have thought they were ripping off Menswear. >> >> Steve. >> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >> Out of the Void. >> >> >> > > >giluz ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2000 06:46:25 -0600 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Wire at the RFH Well, I was gonna review the show in chronological order, but with the spate of negative comments here, I am now inclined to start with the main event. I'll save my comments about the rest of the show for another post, but as for Wire's set: Wire kicked ass. Period. I have *never* seen a band tear the roof off with more intensity. From the opening note of "Pink Flag" -- its effect heightened by the Michael Clark balcony distraction (the balcony lighting cut off, the stage lights came up, and Wire hit the first chord all in a split second, very nicely done) - -- I was totally blown away. At the end of the set, I turned around to Melissa and said "If that isn't the best show I've ever seen, it's darn close." The band expertly juxtaposed precision and passion, hitting all their parts (a special nod to the amazing Bruce Gilbert here, whose leads and textures ripped through the din like an electric knife) without sacrificing intensity. The entire show was exactly the right kind of loud: bracing, rather than deafening, with Graham's bass practically exploding from the amps. Someone commented that the BELL IS A CUP stuff didn't work as well in the guitar-band setting. While I am perhaps the most avid supporter of A BELL IS A CUP on this list, I must disagree. "Silk Skin Paws" always rested on a bottomless bed of guitars, and the new arrangement only brought this out; the new arrangement of "The Boiling Boy" carried the same tension as the original, using the dynamic between guitar/guitar/bass/drums to replace the BELL IS A CUP version's winding duel between the synth riff and the guitar riff. To me, these new versions (along with the IDEAL COPY songs in the RFH set) are not only sufficiently different than the originals to hold my interest, their juxtaposition with the '70s songs is deliberate, indicating the essential unity of the band's entire catalog. The band's point -- and mine -- is that it's all Wire. Come to think of it, I could have left after the first four songs ("Pink Flag," "Silk Skin Paws," "40 Versions," "The Boiling Boy") and gone back to the U.S. a happy man. Only Stephen Jackson's comments have come close to expressing the true (IMO, of course) nature of the show. And for those who wanted something different -- sorry your ears weren't open enough to enjoy what you got, but just wait a few moments and the band will be serving something different. It may not be what you want either, but Wire has never stood still for long. later, listowner Miles ====================================================== Miles Goosens UNlimited edition R. Stevie Moore CDs now available! http://www.rsteviemoore.com My personal website http://www.mindspring.com/~outdoorminer/miles "If a million people say a stupid thing, it is still a stupid thing." -- Anatole France ====================================================== ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 14:02:29 +0000 From: Chris.Ray@medas.co.uk Subject: Further gigs Culled from ... TICKETMASTER.CO.UK I didn't know this: ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES FRIDAY STAGE 1: Super Furry Animals, Stereolab, The Delgados, The High Llamas, Ten Benson, Scott 4. STAGE 2: Secret Act (TBA), Labradford, Tarwater, Radar Brothers, Hood. SATURDAY STAGE 1: Sonic Youth, Arab Strap, Clinic, Snow Patrol, And you will know us be the trail of the dead, Ligament. STAGE 2: Shellac, The For Carnation, Pan American, Ganger, Motor Life Co. SUNDAY STAGE 1: Mogwai, Wire, Papa M, Sigur Ros, Bardo Pond, Two Dollar Guitar. STAGE 2: Gorkys Zygotic Mynci, Laika, Sophia, Pram, Plone, Alfie. Sun Apr 09, 2000 CAMBER SANDS HOLIDAY CENTRE, CAMBER SANDS, NR RY Also tickets for The Garage are on sale. Are we meeting up etc? Which night? The Information in this communication is confidential and may be privileged and should be treated by the recipient accordingly. If you are not the intended recipient please notify me immediately. You should not copy it or use it for any purpose nor disclose its contents to any other person. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 15:15:06 +0100 From: paul.rabjohn@ssab.com Subject: Re: Wire at the RFH Well, I was gonna review the show in chronological order, but with the spate of negative comments here, I am now inclined to start with the main event. I'll save my comments about the rest of the show for another post, but as for Wire's set: Wire kicked ass. Period. >>>> so you liked it then....... i reckon comment has been much more positive than negative in total really. forgot to say , the guardian gave it a **** excellent review on monday , don't think any of the other papers reviewed it. i guess it was too late to make nme/mm this week , presumably they'll both print reviews next week. and there's a great colour 78ish pic in this months Q , with a **** review of "on returning" (must be 3 times they've reviewed it now). the piece is under the title "terribly english - american bands couldn't make sounds like these". an interesting topic for debate.....p ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 15:20:20 +0100 From: paul.rabjohn@ssab.com Subject: Re: Further gigs i reckon this time we all go for the final night but organise it properly ; it wasn't much use saying we'd meet "in the bar" when the bar turned out to be about the size of a football pitch and packed solid. that atp line up looks good ; wonder if you could just go for one day or if you have to commit to a whole weekend in anorak central. other than mogwai the sunday bands are not exactly a mouth-watering line-up , whereas the fri/sat look much better. is anyone seriously thinking of doing this? p ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Further gigs Author: MIME:Chris.Ray@medas.co.uk at INTERNET Date: 02/03/2000 15:03 Culled from ... TICKETMASTER.CO.UK I didn't know this: ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES FRIDAY STAGE 1: Super Furry Animals, Stereolab, The Delgados, The High Llamas, Ten Benson, Scott 4. STAGE 2: Secret Act (TBA), Labradford, Tarwater, Radar Brothers, Hood. SATURDAY STAGE 1: Sonic Youth, Arab Strap, Clinic, Snow Patrol, And you will know us be the trail of the dead, Ligament. STAGE 2: Shellac, The For Carnation, Pan American, Ganger, Motor Life Co. SUNDAY STAGE 1: Mogwai, Wire, Papa M, Sigur Ros, Bardo Pond, Two Dollar Guitar. STAGE 2: Gorkys Zygotic Mynci, Laika, Sophia, Pram, Plone, Alfie. Sun Apr 09, 2000 CAMBER SANDS HOLIDAY CENTRE, CAMBER SANDS, NR RY Also tickets for The Garage are on sale. Are we meeting up etc? Which night? The Information in this communication is confidential and may be privileged and should be treated by the recipient accordingly. If you are not the intended recipient please notify me immediately. You should not copy it or use it for any purpose nor disclose its contents to any other person. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 09:28:20 -0500 From: "Holstein, Brian" Subject: set list Can anyone post the current set list? Thanks, Brian ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 14:49:36 -0000 From: "Stephen Jackson" Subject: Fw: Wire at the RFH >>Wire kicked ass. >> >>Period. The most succinct and accurate review of the gig so far. Steve. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Out of the Void. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2000 14:01:02 +0000 From: Ian Grant Subject: Re: RFH gig At 23:16 01/03/00 -0500, giluz wrote: >Personally I expected the reformed Wire to be much more electronic >oriented than they were in the end of their last phase, and the least >thing I expected was for them to return to "guitarland". However, Wire >always did the unexpected, Or, as a friend of mine put it, Wire always surprise so the fact that there weren't really any surprises was a bigger surprise than any other surprise they could've pulled off.... ;) Cheers, ig. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 07:24:09 -0600 From: "MackDaddyD" Subject: Re: Wire supports having lived in Chi for some 15 years now and never seen seam, i am actually excited at this choice - ----- Original Message ----- From: "professor ned" To: Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2000 9:41 AM Subject: Re: Wire supports > >In addition to Hovercraft in Seattle, the confirmed supports at this point > >are Seam in Chicago and Pansonic in New York. > > No fair. We want Pan Sonic everywhere! > > ned > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 22:06:33 -0000 From: "Mark McQuitty" Subject: Magnetophone >>> what did everyone else at nottm think of magnetophone? p I liked 'em. Seen them before in Brum (I think they are "local"). Colin seemed to like them, he watched the whole set from the back. On another subject, did anyone tape the He Said set? Give me a shout. Mark. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2000 01:01:54 +0000 From: Vince Barnard Subject: RFH Hi! This is my first message to this group, although I have been a Wire fan since 1977 when I first heard Mannequin on John Peel and then bought Pink Flag. The RFH gig was the first time I had seen the band and no doubt would have driven me to the same level of analysis, had I not gone there with my (ex-wife who, after a year of indecision, had decided to ditch me and my son for her new man that very day. We agreed to go to the gig whatever and actually quite enjoyed it, against the grain (i.e. similar complaints like atmosphere, noise, movement, mobile phones, overt avant guard; coupled with personal emotions, end of an era feelings, etc.). Having joined then group on Monday and digested everyone else's views since then, I feel the more succinct opinions are appropriate - i.e. they kicked ass, flaunted convention, did the unexpected and so on. And I was really pleased to see them ALL live, and did get something out of it, even though I confess to sitting out a couple of sets in the bars (big things to discuss). Ultimately, if it was a good night for me, it should have been for anyone! And I'm considering the All Tomorrow's Parties thing, just to see them again! Finally, can anyone help me with this: I have lost my CD single of 'Our Swimmer/Midnight Branhof Cafe' (Rough Trade). Has anyone got a copy that they are willing to sell/ PLEASE? Regards, Vince ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2000 19:16:42 -0600 From: Miles Goosens Subject: anniversary + administrative stuff The list recently celebrated its second anniversary, Feb. 23rd to be precise. I hadn't a glimmer then that a mere two years later to the very day, Wire would be playing a live show. Once we got info about the list disseminated (largely coinciding with Andrew adding an idealcopy link from the Wire Page, thanks!), we shot right up to about 200 subscribers between the instant list and the digest, and we've held steady there ever since. We have 222 people signed up as of this writing, with no appreciable movement in membership linked to the Wire reunion or the associated dramatic increase in list traffic. The one thing that *has* gone up besides list traffic is the number of list bounces. While I work behind the scenes to get everything straightened out, this seems like a good time to reiterate the following helpful hints: * TEXT-ONLY, please! Lots of e-mail clients, especially Outlook Express, send "styled" (i.e., HTML-ized) messages by default. These messages not only take up a lot more bandwidth than a simple text-only message, they also cannot be viewed by people receiving e-mail through text-only mail clients such as PINE. Any "styled" message to the list will automatically bounce to me. If you have any questions about how to set your mail client to send text-only, please let me know and I'll do my best to help you. * Send from the subscribed address! More and more, people have multiple e-mail addresses (i.e., a primary POP3 address, a web-based mail address, etc.). But if you send mail to the list from an address that isn't subbed to the list, it'll bounce to me for approval. * DON'T OVERQUOTE! Please *do* quote the messages to which you respond, for context's sake, but quote only the sections that are relevant to your reply. Too many one- or two-line responses with the entire previous 9000-character post attached at the bottom have been going to the list lately. Not such a problem when there's two messages a day, but when there's twenty or forty... * Finally, idealcopy does have a 7000-character limit on posts that can only be exceeded if I approve the >7000 post(s). This is typically a spam-blocking safeguard, and I don't really have a problem with long posts if they're on-topic. But if you want your posts to be sent to the list immediately, rather than them having to wait for my personal attention once I get home and review the day's bounces, you might keep this limit in mind. administratively yours, listowner Miles ====================================================== Miles Goosens UNlimited edition R. Stevie Moore CDs now available! http://www.rsteviemoore.com My personal website http://www.mindspring.com/~outdoorminer/miles "If a million people say a stupid thing, it is still a stupid thing." -- Anatole France ====================================================== ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2000 9:49:55 +0100 From: paul.rabjohn@ssab.com Subject: Re: RFH H I have lost my CD single of 'Our Swimmer/Midnight Branhof Cafe' (Rough Trade). Has anyone got a copy that they are willing to sell/ PLEASE? Regards, Vince >>>>> was that really released as a cd single? p ------------------------------ End of idealcopy-digest V3 #53 ******************************