From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V1 #118 Reply-To: loud-fans@smoe.org Sender: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk loud-fans-digest Tuesday, June 12 2001 Volume 01 : Number 118 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [loud-fans] music of sound [Tim_Walters@digidesign.com] Re: [loud-fans] sound of music [Dana L Paoli ] Re: [loud-fans] sound of music [=?iso-8859-1?q?Stef=20Hurts?= ] RE: [loud-fans] sound of music [bbradley@namesecure.com] Re: [loud-fans] mumbling in the kudzu [Tim_Walters@digidesign.com] Re: [loud-fans] mumbling in the kudzu [Dana L Paoli ] Re: [loud-fans] mumbling in the kudzu ["Joseph M. Mallon" ] [loud-fans] NY Times article on Outsider music (long) [Carolyn Dorsey I *think* that the above means that you agree with me: that "music" is >defined by the people with the power to define it (in the above examples >they would be record store owners, music prize judges, curricula >directors, and the hoi polloi). I don't think these people are defining music. I think they're taking it for granted--rightly or wrongly--that they understand what music is without a definition. Their practice builds up a (non-exhaustive) set of examples of music, but none of non-music. They supply us with sufficient conditions, but not necessary ones. >The only reason that that's important is >that it means that we shouldn't be asking *what* music is, but rather >*who* is defining it, and to what purpose. I like the "what purpose" part. When someone says, "Hey, this party needs a little music," I have no problem with the fact that Stockhausen doesn't qualify. What I find to be misguided are attempts to come at some Platonic essence of music that is (a) intended to apply in all situations and (b) based purely on form, rather than function. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 18:40:18 -0400 From: Dana L Paoli Subject: Re: [loud-fans] sound of music i have foolishly thought that as a humble member of this list that my opinion was allowed to be publicly expressed on topics which i did not begin. i have vainly expected a crumb of respect and consideration. i am so covered in the filth of my iniquities as to have thought that i have no reason to lie and say that i am wrong when i don't feel that i am. and i have equally been mistaken in thinking that trying to redress a post in which i was wrong would bring me something other than a snide remark. i am off to tie myself up in a sack-cloth bag and smite myself with a rod. >>>>>>>>>> Maybe you and Mark can form a support group. - --dana ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 00:07:56 +0100 (BST) From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Stef=20Hurts?= Subject: Re: [loud-fans] sound of music Damn, every time I see a message with this title, I hope to read something about Julie Andrews... - -Stef Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 16:26:34 -0700 From: bbradley@namesecure.com Subject: RE: [loud-fans] sound of music i thought it was gonna be about moulin rouge. which i finally saw. still haven't figured out if i liked it or not. i think i did. i think it was supposed to be one big absinthe trip. having never tried absinthe, i'm not so sure. now if i could just find some real everclear, i'd have that problem solved. and an ehrlenmeyer flask. i think the only word for moulin rouge is 'saturated'. either that or 'the longest string of quotes from bad songs ever strung together.' - -- brianna bradley web designer, web ops http://namesecure.com IT ALL STARTS WITH A WEB ADDRESS tel: 925.609.1101 x206 fax: 925.609.1112 "The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing." Cole's Axiom http://startrekonice.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 20:35:57 -0400 From: popanda@juno.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] sound of music > Maybe you and Mark can form a support group. > > --dana Now why'd you have to go and drag me into this? I was just happily minding my own business, playing with my new mullet book bag (it was a tempting toss-up between this one and the "Hello Kitty" one). Don't reinforce my persecution complex! M ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 20:46:20 -0400 From: popanda@juno.com Subject: [loud-fans] mumbling in the kudzu I was listening to the Chronic Town ep in the car today. I haven't listened to this album in about ten or more years. I got sick of it after the first 1000 times I listened to it in the eighties. I just want to know something. What the hell is Mike Mills (is it Mike?) saying/singing in the background of "Wolves, Lower"? "I'll send an order"? "I'll say in order?" Anyone? Even on really good speakers off CD in my car's good acoustics, I cannot make it out. Bet they never imagined some chunky pop freak would be wondering about this twenty years down the line. - -M np The Blue Aeroplanes BEATSONGS "Help her to keep the right company, because life is a limited business" (the self-made flyer parodying '80s British Public Service billboards in Morrissey's "Interesting Drug" video) ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 16:56:00 -0700 From: Steve Holtebeck Subject: Re: [loud-fans] sound of music Stef Hurts wrote: > > Damn, every time I see a message with this title, I hope to read something > about Julie Andrews... I keep thinking of the dB's myself. Speaking of which, I saw the Continental Drifters this weekend (first show in San Francisco since 1993) and they were really great, two plus hours of pure entertainment well within anyone's definition of "music", and anyone who's within a reasonable distance of the shows listed at: http://www.continentaldrifters.com/dates.htm should definitely check them out! Steve ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 16:53:53 -0700 From: bbradley@namesecure.com Subject: RE: [loud-fans] sound of music <> alrighty then.... http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Drive/4406/hk_vibrator.htm and, to my credit, yes, i have something to say about definitions of hte word 'music' et al, but i have not the presence of mind at this point to elaborate. maybe tomorrow. einsturzende neubaten is god. music is arbitrary. - -- brianna bradley ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 16:57:30 -0700 From: Tim_Walters@digidesign.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] mumbling in the kudzu >What the hell is Mike Mills (is it Mike?) >saying/singing in the background of "Wolves, Lower"? "I'll send an >order"? "I'll say in order?" Anyone? If it's the part I'm thinking of, I always heard it as "house in order." But I wouldn't be surprised to find out it was something else. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 20:09:12 -0400 From: Dana L Paoli Subject: Re: [loud-fans] mumbling in the kudzu Mark: What the hell is Mike Mills (is it Mike?) >saying/singing in the background of "Wolves, Lower"? "I'll send an >order"? "I'll say in order?" Anyone? Even on really good speakers >off CD in my car's good acoustics, I cannot make it out. >>>>>>>>>>>> I always heard "house in order" but have no idea what he's really saying. Now why'd you have to go and drag me into this? >>>>>>>>>>>> Sorry!! - --dana ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 17:13:13 -0700 (PDT) From: "Joseph M. Mallon" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] mumbling in the kudzu On Mon, 11 Jun 2001 popanda@juno.com wrote: > I was listening to the Chronic Town ep in the car today. I haven't > listened to this album in about ten or more years. I got sick of it > after the first 1000 times I listened to it in the eighties. I just want > to know something. What the hell is Mike Mills (is it Mike?) > saying/singing in the background of "Wolves, Lower"? "I'll send an > order"? "I'll say in order?" Anyone? Even on really good speakers off > CD in my car's good acoustics, I cannot make it out. Bet they never > imagined some chunky pop freak would be wondering about this twenty years > down the line. I believe it's "House in order". Calling out in transit, J. Mallon ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 22:19:00 -0700 From: Carolyn Dorsey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] yikes...it's Bibi Larry Tucker wrote: > Bibi is currently on tour with Richard Lloyd and Steve Wynn > as a member of Lloyd's band. > > -Larry Chris Butler is on tour with R. Lloyds band too. Chris has recently finished a new record called The Best of Kilopop and I recommend it because it's good and I like it! It's a mix of great pop songs written by him, with Carla Murray on most vocals. There's a cover of The Shaggs song "Who are Parents?", a Raymond Scott song called Coming Back Down to Earth that he wrote the lyrics for, and a fifties-ish beat sounding song called Red Drinks plus many other good songs. In a way he reminds me of Scott Miller, having a pop sensibility but trying to push ahead with other ideas that don't fall in the catchy pop song realm. http://www.nutscape.com/ChrisButler/ffm.htm Carolyn ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 22:29:42 -0400 From: Dana L Paoli Subject: [loud-fans] unpacking, free thing, no music I finally got around to unpacking my speakers tonight, after nearly a month. Lately, there were just too many other things to do, so I've been settling for listening through Shari's little computer speakers or on headphones. The inaugural play was a copy of the Go Betweens "Able Label Singles" which I picked up today. I really liked the songs, and was surprised to learn that Simon Fisher Turner's "Lee Remick" was a cover. I've been trying for years to get into the Go Betweens, and though I'm sure I'll eventually get there, it hasn't happened yet. I think that the singles are my favorite thing by them so far, so maybe a chronological investigation is in order. Anyway, I was a little disappointed by the sound quality, and was wondering if my speakers were out of phase or something, or if they didn't actually sound as good as I remembered, or if the acoustics of the basement room were bad. I have the Boston Acoustics Sub-Sat 6, which is (I think) a good low end system, but I've never really had a good room to play it in. The next thing up was Radiohead's "Amnesiac" which I've been enjoying for a few weeks on the little speakers/headphones. And Oh My God, I feel like I've been watching "Gone With the Wind" on a black and white 13" screen. Say what you will about Radiohead (I like 'em lately, others don't), but this album is a sonic monster on good speakers, and there's just no comparison to hearing it on headphones. I'm listening to it now, and while the initial shock has worn off, I'm still pretty stunned by the detail on this thing. I urge anyone with the means to put "Amnesiac" on the good stereo and crank the volume. My poor tenants!! (God, I just love saying that!!) So, the other matter of business is that I also unpacked my records. Last week I finally found a copy of the Orchids' "Epicurean" on CD, after years of looking. I don't like selling vinyl on eBay (too many picky people) so I'll give my old vinyl copy (it's a double LP) to the first person interested. The usual suspects should not apply -- I'd like to branch out a little. - --dana ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 23:04:25 -0400 (EDT) From: dmw Subject: Re: [loud-fans] mumbling in the kudzu On Mon, 11 Jun 2001 Tim_Walters@digidesign.com wrote: > >What the hell is Mike Mills (is it Mike?) > >saying/singing in the background of "Wolves, Lower"? "I'll send an > >order"? "I'll say in order?" Anyone? > > If it's the part I'm thinking of, I always heard it as "house in order." But I > wouldn't be surprised to find out it was something else. i always thought it was house OUT OF order, and have wondered for years if it was allusion to the julio cortazar short story of the same name. it doesn't really sound like "out of" though, does it? house in AN order? >> listening holy cow, it *is* four syllables <-- dmw admits he's wrong; 6 words. good thing i didn't place a large denomination bet on that. amazing all the stuff that went down at the drive in. is that a snippet from "day in the life" at the end of the break? sounds almost like it. - -- d. np "chronic town" and Wolves in the house, tonight, too. (not at the door, but they had to have been at the door at some point in the evening). (i'm not kidding, but the Wolves in question aren't canine.) = i do what i am told. i am not opinionated. i accept without | dmw@ = questioning. i do not make a fuss. i am a good consumer. |radix.net = pathetic-caverns.com * fecklessbeast.com * shoddyworkmanship.net ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 23:21:17 -0700 From: Carolyn Dorsey Subject: [loud-fans] NY Times article on Outsider music (long) The Langley Schools Music Project described below is pretty cool. I think alot of people on this list will like it. Irwin Chusid produced it for first commercial issue. Carolyn June 10, 2001 The Untamed Sounds of 'Outside Music' By JOE HAGAN LAST month, I heard David Bowie's 1969 glam-rock classic "Space Oddity" as if for the first time. I'd heard the song on the radio before, of course; however, coming as it did, not from Mr. Bowie but from a choir of elementary school kids in a remote farm community in northern Canada, this was something new. Orchestrated in the late 1970's by a hippie music teacher named Hans Fenger, the scratchy recording sounded like a document of a clandestine event, as if Mr. Bowie's song had been co-opted for a cult ceremony. The instrumentation included electric guitar and the gamelan-like chimes invented for children by the composer Carl Orff. The lyric of the song's wayward astronaut, "For here/ Am I sitting in my tin can/ Far above the moon," never resonated so genuinely. Indeed, the album from which the song comes, "Innocence and Despair" (Basta Audio-Visuals 3091102), by the Langley Schools Music Project, exists outside just about everyone's cultural radar. Mysterious and haunting in its hermetic vision, the album, which will be released in the fall, also includes renditions of Wings' "Band on the Run" and the Eagles' "Desperado" (the latter sung by a 9-year-old girl). It is a discovery recently classified as "outsider music" by Irwin Chusid, the music archivist and disc jockey on WFMU in Jersey City. Unlike outsider art, a label for much that is also called folk art, outsider music isn't necessarily related to folk music. It includes Jack Mudurian, a garbled-voiced 72-year- old who was recorded at his retirement home singing 129 Broadway standards in their entirety, a cappella and nonstop, in a single 44-minute take. But outsider music, as a catchall for odds and ends that are naove to the idea of "good" music and its techniques, serves a purpose similar to that of its visual cousin. In a time when music fans are long past lamenting an uninspired music industry, the uncalculated sounds of outsiders are perhaps the last outpost for those jaded listeners, who yearn for a sonic Shangri-La thought to have perished long ago. Outsider music has mainly been the frontier of record collectors and inquisitive rock stars like Frank Zappa, who is credited with championing the work of an awkward three-sister garage band from the early 1970's called the Shaggs. Part of the appeal lies in the group's story: an obsessed father in a small New Hampshire town forces his daughters to take up rock instruments and emulate the Beatles, despite an obvious lack of talent. The tale was chronicled in The New Yorker last year, and the rights to a movie version have been acquired by Artisan Studios. Bonnie Raitt, quoted on the 1988 reissue of the Shagg's album, "Philosophy of the World" a jarringly odd record of nonrhythmic, atonal songs about values and parental love described them as "castaways on their own musical island." The Shaggs are among 26 outsiders included in a book and accompanying CD written and produced by Mr. Chusid, entitled "Songs in the Key of Z: The Curious Universe of Outsider Music." The CD (Which? Records WHI2367) also showcases a gay country singer named Peter Grudzien who yodels about gays in the military; an African-American school teacher named B. J. Snowden who sings a tone-deaf and earnest anthem called "In Canada" ("In Canada, they treat you like a queen/ In Canada, they never will be mean"); and a Swedish Elvis impersonator named Eilert Pilarm whose hapless slurring of "Jailhouse Rock" so distorts the original, it boggles the mind with its originality. In addition, it features Daniel Johnston, a touchstone of the genre, singing "Walking the Cow," an exquisite organ melody with a soulful lyric about the healing effects of walking a cow. A heavyset 40- year-old with a childlike voice and a fragile philosophical muse owing partly to a continuing struggle with mental illness Mr. Johnston is considered something of a pop luminary by indie rock cognoscenti. His disarmingly honest performance at Tonic in Manhattan last month was received with silent awe by a typically aloof downtown crowd. Erik Lindgren, the founder of Arf! Arf! Records, which released Mr. Mudurian's record, "Downloading the Repertoire" (AA- 057), said that the test of outsider music was simple: does it have the power to elicit a response like "What were they thinking?" from slack-jawed listeners? Interestingly, many critics had a similar reaction when they assessed the recently unearthed "Anthology of American Folk Music," a collection of raw 1920's and 30's regional music compiled in the 1950's by an archivist named Harry Smith. As the author Geoffrey O'Brien wrote in 1998 in The New York Review of Books, reviewing that collection and measuring its sounds against the squeaky-clean folk revival of the 1950's: "What folk were these? The mood was not necessarily either collective or warm; more often it conveyed isolation, fear, even madness." Performers like Bascom Lamar Lunsford, who bleated "I wish I was a mole in the ground" while plucking a monotonous banjo line, exhibited what Mr. O'Brien called an "almost freakish individuality." Wistfully, he concluded: "Go back as far as possible and you find already only an echo of some unknowable music, wilder and richer." Like Mr. O'Brien, those of us searching for a thread of that rich, unknowable music often lament the loss of some idyllic and un- self-conscious world. Whether it ever existed as we conceive it is debatable. But with our well-documented musical canon and codified entertainment industry, it's hard to imagine discovering anything akin to Lunsford in the present day. Over the years, critical listening has been a constant exercise in finding a new, supposedly authentic sound, typically from those viewed as outsiders. In the mid-80's, progressive pop stars glommed on to non-Western, indigenous sounds. You could almost hear them thinking, "Surely the purity of these people has not yet been ruined by television." Then came alternative rock and its nobler strain, indie rock, with its willfully amateur aesthetic and cheap recording techniques reminiscent of, well, the Shaggs. And recently one sees the fetishizing of mid- period Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, when he was himself something of an outsider suffering bouts of mental illness. Enter outsider music, made by those who appear to have slipped between the cracks of glossy modernity, taking with them that desperately yearned-for authenticity. They seem to confirm the existence of something like the long-lost regional, the agrarian and, ultimately, the utopian. At least for the listener. After all, the performers themselves are often isolated by psychosis, senility or an unusual naovete that rarely serves them in workaday life. Certainly none of them sells records in any significant quantity. For that reason, it's a delicate effort for outsider enthusiasts to avoid the taint of exploitation with some of these artists. Consider Wesley Willis, a schizophrenic who rants about McDonald's and World Federation Wrestling over karaoke-style music. Is this a folk art gem or just awful music? Devotees of outsider music like to say that this music is "so bad, it's good." Maybe that's just postmodern relativism come full circle. Maybe it's ironic condescension to people who are less than savvy. But considering the heartless stuff heard on modern radio, outsider music also offers a mysterious and therefore refreshing reprieve from the glare of entertainment culture. Doug Stone, a friend of mine who is making a documentary about Ms. Snowden, recently recalled the first time he heard another outsider, Shooby Taylor, a scat singer who babbles as if he's speaking in tongues over jazz accompaniment. Mr. Stone offered this: "It was like a drug. I couldn't stop laughing. I thought it was genius. Does that make it inauthentic? I'm responding to it; he's teaching me something. I'm laughing out of joy. He's not an idiot; he's just really weird!" It's that arresting weirdness that suggests the rare but abiding presence of mystery, a music not only wilder and richer but very much alive. Home | Back to Arts | Search | Help Back to Top Post a Job on NYTimes.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 21:22:06 -0700 From: "Andrew Hamlin" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] unpacking, free thing, no music >So, the other matter of business is that I also unpacked my records. >Last week I finally found a copy of the Orchids' "Epicurean" on CD, after >years of looking. I don't like selling vinyl on eBay (too many picky >people) so I'll give my old vinyl copy (it's a double LP) to the first >person interested. The usual suspects should not apply -- I'd like to >branch out a little. I know I'm the usual suspects, but let me know if you're so inclined and/or nobody else shows interest. After all, you've already got a vinyl mailer for the Fowley! Andy ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 00:14:00 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] sound of music On Mon, 11 Jun 2001, Dana L Paoli wrote: > other than a snide remark. i am off to tie myself up in a sack-cloth > bag and smite myself with a rod. > >>>>>>>>>> > Maybe you and Mark can form a support group. I feel a song coming on...sort of a Brady Bunch kind of feel...nah, forget it. - -j ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V1 #118 *******************************