From: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org (idealcopy-digest) To: idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Subject: idealcopy-digest V6 #96 Reply-To: idealcopy@smoe.org Sender: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk idealcopy-digest Friday, April 4 2003 Volume 06 : Number 096 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [idealcopy] Send artwork [MarkBursa@aol.com] Re: [idealcopy] You Can't Leave Now [MarkBursa@aol.com] Re: [idealcopy] Bruce Gilbert's Scala remix (who let the dogs out?) ["fre] [idealcopy] Bruce in Conway Hall [Fergus Kelly ] [idealcopy] outside the box [Tisbili@aol.com] [idealcopy] invisible jukebox pt 1 ["Keith Astbury" ] RE: [idealcopy] invisible jukebox pt 3 ["Keith Knight" ] Re: [idealcopy] B G's Salsa remix [Bart van Damme ] Re: [idealcopy] B G's Salsa remix [Ari Britt ] [idealcopy] Invisible jukebox pt 3 [Alistair Tear > I think the photo is Graham's (as were the photos on the R&Bs) Mark ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 05:35:05 EST From: MarkBursa@aol.com Subject: Re: [idealcopy] You Can't Leave Now << Played "You Can't Leave Now" a few times and it reminded me most of the beginning of Indirect Enquiries... wich was nice. >> It's almost a hybrid of Indirect Enquiries and Feed Me. Mark ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 07:40:32 +0200 From: "frederik jensen" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Bruce Gilbert's Scala remix (who let the dogs out?) > Bruce Gilbert's remix of Slide by Scala (some of who are former members of > Seefeel) makes ... everything by Seefeel seem lesser... > not true! when has the "otherwise beautiful musings" of a bc gilbert _ever_ made (near) silence as haunting as seefeel? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 03:32:20 -0800 (PST) From: Fergus Kelly Subject: [idealcopy] Bruce in Conway Hall Re Bruce in Conway Hall - Anyone going would be well advised that Bruce's set will most likely be VERYbrief (seriously- blink and you'll miss it),so, don't order a pint before his set, as he'll probably be finished by the time you get back! Can't help thinking of the words inscribed on the proscenium arch in Conway Hall: To thine own self be true How apt! Fergus :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Yahoo! Tax Center - File online, calculators, forms, and more ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 06:55:54 EST From: Tisbili@aol.com Subject: [idealcopy] outside the box Don't think this is old news...saw this on the nagx3 list. Interesting choices .... www.thewire.co.uk/ Invisible Jukebox - Colin Newman: Wire guitarist, vocalist and founder of the Swim label gets drilled on tracks by The Beatles, Brian Eno, Owada, Seefeel, Flying Saucer Attack, Cabaret Voltaire and more. Tested by Mike Barnes. .. mentions his friendship with Richard [Kirk], and something about negotiating releasing some of Richard's stuff through his own (Colin's) label. Bill E rp:Tear Garden - sheila loved the rodeo mu-ziq - brace yourself a bunch of elvis mp3s ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 13:23:31 +0100 From: "Keith Astbury" Subject: [idealcopy] invisible jukebox pt 1 Billy's message reminded me that I sent this the other day, but it was rather long and must have bounced back. So this is in installments (and Miles can ignore the single one!). Anyway... For those who haven't been able to get The Wire magazine, here's some extracts from Colin's Invisible Jukebox article, with a few personal asides. (Obviously the article is too lengthy to include it all)... "When I look back, what I used to do to Graham & Bruces lyrics was to reduce them unintelligibilty by my vocal approach. I would write the tune with my own set of words and then grab the first set of words that came to hand and jam them in there willy-nilly. I'm not surprised that they used to get pissed off with me because I would take such a cavalier attitude to what they considered to be their poetry". OK. I speak as a Colin fan here, but hands up who would have let him get away with that. No wonder they were pissed off. "I'm sorry to demystify it. But now, rather than 'Colin fucking up our words', it's viewed as a creative act". I'm not particularly a lyrics person, but I suppose most of us would agree that the end justified the means. About Martin Creed... "It's too clever for it's own good. This is one of the negative aspects Wire's influence on music. If you go back into the late 70's and early 80's, a lot of people who were influenced by Wire fundamentally took that idea and that over-intellectualised kind of view". Although I don't know Martin Creed, I think I know where he's coming from. Some people here might disagree, but as one of the more pop-orientated subscribers, I find Colin saying that pretty refreshing. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 13:25:53 +0100 From: "Keith Astbury" Subject: [idealcopy] invisible jukebox pt 2 About the Notre Dame gig... "It has become the stuff of legend. You don't need to have been there ot heard the record, you just need to know about it". Colin definitely seems to be acknowledging Wire's postition / influence in this article. Which I suppose makes their reformation (and therefore their willingness to risk their legend - "did we add to it or mess it up") all the more amazing. About MBV's 'Soon'... "It was a combination of gtrs and drum machines which wasn't baggy." I have to disagree slightly here. I remember hearing Soon for the first time and thinking that MBV had been listening to Madchester stuff. It might not be 'baggy' per se, but I thought there was something a bit baggy about it - whether you liked Madchester or not, it was an influential beat - at the time at least. (Julian Cope also adopted a bit of a bagginess on Peggy Suicide). "It was forward-looking and it was about re-constructing rock music". Yep. No arguments there! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 13:26:54 +0100 From: "Keith Astbury" Subject: [idealcopy] invisible jukebox pt 3 About being seven years of age when The Beatles first made the top 10... "The only thing that really grabbed me before then was 'Telstar' by The Tornadoes, because I heard someone say it was the music of the future and I really liked that". My parents didn't have many pop records but they had Telstar. I'm not sure how old I was when I first played it, but even a few years after the event it sounded like the most modern record I'd ever heard. "There's something which very few people write about or understand - but it's probably one of the most important processes of popular culture - a generation recognising itself in music. And that often happens when a generation latch onto music which is designed for people who are much older than them. The Beatles weren't making music for for seven year olds, they were making it for teenagers, I guess, but kids loved it". Agree absolutely. Although I'm a few years younger than Colin and although I rarely play any Beatles records, they were the soundtrack to my childhood. And so I guess they shaped the way I think about pop music. Similarly, I was a few years younger than what I perceive to be Bolan & Bowie's targetted audience, but a lot of people of a similar age who were into them, then went on - for good or bad - to use those influences for their own careers (Morrissey, Boy George, Holly Johnson. etc etc)... "My first group, Tyres, used to do a version of - can you believe this - Black Widow's 'Come to the Sabbath' (laughs)" Who are Black Widow? And do they sound like you'd expect a group called Black Widow to sound? "I always had this idea that Reuters sounded like The Who. It's nothing like The Who". Agreed! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 13:27:54 +0100 From: "Keith Astbury" Subject: [idealcopy] invisible jukebox pt 4 About cover versions of Wire songs... "There have been a couple of good ones by Lush - their girliness has something in it which, frankly, Wire couldn't achieve in a million years. The cover by Laika I dearly love - can you see a trend in this? Putting girliness into Wire brings the pop side alive". Interesting - although I've never doubted Colin's pop sensibility, I wouldn't necessarily have thought he'd like Lush doing Wire. He also mentioned that MBV covering them was 'an honour', that REM's version of Strange was 'appalling', and that he thought Carter - who he used to quite like - did a good version of Mannequin. Are we talking Carter USM here? Bloody hell! About the Cabs... "Early Cabaret Voltaire could only be from a northern town in Britain because there's a certain amount of grimness about it. You could imagine it was made in a factory". Having recently bought the 2002 mixes of Nag Nag Nag I've been playing the original version (also included) a lot of late. Christ. I'd forgotten how great it is. A colossal record. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 13:29:02 +0100 From: "Keith Astbury" Subject: [idealcopy] invisible jukebox - the final installment! About how Wire have reformed with "a renewed fierceness"... "We're at the end of the loop now of the so-called new rock thing. At the end of 2000 there was an emergence of a return to rock. Fundamentally, underground music in Britain had been dance music for ten years - whether you could dance to it or not, that was irrelevant". This has been pretty well documented, but it's interesting that he now thinks we're at the back end of it. "The Strokes might not be the saviours of Western civilisation, but they're not shit". That won't sit comfortably with a few folk here! Continuing about The Hives etc... "It might have sounded like 1963 or 1976, but the production values were right in your face. You felt there would be something really exciting about that if it wasn't so retro. That energy was fundamentally what was feeding into R&B. The first tracks from R&B1 were actually conceived really early on before I'd heard any of that stuff but just having a feeling that fast rock was on its way". And continuing... "I just feel so few people took that energy and did anything constructive with it, that's why I think we are on the back of a cycle. And that fierceness was a very deliberate thing". So presumably the new tracks on Send are gonna be less 'fierce'. Or was that already in the can? I've only heard 'Mr Max Table' (sic) on the computer, so it's hard to judge, but it sounds to me like it's gona be pretty ferocious on disc. "Why I think Wire in the 80's was less good than 70's or current Wire, is that it was less in touch with the culture it was coming from and wasn't sure what it was for". Never sounded a problem to me I have to say - or until Manscape when Wire went off the boil for me. "We don't really play 'Drill' any more except when we have now what's called the emergency drill for the situation where you have played everything and aren't going to get out of the building unless you play something else". So you know what to do now ; ) "With hindsight, 'Drill' had that something which did feed into (the culture), but to be quite honest I think Wire fans who think that means that wire invented dance music are very sadly deluded". Does anyone here *really* think that Wire invented dance music? Good article I have to say... Keith ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 08:09:34 EST From: MarkBursa@aol.com Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Richard H Kirk << .. mentions his friendship with Richard [Kirk], and something about negotiating releasing some of Richard's stuff through his own (Colin's) label. >> Not quite. He's talking about setting up a separate label for RHK via Posteverything, not signing RHK to ~swim. Would be useful, as keeping track of RHK's solo aliases is nigh on impossible. Mark ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 08:15:55 EST From: MarkBursa@aol.com Subject: Re: [idealcopy] invisible jukebox - the final installment! << "Why I think Wire in the 80's was less good than 70's or current Wire, is that it was less in touch with the culture it was coming from and wasn't sure what it was for". >> So instead of being collectively obsessed with sequencing, precision and technology, '80s Wire (armed with the cultural radar of '00s wire) might have headed down an MBV-meets-154 route perhaps? Would have been interesting... Mark ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 08:17:33 EST From: MarkBursa@aol.com Subject: Re: [idealcopy] invisible jukebox pt 1 << I would write the tune with my own set of words and then grab the first set of words that came to hand and jam them in there willy-nilly. I'm not surprised that they used to get pissed off with me because I would take such a cavalier attitude to what they considered to be their poetry". >> then again, G&B bought in to the concept, so they could hardly complain! Mark ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 08:22:41 EST From: MarkBursa@aol.com Subject: Re: [idealcopy] invisible jukebox pt 3 << "The only thing that really grabbed me before then was 'Telstar' by The Tornadoes, because I heard someone say it was the music of the future and I really liked that". My parents didn't have many pop records but they had Telstar. I'm not sure how old I was when I first played it, but even a few years after the event it sounded like the most modern record I'd ever heard.<< I loved it too - still do. It pulls off an amazing trick of sounding simultaneously futuristic and nostalgic. >> "There's something which very few people write about or understand - but it's probably one of the most important processes of popular culture - a generation recognising itself in music. And that often happens when a generation latch onto music which is designed for people who are much older than them. The Beatles weren't making music for for seven year olds, they were making it for teenagers, I guess, but kids loved it". Agree absolutely. Although I'm a few years younger than Colin and although I rarely play any Beatles records, they were the soundtrack to my childhood. And so I guess they shaped the way I think about pop music. Similarly, I was a few years younger than what I perceive to be Bolan & Bowie's targetted audience, but a lot of people of a similar age who were into them, then went on - for good or bad - to use those influences for their own careers (Morrissey, Boy George, Holly Johnson. etc etc)...<< Though quite how this accounts for old farts like us still latching on to music aimed at teenagers is another issue altogether ;-) Mark ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 14:28:14 +0100 From: "Keith Astbury" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] invisible jukebox pt 3 > Though quite how this accounts for old farts like us still latching on to > music aimed at teenagers is another issue altogether ;-) Altogether now... "Young at heart!!!" Keith NP The Adverts - one chord wonders ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 08:28:47 EST From: RLynn9@aol.com Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Richard H Kirk In a message dated 4/3/03 7:11:18 AM Central Standard Time, MarkBursa@aol.com writes: > Would be useful, as keeping track of RHK's solo aliases is nigh on > impossible. > > Mark > Kirk has two new releases to stack on the pile: Biochemical Dread "The Bush Doctrine" Richard H. Kirk - "T.W.A.T." (The War Against Terrorism) RL ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 15:14:32 +0100 From: Andrew Walkingshaw Subject: Re: [idealcopy] invisible jukebox - the final installment! [Yeah, yeah, this mail is probably a load of rubbish, but I've written it now... - A] On Thu, Apr 03, 2003 at 08:15:55AM -0500, MarkBursa@aol.com wrote: > So instead of being collectively obsessed with sequencing, precision and > technology, '80s Wire (armed with the cultural radar of '00s wire) might have > headed down an MBV-meets-154 route perhaps? Would have been interesting... Oi, stop taunting us, you. (Seriously, the directions pointed at by that combination are the kind of music I've always wanted, but never found out how, to make. A balance of wide, expansive sonics with directed, expansive, focussed, creative *songwriting*. The latter is the point a lot of experimental music stumbles on for me; I'll take one Teen Age Riot over twenty noise epics, although others milage will vary.) Actually, there's a serious point here, which is articulated particularly elegantly in the above piece from Wire; pop music (and this is *all* pop music, in my worldview) should be a balance of the cerebral and the visceral, the intellectual and the kinetic. If pop music doesn't satisfy both sonically and emotionally, it's not doing its job - whatever emotion that is. Certain bands, such as Oasis, seem to go entirely for euphoria (with limited success, IMO); others trade on angst, fear, doubt, and anger (Radiohead)[1]. The problem is, to fulfill these two characteristics for a wide audience, you either have to be outright geniuses, or purposely dumb down the emotional/intellectual range of your work; take Blur, for example, who I can't decide whether I like or hate at any given time. To launch into a complete aside, the problem with them is threefold; a) Damon Albarn is obviously a complete chancer - he's trying for the main chance, for maximal success the whole time, and that necessarily conflicts with emotional honesty. b) Again, they are *capable* of extremely subtle and satisfying passages lyrically; but they then trash these by the most crass, awful turns of phrase and imagery, frequently within the same song. Consider "Country House"; most of it is a godawful, smartarse caricature (just feel the clever-clever complacency of the celebrated couplet "He's reading Balzac / knocking back Prozac"), but then for fifteen seconds you get something worthwhile with the "Blow, blow me out..." bridge. c) They, musically, are frequently skating the boundary of plagiarism; they're also frequently glib and downright obnoxious in this regard. This means that they write the occasional glorious song, almost drowning in a sea of dross. (All in my opinion, obviously.) The thing is, in Blur (who I'm using as an example), but also in a lot of other bands, there is this constant, visible compromise between what they're obviously capable of, wnaand what they actually produce (as a result of either their own ambitions or external pressures). It's also visile that when a band makes a deliberate effort to aspire to something greater, they're setting themselves up for a savaging in the press and a shrinking of their fanbase; examples are too numerous to mention. Of course, a lot of music manages to be a hell of a lot of fun just pushing the euphoria buttons; I'd nominate, from the above article the Hives' "Hate To Say I Told You So", and the Strokes' "New York City Cops", from that. (I'd also point at McLusky's album "McLusky Do Dallas" as an album I thoroughly enjoyed from that camp). The almost polar opposite of this, though, are bands like Wire - who seem to be willing to make almost *no* compromises to emotional simplicity or transparency, and hence are immediately trading off quite a lot in terms of outright approachability; it's very rare anything with a good deal of genuine complexity, musically or emotionally, breaks through into the mainstream. Of course, a lot of Wire's music appears to be a controlled study in *unemotionality* (see the Drill); this strikes me, though, as not being quite the full picture, as even the least overtly emotional of Wire's tracks are filled with a kind of nervy, strung-out *tension* that few other bands I can think of have been able to attain. This is quite probably a reflection on my somewhat edgy nature than Wire, but their music always fees to me to be hovering right on the edge of a precipice emotionally; either of disappearing into rage or despair. The road ahead always seems to be uncertain in Wire's music, but the facade maintained is, in some sense, one of the very characteristic emotional responses to that sort of pressure - and as such has a basic honesty about it which holds a great deal of appeal for me. It's a very emotionally compressed idiom, in a sense; all the emotions are in there, but so tightly contained as to prevent them from decompressing explosively. As such, it's maybe a more subtle idiom than the broad brushes of most other bands, but it's one which speaks to *me* more than these broad sweeps do. Of course, just to be contradictory, Wire's latest music doesn't fit neatly into this, but no pigeon-hole or generalised view like this ever will; something like "Raft Ants", in its outright sturm-und-drang fury, is one of the most direct things of theirs I've ever heard - but even there, it's a much more intellectualised approach to that kind of style than most bands would dare take. Uncompromising, indeed. - - Andrew [1] Purposely using the most mainstream examples I can think of. For spectacularly paranoid music, may I recommend Mogwai's "Christmas Steps"? (I have a very personal, emotional attachment to that piece of music, for reasons far too complicated to go into here, but that's the nature of the beast; if music soundtracks your life, songs *will* remind you of given times, places, and emotional states - good or bad - and I want music which is capable of at least capturing some of the subtlety and complexity of that. - -- email: andrew@lexical.org.uk http://www.lexical.org.uk/ Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge http://www.esc.cam.ac.uk/ CUR1350, 1350 MW Cambridgeshire and online http://www.cur1350.co.uk/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2003 09:26:04 -0600 From: Michael Flaherty Subject: [idealcopy] Re: Bruce Gilbert Live >Came across this on the Whitehouse/Susan Lawly site: >http://www.susanlawly.freeuk.com/wynbad.htm > >I hadn't seen this mentioned here yet, so I thought some people may be >interested. I'm going to assume Bruce's material will lean towards the _In >Esse_ sound ;) Probably. I wonder if he'll have his shed? It's also possible that he'll do something w/ radios (as he has in the past) or basically anything but get a band together and play songs. (He's already got a great band for that sort of thing.) ;) He's listed as playing twice, once as a DJ and once "live". Wish I could fly over for it. Michael Flaherty ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 20:38:50 +0100 From: "Ian B" Subject: Re: [idealcopy] Paradiso - ----- Original Message ----- From: Alistair Tear > > Anyone else up for the Paradiso gig apart > from Bart & me? Jan?...Ian B - did you already mention > this? > cheers > > A Alistair - I did mention this; I might be going but have got to check on a few things first ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 21:52:20 +0100 From: "Keith Knight" Subject: RE: [idealcopy] invisible jukebox pt 3 "My first group, Tyres, used to do a version of - can you believe this - Black Widow's 'Come to the Sabbath' (laughs)" Keith asked, apropos Colin's interview - Who are Black Widow? And do they sound like you'd expect a group called Black Widow to sound? - ------------ I think David and I had a brief Black Widow reverie some time last year. I know next to nothing about them but they were around in the early 70s and released an album (never owned it and can't remember the name) of satanic songs on which 'Come to the Sabbat' (think that was the right spelling - it was certainly pronounced like that) was a stand-out - "Come, come, come to the Sabbat, Come to the Sabbat, Satan's there" was chanted over and over. Musically it was a really good album with a number of strong songs - it was just that lyrically it was a bit naff (and, if truth be told, when I was 15 a bit scary). Forget backwards masking messages on Judas Priest albums - this was the real thing. Just off to draw a pentangle on the floor and summon up a snake god. Another the Keith ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2003 23:12:18 +0200 From: Bart van Damme Subject: Re: [idealcopy] invisible jukebox Keith: > "Putting girliness into Wire brings the pop side alive" No mention of Elastica? ;-) > he thought Carter - who he used to quite like - did a good version of > Mannequin. Are we talking Carter USM here? Bloody hell! Nah, THE CARTER FAMILY! http://www.fmp.com/orthey/carter.html From Artistdirect.com The version of Wire's "Mannequin" can't hope to match the severe art tension of the original, but the weirdly soothing synths and rough "la la la" parts work well. http://www.artistdirect.com/store/artist/album/0,,1025018,00.html#review > Having recently bought the 2002 mixes of Nag Nag Nag I've been playing the > original version (also included) a lot of late. Christ. I'd forgotten how > great it is. A colossal record. Hear Hear! Bart ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2003 23:55:31 +0200 From: Bart van Damme Subject: Re: [idealcopy] B G's Salsa remix > I believe this became known as 'post rock'? http://62.210.133.45/bahianese.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 14:51:37 -0800 (PST) From: Ari Britt Subject: Re: [idealcopy] B G's Salsa remix Bart van Damme wrote: > I believe this became known as 'post rock'? http://62.210.133.45/bahianese.htm more like repetative rock i'da thought.........Ari Yahoo! Tax Center - File online, calculators, forms, and more ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 09:27:19 +0100 From: Alistair Tear Subject: [idealcopy] Invisible jukebox pt 3 >>Who are Black Widow? And do they sound like you'd expect a group called Black Widow to sound? Heard a little bit & it was yer average long haired guitar rock of the time (c. 1970)...maybe got promoted to the 2nd division for one season before heading back to the basement (to use a football analogy)...the singer(?) was called Kip Trevor and went out with a girlfriend of my then girlfriend...I think they came from Leicester ...Which sounds like a good title for a spoof sci-fi B movie later A ************************************************************************* The contents of the e-mail and any transmitted files are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. Transport for London Street Management hereby excludes any warranty and any liability as to the quality or accuracy of the contents of this e-mail and any attached transmitted files. 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