From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V2 #88 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, March 5 2002 Volume 02 : Number 088 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [loud-fans] Swap review (dana) ["Andrew Hamlin" ] RE: [loud-fans] Swap review (dana) ["Larry Tucker" ] [loud-fans] Fifteen from 2001 [DOUDIE@aol.com] RE: [loud-fans] The Continuing Story of Bungalow Scott ["Larry Tucker" ] Re: [loud-fans] another swap review [Stewart Mason ] RE: [loud-fans] another swap review ["Larry Tucker" ] RE: [loud-fans] The Continuing Story of Bungalow Scott [Aaron Mandel ] [loud-fans] Scott Content_ he looks pretty happy to me [Robert Toren ] RE: [loud-fans] The Continuing Story of Bungalow Scott [Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Swap review (dana) >They had a bunch of releases on Homestead. Band members were, if memory >serves, Mr. Anus and Mr. Horribly Charred Infant. Other song titles: >Stop Touching My Food, There's a Soft Spot on the Baby's Head, I'm Gonna >Have A Accident, Let's Eat the Baby (Like My Gerbils Did), and the old >favorite They Cleaned My Cut Out With a Wire Brush. While it's quite possible Francis and I are the only (other) ones who care, Happy Flowers were one of the greatest rock and roll bands of all time. Point fucking blank. Their early vinyl albums, MY SKIN COVERS MY BODY, I CRUSH BOZO, and MAKING THE BUNNY PAY (two early eps in one) are, shockingly enough, still in print according to CDNow.com (well, two out of three; no sign of BUNNY). Most of the tracks Dana mentions hail from OOF, which is where the rot began to sprout, but what the hell, buy that one too it's still worth it. The first CD compilation, TOO MANY BUNNIES (NOT ENOUGH MITTENS) is nowhere to be found, but FLOWERS ON 45 does give a nice overview of their career and includes some stuff from prior and parallel incarnations. And no tour of the web is complete without the official Happy Flowers Home Page: http://hometown.aol.com/MrHCIHF/ It's very loud. You will note that they played live as recently as 2000, opening for Yo La Tengo in Baltimore, Charlottesville (their home town), Carrboro, and Atlanta. Anybody here see one or more of those shows? You will note also that a member of Yo La Tengo served as their surrogate roadie. Oh, and they recorded their first record for $50. That's right, fifty whole bucks. Sombody tell Scott! (And anyone else who still thinks you need real money to make a record.) >>15. Nick Heyward -- "The Goodbye Man" >>>>>>>>>>>>>> >The album this is from, "The Apple Bed" is a great, great Beatles-esque >blast of pop, with no resemblance to Duran Duran. I gotcha; but why would Nick Heyward's music bear any resemblance to Duran Duran? And so long as I'm asking, what does the Glynn Account have to do with encrypted CDs... Andy "www.grunk.com is the best place to find information and sources for grunk." - --from www.grunk.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2002 08:47:07 -0500 From: "Larry Tucker" Subject: RE: [loud-fans] Swap review (dana) |-----Original Message----- |From: Sue Trowbridge [mailto:trow@interbridge.com] |Sent: Monday, March 04, 2002 6:16 PM |To: loud-fans@smoe.org |Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Swap review (dana) | | |On Mon, 4 Mar 2002, Dana L Paoli wrote: | |> >(bonus track #2) |> > |> >No guess at all on this one. Sounds like a really disturbing |> >lullaby. Lo-fi. Some unusual instrumental accompaniment. Ok, who? |> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> |> That would be The Donner Party with "When I Was a Baby." | |for what it's worth, the New Pornographers are covering this |song on their current tour. Thanks Sue! And I thought it was a new song, though they introduced it as an old folk song when they played Chapel Hill. Then again they introduced their encore, "Center for Holy Wars" as "We're Here to Rock You, We Hope You Don't Mind". - -Larry ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2002 10:52:18 -0600 (CST) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: [loud-fans] next: gold crescents http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,661934,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2002 09:41:28 -0500 (EST) From: dmw Subject: [loud-fans] hurtfeelingathon hey, you married folks -- cast yer minds back with me now to the days of yore. 'member what is was like right after a really bad break up? when you'd swear that you were never gonna date anyone again, that whole thing just wasn't worth the pain, but then, a couple years or a couple hours later, depending, you caught sight of someone from across the room and boom! you were ready to get back on the ride after all? i kinda think we should all just let scott alone and wait for a pretty melody to walk into his head. 'cause if you remember, those dates set up by yer pals while you were still firmly in "never again!" mode, those were all disasters, right? and make no mistake, it was a bad break up. every game theory record sold more than the one before it, right? if they'd continued that curve, i think a gold record in the mid-late 90's mighta happened. i don't think every LF record sold more than the one before it (although i don't know). and i think the last tour musta been real painful. in fact, sometimes i wonder if the last straw was the night we played with 'em. mostly because opening were young britsnob star wannabes with a semi full of gear literally as long as the club, and enormous stacks of shiny new gear. (aside: much to my surprise, they're going to get to at least record a follow up record, but that don't mean it gets released). anyway, young britsnobs didn't deign to talk to *anyone* in the club; their handlers dealt with the club owner/manager, they didn't talk to us or to loudfamily or acknowledge in anyway that there were other artists on the bill. (in very slight fairness to them: they were just off a stadium tour opening for the Chili Peppers; a small club gig may just not have seemed worth it for them, and the opening slot may have seemed almost an insult) anyway, young britsnobs had the place too packed for anyone to move, and the audience dwindled steadily through the rest of the night, leaving LF (unquestionably technically FAR better musicians than young britsnobs, let 'lone us) playing to a mostly empty house. all that faerie gold dancing before your eyes, then turning to dust. but: On Mon, 4 Mar 2002, Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: > personnel and equipment you need. I don't think it's generally understood > what a colossal amount of work it is to make any record that is actually > going to appeal to, say, a thousand people. (And you need to appeal to > about 20,000 people for the release to have any sort of cultural > presence.) this i think i get, mebbe cause i'm a clown prince of rationalizations m'self: scott has always (and even moreso throughout the 90s) been interested in the qualities of sound as sound. he's got a good, if somewhat idiosyncratic, ear for a guy who's played a lot of loud electric guitar. he could probably record most everything in his house (but drums are a huge hassle when they fill up yr living room, drive the neighbors nuts, and are really hard to mic so they sound good in spaces not designed for their acoustic properties, unless you're very lucky), but being able to mix in the house for someone as interested in sound -- not good sound vs bad sound, but the textural and tonal qualities -- may be a whole 'nother order of magnitude of expense, depending on how you approach it. and honestly, once you've got to track drums in a real professional studio, and gotten to mix on a really sweet board, i can see otehr things looking like too much of a compromise. and, yeah, it really *is* a lot of work, however much most of that work is also fun. hell, i haven't demonstrated in anything other than a hypothetical extrapolative sense that my record *will* appeal to a thousand people. but it was still a lot of work. 20,000: somewhere, i bet, around a number that doesn't look dismal compared to the sales of 'nuisance' as well as being a number that would be "worth it" for an alias-sized (but functional) label to gear up its promo machine for. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2002 13:03:58 EST From: DOUDIE@aol.com Subject: [loud-fans] Fifteen from 2001 I know this is very late, but I actually think that March 1 is normally about when I can get a decent idea of what my favorite records of the previous year were, especially since there is such a deluge of releases in late fall. Last year was an amazing year in music. I have listened to all fifteen of these records constantly and very few of them are not still in my regular rotation: 1. Spiritualized- LET IT COME DOWN I didn't think Jason Pierce could out do LADIES AND GENTLEMEN WE ARE FLOATING IN SPACE but he really did. A set of Pink Floydian gospel songs about attaining heaven through sensory experiences. The instrumental passage that closes I Didn't Mean to Hurt You is the most beautiful musical moment of 2001. 2. Hefner- DEAD MEDIA Hefner should be everyone's favorite band. This, their fifth excellent record since 1998, firmly establishes Darren Hayman as the best songwriter around these days. Tracks 4-9 on DEAD MEDIA are my favorite stretch on a record this year. Finally released domestically. If you are going to buy your first Hefner record, start with their masterpiece, 1999's FIDELITY WARS. 3. The New Pornographers- MASS ROMANTIC I am not going to call this record catchy and irresistible. It does seem to wear out after about 100 or so listens. Thankfully. 4. Palomar II Keeping my fingers crossed that the Strokes going gold turns into people throwing money at other nyc bands. Rachael Warren's songwriting is incredibly smart and unique and the musicianship here is excellent. Palomar rock and are incredibly tuneful. There's also a great sped up cover of Eno's I'll Come Running. Buy it here http://www.selfstarterfoundation.com/palomar.html. 5. De La Soul- ART OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE 2: BIONIX Though this is my least favorite De La Soul record, it still comes chock full of fun and charms and wisdom. Held Down is hands down my favorite song of the year and Trying People is the best song about September 11 I have heard thus far. I won't even bother to comment on how little hip hop rocked my world this year. Next year will make up for it I a sure (including the third installment of AOI). 6. The Webb Brothers- MAROONED Another excellent concept album about life in a rock scene. Part Pink Floyd, part Brutal Youth era Elvis Costello. If someone described a record to me that way, I'd run out, buy it and eat it up.... Liar's Club is classic (read the lyrics and you'll want this record). 7. Snowpony- SEA SHANTIES FOR SPACESHIPS I don't know if SEA SHANTIES FOR SPACESHIPS was ever actually released in the U.S. as I think Snowpony were dropped from their U.S. label, but I bought it on half.com for a less than import price. Find it. Snowpony is former Stereolab member K.L. Gifford and Deb Googe from My Bloody Valentine. They actually do sound a bit like an amalgamation of those two bands, but that doesn't do them justice. The most overlooked record of last year. Awesome bass playing alert. 8. The Clientele- SUBURBAN LIGHT Underwhelming at first, incredibly beautiful at last. Dour at first, warm at last. Underneath the whispering of this record is a great batch of songs... It took me four months to really hear its beauty. 9. Stereolab- SOUND DUST I had lost interest in Stereolab after DOTS AND LOOPS, but SOUND DUST is a definite return to form. You know this record is going to be special when that awesome piano part kicks in on Captain Easychord and it is. 10. Spoon- GIRLS CAN TELL Such an easy record to listen to. Who'd of thought John Croslin of the Reivers would wind up becoming such a great producer. You can hear every part of every song on this record so clearly.. possibly the best produced record of the year. Spoon has left their overwhelming Pixies influence in favor of Get Happy-ized Motown. Good move. 11. Laura Cantrell- NOT THE TREMBLIN KIND I can't believe this came in at 11. I may be seriously under rating it. What a year. A beautiful set of country songs, but country more in the vein of Richard and Linda Thompson's I WANT TO SEE THE BRIGHT LIGHTS TONIGHT. I can't imagine any fan of that record, not loving this one. Mostly incredibly well chosen covers she wrote possibly the best song here, Queen of the Coast. 12. Cake- COMFORT EAGLE Cake are the closest thing to latter day Camper Van Beethoven around. They somehow got lost for me in that there was something frat-ish about them covering I Will Survive. However, this is a really addictive, lyrical record. 13. The White Stripen a Who fixation, but that probably isn't fair to them. Jack White is such a great singer that the comparison is probably unfair. 14. Trembling Blue Stars- ALIVE TO EVERY SMILE There is something really addictive about these songs. They sit there and float and make it difficult for me to believe I could ever wear ALIVE TO EVERY SMILE OUT. Music for sad romantics. 15. The Strokes- IS THIS IT Don't believe the hype? Well, the Modern Age, Barely Legal and to a lesser extent Last Night live up to the hype. It's too bad Julian Casablancas doesn't spend more time on his lyrics, because if you listen to the lyrics here too intently, the Strokes seem more like the product they are accused of being. We'll see how they do writing a second batch of songs.... First great record of 2002? The Mates of State's OUR CONSTANT CONCERN. See them on tour now with the Sunshine Fix if they come around. Peace, Steven Matrick ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2002 13:24:26 -0500 From: "Larry Tucker" Subject: RE: [loud-fans] The Continuing Story of Bungalow Scott |-----Original Message----- |From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey [mailto:jenor@csd.uwm.edu] |Sent: Monday, March 04, 2002 9:46 PM |To: Account 7870 |Subject: [loud-fans] The Continuing Story of Bungalow Scott |In a curious way, this seems to be a case of Reverse Kurt |Cobain Syndrome: |Cobain despised himself because (among other reasons) huge |masses of people whom he'd never want to be like (whose traits |he disdained and feared insofar as they were a part of him, |too) screamed his name; I'm not so sure Cobain's problem was that simple. From reading Charles Cross' book "Heavier than Heaven" I got the impression Cobain craved acceptance by his fans but then hated them when they did because he didn't think himself worthy. Inability to deal with this struggle was part of what led to his ultimate self destruction. |Scott seems upset that his music is |doomed to appeal only to a few, despite his desires to appeal |to many, to write genuinely popular music. It's an odd thing, |too - considering that surely he's aware of the many reasons |Johnny and Janey Average are unable to relate to his music or |lyrics. To his credit, he's refused to dumb himself down - but |the cost of such integrity is, except in rare and freakish |circumstances, cult popularity at best. This really puzzles me as well. The whole music scene today is so fragmented there is no conceivable way his music could ever reach wide acceptance. I mean really, look at what does get wide acceptance. The distance between the "haves" and the "have nots" grows broader every year. It's not the 80's anymore when college radio embraced the new sound. It was the only time bands like Game Theory and Let's Active ever had a chance of widespread acceptance, but even that original core acceptance never grew beyond that with the exception of bands like U2, REM, etc. Even REM's sales aren't what they were a decade ago. I think they'd be very hard pressed to get that fat Warner deal they landed years ago. | I'm not the kind of artist who can make an album by |himself. I always need a drummer, a keyboardist, and at least |some time in a pro studio. Even if I decided to put something |out myself, this something has to come into existence first; |you don't snap your fingers and have all the personnel and |equipment you need. I don't think it's generally understood |what a colossal amount of work it is to make any record that |is actually going to appeal to, say, a thousand people. (And |you need to appeal to about 20,000 people for the release to |have any sort of cultural |presence.) | |Dunno 'bout most of you...but I'd be content to hear new Scott |music with programmed beats and only whatever keyboard skills |Scott himself can manage. And I thought (perhaps incorrectly) |that he'd already invested in a lot of home recording |equipment - so it seems that far from requiring more capital |expenditures, what he's paid for so far is going to waste |(unless he's sold it) - and therefore costing him money, |although only in a sort of abstract sense. I agree, though maybe Scott really wants to have this extensively produced sound with a large studio and equipment at his disposal and he really feels constrained by home or small studio recording. Some of my favorite albums of Scotts though were recorded at the Drive In, which by today's standards is more like a home studio. I have friends who are literally recording in their garage with Pro Tools and N-Track and other computer based studios with amazing results. Actually I really liked the sound of albums like BSC which didn't have massive production stuff going on. And is it really that difficult to pull a band together to record with, it's the touring that's the real problem as I see it. |And here's the really curious part: the bit about te "colossal |amount of work...to make any record that is actually going to |appeal to...a thousand people." Is there a direct relation |between the amount of work put into a recording and the level |of its appeal? I don't think so... And anyway, although |certainly he's not as prolific a writer as a Bob Pollard, |Pollard's work certainly demonstrates that not much equipment |- and a level of work per song that seems fairly attainable - |can make a record that appeals to many more than a thousand |people. And I'm really unsure about what he means by "cultural |presence" and 20,000 people: why is a cultural presence so |important, and why does it wink into existence at 20k |sales...rather than being, say, 1/20 as strong at 1,000 sales? I'd much rather listen to an album that Scott was happy with. I don't think he really wants to be popular at the expense of his own creative insight does he. I think Tim Lee summed it up pretty well on another list I'm on when he said something to the effect that he had come to realize that music was not self supporting venture. He did it because he loved it, and if that meant a smaller audience that truly "got" what he was doing and enjoyed it, so be it. True recognition is nice, but I would think you'd want recognition from people you respect. |*sigh* I kind of wish he'd just say "I don't feel like doing |it anymore" and leave it at that - the explanations are far |more troubling than the situation of silence. | |It's funny - I thought I understood and agreed with the |reasons that Scott's withdrawn from public musicmaking - but |the more he explains it, the less I think I understand or agree. My sentiments exactly Jeffrey. - -Larry ------------------------------ Date: 05 Mar 2002 13:33:36 -0500 From: Dan Schmidt Subject: Re: [loud-fans] another swap review Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey writes: | (Yes, I know there's not really such a thing...although i will argue | that the proper notation for the guitar part on the fade of XTC's | "Day In, Day Out" is 5/12: The figure starts off as triplets within | the prevailing 4/4 - but the phrase is five notes long. | | If the part continued, "1" in each part would sync up every 60 notes | (five bars of the 4/4 considering the notes as triplets within | it). What happens on the record is the 4/4 rhythm fades, leaving | only the triplets (grouped in fives), which themselves then | fade. Imagine if instead of fading, the part continued, repeating | itself 16 times - and then the band kicked back in with the 4/4 | rhythm. So you have a five-note phrase repeating 16 times - that's | 80 notes. Twelve of those notes to the (4/4) bar - that's six bars | complete, with 8 notes left over. | | How do you notate that leftover measure - which is 2/3 of the 4/4 | bar long? I think it makes more sense to consider the existence of | 5/12 time - extending for 16 bars - and then moving back to 4/4. It seems like every year or so there's a thread on Usenet in which someone insists that denominators of numbers other than powers of two make no sense and examples like these get brought up to refute that assertion, though I can't think of any times I've actually seen it in written notation. The best example of a 5/12 measure I can think of is the little break in Soundgarden's "Pretty Noose" that consists of five triplet eighth notes instead of the six you'd expect. The whole bar is effectively 11/12 (2/4 + 5/12) in relation to the surrounding 4/4. Dan - -- http://www.dfan.org ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Mar 2002 11:50:38 -0700 From: Stewart Mason Subject: Re: [loud-fans] another swap review At 10:07 PM 3/4/02 -0500, jenny grover wrote: >4- Tracey Ullman- You Broke My Heart in 17 Places >Cute girlie pop with nice hooks and 60's girl-pop overtones. Mike notes >that Kirsty MacColl wrote this song, and it really sounds like it. I love Tracey Ullman's versions of Kirsty's songs (she did three or four of them), not least because Kirsty's multiply-overdubbed backing vocals are mixed at least as loud as Tracey's lead vocal...actually, on "They Don't Know," I think Kirsty's vocal is actually mixed *louder* than than Tracey's! >10- The Barracudas- 11th Hour >More really good garage revival stuff. I've never heard of this band, >but I really like this! More info, please. The Barracudas, fronted by Robin Wills, were one of the leading lights in the UK's short-lived psychedelic revival of the early '80s...which is odd because in retrospect they sound much more like a NUGGETS-style garage rock band. There were several releases, but I think they're all out of print and probably pretty tough to find. >16- Chrysanthemums- God and the Dave Clark 5 >Is this Chrys&themums, or a different band? Strange stacatto pop morphs >into a dreamlike passage with a cheesy organ riff, electronically melded >vocals, and clock tick rhythm, then back into pop with a passing Monkees >reference and a cool guitar solo ending. Basically Chrys&themums, yeah. When Terry Burrows and Martin Howells restarted the band in the mid-'90s, they changed the name slightly to differentiate the new version from the old one which also featured Alan Jenkins. This is one of Terry's songs, which he re-recorded a few years ago for a single that never panned out. Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2002 14:43:12 -0500 From: "Larry Tucker" Subject: RE: [loud-fans] another swap review |>10- The Barracudas- 11th Hour |>More really good garage revival stuff. I've never heard of |this band, |>but I really like this! More info, please. | |The Barracudas, fronted by Robin Wills, were one of the |leading lights in the UK's short-lived psychedelic revival of |the early '80s...which is odd because in retrospect they sound |much more like a NUGGETS-style garage rock band. There were |several releases, but I think they're all out of print and |probably pretty tough to find. You can get a couple of their albums from emusic.com - -Larry ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Mar 2002 14:39:38 -0500 From: "Aaron Milenski" Subject: [loud-fans] Destroy All Monsters Does anyone here have the 3-CD 1974-1976 compilation by Destroy All Monsters? If so, comments? Supposedly they're as experimental as pre-punk, non-prog, non-psych American bands got in the mid-70s and would have influenced millions if anyone had heard them. I'd love to buy the thing, but now that it's out of print it'll cost me a lot, and I'd like to be as informed as possible before I shell out for it. What brings them to mind is that I'm currently listening to Simply Saucer's CYBORGS REVISITED. It's taken me a few years to finally track down a copy. They're definitely the missing link between spacerock and punk. Their bizarre snythesizer use even predates Pere Ubu, though these 1974 recordings weren't released until 1989. Again, one wonders if the punk era would have come sooner if these guys had had some exposure. I'd say they rank with the equally unknown Plastic Cloud at the top of the Candian rock and roll ladder. Aaron _________________________________________________________________ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Mar 2002 14:09:08 -0600 From: triggercut Subject: Re: [loud-fans] another swap review Yep, both CDNOW and AMAZON have copies of the THROUGH THE MYSTS OF TIME comp in stock. I picked that up last year at Reckless here in Chicago, and it's a wonderful retrospective. Stewart Mason wrote: > >10- The Barracudas- 11th Hour > >More really good garage revival stuff. I've never heard of this band, > >but I really like this! More info, please. > > The Barracudas, fronted by Robin Wills, were one of the leading lights in > the UK's short-lived psychedelic revival of the early '80s...which is odd > because in retrospect they sound much more like a NUGGETS-style garage rock > band. There were several releases, but I think they're all out of print > and probably pretty tough to find. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Mar 2002 14:52:14 -0500 From: "Aaron Milenski" Subject: [loud-fans] Barracudas Within the last few years, I bought a vinyl copy of DROP OUT WITH THE BARRACUDAS from Bomp for five dollars. I bet it's still in their catalogue. _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2002 15:03:16 -0500 (EST) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: RE: [loud-fans] The Continuing Story of Bungalow Scott On Tue, 5 Mar 2002, Larry Tucker wrote: > Even REM's sales aren't what they were a decade ago. I think they'd be > very hard pressed to get that fat Warner deal they landed years ago. A decade ago, one could listen to the most recent REM without wincing. Many people, including me, no longer find this to be true. I agree with you about the dissipation of consensus in the intervening years, but that's not what befell REM. aaron ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Mar 2002 14:24:12 -0600 From: Miles Goosens Subject: RE: [loud-fans] The Continuing Story of Bungalow Scott At 03:03 PM 3/5/2002 -0500, Aaron Mandel wrote: >On Tue, 5 Mar 2002, Larry Tucker wrote: > >> Even REM's sales aren't what they were a decade ago. I think they'd be >> very hard pressed to get that fat Warner deal they landed years ago. > >A decade ago, one could listen to the most recent REM without wincing. >Many people, including me, no longer find this to be true. I agree with >you about the dissipation of consensus in the intervening years, but >that's not what befell REM. So what did befall REM? Jeezus, I don't think we can keep telling people that Scott Miller music (or New Pornographers, or Guided by Voices, or Spoon, or whatever folks here like right now) is great stuff even though it doesn't sell and get played on the radio, then turn around and act like the greater record buying public that's sucking down the Limp Bizkit and Staind has somehow developed taste when it comes to not buying R.E.M. records. If you want to make an argument about quality, make it. But using poor sales to validate your argument about an artist's decline (which, on second reading, I still *think* you're doing, but I'm not entirely sure of it) strikes me like an exercise in very dubious logic. later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2002 15:23:53 -0500 From: "Larry Tucker" Subject: RE: [loud-fans] The Continuing Story of Bungalow Scott |-----Original Message----- |From: Aaron Mandel [mailto:aaron@eecs.harvard.edu] |Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2002 3:03 PM |To: Larry Tucker |Cc: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey; Account 7870 |Subject: RE: [loud-fans] The Continuing Story of Bungalow Scott | | |On Tue, 5 Mar 2002, Larry Tucker wrote: | |> Even REM's sales aren't what they were a decade ago. I think |they'd be |> very hard pressed to get that fat Warner deal they landed years ago. | |A decade ago, one could listen to the most recent REM without |wincing. Many people, including me, no longer find this to be |true. I agree with you about the dissipation of consensus in |the intervening years, but that's not what befell REM. Point taken and I agree to a degree, but another problem is that the prime music buying audience are in their teens or early 20's and many artists as they age, their audience ages with them and are generally not the music consumer they were in their younger years. I don't think that if REM were to release OUT OF TIME (not my favorite though a larger seller than MURMUR) today that it would garner the sales it did in 1991-2. Think back on the your friends during high school and college with that you shared a lot of music consumption with. How many of them still buy the same number of releases you do today, or even have the interest? - -Larry ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Mar 2002 14:34:21 -0600 From: Miles Goosens Subject: RE: [loud-fans] Swap review (dana) At 08:47 AM 3/5/2002 -0500, Larry Tucker wrote: >|> That would be The Donner Party with "When I Was a Baby." >| >|for what it's worth, the New Pornographers are covering this >|song on their current tour. > >Thanks Sue! And I thought it was a new song, though they introduced it >as an old folk song when they played Chapel Hill. Then again they >introduced their encore, "Center for Holy Wars" as "We're Here to Rock >You, We Hope You Don't Mind". At the last Jason Ringenberg (of Jason & the Scorchers) solo show that I saw in 2001, he introduced a song as "his very favorite bluegrass song." It was "I Wanna Be Sedated." urging all North Carolinians to see Jason & the Scorchers on March 15th & 16th, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2002 13:15:25 -0800 From: "me" Subject: [loud-fans] quick hello ./ ./ ./ back in the USSR... ./ ./ ./ yeah. yeah. yeah. well, back in CA, anyhow. no work, money, sun, family or friends in WA; got my old job back in Concord; living in Martinez. all this means to you folks is that i actually use a computer on a daily basis now (again), so i'm back on the list. i await the impending flood of daily loud-fans e-mails with baited breath... and one finger poised gallantly over the delete key... heh. - -- brianna me@justanotherfuckin.com HA! - -- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2002 13:39:10 -0800 (PST) From: Robert Toren Subject: [loud-fans] Scott Content_ he looks pretty happy to me three pix of scott and others at the Big Star concert at the Fillmore, SF Mar 2, 2002 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gametheoryphotos/files/ pix are under Files/Misc 2000->... enjoy, the Robert who occasionally reverts to Photo ===== "Monotheistic religion has always brought out the best in us humans; thank you so much for the idea of a vengeful supernatural entity who rewards people in the afterlife! That shit makes a lot of sense!"http://www.mnftiu.cc/ Try FREE Yahoo! Mail - the world's greatest free email! http://mail.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2002 14:10:04 -0800 From: "me" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Scott Content_ he looks pretty happy to me and THAT is what i miss for not being on the list. damn. that would have been my concert of the year, if not concert of five years or more! brianna - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Toren" To: "loud family" Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2002 1:39 PM Subject: [loud-fans] Scott Content_ he looks pretty happy to me > three pix of scott and others at the Big Star concert > at the Fillmore, SF Mar 2, 2002 > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gametheoryphotos/files/ > pix are under > Files/Misc 2000->... > enjoy, > the Robert who occasionally reverts to Photo > > ===== > "Monotheistic religion has always brought out the best in us humans; thank you so much for the idea of a vengeful supernatural entity who rewards people in the afterlife! That shit makes a lot of sense!"http://www.mnftiu.cc/ > Try FREE Yahoo! Mail - the world's greatest free email! > http://mail.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2002 17:25:00 -0500 (EST) From: Sue Trowbridge Subject: RE: [loud-fans] The Continuing Story of Bungalow Scott On Tue, 5 Mar 2002, Larry Tucker wrote: > Point taken and I agree to a degree, but another problem is that the > prime music buying audience are in their teens or early 20's and many > artists as they age, their audience ages with them and are generally not > the music consumer they were in their younger years. wrong! That's a myth, according to the RIAA's own statistics. http://www.riaa.org The following analysis is from the 1998 figures, so they're a bit old, but the 2000 figures (which are only available in a PDF chart) show that us 30+ geezers make up 53.8% of the music purchasing demographic. Age The trend towards an older purchasing demographic continued. In fact, consumers over 30 were the only age demographic to show any growth last year. Consumers 35 years and older accounted for 39% of the units purchased in 1998 compared to 22.1% 10 years ago. In 1998, 12% of all purchases were made by those 50 years of age and older compared to just 6%, 10 years ago. Country and Pop dominate the music choices made by these mature consumers, accounting for 51% and 53% respectively of all purchases within these genres. Also, a drop-off in the proportion of purchases accounted for by 15 to 24 year-olds (32.2% in 1996 vs. 28% in 1998), once the mainstay of the market, continues. (In 2000, the 15 to 24 year-old demographic dropped further, to 25.4%.) - --Sue ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2002 17:38:32 -0500 From: "Larry Tucker" Subject: RE: [loud-fans] The Continuing Story of Bungalow Scott |-----Original Message----- |From: Sue Trowbridge [mailto:trow@interbridge.com] |Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2002 5:25 PM |To: Account 7870 |Subject: RE: [loud-fans] The Continuing Story of Bungalow Scott | | |On Tue, 5 Mar 2002, Larry Tucker wrote: | |> Point taken and I agree to a degree, but another problem is that the |> prime music buying audience are in their teens or early 20's |and many |> artists as they age, their audience ages with them and are generally |> not the music consumer they were in their younger years. | |wrong! That's a myth, according to the RIAA's own statistics. http://www.riaa.org The following analysis is from the 1998 figures, so they're a bit old, but the 2000 figures (which are only available in a PDF chart) show that us 30+ geezers make up 53.8% of the music purchasing demographic. Age The trend towards an older purchasing demographic continued. In fact, consumers over 30 were the only age demographic to show any growth last year. Consumers 35 years and older accounted for 39% of the units purchased in 1998 compared to 22.1% 10 years ago. In 1998, 12% of all purchases were made by those 50 years of age and older compared to just 6%, 10 years ago. Country and Pop dominate the music choices made by these mature consumers, accounting for 51% and 53% respectively of all purchases within these genres. Also, a drop-off in the proportion of purchases accounted for by 15 to 24 year-olds (32.2% in 1996 vs. 28% in 1998), once the mainstay of the market, continues. (In 2000, the 15 to 24 year-old demographic dropped further, to 25.4%.) - --Sue ===================================== Why thank you Sue for enlightening me. I guess that's why I don't run a record label. ;) Makes me a little apprehensive though, believing the RIAA. Can the drop it the lower age group maybe be due to the internet and file sharing? I'm pretty sure the RIAA would say that. - -Larry Majority member ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Mar 2002 18:04:13 -0500 From: jenny grover Subject: Re: [loud-fans] hurtfeelingathon dmw wrote: > > hey, you married folks -- cast yer minds back with me now to the days of > yore. 'member what is was like right after a really bad break up? You mean the parts not wiped out by the alcohol binges? > when > you'd swear that you were never gonna date anyone again, that whole thing > just wasn't worth the pain no > 'cause if you remember, those dates set up by yer pals while you were > still firmly in "never again!" mode, those were all disasters, right? no Anyway, I think the saddest thing about all this supposed lack of appreciation, lack of numbers, lack of sales, whatever it is that Scott doesn't feel measures up, is that there is still so much untapped audience/fan potential there. I mean, I followed Game Theory from '83 through their break-up, but news, sounds, and discs never reached me until I accidentally stumbled across a used Interbabe on eBay in '99! If I hadn't seen that, and bought it, I might never have even known the band existed. Not that they existed much longer after I found out about them. I think Alias did a crappy job of promotion and distribution. I never even saw a mention in a magazine or anything. That's inexcusable in my book. I really think the problem is less one of the music not being appealing enough, and more one of people not even knowing it exists, or when they find out it does exist, having a tough time actually buying it. Jen ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2002 18:17:09 -0500 (EST) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: RE: [loud-fans] The Continuing Story of Bungalow Scott On Tue, 5 Mar 2002, Miles Goosens wrote: > then turn around and act like the greater record buying public that's > sucking down the Limp Bizkit and Staind has somehow developed taste > when it comes to not buying R.E.M. records. Ah, well, right. There was a time when people with no taste at all -- the people who buy one record a year -- bought R.E.M. albums. That doesn't happen anymore; I don't think it's because of the breakdown of college-rock consensus OR because of the quality of R.E.M.'s records. It's just really hard to maintain that level of stardom for a long time. Even Madonna had a few slow years. > If you want to make an argument about quality, make it. Okay, here goes: I think R.E.M. got a whole lot worse on Up, and tried to reconcile their new direction with their past on Reveal, which could have been great if the songwriting were there, but, I think, wasn't. I feel like the music is trying to go in a mellower but also more nuanced direction, and Stipe, though I love what his voice *can* do, doesn't have the expressive chops to complement it, so the last two records have come out underdone. However: > But using poor sales to validate your argument about an artist's > decline (which, on second reading, I still *think* you're doing, but > I'm not entirely sure of it) strikes me like an exercise in very > dubious logic. That's not what I meant to do. I just don't think R.E.M. are a good example for talking about the shrinking of that alt-rock stage they once stood on and which the Loud Family never reached. I'm not sure there's any band whose ten-year career trajectory works as an example there -- it might be better to look at recent bands whom one can compellingly parallel with the underground winners of the late 80s and say "see, NONE of them are getting breaks now" -- but R.E.M., with the risks they've taken, are a particularly bad case study if one's just trying to suss out a larger trend. a ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V2 #88 ******************************