From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V2 #16 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, January 15 2002 Volume 02 : Number 016 Today's Subjects: ----------------- RE: [loud-fans] Fans of Polar Expeditions.... ["Ian Runeckles & Angela Be] [loud-fans] Music comment ["O Geier" ] Re: [loud-fans] Music comment ["Aaron Milenski" ] [loud-fans] babes on tv [dana-boy@juno.com] RE: [loud-fans] babes on tv ["glenn mcdonald" ] [loud-fans] Only The Cute Will Survive [Robert Toren ] Re: [loud-fans] R.I.P. Esquivel [Stewart Mason ] Re: [loud-fans] R.I.P. Esquivel [Wes_Vokes@eFunds.Com] [loud-fans] 2001 album poll reminder [Aaron Mandel ] Re: [loud-fans] getting it off my community chest [Roger Winston Subject: RE: [loud-fans] Fans of Polar Expeditions.... Oz wrote: > A&E will air a four hour movie on Ernest Shackleton's > Antarctic Expedition in April. This was broadcast in the UK over the Christmas period and was a real highlight - an amazing story and brilliantly made (directed by Charles Sturridge, who made one of my favourite ever TV series, Brideshead Revisited). Cast includes Kenneth Branagh as Shackleton. I also hope they show the documentary on how they made it which was chilling enough. It should be released on video/DVD at the end of this month and I'm in the queue... Cheers Ian ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 14:11:28 +0000 From: "O Geier" Subject: [loud-fans] Music comment My three year old loves Thomas the Tank Engine. She howled for a cassette at Target called Thomas and Friends, so I got it and played it in the car on the way home. Then at home, then in her room, etc. Y'know....there are some really well constructed pop tunes on this tape. I can't find any writing credits. I'm not joking folks! 'Donald's Duck', 'Let's Have a Race', and 'Gone Fishing' are the best. Anyone else wish to chime in?? Support anti-Spam legislation. Join the fight http://www.cauce.org/ - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: Click Here ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 09:27:54 -0500 From: "Aaron Milenski" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Music comment >My three year old loves Thomas the Tank Engine. She howled for a >cassette at Target called Thomas and Friends, so I got it and played it >in the car on the way home. Then at home, then in her room, etc. > >Y'know....there are some really well constructed pop tunes on this tape. >I can't find any writing credits. I'm not joking folks! 'Donald's >Duck', 'Let's Have a Race', and 'Gone Fishing' are the best. > >Anyone else wish to chime in?? Yeah, Fox (who turns three in March) watches the videos all the time, including a few that are all music. "Gone Fishing" is a great pop song! I spent some time trying to pick it out on my guitar last week, to not much avail. Aaron _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 09:39:07 -0500 From: dana-boy@juno.com Subject: [loud-fans] babes on tv Rufus Wainwright is on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno tonight. Jewel is on the Late Show with David Letterman. Initially I thought that this would present glenn with a quandary, but I was surprised to discover that Mr. Wainwright doesn't seem to make an appearance at furia.com, except via an oblique reference or two. However, fans of Loud-fans might want to read: http://furia.com/twas/twas0363.html which obliquely refers to events from the list. And friends of Mark Staples might want to forward the link to him, as I have no doubt that it would make his day to know that he's been referenced, however obliquely. I wonder if I'm the only one who follows the doings of Scott Miller on the loudfamily site these days. He seems to be getting a wee bit bizarre, though it's always unfair to judge someone based on an Italian pop song and an internet missive or two. This week he seems to have decided that his goal in making music is not "to make accessible music that gets my feelings across," but rather the much more laudable aim, "to have some input to [listeners'] aesthetics, and in turn some little input to their view of life." Tune in next week, when Scott decides that what he really wants is to write a song that will kill all men over 5'8" and make all women beautiful. And finally, the photos in the limited edition of Robbie Williams' "Sing When You're Winning" are really, really funny. - --dana ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 10:15:56 -0500 From: "glenn mcdonald" Subject: RE: [loud-fans] babes on tv > Rufus Wainwright is on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno tonight. Jewel is > on the Late Show with David Letterman. Initially I thought that this > would present glenn with a quandary Although I like his family, I've found Rufus solo to be unappealing on record and intolerable live. Thanks for alerting me to Jewel's appearance! > http://furia.com/twas/twas0363.html, which obliquely refers to events > from the list. I should point out that the other things I say about mailing lists in the piece are *not* said with LoudFans in mind. LoudFans is easily the most open-minded list I've ever been on in terms of musical tastes, and the closest I've seen a mailing list come to acting as an actual community. Obviously it helps enormously that a lot of us have met a lot of us in person, but it's hard to know whether that's a result of the mailing list being communal already, or in fact the cause of it. glenn ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 08:10:57 -0800 (PST) From: Robert Toren Subject: [loud-fans] Only The Cute Will Survive Only The Cute Will Survive Scientific bias towards the cute, unique or spectacular may be helping condemn a substantial proportion of the world's plants and animals to extinction, suggests an Australian ecologist. http://www.spacedaily.com/news/life-02b.html ************** oooo... my quest for immortality takes another body blow... BSC-era Game Theory was the cutest Scott band... RT ===== blah blah blah Mr. Sensitive Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail! http://promo.yahoo.com/videomail/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 10:03:51 -0800 From: "Andrew Hamlin" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] R.I.P. Esquivel This new year brings with it a sad slew of music-related demises. Besides the mighty Esquivel, we've so far lost Feeder's Jon Lee (suicide), EMF's Zac Foley (as-yet-unknown causes), and former MTV producer Ted Demme (heart attack). Still mourning Rufus Thomas. And Stuart Adamson. And W.G. Sebald. Happy Birthday Martin Luther King Jr. (and Captain Beefheart), Andy Q: Say you're president. What's your environmental agenda? A: New, sustainable energy generation, new forms of transportation, conservation of natural resources and general improvement of the quality of American life with a simultaneous reduction in per-capita consumption of energy and materials. The president who exercised that kind of leadership would ensure his or her legacy for all time. Q: Somehow that doesn't seem likely from any president, let alone a Republican. A: Last spring I was invited to speak at one of the leading conservative think tanks, and I asked two questions: What is the core of conservatism if it does not include conservation? And why have the conservatives needlessly and destructively abandoned the moral high ground on the issue? We had a lively discussion. They essentially said the liberals are blue sky, they're big talkers and dreamers, whereas conservatives are problem-oriented, practical people who keep the wheels turning and the world on course. But they're not solving this problem. Too often they don't even admit that the problem exists. Q: Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican and conservationist. You don't hear much about him these days. A: That's right. I believe what happened is that in the '60s the left did, in fact, co-opt the environmental movement. They used it as a club to beat the conservatives, along with the Vietnam War. When Reagan came along, it was already a set piece of the conservative counterargument that the environmentalists were these liberal wackos driving around in Yugos with their knees up to their chests. Once they started that, and scored with it, they couldn't give it up. One reason I wrote this book was to suggest ways in which leading conservative thinkers could get back on board. They say they are big problem solvers, and God knows we need problem solvers. Q: Do you drive a Yugo? A: You have me cornered on this. I drive a Volvo. All Harvard professors are required to drive Volvos. - --sociobiologist E.O. Wilson, from an interview with John Glassie at http://www.salon.com/people/conv/2002/01/14/eowilson/index.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 11:46:13 -0700 From: Stewart Mason Subject: Re: [loud-fans] R.I.P. Esquivel At 10:03 AM 1/15/02 -0800, Andrew Hamlin wrote: >This new year brings with it a sad slew of music-related demises. Besides >the mighty Esquivel, we've so far lost Feeder's Jon Lee (suicide), EMF's Zac >Foley (as-yet-unknown causes), and former MTV producer Ted Demme (heart >attack). Incidentally, I read in an obit of Zac Foley that he was well-known among his friends for what was termed his "party trick": he could fit a whole, unpeeled lime underneath his foreskin. I say, if you're gonna have an obituary, you might as well have information like that in it. S ______________ Prosciutto is ham. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 13:24:02 -0600 From: Wes_Vokes@eFunds.Com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] R.I.P. Esquivel So, perhaps Foley died of Lime disease? (Insert drum roll here) - ----- Forwarded by Wes Vokes/MKE/eFunds on 01/15/02 01:23 PM ----- Stewart Mason .com> cc: Sent by: Subject: Re: [loud-fans] R.I.P. Esquivel owner-loud-fan s@smoe.org 01/15/02 12:46 PM At 10:03 AM 1/15/02 -0800, Andrew Hamlin wrote: >This new year brings with it a sad slew of music-related demises. Besides >the mighty Esquivel, we've so far lost Feeder's Jon Lee (suicide), EMF's Zac >Foley (as-yet-unknown causes), and former MTV producer Ted Demme (heart >attack). Incidentally, I read in an obit of Zac Foley that he was well-known among his friends for what was termed his "party trick": he could fit a whole, unpeeled lime underneath his foreskin. I say, if you're gonna have an obituary, you might as well have information like that in it. S ______________ Prosciutto is ham. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 15:40:29 -0500 (EST) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: [loud-fans] 2001 album poll reminder A modest number of people have voted in the 2001 year-end poll at: http://www.pastemob.org/lf01/ but the rest of you have over two weeks left. The consensus among early voters is pretty interesting -- not necessarily what I would have expected. a ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 15:53:33 -0500 (EST) From: Michael Mitton Subject: Re: [loud-fans] 2001 album poll reminder An aside, I've only been on the list for about a year and a half. I have the results of the 2000 list-poll, but did the list do a poll before this? And if so, does anyone still have the results (couldn't find any on escribe)? Just curious, - --Michael ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 16:44:09 -0500 From: jenny grover Subject: [loud-fans] getting it off my community chest glenn mcdonald wrote: > > I should point out that the other things I say about mailing lists in > the piece are *not* said with LoudFans in mind. LoudFans is easily the > most open-minded list I've ever been on in terms of musical tastes, and > the closest I've seen a mailing list come to acting as an actual > community. Obviously it helps enormously that a lot of us have met a lot > of us in person, but it's hard to know whether that's a result of the > mailing list being communal already, or in fact the cause of it. > > glenn Interesting that you should say this about the communal nature of Loud-fans, because one of my big complaints/frustrations with this list is that there seems to be a lack of real community here when compared to several other lists I'm on. True, we have our "characters" on here, and even the occasional village idiot. We have bigots and loudmouths, religious and anti-religious fanatics, quieter poetic types, and eccentrics, like any town would, but there seems to be an air of superficiality, a calculated reserve, an emotional distance in the general dealings of this list. There seems to be a lack of empathy or much desire to understand differences, as though too many people here have already made up their minds and just aren't going to change them. I'm not saying we should all be rabidly confessional and slinging our personal details around all the time, but I also think we shouldn't close out that option as readily or as snidely as many people seem to do here. As far as meeting in person, I have yet to meet a Loud-fan, though I have tried two years running to meet a few. It seems that, at least the people I've tried to meet, haven't been very committed to setting up a definite plan of action to make meetings in complicated circumstances a reality. This has not been the case with people I have met up with from other lists. I have exchanged personal email with several very nice and generous people on this list, though relatively few of them have been forthcoming with much about their personal lives. It is as though people on this list tend to remain acquaintances, whereas two of my best friends in this world I met on other mailing lists, and later in person. These are people I know intimately and would trust my life with, and have. A very strong sense of community pervades yet another list in which I participate, which was started as an informal, unofficial support group list for those of us with a particular ailment. The nature of seeking support, sharing day to day coping strategies, and talking people through bad times lends itself to a kind of nakedness that would be out of place on any other kind of list, but the way people on that list have bonded together, despite pronounced differences in beliefs and lifestyles, is rather remarkable. So, I think Loud-fans functions like a small town, or even a large cocktail party, but is a bit weak on the "community" part. Jen ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 17:09:16 -0500 (EST) From: Sue Trowbridge Subject: Re: [loud-fans] getting it off my community chest On Tue, 15 Jan 2002, jenny grover wrote: > I have exchanged personal email with several very nice and generous > people on this list, though relatively few of them have been forthcoming > with much about their personal lives. It is as though people on this > list tend to remain acquaintances, whereas two of my best friends in > this world I met on other mailing lists, and later in person. Well, some of us are more than mere acquaintances. I am happily married to someone I met on this list, and I know of at least one other loud-fan marriage; and another loud-fan has become one of my very closest friends - -- someone I communicate with almost on a daily basis, despite our geographical distance. However, I do agree with some of what you said. I hate to sound like one of those folks who constantly reminisces about the good ol' days, but I think there was more of a sense of "community" (and more of an effort to get together in person) a few years ago -- of course, the fact that the band actually used to *tour* then helped. As I've mentioned to several people on this list, I think loud-fans lost part of its heart the day that Janet Ingraham-Dwyer unsubscribed. She was a civilizing influence on the list, and one of the kindest, wisest & most generous people I've ever had the privilege to know. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 16:13:45 -0600 (CST) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] 2001 album poll reminder On Tue, 15 Jan 2002, Michael Mitton wrote: > An aside, I've only been on the list for about a year and a half. I have > the results of the 2000 list-poll, but did the list do a poll before this? > And if so, does anyone still have the results (couldn't find any on > escribe)? I know polls were done - for a couple of years, someone collated them with maniacal thoroughness...I think either Stewart or Jer (or both, in different years). Aaron: are the results so far available anywhere? Or are you withholding that info so as not to influence the voting? - --Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::Being young, carefree, having your whole life ahead of you, ::dancing the night away to celebrate... ::oh, and the untimely death of Jackson Pollock. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 15:27:53 -0700 From: Roger Winston Subject: Re: [loud-fans] getting it off my community chest My first response to Jen's message is that "the List is what it is". It has developed into the current state after a long period of time - 9 years or so. Mark didn't like that state and wanted to change it. That is a very difficult thing to do with an established community, especially for someone who joined somewhat late in the game, after the group identity has developed. jenny grover on 2002/01/15 Tue PM 04:44:09 MST wrote: > True, we have our "characters" on here, and > even the occasional village idiot. We have bigots and loudmouths, > religious and anti-religious fanatics, quieter poetic types, and > eccentrics, like any town would, but there seems to be an air of > superficiality, a calculated reserve, an emotional distance in the > general dealings of this list. There seems to be a lack of empathy or > much desire to understand differences, as though too many people here > have already made up their minds and just aren't going to change them. Two comments: 1) This is an incredibly diverse group, as you pretty much say yourself. You're not going to get a lot of "emotional closeness" when there is so many different kinds of people with different life experiences and different ingrained attitudes. 2) Like it or not, the common thread that binds us (the music of Scott Miller) fosters emotional distance in a way. The emotions are there in the music all over the place, but in a kind of ironic/detached/clever-wordplay way. > I'm not saying we should all be rabidly confessional and slinging our > personal details around all the time, but I also think we shouldn't > close out that option as readily or as snidely as many people seem to do > here. I think one thing you have to remember is that this List is archived on the Web where anyone can get to it. I am not going to broadcast anything of a too-personal nature that I might not want an employer or family member or potential romantic interest to stumble upon (or have List members make fun of). I'm even leery about revealing things in personal e-mails, since you never know where they might end up, though I think that is a more appropriate forum for that sort of thing. Yep, I'm paranoid. > I have exchanged personal email with several very nice and generous > people on this list, though relatively few of them have been forthcoming > with much about their personal lives. It is as though people on this > list tend to remain acquaintances, whereas two of my best friends in > this world I met on other mailing lists, and later in person. These are > people I know intimately and would trust my life with, and have. I can say the very same thing about this List that you are saying about other Lists. Our experiences are different. I've met a great number of very good friends through this List and have shared many important experiences and events with them. Just not necessarily publicly. Like you, I live away from the geographic concentrations of LoudFans, but I've still managed to have many meaningful personal interactions with List members. Heck, I've even attended a LoudFan wedding in another state. > So, I think Loud-fans functions like a small town, or even a large > cocktail party, but is a bit weak on the "community" part. I would strongly disagree, but I can see where you (and Mark) are coming from. I do have to admit that the sense of community is probably not as strong as it used to be. That could be for a number of reasons: Scott's retreat from the music, the membership turnaround, the increasing diversity of members, etc. LoudFans is a very real community (and yes, even a support group) to me, and I'm sure to others as well. Later. --Rog ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 17:31:03 -0500 (EST) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: [loud-fans] 2001 album poll reminder On Tue, 15 Jan 2002, Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: > Aaron: are the results so far available anywhere? Or are you withholding > that info so as not to influence the voting? I am withholding that info so as not to influence the voting (and in fact didn't take a peek myself until I'd voted). P.S. Yes, my interface sucks, but you can really save me some hassle by reading the instructions. Please. Thank you. I'll fix it by next year. a ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 17:56:21 -0500 From: jenny grover Subject: Re: [loud-fans] getting it off my community chest Roger, and anyone else, let me first establish that I am not speaking for Mark, about Mark, nor did I agree with a lot of what and how he posted on here. This is not about Mark. Lists do evolve, and a band break-up and turnover in membership truly can affect the nature of a list. This isn't the only list that pines a bit about "the good old days." I wasn't here during this list's good old days, apparently. But that evolved list can carry on a closeness or spirit of acceptance to new members. It doesn't have to just draw back and pine. > Two comments: > 1) This is an incredibly diverse group, as you pretty much say yourself. You're not going to get a lot of "emotional closeness" when there is so many different kinds of people with different life experiences and different ingrained attitudes. But what I also said is that I am on other lists that are very diverse where there is a lot of emotional closeness. What I feel here is a certain lack of tolerance for diversity. > 2) Like it or not, the common thread that binds us (the music of Scott Miller) fosters emotional distance in a way. The emotions are there in the music all over the place, but in a kind of ironic/detached/clever-wordplay way. I guess I never really saw Scott's music in that way. While the irony and cleverness are there, I see his songs as very emotionally forward, honest, and naked. They just aren't sappy. > I think one thing you have to remember is that this List is archived on the Web where anyone can get to it. That's true of most lists. I'm only on one list that doesn't archive its messages. What I meant was not airing one's dirty laundry, but just more of one's inner nature or daily interactions with the music or topics discussed here. Discussions often stay mainly on an intellectual plane here, where I hear theories expounded or argued, but not so much of the person invested in the words. A few listers have mentioned to me off-list that they don't contribute more because they are afraid of being shot down, ridiculed, or criticized. > I can say the very same thing about this List that you are saying about other Lists. Our experiences are different. I've met a great number of very good friends through this List and have shared many important experiences and events with them. Just not necessarily publicly. Like you, I live away from the geographic concentrations of LoudFans, but I've still managed to have many meaningful personal interactions with List members. Heck, I've even attended a LoudFan wedding in another state. I think that's wonderful. I just wish more of us were having that kind of experience here on a more regular basis. It does happen, and I have made a few good friends here (though I haven't met them in person yet), but it just seems like more work to get to that point here. It does have a sort of air of trying to break into a clique. I guess that is there to some degree on most lists. I don't know, it just feels different here. It feels a little chilly. Not cold, but like there's a bit of a draft. Jen ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 17:58:00 -0500 From: "glenn mcdonald" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] getting it off my community chest Another of the many problems with online communities is that most members experiences them alone. To some ways of thinking, this rules them out as communities immediately, and I think it's more complicated than that, but it's still a valid point. I, for example, see a few list-members very regularly, and have met another couple dozen. I've met visiting members in Boston and visited non-Boston members myself. This is not true, in anything like this magnitude, of any other mailing list I've ever been on. But that's all pretty much invisible to the list traffic itself, and obviously doesn't translate to anybody else. So if you've never met another member, of course you have none of that feeling. Physical communities are subject to these disparities, too, like if your neighbors all bond at PTA meetings but you don't have kids, but in a virtual community the effect is much more severe. And as Sue pointed out, the most obvious reason for get-togethers, Loud Family tours, is now gone. I've never been on a mailing list based around an ailment, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if they were far more communal in an emotional and empathetic sense. One of the standard factors in community-forming is shared hardship. And "favorite band not touring any more" doesn't exactly count. glenn ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 17:30:24 -0600 (CST) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: [loud-fans] ay carumba! I recently received two collections of music from two Loudfans...and I can't even remember whether they're both for swaps, or what. So I'll review 'em both (not in one message). First up is a fine CD from Joe Mallon and Sue Trowbridge, entitled _20 Grandes Exitos del Sue y Joe 2001_. The cover is a wonderful parody of those cheapy compilation CDs - a highlighted gold starburst "sticker" lets the listener know (in two languages, yet) that the collection is NOT AVAILABLE IN STORES, and a posed photo of a tango-ing couple is placed over a generic backdrop of large, blue rectangular shapes. The theme is carried throughout the packaging - cheesy fonts, cheesy publicity photos adorning the back cover placed at jaunty angles, etc. So, on with the music. No word as to whether the tracks are in any order of preference, or whose preference each track might be. Items marked with asterisks indicate tracks I already owned. Items not marked with asterisks generally indicate tracks you may laugh at me for not owning already. 1. The New Pornographers "The Fake Headlines"* - I love the opening line: "I wrote the news today" - oh boy! 2. For Stars "How It Goes" - A swirling opening is led by synths and a backwards-sounding guitar. There's a nice touch a minute or so in, as a keyboard sort of halfway between a celeste and kalimba is brought up in the mix. Much of the track burbles on without vocals, which bob upwards to the surface less often than the song's structure might lead you to believe. 3. The Orgone Box "Find the One" - A very Beatle-y verse, by way of a somewhat Hitchcockian vocal tone, and something like a less yobbish Oasis feel. I'm hearing the Hollies, too. Still and all, I'm not 100% persuaded...in the "good not wonderful" category. 4. Jon Brion "I Believe She's Lying"* - Almost put this track on a comp I made recently - great stuff; love the processed vocal harmonies on the chorus. 5. Paula Carino "Discovering Fire"* - One of my favorite tracks from this CD - although "Venus Records" is the breakout single in my alternate universe. 6. Radiohead "Knives Out"* - Again, as with Jon Brion, this is the track I probably would have chosen to represent the "hit" from this album. 7. Stereolab "Captain Easychord"* - Yeesh - have Joe and Sue been spying on my mental listening log, or what? They keep choosing the same track from the album that I would have...in fact, I just put this song on the swap mix I sent out a few weeks back. 8. Rufus Wainwright "California" - No idea why I don't have this CD yet - probably because there are too many other CDs in the world. Of course, excellent songwriting, and the slightly offputting ironic air that sometimes irked on the first CD is subdued on this track. 9. Belle and Sebastian "I'm Waking Up to Us" - Evidently, Belle and Sebastian have discovered a previously unknown hidden cache of lost late '60s MOR pop hits. Another in a string of excellent Belle and Sebastian songs that sound, on first listen, as if I've known them since I was a kid with one of those dinky earphones stuck in one ear, listening to AM radio late at night from a little transistor radio secretly hidden beneath my pillow. 10. The Orange Peels "So Far" - Steve Holtebeck forgive me...but I don't have this one either. For no good reason, either: a very canny arrangement lends interest to the usual popcraft. 11. Ben Folds "Still Fighting It" - The secret of Ben Folds is that, like many smart-asses, he's really a sap. But that smart-assery cuts the logy syrupiness, while the saccharine tendencies give a softening context to the cynicism. Oh...the music's good, too. There's guitar on this - not so's you can really notice - and some strings near the end. Not terribly different from the BF5 records - nothing wrong w/that. 12. The Kirby Grips "Restraining Order" - An odd little number, catchy but a bit repetitious, fun but kind of bizarre. For some reason, the second verse is sung in some language I can't identify. Nice mandolin solo, too. 13. Jill Olson "Icy Sparks" - Sez here this is a demo from her forthcoming 125 Records release - quite a coup for our favorite WWTBAM winners. Kind of a slightly countryish take on a sort of "Gloria" progression...I like her feisty singing, too. 14. The Bevis Frond "Early Riser" - This one's outfitted with a Beatlesque descending chord progression and some cool harmonies on the title phrase. Nice, warmly incandescent guitar solo, too. 15. The Donnas "40 Boys in 40 Nights" - The joys of the road, female division. The lead-in to the chrosu is wittily double-entendred: "I've got boys all over the road / I've got boys helping me unload." And remember: "there's no cute boys in Decatur." 16. Lucinda Williams "Are You Down" - Exquisitely sung, arranged, and played, but... This CD's drawn wildly mixed reviews, and I think I know one reason why. (Even my hairdresser friend, who used to do Lucinda's hair and practically worships her music, is lukewarm on this one.) I think she leans on her band too much. The song basically has two chords, and much of the track is instrumental vamping (a la the lamest, and inexplicably most played on our college radio station, track from _Car Wheels_, "Joy"). Seems like there'd be more song two-three years after that CD. 17. Yuji Oniki "Rails in Vain" - A lovely track, decorated by Bill Swan's (Beulah) painterly trumpet playing. The increase in intensity going into the chorus is very nicely done. Somthing sort of early '70s about this one...not sure exactly what or who it reminds me of. 18. Fireking "I Don't Mind" - Never heard of these folks...anyway, I like the bass part in the intro, and the way the guitar and piano work together before the verses. Kind of a '70s hard power-pop thing going on here, but another "good but not wonderful" song for me. 19. Weezer "Hash Pipe" - I'm dubious about the band's "rockin'" fixation - the rock star posing in the photo promoting their current tour is a good example, and the uber-seventies near-metal guitar sound here is another. But as usual, it's catchy as hell even if the smugness feels like a Mississippi August. 20. Stephen Malkmus "The Hook"* - A Sue selection, one imagines - unless Joe's come around on this one. (I do wonder, given the occasional disjunctiveness of S&J's tastes, how they divvied up the year's top 20 records.) I like this okay, but I've never really warmed to it that much. Actually, I think I like Spiral Stairs' Preston School of Industry album better overall. Anyway, a great selection of tracks, likely to further drain my wallet and take up yet more music-listening hours of my day. If this really *were* the 20 biggest songs of 2001, well, it'd be a better world. Next up, Brian Block's cassette entitled _The Following Program Contains Some Material_ - --Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html :: The possibility of Klingon slash fiction :: fills me with mild apprehension. __ Michael Quinion __ np: The Soundtrack of Our Lives _Behind the Music_ (thanks to Steve H. for suggesting this one!) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 16:39:53 -0700 From: Roger Winston Subject: Re: [loud-fans] getting it off my community chest jenny grover on 2002/01/15 Tue PM 05:56:21 MST wrote: > Roger, and anyone else, let me first establish that I am not speaking > for Mark, about Mark, nor did I agree with a lot of what and how he > posted on here. This is not about Mark. I realize that, and I'm sorry if I made it look like I was comparing you to Mark... > I guess I never really saw Scott's music in that way. While the irony > and cleverness are there, I see his songs as very emotionally forward, > honest, and naked. They just aren't sappy. But you have to actually work and invest something to get at the emotional core of them, unlike a lot of "pop" music. > Discussions often stay mainly on an intellectual > plane here, where I hear theories expounded or argued, but not so much > of the person invested in the words. Again, you have to take into account the binding element, i.e. Scott's music, which tends to foster this sort of thing among his audience. Plus, it seems like many of the people who are attracted to his music are of the over-thinking intellectualizing type. That said, I've been here a long time, and I tend to agree there is too much intellectualizing. Me want FUN! > It does > have a sort of air of trying to break into a clique. I guess that is > there to some degree on most lists. I don't know, it just feels > different here. It feels a little chilly. Not cold, but like there's a > bit of a draft. Hopefully we're not too unfriendly to newbies. I love seeing new faces here, as long as they like Blue Oyster Cult and they order a Scott Miller Tribute CD. I admit we can be a tough nut to crack sometimes. But once you get to know us, we'll be glad to come over to your place and eat your pizza, drink your beer, and make long distance phone calls. Later. --Rog ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 18:40:28 -0500 From: jenny grover Subject: [loud-fans] cindy alvarez, are you out there? Is Cindy Alvarez still on the list? Cindy, if you are, I keep emailing you about the swap but I've never gotten a reply. I can't send you a tape if I don't know where to send it. Jen ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 17:47:30 -0600 (CST) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] getting it off my community chest On Tue, 15 Jan 2002, jenny grover wrote: > Roger, and anyone else, let me first establish that I am not speaking > for Mark, about Mark, nor did I agree with a lot of what and how he > posted on here. This is not about Mark. But give him credit: he *did* try to reorganize the list around an ailment. > its messages. What I meant was not airing one's dirty laundry, but just > more of one's inner nature or daily interactions with the music or > topics discussed here. Discussions often stay mainly on an intellectual > plane here, where I hear theories expounded or argued, but not so much > of the person invested in the words. A few listers have mentioned to me > off-list that they don't contribute more because they are afraid of > being shot down, ridiculed, or criticized. That's interesting, in several respects. You contrast "inner nature or daily interactions with the music" with "an intellectual plane": I think for many of us, the latter *is* our "inner nature." As to the second point: I assume by "criticized" you mean more than just "disagreed with": more like the kind of disagreement that's expressed in being "shot down or ridiculed." I'm not sure how frequently I see this going on - with Mark certainly, and there were a few outbursts from one or two others that I can think of, which did end up spurring on a disproportionate amount of heat rather than light...but let me offer an anecdote that might clarify some of what's going on here. My family, particularly my cousins and siblings, tend to have huge, intense conversations, often about social and political issues (rather like Loudfans, actually) when we get together. When Rose first met my family, she told me she was rather intimidated - partly because that was just her at the time, but more because she misread the emotional tenor of the discussions. Specifically, she interpreted one discussion between my cousin Michael and myself as being heated to the point where she thought we were truly angry at one another - when neither of us had even considered feeling that way. We just had strong opinions that disagreed. I'm not saying I think all the disagreements on the list have been all Olympian in their pure intellectual engagement - there's definitely been an increase in personal nastiness in the last year or so - but I think that some of it may be a stylistic issue. > but it just seems like more work to get to that point here. It does > have a sort of air of trying to break into a clique. I guess that is > there to some degree on most lists. That's the obverse of "community": if there's a community, a lot of people know one another very well, and have a repertoire of in-jokes, teasing references, pseudo-arguments, etc. For me, cliquishness consists in overt snubs rather than just the carrying-on of conversation as usual. Even in a real community, people are more likely to talk to and respond to the people they already know well than people they don't. Some people burst into the discusssion (go back to whenever it was Dennis McGreevy joined the list - I think he was in contention with, uh, another Loudfan for most posts for a month or two after he joined. And they were damned fine posts, too.), others hang back for a while. - --Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::a squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous...got me? __Captain Beefheart__ ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V2 #16 ******************************