From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V1 #187 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, August 7 2001 Volume 01 : Number 187 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [loud-fans] Petty Differences [Miles Goosens ] Re: [loud-fans] big huge giant pseudo-giveaway! [Miles Goosens ] Re: [loud-fans] big huge giant pseudo-giveaway! ["Jeff Downing" ] Re: [loud-fans] Toppermost ["Andrew Hamlin" ] [loud-fans] Jay Farrar (ns) ["Jeff Downing" ] Re: [loud-fans] Jay Farrar (ns) [Miles Goosens ] Re: [loud-fans] Jay Farrar (ns) ["Jeff Downing" ] Re: [loud-fans] big huge giant pseudo-giveaway! ["Andrew Hamlin" ] Re: [loud-fans] Toppermost [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] Re: [loud-fans] Jay Farrar (ns) [Miles Goosens ] RE: [loud-fans] Toppermost [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] [loud-fans] [ns] Wonder Boys [Miles Goosens ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 09:01:31 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Petty Differences At 04:31 PM 8/6/2001 -0400, Michael Bowen wrote: >The annoying thing is that I can think of a couple of artists who filled >the new-Tom-Petty niche very nicely, except neither of them got played on >the radio: Kevin Salem and Matthew Ryan. I have yet to hear Kevin Salem. Matthew Ryan is perhaps the only proof I have that I don't stump for every Nashville-based rock/alt-country act. :-) But my impression of Ryan is mostly based on a showcase he did back in February 1994, where Music Industry Types descended upon his set like flies on a dead possum, and the looks of his 40- (possibly 50-)something drummer had Melissa and I joking about this being a trial taping of "Gregg Allman Presents." Anyway, his actual music was laughably earnest, without being especially memorable from either a songwriting or playing standpoint. There are always people who are blown away by intensity and seriousness, and they went away with "Next Big Thing" aglow in their eyes, but for us, his melodies didn't stick, the lyrics seemed distilled from the most restrictive interpretations of Springsteen and Mellencamp, and he exhibited little of the ability that it takes to pull off music that tries to be that big and all-encompassing. That being said, we haven't bought either of his albums -- largely on the basis of our indifference to that show -- so it's certainly possible that he's grown as an artist over the last seven years. later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 08:49:31 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Petty Differences At 10:00 AM 8/6/2001 -0700, Bradley Skaught wrote: >Sadly, the Tom Petty sound-alikes I'm referring to aren't the ones you've been >waiting for! By sound-alike, I guess I meant that they have all of the same >sonic characteristics as Bad Moon Fever-era Petty without any worthwhile songs >whatsoever. Dull folk-rock with no imagination. Matchbox 20 immediately comes >to mind. That's a similarity I don't hear at all, but maybe Tom has become like Prince, a ubiquitous influence that shades everything in a genre. I guess since Tom Petty sounds, with rare exceptions (like the McGuinnisms of "American Girl"), mostly like Tom Petty, I don't hear much of him in other artists. Next time a Matchbox 20 song comes on, I'll ameliorate my wincing and listen for it. >I wish there more songwriters like Tom Petty on modern rock radio! And did >Eddie Vedder absolutely lay waste to the contemporary rock singer or what? >Man, every other song is delivered in that "I'm swallowing my own head" >voice. Yup, Creed perhaps being the worst currently-popular offender. I still like Pearl Jam, and for that matter NIN, and I'll reiterate my theory that a lot of jibes against these folks have more to do with the flood of third-rate soundalikes that made their sounds inescapable. In other words, 7 Mary 3, Silverchair, Creed, et al in the Vedder-alike category, and Stabbing Westward, Filter, et al, in the NIN category. Actually, it looks like the NIN-alikes are fading from commercial glory, so maybe it'll be OK to like Trent again in a few years. Far better for Reznor to gain some retro cool than this really strange late '80s Hair Metal "cool" that I'm starting to see hipsters embrace, sometimes in irony-free fashion. I kid you not. >By the way, though I'm not generally a fan of meandering mid-90's R&B, I >definitely think that it produced some interesting songwriters--particularly R >Kelly and Babyface. This may be the first sentence I've ever seen that contained both "interesting" and "Babyface." Babyface isn't a patch on Jam/Lewis, and I regard Jam/Lewis as little more than purveyors of cheap Prince knockoffs, so... later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 07:30:35 -0700 From: Steve Holtebeck Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Toppermost Bradley Skaught wrote: > > features Bradley singing a > > version of a Frankie Avalon song > > You know, when you're recording something it seems like just a really great > idea. And then years later you realized it's been _recorded_. Pray my live > version of "Now My Heart Is Full" from Sacramento doesn't end up on one of > your swap tapes. That song wasn't captured, unfortunately, because the length of the set overwhelmed by my minidisc recorder, and the last song wasn't recorded, which made my heart something less than full. > [blah blah blah] > There were of course, the Bacharachs and Robinsons and whatnot, but you > still had "Wooly Bully" and garbage like that--that's barely a song, and I > can guarantee the NSynch/Backstreet catalogs have way more songs of > interesting melodic and structural character than ? & The Mysterians. What?? I truly believe that "Wolly Bully" and "96 Tears" are, culturally speaking, two of the most important musical compositions of the 20th century! They may not be interesting melodically or structurally, but they both mixed garage punk with Latin rhythms, and gave generations of teenage bands the courage to go out and make their own music, so in the canon of importance, they're right up there with "Louie Louie" and "Wild Thing"! I doubt that many of today's generationg have been motivated to form bands after hearing N'Sync or the Backstreet Boys, because unlike the Mysterians or Sam the Sham, those bands are completely pre-fabricated. The Frankie Avalon/Fabian connection is far more apt for those bands. Historically speaking, 2001 is just like 1961, only 40 years later. Steve ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 09:50:21 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: [loud-fans] big huge giant pseudo-giveaway! At 10:21 PM 8/6/2001 -0700, Andrew Hamlin wrote: >"This old world may never change >The way it's been >And all the ways of war >Can't change it back again > >I've been searchin' >For the dolphins in the sea >And sometimes I wonder >Do you ever think of me" > >--from "Dolphins," by Fred Neil, recorded by Neil himself, Tim Buckley, It's >A Beautiful Day, Beth Orton, and others. There's a beautiful version on Billy Bragg's DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME -- along with about twelve other well-done ballads that need more "Sexuality"s or "You Woke Up My Neighborhood"s to balance things out, but anyway, "Dolphins" is one of 'em. later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 09:47:58 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Toppermost At 11:48 PM 8/6/2001 -0500, Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: >The other is that any number of popular artists have proven you don't have >to have a *song* to have a hit: you merely have to have an image. >Producers are skilled at making *sounds* - but not necessarily songs. >Record companies these days are run by folks who could care less whether >they sell records, widgets, or diapers - so long as they sell lots of >them. What I'm about to say requires me to confess that I've seen the WB's POPSTARS -- at least unlike my cousin Rusty, I've resisted buying the album! Why oh why did they pick the atrocious Ivette Sosa and not Camille, Keitha Lynn, or Jean... But anyway, while the demands of turning the audition process into a TV program and the extra marketing required to satisfy both the record company and the WB ratcheted up the deadline pressures a bit beyond what Britney or NSync might have to face, POPSTARS simply brought the "product" nature of these groups into sharper relief. Put five faces in these five slots, hook them up with songs that have already been written and recorded, and then sell sell sell! You could see the three judges and project svengali David Foster weighing whether the girls "fit" the product, rather than being open to altering the product to fit the strengths and personalities of the most talented performers. But that didn't mean that David Foster had to be such an arrogant jerk. His constant bleating about how you "have" to do this or that or "you might as well go back home" made him look like the Bob Knight of record producing. He'd also give the girls little or no useful direction on the front end, then when they began singing and did something that displeased him, he'd tell them to do this or that without explaining *what* it was he wanted or *how* to do it. After five minutes of seeing his behavior on camera, I was wishing that it had been Ben Vereen running his car over Foster's hateful carcass instead of vice-versa. >As to this era's disposable pop being just as good or bad as any >other's...some of them, maybe. But go look at the top 40 for, say, 1972, >or 1965 - and then tell me that the top 40 for 2000 comes close. I think Bradley was making a larger, if (later) carefully hedged, argument, but my whole pro-'90s/'00s teenybopper music comment was simply that these manufactured groups are actually singing real songs -- melody, choruses, verses, bridges, the whole thing, as opposed to the formless goop that choked the charts between 1992 and 1997. Nothing more. In fact, I'm in agreement with you about the decline of top 40. The top 40 has become monochromatic, or at best, bi-chromatic (is that even a word?) - -- it's either all very similar R&B-influenced commercial pop, or in its mid-'90s mode was about 2/3 meandering R&B ballads and 1/3 Vedder-alikes. I've made the point in this space before that even in the '70s -- and I'll go as late as 1980 if pressed -- top 40 was much more diverse. Most of it might have been drivel, sure, but it was *diverse* drivel: easy listening, hard rock, crossover country, novelty songs, reggae, disco, straight-up R&B, '60s holdovers, '50s comebackers, even the odd act from the post-punk world all coexisted on the singles charts and gave top 40 listeners much more of an idea of the diversity of music than today's incredibly targeted, segmented airwaves. >I *might* be capable >of liking stuff in nearly any style or approach to music - but do I have >to? And should I go out of my way to do so, just so I can say "yeah, I've >heard the 1.5 metal albums released last year that don't blatantly insult >my intelligence" - since stupid, doomy or grotesque lyrics & artwork seem >required characteristics for something actually to be rgarded as metal. You don't have to investigate every teenybopper single or every metal album, *but* in genres you don't tend to like, it's where you could let Loud-Fan recommendations sift the gold from the dross instead of you doing the work. If glenn or Brian Block offer a metal recommendation, I might well see a copy at a used store and give it a spin to see if they're onto something I might like. And I'm not going to let my distaste for Iron Maiden cover art keep me from enjoying Van Halen's WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST and FAIR WARNING, AC/DC's POWERAGE and HIGHWAY TO HELL, or the Masters of Reality catalog (I had their first album out just last week and enjoyed the heck out of it). Or ask for examples on tape swaps for a pain-free and no-cost trial... later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 10:12:25 -0500 From: "Jeff Downing" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] big huge giant pseudo-giveaway! During an opening stint for Ron Sexsmith here in Nashville, the lead singer from The Prayer Boat (Emmett something) capped a protracted set with a version of "Dolphins" that was as sweet as Tim Buckley's on "Dream Letter." However, since Emmett sounds more like Tim than Jeff (Buckley) did, and since he used the exact same arrangement, the impact was lessened considerably. It seemed somehow dishonest that he didn't credit Tim along with Fred (chalk it up to the anxiety of influence, I guess). Jeff - ----- Original Message ----- From: Miles Goosens To: Pedantic Turbogeeks Anonymous Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2001 9:50 AM Subject: Re: [loud-fans] big huge giant pseudo-giveaway! > At 10:21 PM 8/6/2001 -0700, Andrew Hamlin wrote: > >"This old world may never change > >The way it's been > >And all the ways of war > >Can't change it back again > > > >I've been searchin' > >For the dolphins in the sea > >And sometimes I wonder > >Do you ever think of me" > > > >--from "Dolphins," by Fred Neil, recorded by Neil himself, Tim Buckley, It's > >A Beautiful Day, Beth Orton, and others. > > There's a beautiful version on Billy Bragg's DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME -- > along with about twelve other well-done ballads that need more "Sexuality"s > or "You Woke Up My Neighborhood"s to balance things out, but anyway, > "Dolphins" is one of 'em. > > later, > > Miles ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 08:27:49 -0700 From: "Bradley Skaught" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Toppermost > They may not be interesting melodically or > structurally That was my whole point, really--that the amazing simplicity of a top 40 pop song isn't a new development. Also, that much of what is dismissed as easily done, and therefore not worthwhile, isn't easily done. > I doubt that many of today's generationg have been > motivated to form > bands after hearing N'Sync or the Backstreet Boys Form bands, probably not--start singing? Absolutely. I remember seeing it with Boyz II Men back in the early 90's--a sudden rush of young kids learning harmony and starting singing groups. I guarantee there are a lots of kids who pursue singing because of acts like NSync. This actually ties into my other rant about musical environment and exposure. It seems that most young R&B singers, when asked who their biggest influences are, will often rattle off a list that includes Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey and similar artists (the smart ones will list Patti Labelle!) They loved singing and were inspired to do so by the hit singles they loved when they were in school. It doesn't matter that they weren't exposed and converted to the "better" music available--they were inspired and were able to realize their musical aspirations based on what they embraced from the radio. The same way that thousands of artists rattle off lists like "Doors, Who, Zeppelin, Joplin" when there's a whole world of potential influences that just didn't get to the surface, or didn't move potential influencees if they did. I'm really done with all this nonsense now, I promise! Flying the "this music is as relatively okay as the relatively okay music of any era" is kind of pathetic, isn't it? Oh well, carry on... B NP Cinerama John Peel Sessions (highly recommended!) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 09:15:23 -0700 From: "Andrew Hamlin" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Toppermost >There were of course, the Bacharachs and Robinsons and whatnot, but you >still had "Wooly Bully" and garbage like that--that's barely a song, and I >can guarantee the NSynch/Backstreet catalogs have way more songs of >interesting melodic and structural character than ? & The Mysterians. Hey watch who you slander there! I play "Wooly Bully" plenty down at the Monkey Pub and would play "96 Tears" ditto if it were actually on the NUGGETS box set. "Barely a song"? They've both got chord changes--more than you can say for certain Beatles and Velvets numbers! I'll also take this opportunity to reiterate that 96 TEARS FOREVER: THE DALLAS REUNION TAPES, by Question Mark and the Mysterians, is my favorite live album of all time, and one of my All-Time Top Ten Albums. And show me the Backstreeter who says he was born on Mars... Despite all this, I still think Bradley's the top and encourage everyone to buy his album, Andy The Return of the Puck? The best Real World rumor floating around cyberspace is that notorious Real World: San Francisco cast member David "Puck" Rainey, he of the "snot rockets" and peanut butter molesting, will appear on the next edition of MTV's Real World/Road Rules Challenge. The show pits cast members of the two reality shows against one another in Fear Factor-like competitions and is set to start shooting in the fall. However, a source tells me the producers are having a hard time getting enough reality TV-weary former castmates to sign on for another go in the fishbowl. Perhaps it's because, with the glut of reality shows now on the air, it's harder to carve out even that 15 minutes of post-RW or RR fame that was possible before all the networks got into the game? Still, provocative as those truly mental Big Brother 2 residents may be, I think Real World is still the best and freshest show of its genre, and Puck, love him or hate him, is still the gold standard of reality show freaks, so let's hope he does indeed sign on again. [--from Kimberly Potts' column at http://entertainment.msn.com/tv/features/072701_tvscoop.asp ] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 11:14:09 -0500 From: "Jeff Downing" Subject: [loud-fans] Jay Farrar (ns) In case there were any Son Volt or Uncle Tupelo fans on the list: - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - ---------- Artemis Records has signed singer/songwriter Jay Farrar. Jay's solo debut "Sebastopol" hits stores September 25 on Fellow Guard/Artemis. "SEBASTOPOL" finds Farrar pushing himself to discover new musical ideas within. Though the new songs are still very much marked by his signature style, he9s now writing with a broader palette. Synthesizers, pianos, sitar-like guitars and rhythms that fall outside the standard 4/4 time are all employed to give his world view new digs. The album was produced by Farrar along with Jon Agnello and mixed by Agnello. The album was recorded in Millstadt, IL, at Jajouka Studios from April - June 2000. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 11:23:25 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Jay Farrar (ns) At 11:14 AM 8/7/2001 -0500, Jeff Downing wrote: >In case there were any Son Volt or Uncle Tupelo fans on the list: >---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >---------- >Artemis Records has signed singer/songwriter Jay Farrar. Jay's solo debut >"Sebastopol" hits stores September 25 on Fellow Guard/Artemis. > >"SEBASTOPOL" finds Farrar pushing himself to discover new musical ideas >within. Is he going all Crimean War on us? wondering if Al Stewart ever sang about the Crimean War, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 12:22:25 -0400 From: "Brett Milano" Subject: [loud-fans] RE: wooly differences **There were of course, the Bacharachs and Robinsons and whatnot, but you still had "Wooly Bully" and garbage like that-- Bite your tongue! "Wooly Bully" is better than anything Bacharach ever wrote...Saw the Lyres do a killer version of it two weeks ago... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 11:30:54 -0500 From: "Jeff Downing" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Jay Farrar (ns) I immediately figured that this was the reference as well, since there are certainly parallels between the siege that inspired The Charge of the Light Brigade and, say, UT's Chickamauga. However, since one of the standout cuts on the album is titled "Barstow," I imagine he's referring to the town in California. With Jay, it's hard to tell. Jeff - ----- Original Message ----- From: Miles Goosens > > > >"SEBASTOPOL" finds Farrar pushing himself to discover new musical ideas > >within. > > Is he going all Crimean War on us? > > wondering if Al Stewart ever > sang about the Crimean War, > > Miles ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 09:53:57 -0700 From: "Andrew Hamlin" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] big huge giant pseudo-giveaway! >> Neil, who also wrote "Everybody's >> Talkin'," a hit for Harry Nilsson, died in Florida on July 7, 2001. > >I hadn't heard about this. How old was he and what did he die of? According to www.fredneil.com, Neil was 65 years old. Cause of death listed as "natural causes," whatever that means. At last the crimson chord cascades, Andy Why do angels have halos? To keep them from having a bad hair day? So they don't need one of those small lamps for reading in bed late at night? The answer is actually odder. Becoming an angel would be quite a feather in anyone's cap, wouldn't it? Well, that's something like what the artists who originally depicted angels had in mind. Many of the customs and much of the iconography of our great religions were adapted from paganism. In the case of angelic halos, the source was sun worship. People who worshipped the sun emulated its rays by wearing rings of feathers on their heads. That would be too tacky for angels, so they were painted with actual rays of light. Then, conversely, why not paint the devil with his head in a cloud? Because it's more important to hold his feet to the fire. [--from EVER WONDER WHY? by Douglas B. Smith] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 12:05:12 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] big huge giant pseudo-giveaway! On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Andrew Hamlin wrote: > >> Neil, who also wrote "Everybody's > >> Talkin'," a hit for Harry Nilsson, died in Florida on July 7, 2001. > > > >I hadn't heard about this. How old was he and what did he die of? > > According to www.fredneil.com, Neil was 65 years old. Cause of death listed > as "natural causes," whatever that means. It's a big cover-up. Ironically, he was attacked by a number of enraged dolphins...something about royalties withheld. - --Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::I suspect that the first dictator of this country will be called "Coach":: __William Gass__ np: John Parish & PJ Harvey _Dance Hall at Louse Point_ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 12:31:48 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Toppermost On Mon, 6 Aug 2001, Bradley Skaught wrote: > > so if you heard a great song on the radio, you could > > buy *just that great song* (and its b-side) > > I wasn't there, obviously, but it seems like i'm always reading about young > kids, smitten by the music, who couldn't afford to buy singles. And I > certainly see enough 13 year olds with 20 dollar bills or, gasp, credit > cards buying up the new hits. So I guess I feel it probably evens out > somehow despite the difference between and album and a single. I tend to > believe that more kids are buying more music now--it's just kind of fully > integrated into the social scene, really. I don't think the last point is correct: isn't there all this talk about how kids are more into videogames and chat rooms than buying music? My point about the "one great song" wasn't really an economic point (although that could be a factor in some cases), it was addressing the frustration of having to pay $20 for two good songs and 70 minutes of filler. CD bloat has made the "filler" phenomenon worse - and yes, albums by singles artists have historically been full of filler, but at least then you could just buy the single, or wait for the best-of. > There were of course, the Bacharachs and Robinsons and whatnot, but you > still had "Wooly Bully" and garbage like that--that's barely a song, and I > can guarantee the NSynch/Backstreet catalogs have way more songs of > interesting melodic and structural character than ? & The Mysterians. This actually gets to the heart of my critcism: say what you will about the "musical quality" of all those one-hit, mid-sixties, garage-punk wonders, but what you hear is what they performed. You very much get the sense that you are hearing a *performance*, and as a result, the spirit of the performers comes through. One of my favorite rock'n'roll moments is when teh singer on the Kingsmen's "Louie Louie" loses count and comes in two bars too early: he starts the first syllable and gets cut off by the drummer playing a hellacious fill to shut him up. An accident - a mistake - - but it damned near makes the record, that moment of ecstatic enthusiasm nearly derailing the performance but instead providing it with a new peak of energy. (Okay, the singer was probably just too drunk to realize. So? No matter what AJ's drinking problem, you think his producers are going to let something like that get through?) If today's disposable pop performances were, in fact, disposable - if a three-minute song took about three minutes to write, three minutes to perform, and that's it - I wouldn't mind, because it's likely that way more of the performers' personalities would come through. Instead, everything's Pro-Tooled and pitch-corrected in a ridiculous fit of hyper-perfectionism...that most people can't even hear. My theory, btw, about why "classic rock" stations are still popular among a lot of people, including young people? (I'm talking about the stations that sound as if it's 1978 - full of that era's disposable chart fodder, Journey, Styx, REO, but also the Who, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, etc.) Because even though these records were by no means live-in-studio performances, the records still consisted of noises made by people playing instruments. Just so no one gets the wrong idea, no, I'm not tottering about in my walker smashing sequencers with a vintage Les Paul - I think those tools can be great in making certain kinds of music. (And the best of them manage to imbue even the most artificial recording processes with their pesonality: Aphex Twin, for example.) But there seems no place in the top 40 for musicians (i.e., people hitting things, strumming them, blowing in them) - including their foibles and mistakes and enthusiasm. And that's the real problem. - --Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::part of your circuit of incompetence:: ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 12:42:18 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Toppermost On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Miles Goosens wrote: > In fact, I'm in agreement with you about the decline of top 40. The top 40 > has become monochromatic, or at best, bi-chromatic (is that even a word?) > -- it's either all very similar R&B-influenced commercial pop, or in its > mid-'90s mode was about 2/3 meandering R&B ballads and 1/3 > Vedder-alikes. I've made the point in this space before that even in the > '70s -- and I'll go as late as 1980 if pressed -- top 40 was much more > diverse. Most of it might have been drivel, sure, but it was *diverse* > drivel: easy listening, hard rock, crossover country, novelty songs, > reggae, disco, straight-up R&B, '60s holdovers, '50s comebackers, even the > odd act from the post-punk world all coexisted on the singles charts and > gave top 40 listeners much more of an idea of the diversity of music than > today's incredibly targeted, segmented airwaves. Right. Again, it comes down to everyone being shoehorned into a demographic, padlocked therein, and not asked to come out until presenting adequate cash to be granted admission to a new cell. > You don't have to investigate every teenybopper single or every metal > album, *but* in genres you don't tend to like, it's where you could let > Loud-Fan recommendations sift the gold from the dross instead of you doing > the work. If glenn or Brian Block offer a metal recommendation, I might > well see a copy at a used store and give it a spin to see if they're onto > something I might like. I've done this, generally to no particular good effect. The problem seems to be that the very qualities that make someone else call something (say) "metal" are qualities that make me not like that music. So if I do like something that, for some reason, someone else calls "metal," I'm probably apt to argue that it isn't metal in the first place. (see: Led Zeppelin.) Oh: and I like Black Sabbath up through either _Sabotage_ or _Sabbath Bloody Sabbath_ (whichever came later). So there. I think the problem is, up to about that point, what the band was doing was setting a template for the metal to follow...and after that point (and this applies to those followers), it began to seem more like a formula than something new. And yes, I know - a zillion metal bands are out there, and they don't sound a whole lot like Sabbath anymore. (Did I mention I can't bear Cookie Monster vocals?) Every once in a while, I'll try - remember I was giving a way a copy of a Metallica album? That was in my collection as a result of one of my periodic attempts to see if there might not be somehting interesting in this metal thing. Aside from a few moments, not really, for me - thus my giving the CD away. - --Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::In terms of the conjunctures of cultures, [LA is] less like a salad bowl ::and more like a TV dinner with those little aluminium barriers keeping ::all the vegetables in their places. __Catherine Ann Driscoll__ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 13:12:44 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Jay Farrar (ns) Jeff Downing said of my Farrar/Crimean War SEBASTOPOL hypothesis: >I immediately figured that this was the reference as well, since there >are certainly parallels between the siege that inspired The Charge of >the Light Brigade and, say, UT's Chickamauga. However, since one >of the standout cuts on the album is titled "Barstow," I imagine he's >referring to the town in California. Or he could be referring to XTC's BLACK SEA. :-) You Might Have Lived in Tennessee Too Long When: you read "UT's Chickamauga" and think "The University of Tennessee *bought* part of the battlefield? And isn't the battlefield just over the Georgia border?" later, Miles, who ate in a Chick-Fil-A in Ft. Oglethorpe, GA, on the way to see Roxy Music in Atlanta ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 14:12:38 EDT From: AWeiss4338@aol.com Subject: [loud-fans] Cowboy Junkies Greatest Hits...please don't buy it I got this from another list. Can't blame them for encouraging bootlegging. This does remind me of Aimee Mann's Ultimate Collection. Andrea > > > > > "Cowboy Junkies - Greatest Hits > > Sometime this month RCA/BMG will be releasing a > > "greatest hits" compilation. > > We have absolutely nothing to do with this release. > > We have not been > > consulted about any details, from the track > > selection to the artwork, and > > were not even given the courtesy of a phone call to > > let us know that this > > release was being scheduled. > > > > This release is a huge insult to us and we ask that > > if you are a fan of the > > band that you please don't buy it. All of the tracks > > on this compilation are > > available on our other studio releases, which are > > available through the Junk > > Store. If you must have these specific tracks in > > this specific order then: > > find them on the Internet, download them for free > > and burn them on to a > > CD....you have our blessing." ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 19:24:48 +0100 From: "Ian Runeckles & Angela Bennett" Subject: RE: [loud-fans] Toppermost Jeffrey says: > The other is that any number of popular artists have proven you don't have > to have a *song* to have a hit: you merely have to have an image. Absolutely. Case in point is current UK chart toppers Atomic Kitten (three leggy Liverpudlian blondes who can't sing worth a damn) who recently had some simpering nonsense at No 1 for about a month. This release is a Bangles cover which I can't remember the name of (shame on me) which is so appallingly done it is untrue. Of course it went straight in at No 1 ahead of Destiny's Child's Bootylicious (which isn't one of their best I think). Oddly, on UK TV's Top of the Pops last week along with the usual ten a penny rappers and chart suspects like Robbie Williams were the Cosmic Rough Riders, kind of Byrdsy/Teenage Fan Club-alikes from Glasgow who can sing and, up to a point, write. Looked well out of place! > As to this era's disposable pop being just as good or bad as any > other's...some of them, maybe. But go look at the top 40 for, say, 1972, > or 1965 - and then tell me that the top 40 for 2000 comes close. As an example of Jeff's point, I mentioned the other week that the "smelly" booklet that comes in the Buffalo Springfield Box Set includes a couple of charts from 66 - here's the KHJ's Boss 30 records in Southern California chart for August 31 1966 You Can't Hurry Love - Supremes Yellow Submarine/Eleanor Rigby - Beatles Cherish - The association Sunny - Bobby Hebb Black is Black - Los Bravos Sunshine Superman - Donovan What Becomes of the Broken Hearted - Jimmy Ruffin Summertime - Billy Stewart See You in September - the happenings Guantanamera - The Sandpipers The Joker Went Wild - Brian Hyland Sunny Afternoon - Kinks Beauty is Only Skin Deep -Temptations Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White - Standells God Only Knows - Beach Boys Land of 1000 Dances - Wilson Pickett Working at The Coal Mine - Lee Dorsey Function at the junction - Shorty Long Make me Belong to You - How sweet It Is - Jr Walker Summer In The City - Lovin Spoonful Last Train to Clarksville - Monkees Reach Out I'll Be There - Four Tops I Couldn't Live Without Your Love - Pet Clark Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing - Buffalo Springfield There Will Never Be Another You - Chris Montez Bus Stop - Hollies Turn Down Day - The Cyrkle Flamingo - Herb Alpert Just Like A Woman - Bob Dylan By my reckoning there are at least 15 stone classic songs in this chart... Ian np The Heavy Blinkers ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 14:36:15 -0400 From: jenny grover Subject: Re: [loud-fans] RE: wooly differences Brett Milano wrote: > > Bite your tongue! "Wooly Bully" is better than anything Bacharach ever > wrote...Saw the Lyres do a killer version of it two weeks ago... Wow! The Lyres are still together? bitchen Jen ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 14:43:42 -0400 From: jenny grover Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Jay Farrar (ns) Miles Goosens wrote: > > You Might Have Lived in Tennessee Too Long When: > you read "UT's Chickamauga" and think "The University of Tennessee *bought* > part of the battlefield? Um.... okay. I guess I lived in North Alabama too long, since my brain at first tried to put the Univ. of TN into that equation. > Miles, > who ate in a Chick-Fil-A in > Ft. Oglethorpe, GA, on the way to > see Roxy Music in Atlanta I love Chick-Fil-A. I think they put honey in the batter. Jen ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 14:24:51 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: RE: [loud-fans] Toppermost On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Ian Runeckles & Angela Bennett wrote: > As an example of Jeff's point, I mentioned the other week that the "smelly" > booklet that comes in the Buffalo Springfield Box Set includes a couple of > charts from 66 - here's the KHJ's Boss 30 records in Southern California > chart for August 31 1966 > > You Can't Hurry Love - Supremes > Yellow Submarine/Eleanor Rigby - Beatles > Cherish - The association > Sunny - Bobby Hebb > Black is Black - Los Bravos > Sunshine Superman - Donovan > What Becomes of the Broken Hearted - Jimmy Ruffin > Summertime - Billy Stewart > See You in September - the happenings > Guantanamera - The Sandpipers > The Joker Went Wild - Brian Hyland > Sunny Afternoon - Kinks > Beauty is Only Skin Deep -Temptations > Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White - Standells > God Only Knows - Beach Boys > Land of 1000 Dances - Wilson Pickett > Working at The Coal Mine - Lee Dorsey > Function at the junction - Shorty Long > Make me Belong to You - > How sweet It Is - Jr Walker > Summer In The City - Lovin Spoonful > Last Train to Clarksville - Monkees > Reach Out I'll Be There - Four Tops > I Couldn't Live Without Your Love - Pet Clark > Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing - Buffalo Springfield > There Will Never Be Another You - Chris Montez > Bus Stop - Hollies > Turn Down Day - The Cyrkle > Flamingo - Herb Alpert > Just Like A Woman - Bob Dylan Furthermore, I can recall the tunes of 22 of these - with one or two I'm not sure of but pretty certain i'd recognize if I heard them. Now here's the thing: I'm 39, and so many of these songs were still being played on AM radio in the late sixties when I was a radio-addicted kid - so that might account for my familiarity with them. But I'm wondering how many of these tracks are familiar to Loudfans younger than 30... I think it would be interesting to look at the charts for the same date 1976, 1986, and 1996 - I know for me, the '76 charts would probably be just as familiar, the '86 doubtful, and the '96 all but unfamiliar, since some time in the '90s my familiarity with chart hits, uh, dropped off the charts. - --Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::PLEASE! You are sending cheese information to me. I don't want it. ::I have no goats or cows or any other milk producing animal! __"raus"__ np: v/a _Why Don't We Do it in the Road?_ (UNCUT magazine Beatles covers comp) ps: did Paul McCartney and Dr. Seuss ever collaborate? "Why don't we do it in the road? / Why don't we do it with a toad? / Why don't we do it in a box? / Why don't we do it with a fox?" - -j ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 14:31:35 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: [loud-fans] [ns] Wonder Boys Finally finished seeing WONDER BOYS on DVD the other night -- our first viewing was sabotaged by a scratched DVD (a rental from Netflix) which hung at the spot where Grady and Crabs are driving up James Leer's parents' driveway, then skipped over to Grady eyeing James and Crabs in the guest bedroom. Melissa and I decided to cut off our viewing there so we could find out for ourselves how they got from point A to point B. Anyway, a replacement disc arrived in due time, and we both enjoyed the movie, as did my visiting stepmom (she even asked who it was singing during the opening credits -- I braced myself for an anti-Dylan rant from my classical-only stepmom, but instead she said she liked "Things Have Changed" and wanted to purchase the soundtrack). Some hopefully spoiler-free observations: * We'll join the chorus of folks who said that if Michael Douglas deserved a Best Actor nomination, it should have been for WONDER BOYS rather than TRAFFIC. We don't mean that as a knock on TRAFFIC at all, rather it's that Douglas' TRAFFIC role was smaller and more Michael-Douglas-standard-issue-authority-figure stuff. As WONDER BOYS' Grady Tripp, we -- and possibly Douglas himself -- actually forgot that he was MICHAEL DOUGLAS, he was doing such a convincing job of being the character. I can't think of a better Michael Douglas performance. * Toby Maguire also turned in Oscar-worthy work as James Leer. * This is the only time in human history that I've found Katie Holmes to be luminous and attractive. For now, I'm giving props to director Curtis Hanson and his costuming, makeup, and lighting people -- from what little I've seen of DAWSON'S CREEK, I haven't been impressed with her. Ironically, when we switched off the DVD and turned the cable feed back on, Katie Holmes was on the screen in an SNL rerun, turning in a stiff performance in a DAWSON'S CREEK parody (a skit smoked by TALK SOUP's "Dawson's Crack") and looking mousy and too thin, i.e., exactly what had been my impression of her up through seeing WONDER BOYS. * Speaking of Hanson, on the DVD special features (they're about the Pittsburgh locations and the music, there's no director's commentary on the film itself), it was weird to see that he was obviously reading word-for-word from a script rather than simply talking off the cuff or with the aid of notes. Is he that uncomfortable in an interview situation? * Our only disappointment was with the final scene, in which the cleaned-up Grady Tripp turns out to be Michael Douglas after all. stop calling me Vernon, Miles ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V1 #187 *******************************