From: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org (idealcopy-digest) To: idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Subject: idealcopy-digest V5 #159 Reply-To: idealcopy@smoe.org Sender: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk idealcopy-digest Monday, May 20 2002 Volume 05 : Number 159 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Editorial Control (was Re: [idealcopy] Songs about Skrewing) [MarkBur] Re: [idealcopy] Fw: [l0l] LOL#20 [MarkBursa@aol.com] Re: [idealcopy] Fw: [l0l] LOL#20 [MarkBursa@aol.com] Re: [idealcopy] noises ["Keith Astbury" ] Re: [idealcopy] Re: Misbehaving Atoms (very long, and half a mile off topic a... ["Keith Astbury" ] Re: [idealcopy] Re: Misbehaving Atoms (very long, and half a mile off topic a... [RLynn] Re: Editorial Control (was Re: [idealcopy] Songs about Skrewing) [Andrew ] Re: [idealcopy] No Wire Later ["Keith Astbury" >The Auteurs have always had a very English, vaguely camp, vaguely menacing style. I like them quite a lot, but that's just because my natural sense of humour is somewhere near to uncut vitrol, I suspect :) >> Luke Haines is supporting Television at the QEH next month.... Mark ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 17:28:03 EDT From: MarkBursa@aol.com Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Fw: [l0l] LOL#20 << > 4.Sponge Carp > baked carp, raw carp, soup of carp, miso, etc > >> Sounds like a load of carp!! Mark ;-) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 17:31:04 EDT From: MarkBursa@aol.com Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Fw: [l0l] LOL#20 << > 22.06 || Festival Arty Farty, Lyon (France) >> Dontcha just love the French take on post-modern irony! Mark ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 22:53:55 +0100 From: "Keith Astbury" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] noises > >What are your ten top noises? > > steam engines are good. i also like hollow plastic thuds, squeaky door > hinges, wet rubber soles on linoleum, rustling or crumpling paper, pencil > drawing rapidly on paper, sawing and sanding wood (acoustic or electric), > scissors, hydraulics, thunder, the needle on the record > -another the paul ah. the needle on the record. that was what i was gonna say - that bit where it first drops onto the run-in grooves. love it. and i haven't heard it often enough lately. keith ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 23:13:34 +0100 From: "Keith Astbury" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Re: Misbehaving Atoms (very long, and half a mile off topic a... > and he's sooooo cool that he isn't the least bit impressed with my record > shop experience! shucks, i guess i shouldn't use that as my > chat-up-the-ladies line anymore....oh wait! i am the Queen of Ur! i don't > need to impress the ladies! > RL hey robert. maybe we should get married!!! the king of um ; ) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 01:30:38 +0200 From: giluz Subject: Re: [idealcopy] OT-Bread without ingredients on 16/05/02 19:23, Bill Hick at umur_ot@hotmail.com wrote: >>> * Moses led the Hebrews to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread > which is bread without any ingredients. Actually, that's exactly how it tastes. giluz, a reluctant Hebrew ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 19:00:47 EDT From: RLynn9@aol.com Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Re: Misbehaving Atoms (very long, and half a mile off topic a... In a message dated 5/19/02 5:08:15 PM Central Daylight Time, keith.astbury10@virgin.net writes: > hey robert. maybe we should get married!!! > > the king of um ; ) > ok, but does this mean that we get to share our Gilbert O'Sullivan records and crappy fanzines? Robert ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 00:57:33 +0100 From: Andrew Walkingshaw Subject: Re: Editorial Control (was Re: [idealcopy] Songs about Skrewing) On Sun, May 19, 2002 at 05:26:43PM -0400, MarkBursa@aol.com wrote: > Andrew, > > << It certainly makes Steve Albini choosing to produce the Auteurs' very, > very underrated, but very *very* warped, "After Murder Park" (chief > lyrical concerns: vaguely misogynistic sex, and child murder) slightly > more explicable.<< > > Not underrated in these parts. Quite possibly the best British album of the > 1990s. Only let down by the inferior version of Light Aircraft on Fire. The > single version (with added swearing - there's irony for you) should have been > included... I've not heard the single, only the album version. I was listening to it on Sep11 at about 2:15pm... and as I checked the websites (I was programming for a living over the summer), it all of a sudden seemed like a really sick joke for about fifteen seconds, until everything clicked. Not good. Anyway. > > >>The Auteurs have always had a very English, vaguely camp, vaguely > menacing style. I like them quite a lot, but that's just because my > natural sense of humour is somewhere near to uncut vitrol, I suspect :) >> > > Luke Haines is supporting Television at the QEH next month.... Right. That's after my exams. I think I have to go to this gig. :) - -- "Everybody helps me make my own mistakes; but left alone, I'd make them anyway." - Mansun, "Inverse Midas" ('Six') adw27@cam.ac.uk (academic) | http://www.lexical.org.uk ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 01:22:12 +0100 From: "Keith Astbury" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] No Wire Later tim said > > This series of Later has followed a rather depressing formula: > > > 2. 'Living Legend' who is well past their best (i.e Elvis Costello, Eric > > Burdon :reggae version of 'Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood' anyone?) > keith said > eric burdons version of 'misunderstood' was probably the worst moment on the > series. it was truly dire! i've just watched this again, to see if it was as bad as i thought. it was. and i think 'misunderstood' is a great song. burden's voice was poor and the arrangement was awful. quite a shocking version really. keith ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 20:26:52 EDT From: MarkBursa@aol.com Subject: Re: Editorial Control (was Re: [idealcopy] Songs about Skrewing) << 've not heard the single, only the album version. I was listening to it on Sep11 at about 2:15pm... and as I checked the websites (I was programming for a living over the summer), it all of a sudden seemed like a really sick joke for about fifteen seconds, until everything clicked. Not good. Anyway.>> I was watching a German with a mullet, juggling footballs in Frankfurt. As you do. > >>The Auteurs have always had a very English, vaguely camp, vaguely > menacing style. I like them quite a lot, but that's just because my > natural sense of humour is somewhere near to uncut vitrol, I suspect :) >> > > Luke Haines is supporting Television at the QEH next month.... Right. That's after my exams. I think I have to go to this gig. :) >> I'd hurry up and get yourself a ticket - QEH is not big, and it looks more than half sold out already... www.sbc.org Mark ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 01:34:36 +0100 From: "Keith Astbury" Subject: Re: [idealcopy]OT: TELEVISION > However, just added are: Philip Glass' Low and Heroes Symphonies 13 June; > Fischerspooner 21 June (with Gonzalez supporting - surely not I Haven't > Stopped Dancing Yet?) no, a different one to the crew who did 'haven't stopped dancing yet' (written incidentally by my heroes girlfriend - gloria jones!) keith ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 19:25:11 EDT From: MarkBursa@aol.com Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Glam Wreck! Graeme, << if you listen to all the albums in chronological order there are obvious progressions both lyrically and musically up until Perverted by Language, although Room To Live sounds like a continuation of the mighty Hex Enduction Hour (but with clearer production). The repetition gets honed and refined. Lyrics generally move into ever more esoteric & hermetic territory, and get funnier. The music gets stranger up until Hex and by Perverted they've mastered the epic repetition scheme and move on.<< Classic early Fall does indeed peak at PBL. Very long, repetitive stuff with slowly unfurling lyrics. With Lard gone, whatever pop sensibility seemed to go - so like a team down to 10 men hanging on to a 1-0 lead, the Fall ground it out. I guess there was nowhere else to go after Garden, Tempo House, Words of Expectation etc... and with the arrival of Brix there came a new, rather different idea of pop... "Ted Rogers' brains, burn in hell" >> The most interesting Fall songs lyrically occur around Perverted time (Wings, Man Whose Head Expanded, Garden, Tempo House, Neighbourhood of Infinity).<< Totally agree with you. Wings is about quantum physics. Garden imagines the second coming in a Salford back street. And given recent events regarding the collapse of ITV Digital, you have a fantastic prescient expose of Football corruption (Kicker Conspiracy). "I hate the guts of Shakin' Stevens, for what he has done" >> Then Brix takes a major songwriting role and they get harder hitting clearer production and the next 2 albums take avant rockabilly pills. From Bend Sinister the sound stays fairly constant with generally very slightly diminishing returns until Brix leaves (Seminal Live).<< Can't say I've ever truly warmed to the Brix era. Once you start getting Fall songs based on Monkees riffs (Barmy = Valleri) you're not going the right way. Nevertheless, Brix is a tidy guitarist and brought a lot of muscle to the sound - Cruiser's Creek is still damn fine. But a lot of the best moments from the era seemed confined to B-sides (eg Lucifer over Lancashire, with its great Can rhythm). My own theory is that MES was more concerned with grand concepts at the time (eg the Hey Luciani play and the I am Curious Oranj ballet) and left Brix with a lot of control musically. "I feel like Alan Minter" >> Extricate is the first time lock, as original guitarist Martin Bramah briefly returns. The Fall soon extricates from time lock.<< OK, Martin may have bought a pair of flabby wings and travelled in time, but that album was the best Fall album since This Nation's Saving Grace. It's also the only album with both Bramah and Scanlon on - which is a very fine thing indeed. Into the 90s with a crisp sound, the best opening track (Sing Harpy) on a Fall album since The Classical on Hex and the first evidence of new approaches (eg Telephone Thing). And absolutely storming live.... "The misreable scottish hotel resembled a Genesis or Marillion 1973 LP cover" >>A new progression begins when Dave Bush comes on board, from Shiftwork to Infotainment Scan they get better at integrating computer noises into rock music.<< Shiftwork is probably one of my five favourite Fall albums. I wouldn't credit Dave "Elastica" Bush with its power though - Scanlon & Hanley are fucking awesome throughout. "you Gretchen Franklin, nosey matron thing" >>Then time locks get hit with Cerebral Caustic and most other albums since that.<< Until the Unutterable, which is a very fine album (despite containing possibly the two worst Fall songs ever). Certainly had a more modern sound and was certainly the peak of Julia Nagle's contribution to the band. "From New York to Skegness" >>A lot of the Fall's progress has been through bringing new people with new approaches in regularly. Even if you can't hear any kind of progression, the Fall have never sounded the same for more than 2-3 albums.<< I thought there were two periods where the evolution certainly slowed - Bend Sinister - Seminal Live and Cerebral Caustic-Marshall Suite. But the last two couldn't be more different! "Alan Brazil and Hatton on about discipline" >> Anyone who listened to Dragnet or Grotesque followed by The Infotainment Scan or Shiftwork and considered that the band had made no musical progress on any level would have to be deaf! Even just in terms of tighter playing and slicker sound a progression seems obvious.<< Though Dragnet to Are you are missing winner would be less obvious. And the playing on, say, Extricate is a LOT "tighter" than on AYAMW.... "Fat Captain Beefheart imitators with zits" >>>i thought that they were simply 'the fall' (no insult intended), a band that went off at interesting tangents (rockabilly, brix pop, glam drums) but were essentially always the fall. Those aren't really things about the Fall that interest me.<< I'd say the Rockabilly thing is pretty much ingrained into the sound. It's there on most albums - as is Krautrock for that matter... "Make joke records, hang out with Garry Bushell" >> I'd say the major interesting aspects are / were: the three R's (repetition-repetition-repetition), Scanlon & Brix idiosyncratic guitar riffs, MES hilarious lyrics and singing, disregard of conventional recording techniques and vacuous rock star postures, and later an idiosyncratic use of keyboards / computers.<< What, no mention for Steve Hanley? >>'Brix pop' is a lazy cliche (unless referring to the Adult Net). Riley was just as poppy really.<< But in a very different, and less obvious way. >> Rebellious Jukebox is as poppy as CREEP (which was actually played live before Brix joined).<< Don't think so. It was certainly one of the first new songs after she joined (along with 2x4, which at the time had the much better title of New Fiend). Never saw them play it without her and the Fall website lists its first appearance as 21/9/83, which was about the time Brix joined. "They couldn't tell Lou Reed from Doug Yule" >>Diceman is as poppy as Hey Luciani, etc. Bo Diddley vs the Count Five >> Whilst Brix was in the band they were also recording experimental tracks like Haf Found Bormann, Mollusc in Tyrol, Bug Day, Sleep Debt Snatches, Win Fall CD.<< Mark's home tapes aren't they. Pretty much a feature all the way down the line (eg WMC Blob 59 etc) >> The rockabilly aspect seems less a tangent than a foundation. Never in Gene Vincent's wildest nightmares...<< Agreed. The Fall have few recongisable influences, but rockabilly is one of them (alongside Link Wray, Beefheart and the holy Kraut Trinity of Canfaustneu!) "If I ever end up like Ian McShane slit my throat with a kitchen tool" >>>last time i saw them circa '97, MES put the mic in the open bass drum and then walked off. every time the drummer hit that particular drum, the noise was this horrible, distorted (and very LOUD) thud... The whole gig sounded like that the last time I saw The Unutterable Fall. It worked for Serum (which MES didn't bother singing).<< Did the same thing last year. Also turns up the guitarists' amps throughout the gig. >> Last great gig I saw them do was in 97 at Manchester Rockworld, with 2 keyboards shortly before Levitate. Encore: Lie Dream of a Casino Soul. << Probably the oldest oldie they've ever played! >>I've seen them / him 4 times since Hanley & Burns walked out and all have been pretty dull. << Whereas for me thay've always been surprisingly good. Especially at the Garage last month, with the simple gtr/bass/drums line up. Starting to feel "bedded in" - so I guess those guys should be getting their P45s pretty soon ;-) "Well the true Mancunian is the Man City fan, I find" >>No matter how hard I try not to bother, somehow I find myself materialising at Fall gigs. Perhaps it just became a habit after so many gigs.<< I know the feeling ;-) I've now seen the Fall in four separate decades, and the gig count is around 30. And that includes a 5-year gap from 93 to 98 when I didn't see them at all... "Laughing stock of European Olympic bidding" >> The Unutterable line up didn't seem up to much live (except one time at Planet K at the moments when Julia Nagle was really on with the keyboards) but fantastic in the studio.<< And was fabulous at the RFH, which was pretty much a 90s career retrospective. Sackings soon followed.... >>Wonder if the rest of them are still recording together?<< No idea. There was also a putative Hanley/Burns band called Ark which seems to have petered out. Did you ever see them in Mcr? >> Julia Nagle in particular has an under appreciated talent. It might be interesting if she and Brix got a band together.<< Bitch fight!! ;-) Doubt if Brix has much to offer these days - she pops up in Sunday Supplements listing her favourite shoe shops and claiming to be a "TV presenter" - though she did have a (very) low-key attempt to restart the pop career a year or two ago... "If we carry on like this we're gonna end up like King Crimson" >>The latest group just sound like some bar band MES picked up and told what to play. The guitar player is hands down the least interesting guitarist the Fall have ever had - very normal. MES should make him play it upside down or something.<< Ah, but they're very "tight".... the bassist seems to be the main man - and he's pretty good. Better than the Unutterable era bass bloke (though quite how you follow S Hanley is beyond me. It's a bit like trying to replace Hooky in New Order, or Bruce in Wire). And the current guitarist is infinitely preferable to the little punky bloke called Neville who sang the execrable Hands up Billy song on the Unuttterable. "Richard and Judy's bastard offspring. Baseball cap reversed" >>A lot of Fall fans seem easily satisfied though. If Colin hired a new band and played old blues and rockabilly covers and forgot most of the words to the songs and walked off halfway through the gig and passed it off as Wire, he might have a hard time of it...<< Hmmm....it's a different level of expectation isn't it. Wire and related material doesn't turn up once a year, on time. If a Fall LP is sub-par (and quite a few of the albums and gigs are) no problem - the Fall tour twice a year and they'll have another album in 12 months' time... "Wild Bill Hick, shaves and charts at last, made the second god sad -- he's coming up" Mark PS - off the top of my head.... "The Dutch are weeping in four languages" TEMPO HOUSE "The man whose head expanded applied cut up technique literally to brain" THE MAN WHOSE HEAD EXPANDED "I'm the sort that gets out of the bath with a dirty face" VARIOUS TIMES "He's thick but he struck it rich!" ENGLISH SCHEME "Simple Minds were always crap regardless of the look back bores" ITbS A CURSE "If you listen to Simple Minds reformation you will end up eyeball injecting with Domestos" SHAKEDOWN (not quite what it says!) "Academic male slags reel off names of books and bands" SLAGS, SLATES EFC "Snow on Easter Sunday - Jesus Christ in reverse" GARDEN ------------------------------ End of idealcopy-digest V5 #159 *******************************