From: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org (idealcopy-digest) To: idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Subject: idealcopy-digest V5 #181 Reply-To: idealcopy@smoe.org Sender: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk idealcopy-digest Wednesday, June 5 2002 Volume 05 : Number 181 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [idealcopy] (Off topic) Something rotten... ["Keith Astbury" ] [idealcopy] OT - Zeitgeist [giluz ] Re: [idealcopy] [Brit] Popscene [giluz ] [idealcopy] still not bored with the internet [Bart van Damme ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 10:01:14 +0100 From: "Keith Astbury" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] (Off topic) Something rotten... > > What was a narrow escape for the French (although let's face it, Le Pen was > > heavily beaten) is in some respects reality in Denmark. This is a country > > where, as I understand it, it's forbidden for those under 24 to marry > > anybody who originates outside of the European Union. > > Ian B > > Is this true? I always had a soft spot for the Danes (socialist welfare > state, Dogma, Silo, Christiania, etc...) > > giluz on a similar theme, i think i'm right in saying that norwegians are supposed to give their children a norwegian name (to prevent the increase of anglo/american names). apparently there's a list/book that has the one's allowed. people do seem to get round it to some extent, but if it stops a scandinavian nation calling their kids ronan and britney, then i suppose it serves some purpose... keith ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 10:02:19 +0100 From: "Keith Astbury" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] the World Cup is finally here! > > > Kevin Keegan was ahead of his time in this department.(Sorry for the pun). > > > > Never really considered Keegan's tonsorial crimes to be mullet-related. > > Bubble perm, yes. > > > > Mark > > > > Granted.But it sparked copy cat crimes that bubble perm.Or did he copy his > old mate Terry McDermott ! > Chris that entire liverpool squad should have been tried for hair crimes ; ) keith ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 10:56:58 +0200 From: Woerner Frank Subject: AW: [idealcopy] (Off topic) Something rotten... > -----Urspr|ngliche Nachricht----- > Von: giluz [mailto:giluzzz@fastmail.fm] > Gesendet: Mittwoch, 5. Juni 2002 10:45 > An: Ian B; ideal copy > Betreff: Re: [idealcopy] (Off topic) Something rotten... > > > on 04/06/02 20:13, Ian B at ian@ibarrett.fsnet.co.uk wrote: > > > What was a narrow escape for the French (although let's > face it, Le Pen was > > heavily beaten) is in some respects reality in Denmark. > This is a country > > where, as I understand it, it's forbidden for those under > 24 to marry > > anybody who originates outside of the European Union. > > Ian B > > Is this true? I always had a soft spot for the Danes > (socialist welfare > state, Dogma, Silo, Christiania, etc...) It is true. The right wing party is very strong since the last election. They won't let non EU foreigners in for several years to come now. regards, FrankfromBavaria ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 10:07:38 +0100 From: "Keith Astbury" Subject: Re: AW: [idealcopy] the World Cup is finally here! > > FrankfromBavaria > > > > anyone any forecast about Germany - Ireland today ??? > > > > Hi Frank > I'm Irish & have just spent the last 5 days in Kerry.Driving through Ireland > you wouldn't believe the support that's built up.Every other person has a > flag tied to their car or house. > I hope Ireland get a draw at least.I would imagine you won't put eight goals > past us any way !! > Chris i'm going to put my neck on the line and go for a 1-1 draw.... keith n.p. roy's keen (only kidding!) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 05 Jun 2002 11:59:37 +0200 From: Bart van Damme Subject: Re: [idealcopy] (Off topic) Something rotten... >> This is a country where, as I understand it, >> it's forbidden for those under 24 to marry >> anybody who originates outside of the European >> Union. >> Ian B > Is this true? I always had a soft spot for the Danes (socialist welfare > state, Dogma, Silo, Christiania, etc...) > > giluz Also like danish designer/architect Arne Jacobsen myself. Like the song "I hate the Dutch" ends: There's only one race worst than them and that's... the... DAAAANES! ;-) Any Danish on this list btw? Bart - who saw von Trier's The Idiots just the other week. Best film I saw whole year. Incredible... small country [8 million?] with such a high quality cinematic output. [Festen was so good, it reminded me of italian 50's/60's top cinema] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 05 Jun 2002 12:39:12 +0200 From: Bart van Damme Subject: Re: [idealcopy] [Brit] Popscene > generally credited as the birth of britpop. though blaming damon for > oasis seems a bit cruel really. p I guess in England the whole Britpop thing is more polarized than abroad. Here we don't give a toss about whether one doesn't belong to the "right" class or whether one's accent is phony or not. BTW, I bet the majority on this list have Oasis records in their collection, I know I do. Just plain ordinary good ol' rock 'n roll wich although one-dimensional [like most r&r is] can move me just as much as more sophisticated music. [that's why i like GBV so much folks, they are masters in combining the one- and more-dimensional] The punks I know all loved Oasis in '93/'94 just as '77 punks liked oldschool r&r. Next we could call the Beatles a retroband for using late 50's/early 60's american music. The [later] Beatles have surpassed their influences as have [later] Blur. Don't know about Oasis though... ;-) Purism doesn't get us nowhere. Nick Cave understood this when he met up with Kylie. :-/ Come to think of it, he DID kill her in the song.... Damn, there goes my point! ;-) Bart ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 05 Jun 2002 14:10:23 +0200 From: giluz Subject: [idealcopy] OT - Zeitgeist An especially hilarious excerpt from Bruce Sterling's Zeitgeist, probably the best book on Y2K you'll ever read. Leggy Starlitz, manager of G7 (the cheapest, phoniest all-girl band ever to wear wonderbras and spandex, now set out to conquer the third world), explains post-modernism to his 11 year old daughter, who grew up in a lesbian commune: "Are you from Florida, Dad?" "Yeah, no, maybe. When I was your age, after my mom finally went into the hospital and couldn't come out again, there was this old guy from outside Tallahassee who took me up ... The Professor, we used to call him ... This woman he was with - my stepmom, I guess - she used to feed us.... I used to help out on his great project." Starlitz rubbed his sandaled heel on an oil stain. "Kind of a child-labor, backwoods, Florida-hick thing, really." "He had a great project? I wish I had a great project. What kind of great project?" "Oh, the usual. Guys like the Professor, they're beyond the fringe, but there's generally some kind of huge, cranky scam going down there.... Guys like him generally have a great project, if they're strong enough.... If it's way outside your discourse, the 'great project' looks totally nuts. But if you're inside the story line, it definitely comes across as some kind of very serious world-changing scheme.... The Professor didn't want to be blown out of the consensus narrative, so he was really clinging on, you know.... Kinda piling up physical evidence of his own existence.... The Professor was putting together this, uhm, personal reality anchor. With used car parts and giant chunks of coral.... I mean GIANT chunks of Florida coral stone, like five-ton, six-ton chunks.... He used to wait till after dark, so nobody would see him pick 'em up and carry them in his arms.... It passed as a kind of a folk art, this wacky roadside-attraction thing, at least that's what it looked like, this big stone maze he built, and lots of dangling hubcaps and cypress-root sculptures.... That's where I lived, when I was a kid." "Well, why don't we go there? I mean, that sounds like a nicer place than this stinking garage. I mean, Florida, wow - I went to Florida once. It's warm!" "A tornado took it. Took him, Stepmom, took the whole compound. Mobile homes, trailer park, brochures, the souvenir stand, everything." Starlitz scratched his dirty head. "At least, they called that thing a tornado, after it was gone.... See, the poor guy just got to be too obvious. There was gonna be some TV coverage, and stuff...." Zeta scowled. "Why?" "Well, that's how reality works, that's why." "Why does it work like that, Dad?" "It's the laws of nature. It's the birds and the bees." "I know about that, Dad," said Zeta with a wince. "They made me read 'Our Bodies, Ourselves' when I was seven." "If only it were that easy. That's not 'reality'. You see: The deeper reality is made out of language." Zeta said nothing. "People don't understand this. And even if they say it, they sure as hell don't know what it means. It means there is no such thing as 'truth'. There's only language. There's no such thing as a 'fact'. There is no truth or falsehood, just dominant processes by which reality is socially constructed. In a world made out of language, nothing else is even possible." Zeta searched in the dirt. She picked up a rusty nail. "Is this language?" "Yep. That's a 'rusty nail', as the conceptual entity called a 'rusty nail' is constructed under cultural circumstances and in this moment in history." "It feels real. It still gets my fingers all dirty." "Zeta, listen to me. This part is really important. 'Even though her father loved her, the little girl died horribly because she stepped on the rusty nail.' That's language too." Zeta's face crumpled in terror. She hastily flung the nail away into the darkness. "There is no objective reality. There might be a world that has true reality. A world with genuine physics. Like Newton said, or like Einstein said. But because we're in a world that's made out of language, we'll never, ever get to that place from here. There's no way out of a world that's made of language. We can never reach any bedrock reality. The only direction we can move is into different flavors of the dominant social discourse, or across the grain of the consensus narrative, or - and this is the worse part - - into the Wittgenstein empty spaces where things can't be said, can't be spoken, can't even be thought.... Don't even go there, okay? You can never come out of there. It's a black hole." "How come you know so much of this stuff, Dad?" "I didn't use to know any of it. I was just living my life. I just liked to go live at the edge of the system, where things were breaking off and breaking down. It took me a long time to figure out what I was really doing, that I was always in some place where the big story was turning into little weird counter-stories. But now I'm wising up to my situation, because I'm old now, and I know enough to get along in the world." Starlitz sighed. "I don't know all that much, really. There are just a few people on this world who understand how reality works. Most of them don't speak English. They speak French. Because they're all language theorists. Semioticians, mostly, with some, uh, you know, structuralists and poststructuralists.... Luce Iragaray ... Roland Barthes ... Julia Kristeva ... Louis Althusser ... These are the wisest people in the world, the only people with a real clue." Starlitz laughed morosely. "And does it help them? Hell, no! The poor bastards, they strangle their wives, they get run over by laundry trucks.... And after Y2K their whole line of gab is gonna be perfmanently out of fashion. It'll be yesterday." "How come they know so much?" "I don't know how they know. But you can tell they know what's really going on, because when you read what they say, it sounds really cool and convincing, until you realise that even though you know it, You can't use that knowledge to change anything. If you can understand reality, then you can't do anything. If you're doing anything, it means that you don't understand reality. You ever heard of any of those French people? I bet you never heard of any of them, right?" "I've heard of Julia Kristeva," Zeta volunteered shyly. "she's a second-generation antipatriarchal ideologue, like Carole Pateman and Michele Le Doeff." ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 05 Jun 2002 14:30:48 +0200 From: giluz Subject: Re: [idealcopy] [Brit] Popscene on 05/06/02 12:39, Bart van Damme at bartvandamme@home.nl wrote: >> generally credited as the birth of britpop. though blaming damon for >> oasis seems a bit cruel really. p > > > I guess in England the whole Britpop thing is more polarized than abroad. > Here we don't give a toss about whether one doesn't belong to the "right" > class or whether one's accent is phony or not. Same here in Israel, and I suspect the US as well. You can find Israelis who like prog-rock (and I mean the bad kind of prog-rock) and punk, and don't see anything wrong about it. I don't have any problem with that - it's not the musical genre that counts - it's the attitude and creative/artistic ideology. > > BTW, I bet the majority on this list have Oasis records in their collection, > I know I do. I think it's very brave of you to admit to owning anything by them. I think Oasis was probably the turning point for me, when I realised that despite (and maybe because) of the 80's being a great time to make pop, this time has passed. Like I said before, Oasis and Blur could be worth something (though I doubt it) if they would have been born 10 years earlier. The only difference between those two, is that Blur's attitude came out of the indie scene - their intentions were quite serious (though their results less so), while Oasis were just about becoming rock stars, and had even less talent than Blur. [By the way I quite liked 13 when it was released, but listening to it again recently, found it to be brilliantly produced and no more than that]. > Purism doesn't get us nowhere. Nick Cave understood this when he met up with > Kylie. I don't consider myself as purist, but I think that Nick Cave, regardless of meeting or not meeting with Kylie, lost his sinister, punk-influenced side after Tender Prey (even before, but at least he still released good albums till then), and what was left was only the kitch. I used to agree that if something's good it's good, regardles of when and where it came from, but when I started looking deeper at things that I like and didn't like I realised that the time and place do matter and that the attitude matters most. I would define it as relatively purist, which is nicely contradictory, I think. Cheers, giluz ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 05 Jun 2002 14:09:09 +0200 From: Bart van Damme Subject: [idealcopy] still not bored with the internet http://www.nobodyhere.com/justme/index.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 05 Jun 2002 09:11:26 -0400 From: PaulRabjohn@aol.com Subject: Re: [idealcopy] [Brit] Popscene The [later] Beatles have surpassed their > influences as have [later] Blur. Don't know about Oasis though... ;-) > ////er , that was my point really. oasis had one half-good idea and flogged it to death. i quite liked "supersonic" but i think the first album is certainly all you need , the latter albums are appalling. whatever you think of blur , you couldn't say they didn't try new ideas. p "my lack of natural lustre now, seems to be losing me friends..." ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 14:40:34 +0100 From: "Keith Astbury" Subject: Re: AW: [idealcopy] the World Cup is finally here! > > > FrankfromBavaria > > > anyone any forecast about Germany - Ireland today ??? > > I hope Ireland get a draw at least.I would imagine you won't put eight > > goals past us any way !! > > Chris > i'm going to put my neck on the line and go for a 1-1 draw.... > keith bloody hell! are you impressed ??? i'd just given up hope as well, and was thinking 'what's that saying about the lucky irish?', when robbie tucked it away. brilliant. they deserved it. keith ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 14:44:44 +0100 From: "Keith Astbury" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] (Off topic) Something rotten... > Bart - who saw von Trier's The Idiots just > the other week. Best film I saw whole year. > Incredible... small country [8 million?] > with such a high quality cinematic output. > [Festen was so good, it reminded me of italian > 50's/60's top cinema] wasn't 'babettes feast' danish? that was a great movie, even though nothing really happened. keith ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 00:08:31 +0100 From: Andrew Walkingshaw Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Lager Louts' Third Language tucked into Briefcases? On Tue, Jun 04, 2002 at 05:32:54PM +0100, Bill Hick wrote: > Andrew walked sure > >>>I think Blur are responsible for some pretty good lyrics, actually: > > "Nothing is wasted > Only reproduced > You get nasty blisters > Du bist sehr sch\:on, > But we haven't been introduced ...", from "Girls and Boys" > > Terribly twee! I don't think it is. I think it works rather well with the smash-and-grab-on-Sparks'-back-catalogue car-crash disco of the music, which is *after all* the goal of lyrics. To be honest, very few lyrics stand up *at all* without their musical accompaniment, and expecting them to is frequently missing the point. As to why I like Blur: in chronological order, "Sing", "Popscene", "For Tomorrow", "Chemical World", "Coping", "Girls and Boys", "Trouble in the Message Centre", "This is a Low", "The Universal", "He Thought of Cars", "Entertain Me", "Yuko and Hiro", "Strange News from Another Star", "Essex Dogs", "Trimm Trabb" ... many of which are in fact deeply personal songs. > Nothing is renewed > Only plagiarised > You're pissed up in the sun > So NME calls it news Blur credit their listeners with the intelligence to *know* what they're sending up; to know that they're magpies, that they're synthetic. They *revel* in it - they revel in the fact they steal from everywhere, that they're cut-and-pasting the last thirty years of both the mainstream and the avant-garde into one unholy mess. And, yeah, three entire albums - by no means just Charmless Man, and as far as lyrical conceits go, given "This Charming Man" is about an imagined homosexual experience and "Charmless Man" (and "Tracy Jacks", "Ernold Same", "Globe Alone", "Colin Zeal", "Advert", "Mr Robinson's Quango", "Dan Abnormal" ... need I go on?) are about people and aspects of society which Damon Albarn basically *hates*, I think that any link here is tenuous at best. Oh, and the last of those: it's an anagram of Damon Albarn. He *knows* he's guilty: why else would he rage if he wasn't raging at himself? Blur are not a happy, shiny band: they're bitter, vehemently sarcastic, and often nasty - they just choose to sugar-coat it, to sweeten the pill. A lot of the time, I get the distinct impression Damon Albarn is choosing to hide in plain sight. They're a band *fuelled* by self-hatred and self-destruction - and given that Damon Albarn manifests this by being driven to succeed, I can see how he gets peoples' backs up. Graham Coxon, of course, is an inveterate alcoholic... They know exactly what they're doing: from the single "Popscene", released between 'Leisure' and 'Modern Life is Rubbish': "A fervoured image of another world, is nothing in particular now, And imitation comes naturally, but I never really stopped to think how..." Accusing Blur of plagiarism is *missing the point*: they plagiarise everything they can get their hands on the whole time, and it's the juxtaposition - the palpable tension - between elements which is interesting; both in composition, and between the band - one complete slacker (Alex James), one geek (Dave Rowntree), one maniac obsessed with success who also happens to be a very gifted, in the classical sense, musician (Damon Albarn), and one NY-hardcore-fan alcoholic accidental-genius guitarist (Graham Coxon). It's no offence to Wire to say that Blur are more skilled in terms of their instrumental range: Blur are *technically* one of the tightest bands going, and this again can lead to getting peoples' backs up: it sounds polished because it *is*, because frankly they *can* play anything anyone else can. The reason they're accused of pastiche is because they're cursed with the technical competence -to- rip off whatever they choose. For my money, Graham Coxon is both one of the most technically gifted and -particularly- one of the most innovative guitarists working in pop - - and Blur *are* a pop act, make no mistake. If you doubt me, which I suspect you will, go and listen to the guitar solo in "Country House" (or ideally the "Live at the Budokan" Japan-only d-cd) - definitely the most bizarre guitar solo to be on *any* number-one hit. Oh, and Blur's best lyrical couplet, IMO, is from Essex Dogs (on "Blur"): "In this town, we all go to terminal pubs It helps us sweat out those angry bits of life From this town, the English army grind their teeth into glass You know you'll get a kicking tonight The smell of puke and piss The smell of puke and piss..." No, it's not as literate as Wire. No, it's not as multi-layered. Very few lyricists *are*. However, what it is is concise and desperately *evocative* of what Damon Albarn is trying to achieve. ["Girls and Boys" / "On Returning"] > The blur lyric seems more self conscious but much less clever and with far > less room for multiple interpretations. However the first two lines could be > read as an inadvertant confession of their own plagiarism. Yeah. Name a band who consistently have cleverer lyrics than Wire, then. :) Wire being great doesn't somehow magically invalidate the merit of everything else. I have time in my life for more dimensions. The lyrics have different goals: both are successful. If you're trying to write lyrics about San Antonio on Ibiza, the desperation of lager-louts on the pull - and I read it as recoiling in *horror* from this, then being too clever, too erudite, is just as big a mistake as pitching too low. It's a matter of tone, and I feel "Girls and Boys" gets this *precisely* right. > >>>but is (if anything) I > think a less effective evocation of the desperation of the lager-lout on > holiday who Blur are sending up. > > But no! > > The Wire lyric was written by Colin about going on holiday himself - do lager > louts carry a copy of the Nouvelle Observature? None. My mistake. > Colin was maybe in part sending himself up whereas Blur just seem to > be pointing fingers again like little playschool bitches, as in > their ineffectual put down of the man who they found charmless. At > least if Mark Smith has a grouse the mirth is encouraged and let > loose (armpit hairs are sprouting). I believe the key quote is "Rage, rage, against the dying of the light..." ... Blur are whistling past the graveyard. If you think Damon Albarn is excepting himself from the lyrics he writes, then you really *are* missing the point: he's attacking everything, himself included. > > Kevin reported in the good book: Shame it's out of print. I will have to raid a copyright library... > "reflection on how British people somehow seem uncomfortable about > being abroad; an attempted internationalism which I felt was > strange at the time." > > Colin also seems to be distancing himself from the attitude reflected in this > lyric. > So "On Returning" attacks middle-class tourists: "Girls and Boys" working-class ones. I think there is definitely a similarity - not an equivalence, but a similarity - there. > Have they ever come up with anything a fraction as gripping as the new angled > riff that opens 'On Returning'? - not on the songs I've been exposed to! "Entertain Me" and "He Thought of Cars" spring to mind. Blur, as a band, tend to release singles which have not *that* much in common with their albums... > >>>in that they clearly mean *something* by what they say, > > It doesn't seem very interesting though Matter of opinion: particularly, it matters how much you care about Damon Albarn's lyrical concerns (class and the nature of (little-)Englishness in particular.) If you aren't interested, then it won't mean much to you. > However Mark did have a point - we'd never get this mileage out of Oasis > lyrics! > > >>>but they're so vehemently sarcastic and (I suspect) private that they > refuse to play the obvious line. > > That list of influences was very obvious though... Maybe to you: but you're an acknowledged member of the avant-garde. Blur are a *pop act*, and therefore I feel should be considered in that context: they just simultaneously operate as an art-school rock band. > "Never lacked a sense of theatre" No, they haven't. Blur are *all about* artifice, about fakery, about the fact that their audience *are* assumed to have the intelligence to see the cogs and be in on the joke. For some reason, some people get inordinately pissed off at this. > >>>They can't help but sabotage and subvert their *own* work - anyone who's > heard the intro to their stage > shows on "Live at the Budokan", or the Great Lost Single "Popscene", can > hardly doubt this. > > How do they subvert and sabotage their own work? "Popscene"'s lyrics trash their own career, their methodology. Damon Albarn writes his own character assassination and sticks it on the album which was meant to lead to their world domination. > >>>I see a lot of similarities between Blur and Wire, actually. > > Not surprising when the former finally admit to ripping off the latter. Most > of these similarities seem to be a slight veneer. I think there are similarities, and differences: but those similarities, in refusing to play the obvious line, in the palpable tension between melody and wanting to veer off into left field, are very obvious to me. Your milage clearly varies. > > There are far more radical differences. It seems that Blur often play up for > the critics whereas Wire just do what they please. I'd disagree there: I think Blur are far too easily bored - and in particular, Damon Albarn is far too insecure - to do that. It may have escaped your attention that "Blur" and "13" did not exactly get universally positive reviews. > Wire have some great record sleeves, whereas Blur's sleeve art has an ugly > dull bland corporate ad look. Record sleeves? I don't give a damn, I listen to the music. All I ask is that it keeps the CD unscratched... Andrew (now listening to... the lyric in my sig, actually) - -- "Now, you can't change the way she feels, But you could put your arms around her..." - Massive Attack, "Protection" ('Protection') adw27@cam.ac.uk (academic) | http://www.lexical.org.uk ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 09:44:36 EDT From: MarkBursa@aol.com Subject: Re: AW: [idealcopy] the World Cup is finally here! << Choice between evils! ];-) But I'd say Germ. 2 - Irel. 1 >> WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There's only one Keano...... Mark ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 09:43:20 EDT From: MarkBursa@aol.com Subject: Re: AW: [idealcopy] the World Cup is finally here! << That's true. But only the in-crowd knows this very special word. Your German is better than my English. >> Ich glaube nicht.... But I knew you'd be impressed!! Mark ;-) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 15:23:35 +0100 From: "Keith Astbury" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] [Brit] Popscene > > generally credited as the birth of britpop. though blaming damon for > > oasis seems a bit cruel really. p > bart said > I guess in England the whole Britpop thing is more polarized than abroad. > Here we don't give a toss about whether one doesn't belong to the "right" > class or whether one's accent is phony or not. > we shouldn't under-estimate britpop. regardless of whether the music was any good or not, it at least allowed the country to feel good about itself for a short time, and it seemed to have been a long time since that had last happened. and all that blur vs oasis might have been a load of hype, but it was fun surely wasn't it that a lead story on the news was about who was going to be number one! > BTW, I bet the majority on this list have Oasis records in their collection, > I know I do. yeah i do too and i'm not ashamed to admit it. ok you wouldn't be using the gallaghers as your 'phone-a-friend', and they're not gonna change the world, but then who is. they're a good pop band. admittedly, i wasn't wild about noels coke-fuelled 'be here now', but i thought the last one was under-rated, even if did have an awful title. > Just plain ordinary good ol' rock 'n roll wich although > one-dimensional [like most r&r is] can move me just as much as more > sophisticated music. [that's why i like GBV so much folks, they are masters > in combining the one- and more-dimensional] > The punks I know all loved Oasis in '93/'94 just as '77 punks liked > oldschool r&r. Next we could call the Beatles a retroband for using late > 50's/early 60's american music. The [later] Beatles have surpassed their > influences as have [later] Blur. Don't know about Oasis though... ;-) funnily enough, they've gone the opposite way IMO. their influences (or to be more precise, their beatle influence) has eaten away at their identity. > Purism doesn't get us nowhere. Nick Cave understood this when he met up with > Kylie. I'm sure 'purism' was the last thing on cave's mind when he teamed up with kylie : ) giluz said >I don't consider myself as purist, but I think that Nick Cave, regardless of >meeting or not meeting with Kylie, lost his sinister, punk-influenced side >after Tender Prey (even before, but at least he still released good albums >till then), and what was left was only the kitch. whilst what you said may be true of 'murder ballads' (which was a rather tongue-in-cheek effort), there is absolutely nothing kitsch about 'the boatmans call'. a more heartfelt collection of songs you'd be hard-pressed to find. an absolute stunning album - and last yrs 'no more shall we part' wasn't half bad either... keith n.p. x ray spex - germ free adololescents (hadn't heard this in a long time!) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 05 Jun 2002 17:34:48 +0200 From: giluz Subject: Re: [idealcopy] (Off topic) Something rotten... on 05/06/02 15:44, Keith Astbury at keith.astbury10@virgin.net wrote: >> Bart - who saw von Trier's The Idiots just >> the other week. Best film I saw whole year. >> Incredible... small country [8 million?] >> with such a high quality cinematic output. >> [Festen was so good, it reminded me of italian >> 50's/60's top cinema] > I have to admit that I didn't really like any of the Dogma films that I've seen (and this includes Festen), but I did like the attitude. Though there was nothing theoretically new about Enigma (and one's reminded of the French New Wave as one very obvious example), they did touch the core of the problems in the cinema of the last few years (especially Hollywood cinema) - bad scripts and ridiculous unnecessary costs. Von Trier's early films are much better than his later ones (especially that sadistic boring musical with Bjork). giluz ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 15:51:10 +0100 From: "Keith Astbury" Subject: Re: AW: [idealcopy] the World Cup is finally here! > << Choice between evils! ];-) > But I'd say Germ. 2 - Irel. 1 >> > > WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!! > > There's only one Keano...... > > Mark Wat about the USA then? Pretty amazing... Whilst on the subject of the WC, The Times are running a soccer pundit Big Brother. Twelve 'contestants' and we get to vote the worst out. Big Ron was the first to go - and rightly so. Just off to vote for the one Englishman who would like to see his country get knocked out. That's right. El Tel. Keith ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 11:48:05 EDT From: RLynn9@aol.com Subject: [idealcopy] Colin Newman tracks Could any IC members help me out with a cd-r of "Si Tu Attends" from Colin Newman's IT SEEMS cd...and the VOICE bonus cd from BASTARD...I can't find these...Thanks..please contact me off-list.. Robert Lynn ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 11:53:45 EDT From: MarkBursa@aol.com Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Lager Louts' Third Language tucked into Briefcases? Another excellent analysis from the boy Walkingshaw, focing his way into the Idealcopy starting XI.... << I don't think it is. I think it works rather well with the smash-and-grab-on-Sparks'-back-catalogue car-crash disco of the music, which is *after all* the goal of lyrics.<< I've always seen Boys & Girls as a discopopped-up I am the Fly.... >> As to why I like Blur: in chronological order, "Sing", "Popscene", "For Tomorrow", "Chemical World", "Coping", "Girls and Boys", "Trouble in the Message Centre", "This is a Low", "The Universal", "He Thought of Cars", "Entertain Me", "Yuko and Hiro", "Strange News from Another Star", "Essex Dogs", "Trimm Trabb" ... many of which are in fact deeply personal songs.<< A decent selection, though I'd include End of a Century and To the Endrather than some of the Great Escape stuff. >> And, yeah, three entire albums - by no means just Charmless Man, and as far as lyrical conceits go, given "This Charming Man" is about an imagined homosexual experience and "Charmless Man" (and "Tracy Jacks", "Ernold Same", "Globe Alone", "Colin Zeal", "Advert", "Mr Robinson's Quango", "Dan Abnormal" ... need I go on?) are about people and aspects of society which Damon Albarn basically *hates*, I think that any link here is tenuous at best.<< For my money Blur are at their weakest when Damon slips into third-party mode and writes little character pieces. It's a reflection of some of his biggest influences - Beatles, Ray Davies, Syd Barrett. Never been a fan of English whimsy, unless the music that propels it is pretty startling (eg Arnold Layne). In Blur's case the band seems to throttle back when Damon lapses into whimsical mode. >> It's no offence to Wire to say that Blur are more skilled in terms of their instrumental range: Blur are *technically* one of the tightest bands going, and this again can lead to getting peoples' backs up: it sounds polished because it *is*, because frankly they *can* play anything anyone else can. The reason they're accused of pastiche is because they're cursed with the technical competence -to- rip off whatever they choose.<< This is the key difference, along with the fact that Blur were seen from the start of their career as apart of mainstream pop, whereas Wire haven't. Ultimately technical competence in a rock/pop environment is worth zip unless you're playing a very stylised form of music, which neither Blur nor Wire are doing. Even bands that seem to operate in the same broad environment tend to fall into polarised camps of "hugely competent" or "can scarcely play". Eg Magazine, Television in the former and Wire, Joy Davidson in the latter. Who cares how "technically competent" any of those musicians are? Technically competent musicians wear Nils Lofgren tour jackets and hang out in guitar shops playing Ywngyywe Malmnmsteneeen or whatever the fuck his name is riffs. >> For my money, Graham Coxon is both one of the most technically gifted and -particularly- one of the most innovative guitarists working in pop<< Jonny Greenwood? >> - and Blur *are* a pop act, make no mistake. If you doubt me, which I suspect you will, go and listen to the guitar solo in "Country House" (or ideally the "Live at the Budokan" Japan-only d-cd) - definitely the most bizarre guitar solo to be on *any* number-one hit.<< Oh absolutely. That solo is the only high point of the record. Reminds me of the Feelies' Loveless Love, which at the point when most bands would apply a screaming Neil Young-esque solo, goes off into a spacky ascending and descending scale.... >>At least if Mark Smith has a grouse the mirth is encouraged and let > loose (armpit hairs are sprouting).<< A ref to The Fall's mighty British People in Hot Weather, another (and altogether more vitriolic) take on Englishmen abroad.... But far less subversive than Blur's take, as Girls & Boys was adopted as an anthem (and bought in sufficient quantities to go Top 5) by the very people it lampoons. >>Shame it's out of print. I will have to raid a copyright library...<< Try abebooks.com and search for it.... >> > Have they ever come up with anything a fraction as gripping as the new angled > riff that opens 'On Returning'? - not on the songs I've been exposed to!<< If you're talking about the 154 version, put the credit down to Mike Thorne, who stripped away much of the guitar in favour of his keyboards. Check the Peel version of OR for a less gripping riff - basically yer standard Colin Pink Flag chugger. (nothing wrong with that - just making the point. I feel this comment is pretty spurious. I'd have thought even Graeme could find some positives in Mr Coxon's playing!) >>"Entertain Me" and "He Thought of Cars" spring to mind. Blur, as a band, tend to release singles which have not *that* much in common with their albums...<< Chemical World has a pretty spanky guitar intro... >> Maybe to you: but you're an acknowledged member of the avant-garde. Blur are a *pop act*, and therefore I feel should be considered in that context: they just simultaneously operate as an art-school rock band.<< As I pointed out originally, some of Blur's major influences (eg Mission of Burma) were not on that list, possibly because it was a list on a website and included people who the casual surfer might have heard of.... >> I think there are similarities, and differences: but those similarities, in refusing to play the obvious line, in the palpable tension between melody and wanting to veer off into left field, are very obvious to me.<< And me. You're just starting at a different level. You can get away with more the further you are from the mainstream. >> > Wire have some great record sleeves, whereas Blur's sleeve art has an ugly > dull bland corporate ad look.<< It's not an art competition. And not all Wire sleeves are great. Ideal Copy & IBTABA could be better. Totally wrong. The first few singles certainly had a deliberate 'ad' feel, by design. Modern LIfe is Rubbish is a work of genius, right down to the Festival of Britain writing. Likewise the greyhounds on Parklife pretty much sum up the album's concerns. A very Laarndon album. Great Escape tries to look like a glossy magazine - the cover succeeds where the album fails. The later stuff is the work of Graham Coxon - Blur's own Sven. (Hey, another similarity - a resident artist called Graham in the band!) >> Record sleeves? I don't give a damn, I listen to the music. All I ask is that it keeps the CD unscratched... >> Well, as a disciple of Factory I can't agree with you there!! Mark ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 08:57:30 -0700 From: "Paul Pietromonaco" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] [OT] [Brit] Popscene > BTW, I bet the majority on this list have Oasis records in their collection, Hmm. I must be in the minority then. I don't have any Oasis - can't stand 'em. Maybe it's because I was such a Beatles fanatic in high school - Oasis' plagarism always bothered the heck out of me. I do have that single where the Liam and Noel argue in front of that reporter, though. "Wibbling Rivalry", I think it's called. That's pretty entertaining. (^_^) Cheers, Paul N.P. Swervedriver - Last Train to Satansville (promo!) ------------------------------ End of idealcopy-digest V5 #181 *******************************