From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V1 #275 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 Saturday, October 20 2001 Volume 01 : Number 275 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [loud-fans] Books: Genre Hair-splitting [Richard Gagnon ] [loud-fans] other imports (ns) [Dana L Paoli ] [loud-fans] Shout-out to Brianna! ["Andrew Hamlin" ] Re: [loud-fans] Books: Genre Hair-splitting [Tim_Walters@digidesign.com] [loud-fans] some Hoslapple bits... ["Larry Tucker" ] [loud-fans] jazz butcher (ns) [Dana L Paoli ] Re: [loud-fans] The Strokes [Dana L Paoli ] Re: [loud-fans] The Strokes [JRT456@aol.com] Re: [loud-fans] The Strokes [AWeiss4338@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 12:01:34 -0400 From: Richard Gagnon Subject: [loud-fans] Books: Genre Hair-splitting >Tim wrote: >At the risk of appearing monomaniacal, I feel compelled to point out >that every one of those authors except for Wellman (whose career >came too early) has won at least one Hugo award, and was read only >by SF fans for years before being discovered outside the genre. >(Note that the Hugo is a fan award, the Nebula being the more >"literary" writers' award.) All are mainstays of the SF canon, not >some kind of fringy exception. >I can understand why people don't like SF, or only like the >occasional book, but >I can't understand why people cling to a stereotypical view of SF >("machines and >ciphers") that hasn't had any validity for at least fifty years, and never had >that much in the first place; nor why they refuse the pay the genre >the minimal >courtesy of judging it by its best examples. No one would claim that Raymond >Chandler didn't really write mysteries just because he concentrated on his >characters and settings as much as on crime, but the equivalent claim is >downright fashionable when it comes to SF. Well, I know exactly what you mean, and that snobbery is very real. Still, I don't really care for science fiction in general, especially the "writing an entire story just for the chance to make a lame, geeky pun" subgenre (Isaac Asimov, among others), the "war, war, war" subgenre, featuring Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, the "hard" science fiction, mostly written by engineers and science teachers, which I respect but wouldn't be caught dead reading. Of course, the man at the heart of all these genres, Robert Heinlein, must be mentioned (well, he probably didn't write stories to make lame puns). (My apologies to Asimov fans...he wrote worthy stuff, I know, but I find his non-fiction a lot more engaging than his science fiction). Not that these guys are considered giants of science-fiction, not its fringe or its runts. What I do like (and what I tried to get across) is more descended from Edgar Allan Poe and Guy De Maupassant than Stanley Weinbaum (whose "A Martian Oddysey" is generally held to be the first modern science-fiction story); Weird tales not, science-fiction. In the states, the genre never sold (even the fabled pulp mag, Weird Tales, barely clung to life for all its years). Many of its best practicioners had to write science fiction to make a living. I'm not interested in Fritz Leiber's "The Wanderer", I'm interested in his "Night's black agents" and "Our Lady of Darkness"; I don't care for Theodore Sturgeon's "More than Human" or "The Cosmic Rape"...I like his "Some of your blood" and "The Other Celia" and "The Graveyard Reader". I'd really like to see in what way Manly Wade Wellman's "Silver John" are science fiction. Ray Bradbury's best stuff is his early, often nasty tales, before he got all soft and squishy. "The October Country" (a reshuffled variation of his first book, "Dark Carnival"; DC was even better, imho) is unsurpassed in his oeuvre, IMHO. It isn't really "horror" that genre ruined by Stephen King (though he has his moments; he *has to*, with that quantity of verbiage), Dean Koontz, Peter Straub and their ilk. That genre has one good writer, Dan Simmons (also one of science fiction's best). It's not the same thing, though. Neither is it "Fantasy", dominated as it is by fourth-rate Tolkien, Robert Howard and C.S. Lewis ripoffs, with even more space devoted to lame puns and unicorns. I *will* admit to snobism here. To me, this stuff is all endless serials for D&D fanatics. Ugh. (yeah, yeah, Peter Beagle and Mervyn Peake...exceptions, that's all and what, twelve books between them?) "A fine myth", indeed. It's called, in Europe (well, Belgium and France) "Fantastique"; it actually sells over there, so it's easier to find the best weird tales of Sturgeon, Leiber, Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, Lafferty, Charles Beaumont, along with superb Belgian (well, Flemish) writers Jean Ray and Thomas Owen, and a whole lot more. In the States, collections of the stuff get released occasionally by specialized presses in print runs of 250 to 3000...often lovely, but depressingly unpopular. It's easy to see why many of these writers had to turn to science fiction writing to make a living. Anyway, that's what I like, not science fiction, although Philip K. Dick is sf at its finest, but he's pretty unique, which is not like saying he's the only good science fiction writer. It's just not my bag. Doug wrote: >the same snobbery often seems to apply to anything derived from a creative >culture that was popularist, rather than exclusivist, any time in this >century, regardless of the level of technical sophistication or artistic >ambition. Eg., still plenty of places around that consider "classical" >music serious, "pop" music trivial -- and there are plenty that still try >to shoehorn "jazz" into "pop!" And some that try to pass "pop" as "jazz", to earn prestige and credibility (the execrable Holly Cole comes to mind). The other Dan chips in: >Agreed. The Bernie Rhodenbarr books are great fun. The only criticism I >have of them is the same criticism you voice later in your post vis-a-vis >the Nero Wolfe novels- namely, you read one, you read 'em all, plot-wise. That's what I keep saying, but I didn't want to repeat myself, unlike Block. Speaking of which, Stewart wrote: >As for the Scudder books, when they're good, they're the best things Block >has ever written. I'm specifically thinking of WHEN THE SACRED GINMILL >CLOSES and EIGHT MILLION WAYS TO DIE. But a lot of the Scudder books feel >to me like he's going through the motions. I know it's how you feel about them, but, I'm curious, which ones do you think are lesser books? They just seem (to me) from Ginmill and on, to get better with time, as the characters are developed further, especially Scudder's irish mobster best friend. The last two, "Even the Wicked" and "Everybody dies" were especially fine and satisfying. (doug? what do *you* think?) Okay, enough before I take up a whole digest by myself... Rick ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 12:17:32 -0400 From: Dana L Paoli Subject: [loud-fans] other imports (ns) That bit about the Cotton Mather CD's import-only status reminds me... Things are definitely strange in th UK this year. Not only are they going ape over a bunch of American garage bands who range from crappy to competent, but they're doing a really half hearted job of exporting their own better bands. I read that the Divine Comedy's great "Regeneration" will finally come out in the US sometime next month (if memory serves), but I'm very confused by a recent email from the Super Furry Animals. Their email update today says: The international release date for the "Rings Around The World" album has finally beeen set for the 28th of January 2002. Originally, this album was showing up on CDNOW for pre-orders, but at some point it vanished. The above seems to imply a release of 1/28/02 (a pretty deadly release date) but the subject of the email refers only to a "European RATW release date" and, since the US isn't in Europe, it seems possible that they've just decided to skip us entirely? I just don't know. Fans of the band with little patience should know that, while the import is really expensive, this is very possibly the Furries' best (or at least most interesting) CD to date. I don't regret in the slightest giving an alarming amount of money to Virgin last month for the privilege of hearing it. It's frustrating, though, when major labels are putting off US releases to such an extent. Neither the Furries nor the Divine Comedy are really "indie" bands, by any definition of the word, at this point. And both of their albums are shoo-ins for my top ten of '01. Another UK band w/a low US profile is Brave Captain, which is essentially the Boo Radleys. While their '01 release "nothing lives long, he sang, only the earth and the mountains" did come out in the US on Thirsty Ear, it seems to have really disappeared. I pulled it out again for the first time in months, the other day, and was pleased to find that it still sounds great. "Is that Paul McCartney" asked my wife, and I see her point: you could definitely make a case for this as a modern version of "Ram" with pop going off on strange tangents and a vaguely homemade vibe. Also, the album thankfully lacks the noisy elements that detracted from some of the Boo Radleys' albums. What with all the events of this year, I almost forgot about it, but it's another top tenner. - --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/web/. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 10:16:27 -0700 From: "Andrew Hamlin" Subject: [loud-fans] Shout-out to Brianna! I got your last e-mail, but your namesecure account appears to have been hosed. Get in touch on or offlist! Thirteen days to Lester Bangs (I'll worry about forty if I have to), Andy Q: Did you go into all of this with skepticism? A: Yes, but I am Canadian. I told people that I was going to approach it with an open-minded Canadian skepticism. Canadians are a circumspect, prudent people. I told myself to take this stuff seriously, try to be respectful, do not preclude any possibilities whatsoever and be prepared for anything. After all, what do I know? But when people are telling me that they'd just been raped by succubi and incubi the night before or that they were inhabited by 1,001 demons, I knew not to take it at face value. - --Michael W. Cueno, author of AMERICAN EXORCISM: EXPELLING DEMONS IN THE LAND OF PLENTY; from an interview with Suzy Hansen at http://www.salon.com/books/int/2001/10/16/exorcism/index.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 13:36:27 -0700 From: Tim_Walters@digidesign.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Books: Genre Hair-splitting >Well, I know exactly what you mean, and that snobbery is very real. >Still, I don't really care for science fiction in general, especially >the "writing an entire story just for the chance to make a lame, >geeky pun" subgenre (Isaac Asimov, among others), the "war, war, war" >subgenre, featuring Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, the "hard" >science fiction, mostly written by engineers and science teachers, >which I respect but wouldn't be caught dead reading. Of course, the >man at the heart of all these genres, Robert Heinlein, must be >mentioned (well, he probably didn't write stories to make lame puns). >(My apologies to Asimov fans...he wrote worthy stuff, I know, but I >find his non-fiction a lot more engaging than his science fiction). >Note that these guys are considered giants of science-fiction, not its >fringe or its runts. For what it's worth, I don't like any of those things either (except for some early Heinlein such as "The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag", which is a "weird tale", come to think of it). At least Heinlein had some skill; Asimov's fiction is nearly incompetent. But these, as you say, are just subgenres. I don't like "classic" locked-room puzzler mysteries that much, but that doesn't mean I don't like mysteries. I think part of our disagreement (aside from taste differences) is that I don't separate SF from fantasy as much as you do, at least in the pulp period. The two genres were, to a large extent, written and read by the same people, and Hugos and Nebulas were awarded to both. It's only since the success of Tolkien that the two have started to drift apart. Since most of my favorite stuff (Wolfe, Crowley, Disch) has elements of both, I tend to focus on what they have in common more than on their differences. Furthermore, even in that period there was a lot going on outside the ghetto walls. Weinbaum may have kicked off a revolution in the SF magazines, but roughly contemporaneous books like Stapledon's SIRIUS and ODD JOHN seem much more modern and readable now. To me, the pulp style was an important strain of SF, but by no means an ideal or exemplar. >Many of its best >practicioners had to write science fiction to make a living. I'm not >interested in Fritz Leiber's "The Wanderer", I'm interested in his >"Night's black agents" and "Our Lady of Darkness"; I don't care for >Theodore Sturgeon's "More than Human" or "The Cosmic Rape"...I like >his "Some of your blood" and "The Other Celia" and "The Graveyard >Reader". I don't believe for a microsecond that either Leiber or Sturgeon wrote SF just to make a living. For starters, at that time there was hardly more living to be made in the style you don't like than in the style you do. If anything, the opposite; writers like John Collier and Ray Bradbury were able to sell to the slicks. My recollection is that when Sturgeon needed money, he wrote pornography, and the same is true of a lot of SF authors. Some (Bester, Asimov) abandoned the genre for greener pastures. I can understand your preferences--and even agree, somewhat, in the case of Leiber, although he did write the outstanding and completely SFnal "Ship of Shadows"--but I think you'll agree that MORE THAN HUMAN and THE WANDERER are about people, not machines or ciphers. And we're still talking about fifty-year-old stuff. It's as if we were evaluating rock without listening to anything later than Chuck Berry. In 2001, virtually all science fiction has more emphasis on character than even the "softest" science fiction of 1951. As I've stated earlier, this is a mixed blessing. >Neither is it "Fantasy", dominated as it is by >fourth-rate Tolkien, Robert Howard and C.S. Lewis ripoffs, with even >more space devoted to lame puns and unicorns. I *will* admit to >snobism here. To me, this stuff is all endless serials for D&D >fanatics. Ugh. (yeah, yeah, Peter Beagle and Mervyn >Peake...exceptions, that's all and what, twelve books between them?) There are quite a few more exceptions than that, but I'd be the last to deny that contemporary fantasy has more than its share of formulaic crap. >It's called, in Europe (well, Belgium and France) "Fantastique"; it >actually sells over there, so it's easier to find the best weird >tales of Sturgeon, Leiber, Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, >Lafferty, Charles Beaumont, along with superb Belgian (well, Flemish) >writers Jean Ray and Thomas Owen, and a whole lot more. I love this stuff too. I just don't see it as anywhere near as separate a genre as you do. I assume you've read Robert Aickman. If not, run, don't walk. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 17:09:20 -0400 From: "Larry Tucker" Subject: [loud-fans] some Hoslapple bits... This recently posted by Peter Holsapple to the Continental Drifters bulletin board. Good news indeed. And on a related matter you can get the new Drifters EP called LISTEN, LISTEN from Blue Rose records. It's 7 covers of Sandy Denny & Richard Thompson. www.bluerose-records.com This is an absolute beauty! Listen up Dan Sallitt. - -Larry ============================== Peter's post: ============================== For those of you who care about such things, Collector's Choice, a reissue division of EMI/Capitol, will soon be putting the first two dB's records out on one CD with a couple bonus tracks. If you have the products that Line records has been fobbing off on the public for years, you may wish to invest in this package, as it is a reissue of the IRS versions of Stands for Decibels and Repercussion, which Chris Stamey and Gene Holder went back in and fixed up several years ago. The sound is infinitely better. I realize this has nothing to do with the Drifters so thanks for your indulgence. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 15:04:15 -0700 From: "Brandon J. Carder" Subject: [loud-fans] Where they have to answer your stupid questions. I've got one for you all: How do I make MP3 or WAV files from audio sources other than CDs. Any recommended programs (preferably free)? Is this a difficult process? Any help greatly appreciated. np: I Start Counting _my translucent hands_ Cypress House/QED/Lost Coast Press Publishers of Exotic Paper Airplanes by Thay Yang and Tales From the Mountain by Pulitzer Prize nominee, Miguel Torga We don't rent pigs. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 18:57:36 EDT From: AWeiss4338@aol.com Subject: [loud-fans] The Strokes Could anyone tell me if The Strokes album is worth buying. I've been hearing the hype, and I like it, but I want to know if they live up to it. Thanks! Andrea ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 17:40:10 -0600 From: Stewart Mason Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Where they have to answer your stupid questions. At 03:04 PM 10/19/01 -0700, Brandon J. Carder wrote: >I've got one for you all: >How do I make MP3 or WAV files from audio sources other than CDs. Any >recommended programs (preferably free)? Is this a difficult process? Any help >greatly appreciated. You can do it from any program that makes files from CDs, if it has a "record from line in" function. (Real Jukebox, Musicmatch, Cool Edit, SoundForge, I think just about all of them do.) It's really simple, actually: 1. Go to Radio Shack and get this adapter: Stereo Phono Plugs Into 1/4-inch Plug. It's a little black thing with one red and one white hole on one end and a quarter-inch metal plug (like the plug on a pair of Walkman headphones) on the other, and it'll cost about $4. 2. Plug the output wires of your turntable or cassette deck or whatever into the holes on the adapter. (NOTE: If you're going to be recording off a turntable, you have to have a preamp, or it'll sound all rumbly and distant. Many newer models of turntables have internal preamps -- if yours doesn't, back to Radio Shack. I think a preamp costs about $25-30. Plug the turntable into the preamp, and plug the preamp into the adapter.) 3. Plug the adapter into the "line in" hole on the back of your sound card. (NOTE: Make sure it goes into "line in," not "mic" -- "line-in" records in stereo, but "mic" only records in mono.) 4. (This is Windows-centric at this point, but I'm sure it's pretty similar if you have a Mac) Click on the speaker in the bottom-right corner of the taskbar. This will bring up the Master Volume screen. Under Options, click Properties. Select "Adjust Volume For Recording" and click OK. You should see a row of sliders with check boxes marked Select under them. Check the box under the slider marked Line In and make sure the Volume bar on the slider is a little over halfway up. (Much higher than that and your recordings will be distorted.) Click out of that and you're ready to record off the turntable or cassette deck with whatever program you're using. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 19:52:54 -0400 From: Stuart Bell Subject: Re: [loud-fans] The Strokes I purchased the CD as an import quite a while ago, and to say the least i was completely underwhelmed. I played it once all he way through and couldn't believe how unimaginative it was. I played it again recently, after it was released domestically (with a totally different cover) just to see if my first impression was correct, because it got a lot of good reviews, but hey! I must be missing something because again I just didn't get it. Maybe it's a grower, but I somehow doubt it. Proceed with caution! would recommend Ryan Adams. AWeiss4338@aol.com wrote: > Could anyone tell me if The Strokes album is worth buying. I've been hearing > the hype, and I like it, but I want to know if they live up to it. > Thanks! > Andrea ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 19:42:53 -0400 From: Dana L Paoli Subject: [loud-fans] jazz butcher (ns) Ooh, the reissues are finally happening: [from Parasol] Jazz Butcher A Scandal In Bohemia PS, UK VinylJapan-129 CD $14.25 Jazz Butcher Conspiracy Cake City PS, UK VinylJapan-128 CD $14.25 Jazz Butcher Conspiracy Distressed Gentlefolk PS, UK VinylJapan-130 CD $14.25 - --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/web/. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 19:49:51 -0400 From: Dana L Paoli Subject: Re: [loud-fans] The Strokes Stuart is not missing something. - --dana On Fri, 19 Oct 2001 19:52:54 -0400 Stuart Bell writes: >I purchased the CD as an import quite a while ago, and to say the >least i was >completely underwhelmed. >I played it once all he way through and couldn't believe how >unimaginative it >was. >I played it again recently, after it was released domestically (with a >totally >different cover) just to see if my first impression was correct, >because it got >a lot of good reviews, but hey! I must be missing something because >again I just >didn't get it. Maybe it's a grower, but I somehow doubt it. Proceed >with >caution! >would recommend Ryan Adams. > > > >AWeiss4338@aol.com wrote: > >> Could anyone tell me if The Strokes album is worth buying. I've been >hearing >> the hype, and I like it, but I want to know if they live up to it. >> Thanks! >> Andrea ________________________________________________________________ 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/web/. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 22:07:55 EDT From: JRT456@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] The Strokes In a message dated 10/19/01 4:54:21 PM, dana-boy@juno.com writes: << Stuart is not missing something. >> And don't go one step further into imagining that the now-banned-in-the-USA track of "New York City Cops" is the one great song that justifies the UK raves on the import, because it's as useless as the rest of the album. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 23:59:44 EDT From: AWeiss4338@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] The Strokes In a message dated 01-10-19 22:09:35 EDT, JRT456@aol.com writes: > << Stuart is not missing something. >> > > And don't go one step further into imagining that the now-banned-in-the-USA > track of "New York City Cops" is the one great song that justifies the UK > raves on the import, because it's as useless as the rest of the album. Interesting. Yes I can see how a song like NYC Cops would not be so good right now. You've convinced me, it's not worth it. Andrea ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V1 #275 *******************************