From: les@jmdl.com (JMDL Digest) To: joni-digest@smoe.org Subject: JMDL Digest V3 #264 Reply-To: joni@smoe.org Sender: les@jmdl.com Errors-To: les@jmdl.com Precedence: bulk JMDL Digest Sunday, July 19 1998 Volume 03 : Number 264 The Official 1998 Joni Mitchell Internet Community Shirts are available now. Go to http://www.jmdl.com/ for all the details. ------- The New England Labor Day Weekend JoniFest is coming soon! Send a blank message to for all the details. ------- Trivia buffs! We are compiling an in-depth trivia database on all things Joni. Send your bit of trivia - or your questions you would like answered - to ------- And don't forget about JoniFest 1999! Reserve your spot with a $25 fee. Only 100 rooms have been reserved. Send a blank message to for more info. ------- The Joni Mitchell Homepage is maintained by Wally Breese at and contains the latest news, a detailed bio, Joni's paintings, original essays, lyrics and much more. ------- The JMDL website can be found at and contains Joni-related interviews, articles, member gallery, info on the archives, and much more. ========== TOPICS and authors in this Digest: -------- RE: Bootlegs vs Trees/Brian's post ["Wally Kairuz" ] Re: Bootlegs vs Trees [Les Irvin ] Re: Bootlegs vs Trees (SJC) [davidmarine@webtv.net (David Marine)] Re: Bootlegs vs Trees (SJC) [briano@interisland.net (Odlum, Brian)] The Unfiltered Joni Mitchell - Part 1 (Mojo 8/98) [Rob Jordan ] Re: Bootlegs [Susan Chaloner ] Throwing Bootlegs from the Train [Susan Chaloner ] Re: Bootlegs vs Trees (NJC) [IVPAUL42@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 21:31:26 -0300 From: "Wally Kairuz" Subject: RE: Bootlegs vs Trees/Brian's post Although Brian poses some interesting ethical questions in his post, the basic reasoning is flawed because he resorts to false analogies. Besides, not everything that's illegal is necessarily unethical, and vice versa. WallyK ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Jul 1998 01:46:33 +0100 From: catman Subject: Re: Bootlegs vs Trees/Brian's post Wally Kairuz wrote: > Although Brian poses some interesting ethical questions in his post, the > basic reasoning is flawed because he resorts to false analogies. Besides, > not everything that's illegal is necessarily unethical, and vice versa. You can say that again!Legal but unethical(IMO): Capital Punishment War Poisoning the Planet Corporal Punishment Chaining of prisoner Religion practised in school Conscription Illegal but ethical(IMO) Euthanasia(for people) Drug taking being nude in public homosexuality(depending where you are) > WallyK - -- but who is it who is so eager to see that society’s norms are observed, who persecutes and crucifies those with the temerity to think differently - -if not the ones who have had a ‘proper upbringing’? They are the ones who learned as children to accept the death of their souls and not to notice it until they are confronted with the vitality of their young or adolescent children. Then they must try to stamp out this vitality, so they will not be reminded of thier own loss. Alice Miller. http://www.ethericcats.demon.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 19:32:02 -0600 From: Bounced Message Subject: Re: Crime in N.O./Fla (NJC) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 17:16:16 -0400 From: Jerry Notaro IVPAUL42@aol.com wrote: > Jerry, > Obviously you are distraught after your bad experience in N'yawlins, but I > cannot help but comment on your distorted description of Florida, the "tourist > paradise." > It is not "distorted" but fact that New Orleans is the murder capitol of the US statistically. As a FL resident you should know that tourist crime is VERY low here as opposed to other cities. The media had a field day with it, but the facts are that those few do not add up to one week in NO. And the fact that FL acted so quickly to put police at rest stops make me feel safer at any FL rest stop than anywhere in the French Quarter. Jerry ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 19:59:33 -0600 From: Les Irvin Subject: Re: Bootlegs vs Trees At 04:43 PM 7/18/98 -0700, Odlum, Brian wrote: >I'm trying to point >out that the music is still stolen (from Joni). We cannot prevent the crime >from being committed, but that doesn't mean we are blameless if we partake >of the spoils. Like I said in an earlier post, the ethical issues surrounding tape trading certainly can be (are are being!) debated. I will admit that I, too, sometimes have second thoughts about the practice. However, my conscience clears up quickly in cases such as this one. Here we have someone offering to SELL Joni's music for his own personal gain. In my opinion, that is pretty darn cut and dried as being wrong. My motive now is to dilute the bootlegger's ability to make a buck. >Joni's CONSENT is the key issue here. Has anybody ever asked >her if it's OK to put these stolen recordings on the tape trees? I'm not sure anyone knows Joni's views on this. But there are many, many bands that encourage taping (even allowing tapers to plug directly into the soundboard). Different bands may have different motives, but I'll bet that a number of them do so to dry up the bootleg market. >Joni is still the victim, even if tape trees make her >less victimized than the alternative. On principle, I don't disagree. On the other side of the coin though, how many people have been actually encouraged to purchase additional legitimate Joni CD's as a result of something they heard on a tree? I have all the trees - but I also have purchased every single legitimate thing that Joni has ever released - even duplicates of some of them. Tape trees have done a lot to re-kindle my interest in her work. >My apologies to Les, Wally, Simon, you and >anyone else out there who might have felt >offended by a different point of view. I'm not offended in the least, Brian! Good debate is what the JMDL is all about... :-) Thanks, Les ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 18:58:43 -0700 (PDT) From: davidmarine@webtv.net (David Marine) Subject: Re: Bootlegs vs Trees (SJC) Aw, come on, Brian. I didn't object to your stating a different point of view. We state differing opinions all the time on this list. I objected to the implicit presumption in your post that Wally, Les, and Simon have not given the issue due consideration (e.g., your offer of books on the subject of "situational ethics"). Further, just because I perceive clear differences between killing an endangered species, stealing a guitar, and taping a concert, I don't see how you come to the conclusion that I am unable to perceive the similarites. I believe I understood your argument, I just thought it was flawed. Peace, David ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 19:47:40 -0700 From: briano@interisland.net (Odlum, Brian) Subject: Re: Bootlegs vs Trees (SJC) > From: David Marine > To: Odlum, Brian > Aw, come on, Brian. I didn't object to your stating a different point > of view. We state differing opinions all the time on this list. I > objected to the implicit presumption in your post that Wally, Les, and > Simon have not given the issue due consideration (e.g., your offer of > books on the subject of "situational ethics"). Why would I target Wally, Les and Simon? What relationship do they have to this thread that I would single them out? Come to think of it, how did these specific people get in this discussion. Enlighten me please. Furthermore, I haven't heard from any of them regarding this issue. (Oops, Les just posted!) My original post was sent to the JMDL, not to anyone in particular. If they felt singled out for any reason, they haven't said so to me. And I would be the first to apologize to them. From my limited communication with them through this discussion list, I have acquired nothing but respect for all three of them. They post very sincere and intelligent comments to this list. > Further, just because I perceive clear differences between killing an > endangered species, stealing a guitar, and taping a concert, I don't see > how you come to the conclusion that I am unable to perceive the > similarites. I believe I understood your argument, I just thought it > was flawed. I don't mind that you think my argument is flawed, and I don't mind you saying so on this list. That's what the list is (partially) here for [no grammar police please]. BTW, I don't know anything about what you are capable of perceiving or not perceiving - I don't even know you, and in my experience I have to know someone very well before I'm capable of having those insights. What I concluded was that you didn't *appreciate* the similarities. My apologies if that conclusion is in error. Now *I'm* beginning to take it personally. Am I correct in reading an antagonistic attitude in your communication? Are you grinding an axe, or is my skin just getting thinner? Cheers, Brian ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Jul 1998 03:51:00 +0100 From: Rob Jordan Subject: The Unfiltered Joni Mitchell - Part 1 (Mojo 8/98) THE UNFILTERED JONI MITCHELL There are those artists who shy away from public debate, who duck controversy, who shun self-analysis, who refrain from airing their private lives, who would, to be honest, rather not be quoted. And then there is Joni Mitchell. Interview by Dave Di Martino IT'S A SATURDAY NIGHT IN Burbank, California, and perhaps 200 invited guests are sitting in a circular arrangement of plush chairs, overstuffed sofas, even cross-legged on the floor. Wines and bottled water abound. At the centre of this velvet doughnut is a small, round stage, upon which stand Joni Mitchell and three, sometimes four, other musicians. Video cameras record every detail of this, the second of two private concerts, for a television special to be aired later in the year. Rosanna Arquette introduces Mitchell on both nights. Joni's paintings are everywhere, hanging on the curtained perimeter of the circle and exhibited proudly on the curved pathway which led the small audience to their seats. Her friends are everywhere, too. There among her dazzling band - including drummer Brian Blade, peddle-steel guitarist Greg Leisz, and trumpeter Mark Isham - stands bassist Larry Klein, Mitchell's former husband of 1O years, whom she'll briefly and conspicuously kiss midway through her performance. And there in the audience is the familiar, greying figure of Graham Nash, her celebrated beau from earlier days. And tonight, the composer of Our House has work to do. Sure enough, Nash heads to the stage with a peculiar object in his hand, wrapped in what appears to be a disposable plastic bag. It is, says he, the trophy owed to Joni for her induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year. The one she never got because she never showed up to claim it. "You had your reasons," Nash says, diplomatically, "but I'm sure they're all fine." Looking at Nash - bemusedly or begrudgingly, it's hard to tell -- she grasps the object in its sloppy wrapper and deadpans: "It's perfect in a garbage bag." ONE HAS TO LOVE JONI MITCHELL, AND THESE days one does. Since 1994's Turbulent Indigo netted the singer two Grammy Awards - including Album Of The Year - Mitchell has been on the receiving end of a nonstop series of honours, awards, and the sort of accolades usually given posthumously to bluesmen most decent humans have never heard of. Among them: the Billboard Century Award, the National Academy of Songwriters Lifetime Achievement Award, the Canadian Governor General's Performing Arts Award, even Sweden's Polar Music Prize. Such awards usually indicate a career nearing the end of its creative lifespan, but in Mitchell's case that's simply laughable. She's been out there in 1998 - touring with Bob Dylan and Van Morrison on a seven-date concert series verging on the historic, taking part in a memorable Los Angles Walden Woods benefit (alongside an all-female cast including Sheryl Crow, Stevie Nicks, Bjork, Shawn Colvin, Paula Cole and Trisha Yearwood), and completing Taming The Tiger, her 17th album. To be released 31 full years after she signed to Reprise Records in 1967, it is as fresh and vital as anything she has ever recorded, and will not come packaged in a plastic garbage bag. Sitting outside a restaurant she frequents in Brentwood - an area now famous for its association with disgraced celebrity athlete O.J. Simpson - Mitchell is chatty, warm, an excellent smoker and, frankly among the most magnetic personalities I've ever encountered. She zigs and tags from subject to subject; she is highly opinionated and visibly proud of it. She talks about nearly everything, including her reunion last year with daughter Kilauren - after giving her up for adoption 35 years ago - and her own mother, now 86, and the subject of Taming The Tiger's song Facelift. So outspoken is Joni Mitchell that she and her publicist are discussing the downside of complete frankness. In these days of Lilith Fairs and tired topics like "women in rock", the press - god bless 'em - continue to run familiar female names by Joni seeking assessment and, ideally, condemnation from the queen herself. Sheryl Crow? Alanis Morissette? Jewell? Even Rickie Lee Jones. Mitchell notes a previous reporter she'd encountered "laid on me questions like,'What do you think of so and so?' and I deflected and deflected and deflected and finally said something. And I thought, If they cut that off and that off - and you know they will - - he got the dirt. He got it." She pauses. "I'm getting a rep for that." So much for the mudwrestling questions. > It seems like you've been surfacing more recently. A conscious > move on your part? No. I guess things started to take off in the last five years mainly because of the Billboard award. After that, it was a series of sort of copycat crimes, where people remembered me and I was the recipient of a lot of awards in a row. And then I won a Grammy - well, two Grammys, one for the artwork, which also pleased me very much. I'm really a painter at heart and I can say this now since, you know, Kilauren has come along. Music was a hobby for me at art school, and art was serious. Art was always what I was going to do; I was going to be an artist. But the time that I went to art school was very disappointing - although I romanticised the time that Van Gogh went to art school. I thought that to go to the French Academy at that particular time - even though as a female I would have been considered on associate no matter how good I was - was the best education you could get. And yet in Van Gogh's letters to Bernard, he's begging him to get out of there, saying, "They're providing you with subject matter - if they have their way, they'll make a mistress of your art, and you won't know your true love-should you come upon it." He was begging him to get out and just paint from his heart at that time. That was an eye-opener to me - when I read that, I thought, I'm going to give myself the art education: I'm going to paint the way I want to, never mind the art world. So I went back to painting landscapes and my friends and cats and not making a mistress of it - stopping trying to be innovative and moderne, and painting the kind of paintings that I can't afford to buy that I want to have in my house, you know? > The paintings an display on Saturday night wore gorgeous. People like that kind of painting: The art world will apologise for it if they write about it, you know what I mean? The art world is a funny world - I'm glad I never had to be a part of the gallery scene or anything. > Do you know Don Van Vliet, Captain Beefheart? Yeah, he's a good painter. > He retired from making music in the early '80s, ostensibly to > point. I spoke with the man who handles his work professionally, > and he mentioned that it was tough for any musician to be taken > seriously in the art world unless he devoted his time solely to > art. > He said it wauld take a minimum of 10 years for him to be away > from the music business to be taken seriously at all. Absolutely. You're regarded as a dilettante. That's because - here's my opinion on that - America is far away from a renaissance spirit. I've seen shows passing through Rome, the poet as painter, Ferlinghetti's drawings on display. That's a renaissance culture: they understand it, condone it. Why shouldn't a poet be able to render? Not all of them can, but supposing they can? Don't rule it out. > You made that point very well on Saturday night when you mentioned > what Georgia O'Koeffe said. (Quoting) "Oh, I would've liked to be a musician, too, but you can't do both." It's a lot of work, you have to give up a certain amount of socialising - but the way I learn anyway, everything that I admire sparks me: best teach it to me as admiration. Funny, as a painter I have so many heroes. But as a musician I like one or two in each camp and then I don't like the rest. Like, I don't care for John Coltrane - many people think he's the greatest. Coltrane seems like he's on Valium to me. Charlie Parker, I see his greatness; then Wayne Shorter is a genius - he's a tributary of 'Trane, but he's got so much more breadth and mysticism and wit and passion and everything. So to me, Coltrane is kind of a stepping-off point to Wayne. I have strong and strange opinions on things which are kinda controversial. As a painter I admire much. And it's been hard - like music, it's been hard to synthesize the many styles that I like. In art school I was criticised for painting in two or three schools at the same time. Music hybrids better than perhaps painting does immediately. I ended up kind of without a country - you know, musically speaking ! ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Jul 1998 03:53:23 +0100 From: Rob Jordan Subject: The Unfiltered Joni Mitchell - Part 2 (Mojo 8/98) > Do you derive the same degree of artistic satisfaction from > painting as you do from music? Yeah, as a painter there are so many painters that I bow to. I didn't like poetry, so the poetry that I made is the kind that I like better. So I don't like a lot of poets, and that seems to annoy people, that I'm dismissive of a lot of what they think are great poets. I'm with Nietzsche on the poets. He went into a long harangue: "The poet is the vainest of the vain, even before the ugliest of water buffalo does he fan his tail. I've looked among him for an honest man a?d all I've dredged up are old gods' heads. He muddies his waters that he might appear deep." That's one of my favourites. I can see the filler in [poetry] - I can see, a lot of times, the effort. It wasn't honest enough for me a lot of times. It was tipping its hat always to the Greeks and classicism in a certain stylistic way. I like Yeats, I love Yeats - the Yeats poem that I set to music [on Slouching Towards Bethlehem], though, I corrected... there were parts of it that I added; they let me do it, which was amazing. Because I think they sued Van Morrison for setting something. They just said, "You have to put 'adapted by'." And I think I did it pretty seamlessly because I understand his style - the third stanza is mine, and it's very much in the style of the first one, more so than his second stanza. > For that matter, on stage you mentioned Bob Dylan's covering your > own Big Yellow Taxi. It's been so long since I heard it, but I don't think he ever mentions the taxi, he just goes straight to the tractor. It was on Self Portrait, I believe. > Actually the Dylan album, I think. But I wondered if you were as > sensitive as the Yeats estate might be when someone was altering > your own work. Oh, no, no. And I love Bobby. I think Bobby thinks of himself as not friendly. I think he just thinks of himself that way. But I'm very fond of him, and over the years we've had a lot of encounters, and most of the discussion has been about painting, actually. No, he can do whatever he wants as far as I'm concerned (laughs). He's one of those people like Miles, you know! Even if he wasn't up to it that night - or I saw a performance where he just kinda cruised - whatever it was, I would always be curious about the next. Because he's kind of untouchable in a lot of ways. And I love his writing - you know, not all of it. And I was a detractor in the beginning. In the beginning I thought he was a Woody Guthrie copycat. I never liked copycats, and I just found out why from these horoscope books that just came out. I'm born the Day of the Discoverer in the Week of Depth. really love innovators. I love the first guy to put the flag at the North Pole; the guy that went there second doesn't interest me a lot of times. Although some could say that Wayne Shorter is the guy who got there second, but he took it somewhere. So Dylan went to Woody, and you have to build off of something. Not everybody comes out of the blue as a genuine muse - a real cosmic muse. It used to be that's what music was - but now it's formulated. And, especially, it's become a producers' art, who's an interior decorator basically. > Does Dylan know that you were initially a detractor? Oh, I don't know if he knows that or not, but you know, the thing that turned me around was Positively 4th Street. It stopped me in my tracks, and I went, Oh my God - that's just great. We can write about anything now. Because up 'til then, I was writing songs. And I wrote poetry in the closet because I didn't like it. I wrote it, I just rhymed, haha. Rhyming Joan, I guess. But I didn't care to show it to anybody, or I did it in school on assignment because I had to. And I was praised for it, but I just figured I got away with it. And songs I loved, stories I loved - I always loved stories from the moment I could understand English. Poetry was kind of like shelling sunflower seeds with your fingers - it just was too much work for too little return, a lot of times. I like things more plainspeak. And the poems that I did like in school were very visual - and less diaphanous and cryptic. I think people like to say they understand it, but there's nothing really to understand. You can comb it and comb it for understanding, and it may produce a lot of thoughts, but it doesn't get to the heart of the matter clearly enough for me. Most poetry. > In high school, my teacher loved T.S. Eliot and we studied The > Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock - which essentially needed a > translation key to even begin to he deciphered by 14 year-olds. > I'm not sure it should've been foisted on people who weren't > willing and ready to explore it. Not only that - but speaking as a poet, I write a song, say, Stay In Touch on this album, and I know what I wrote it about. When my daughter and her boyfriend came, Teddy heard it and said, "Kilauren, that song's about you." Well it was - it's about the beginning unsteadiness in a very passionate new relationship. Any time I have a passionate new relationship, that song will come to life in a new way. If it's overly explained, you rob the people whose lives it brushes up against of their own interpretation and their own experience. I know how a song falls differently against your life many times. To keep it olive it has to - you're bringing new experience to it all the time, and it's not the experience you wrote it with, so it's open to interpretations. It's a kind of dead poet's society thing - tear those pages from your books. The songs shift around - either it means something to you or it doesn't. And that's one reason why I resent the "who is it about?" fixing it in time, "it's about that over there..." No it isn't, it's a mirror- and it reflects you if you take the time to look as you pass it by. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Jul 1998 03:55:23 +0100 From: Rob Jordan Subject: The Unfiltered Joni Mitchell - Part 3 (Mojo 8/98) > I'm sure you've had people picking apart your songs on the > autobiographical level, saying this line is about that person... And they assume that - the new press. The new press is so irresponsible they print their assumptions without using the word. I don't think they know the word 'assume' exists. They print it as a bold-ass fact, "When she wrote this, she meant this," like bad poetry teachers. I'm still living here, and it's getting me in a lot of trouble, too. Especially if they name a person. Not To Blame caused a lot of friction. Some people said it's about O.J., and some people said it's about Jackson Browne, right! Well, it's about men who batter women - and it has some details that are specific and some that apply to a lot of different situations. It's about the kind of guy who goes around battering women - and if the shoe fits, wear it, you know (loughs)! > But there's still a lot personally revealed, I think. On the new > album, there are lyrics referring to radio stations playing > "genuine junkfood for juveniles", and you're singing about "a > runaway from the record biz". How do you view yourself as a > record maker in the business of making records today? The business - even the executives are kind of at the mercy of the Wall Street graph. The graph must go up. So it creates a kind of conservative poker playing. And they won't bet on any long shots. And among the long shots there are a lot of generalities. People over 30, especially people over 50. VH1 , MTV - all of the outlets for music have been barred to me for many years, 20 years, for one reason or another. For mysterious reasons. In the beginning, when I first started, for the first five years I had no drums on my record, so I didn't go to AM radio. So even in the time when I was a young artist. You only get about five or six years before they're sick of you in the business generally, and they let you ride - they don't put any money or effort or interest into you, really. They just let you sit there like manure in the pasture, as a procurer of young artists at the label. But they don't help you get your product to market. > Has that in any way affected your art, your music? No, it hasn't at all. I was accused of pandering on Dog Eat Dog - and my manager told Thomas Dolby, who'd been hired as a colourist, to give me colours and get away. And he was comfortable with that, or so he said - but behind my beck, my manager thought that if Thomas was producing it would create some more excitement. And so they negotiated that, and it caused a lot of trouble. And people said that I was selling out or pandering on that record. I wasn't. What people don't know is I was a dancer- I like some disco. I don't belong to any camp. I like a little of this and a little of this and a little of that - and at any moment, I could be inspired to go in any one of those directions. No, I've always kept my painting pure and I've always kept my music pure, that's one thing. No matter how disturbed I've been. My predicament wasn't one in which effort worked any way. I was just shut out, period, ofter the Mingus album. > But, as you said, things have changed significantly since the > Billboard award. Take the Swedish Pobr Music Prise - how exactly > did that came along for you? They're trying to have a kind of Pulitzer Prize for music over there. It's fairly new. McCartney had been a recipient and Quincy Jones, and they have a pop and classical category. > Sounds like a wonderful idea. Yeah, it was fun. I enjoyed the King, I really enjoyed his company, he was a character - kind of a hippy playboy guy. > Had you met any kings before? No. He let me smoke, so that was good. I had to ask his permission, though. He smoked with me. He'd say he had to keep pace with me. So sometimes he'd say yes and sometimes he'd say no. Can I smoke now? "No." Well when can I smoke next? "I'II tell you." And he had a silver cigarette case, and he'd say, "OK, we will smoke now (laughs heartily). - -- TO BE CONTINUED -- ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 23:14:16 EDT From: MP123A321@aol.com Subject: Ethics..Taping The other side of the tape ethic problem: I went to see a very popular and frequently "stealth taped" performer a few years ago. During the middle of the concert I went outside to rest my ears. (and smoke) I saw a sign saying "This concert is being taped for a possible film....blah blah....your presence is consent to be videotaped." (or something with that content) . I never saw this sign when I entered and it was gone by the time I left the show. I did buy a concert video a year later that was commercially released from the performers record company. There are many close up shots of fans through out the entire video, sadly not me. But, what if I do find myself in the audience, on tape? Seems like an ethical problem. I pay to see the artist. They produce a video with fans in it. A hokey consent was posted, I agreed by staying to see show.. Or I can leave and eat the ticket price, miss the show,etc. Some fans will say the price of the ticket includes a consent to have a copy (for the fan) of the performance for personal use. For the record: I have never taped a concert that I attended. I do have tapes of shows I attended that others taped. This thread has gone on and on.....at many other discussion lists...and probably here also. Maurice Ps....glad I didn't post that "Chick Rocker " advice of Chrissie's.....I smelt the flames. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 21:35:53 -0700 (PDT) From: davidmarine@webtv.net (David Marine) Subject: Re: Bootlegs vs Trees (SJC) Brian asked: <> Answer: All three had posted just before you expressing their views about tape trees and bootlegging. At that point no one else had posted regarding the issue (I don't think -- maybe Colin had), so I assumed your comments were directed at them. I in no way meant to speak for any of them (each is eloquent and certainly doesn't need me to forward his opinion, which I would not presume to know anyway). Brian asked: <> Oh, I don't know, I'm probably grinding an axe. I asked myself the same question this evening as I hiked the canyon. In truth, I'm ambivalent about the issue, and maybe that's why my rhetoric sounded agressive to you. Joni's set at the Pauley concert was one of the most extraordinary hours of my existence, and I want a copy of it, you know? On the other hand, I would never want to do a disservice to her. I do consider the ethical questions involved, as I believe others on this list do (including the aformentioned trinity). Please don't take any of this personally. Though I like spirited debate, I don't care for personal attacks, and I did not intend to offend anyone. Peace (please), David ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 23:45:43 -0500 From: "Kevin Fries" Subject: Re: Bootlegs vs Trees (NJC) Just to complicate matters: I was given a CD over a year ago by a friend, because I was leaving Filthadelphia for Dallas, from a company called Kiss The Stone Records. It *was* based in Italy. It's basically bootlegs of live concerts and has quite a catalogue (eight or nine of Neil Young for instance), an list of which was included in the CD in a separate insert. After the current argument started, I decided to look them up on a web site and see if there were any Joni recordings. Lo and behold, no sign of them. So I did some modest research and discovered that the new web site and mailing address was in Singapore (ding, ding, ding go the alarm bells). I got interested and looked up references to them in www.dejanews.com to see what the story was. It appears the original bootlegger folded his tent and either sold his catalogue or had it taken or stolen for whatever reason according to what evidence was given in Dejanews. I will point out that this is either hearsay or circumstantial evidence. The is the reason I say this is that the present company *appears* to have no connection with the previous company. Then it came back to memory that there was a message floated about by a person purporting to be the original founder of KTS saying that his web site was now back up. It does have a recording of Joni called _Just Ice_ (if I remember correctly) from 1994 in Alberta of 48 minutes duration. It apparently is not in stock. This prompts another question. Now if a bootlegger steals(?) from a bootlegger and Joe Blow buys it and gives it away at cost or less, is Joe wrong? This is part of the reason I never charged for tapes or S&H the last tree. Now for the second part that goes back to the original post by Mr. Reese(?). I believe he bought copies and intended to resell them at *cost* (if I'm wrong about this let me know). This *appeared* to be an altruistic motive and was intended to aid others. I don't have the original post by this gentleman or reply, only the bombastic reply sticks in my mind (I also have *two* mailing lists for Oracle software and those are mirrored to my PC and my laptop, it IS my job/career after all and I get about 1200 emails a week) It may well be that he bought the copies to gouge a profit, but I can detect no evidence of this. It may well be that he is in a situation where he has a crappy little PC, a walkman and little else. In short, he may not have a choice and this was the best way he could try to help the group and possibly unaware of other options. He could also be some scumbag trying to make a quick buck. Either way, a little honey and the benefit of the doubt goes a long way to resolving these questions. I love the passion that people exhibit here, I just question whether it is justifiable to devote this much verbiage when something like this occurs. I realize that independent individuals with intelligence populate this group with their own opinions and thoughts (otherwise it would be something like the Vanilla Ice Discussion List *GACK*, hopefully it does not exist) and I enjoy the discussion of disparate ideas, trivia, special offerings and the insight all of you provide. I just think that this could have been dealt with a tad better and I wish I had the time I could devote *every day* to input my opinion. Just my two cents and verbiage. Note: King Crimson just released a double CD of the 1981-84 tour. I have bootlegs of that but I bought this *because* I have the bootlegs. The sound is much better and I'm GLAD I bought it. In short, I got the bootlegs until I could get something that I wanted. If you ever get this or any other live album by KC from DGM, it is noted in the liner notes that KC made this to cut into the bootleg sector by their Digital Global Mobile unit (DGM) , a business spinoff to additionally circumvent the "traditional" practices by record companies. If there is a need, there will always be somebody to fill the need. Please refer to *(DGM's)* business practices also to see a view of the artist and his songs and intellectual property. It appears the artist is getting ripped off by the "conventional" record companies as well. Sorry for the rant and the Devil's Advocate pose, but I've just *finally* caught up with everything and I've had time to speak a small piece of my views. Kevin "Cujo" Fries. ps No grammar police or spelling gestapo encouraged. I'm sure I will get killed. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 22:45:12 -0700 From: Susan Chaloner Subject: Re: Bootlegs "...I am a lawman for the county and I run the same road Searching for another overload..."-??? edited by Yours Truly ;~D - -- Susan L.A. "...Oh, the needle and the damage done..."-Neil Young ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 22:58:18 -0700 From: Susan Chaloner Subject: Throwing Bootlegs from the Train Pretend we are all wearing cut-offs...That way there are no bootlegs...Let's talk about Payola ;~D - -- Susan L.A. "...I play if you have the money or If you're a friend to me..."-JoniM ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 23:08:42 -0700 From: Don Sloan Subject: bootlegs, streetcrime NJC It's fascinating to read the dual crime threads these days. We've got some posts on street crime and others on the legality and morality of bootlegging and distributing music by way of tape trees. Brian posted some thoughts on morality and situational ethics which I believe speak well to both threads. Most people commit criminal acts because they don't view the acts as criminal or *wrong*. Most law-abiding citizens act lawfully not because of the *law* or police but rather due to their moral code of conduct. Most criminals - bootleggers or burglars - are not doing crime because they need to feed their kids. They do crime because in their head it's okay. Most criminals are opportunists; they take advantage of a situation or person in a way that allows them to profit, usually without much effort. That's why, after a point, more cops and prisons won't make a lasting difference. It's true that a bigger force will usually cause a reduction of crime in any given area, but often it's an illusion as criminals frequently move to where the police are not. Case in point is the exportation of blood and crip gang members from L.A. to most large - and many small - cities in the US. The justice system in America is breaking down because most criminals have a world view that allows them to victimize others without remorse. That's a mindset that's hard to change, no matter how much money you throw at it. Don ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Jul 1998 02:40:31 EDT From: IVPAUL42@aol.com Subject: Re: Bootlegs vs Trees (NJC) In a message dated 98-07-19 00:46:38 EDT, Kfries@cyberramp.net writes: << It may well be that he is in a situation where he has a crappy little PC, a walkman and little else. In short, he may not have a choice and this was the best way he could try to help the group and possibly unaware of other options. He could also be some scumbag trying to make a quick buck. >> Regardless of his motives, he and everyone else should learn that this is wrong. And whether it is he or she or someone else who makes the profit of these recordings also matters little. Someone is making undeserved and illegal profits off the artistic enterprises of Joni and hunders of other musicians/artists. Ironic, isn't it, that hyou mention Neil Young as one of this Singapore's company's victims (yes, victims) because Neil has for more thna 20 years now been one of the most outspoken artsts against such illegal bootlegging. Paul I ------------------------------ End of JMDL Digest V3 #264 ************************** Post messages to the list at Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe joni-digest" to ------- Siquomb, isn't she?