From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V2 #314 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 Thursday, September 5 2002 Volume 02 : Number 314 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [loud-fans] Road Trip Suggestions ["Francis J H Park" ] [loud-fans] Wire: Read and Burn 02 Available [Miles Goosens ] Re: [loud-fans] Wire tour date correction [Michael Mitton ] Re: [loud-fans] Bumbershoot report [Miles Goosens ] RE: [loud-fans] spoon ["Larry Tucker" ] [loud-fans] Sad news (ns) [Dave Walker ] Re: [loud-fans] Mope Rock [was Bumbershoot report] [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jef] Re: [loud-fans] Mope Rock [was Bumbershoot report] [Tim_Walters@digidesig] [loud-fans] tv tonight (ns) [Dana Paoli ] Re: [loud-fans] Mope Rock [was Bumbershoot report] [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jef] Re: [loud-fans] Mope Rock [was Bumbershoot report] [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jef] Re: [loud-fans] Mope Rock [was Bumbershoot report] [dmw ] [loud-fans] Hank Dogs [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] [loud-fans] Patty Griffin [Phil Fleming ] Re: [loud-fans] tv tonight (ns) ["jer fairall" ] RE: [loud-fans] Patty Griffin ["glenn mcdonald" ] RE: [loud-fans] Patty Griffin [Phil Fleming ] [loud-fans] Yet Another Adventure in Hi-Fi [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Road Trip Suggestions I was in Italy last week attending a friend's wedding and lo and behold, a remarkably ns topic awaits me when I get back! After hopping an Air Force flight back, I faced a 7-hour drive back to North Carolina from Dover AFB and remembered one rule that I had to institute, particularly at night... I almost augered my car into the side of I-95 driving back from Baltimore MD to Richmond VA the night after I graduated from college because my parents gave me Coke for the trip back. What I didn't realize was that it was Evil Caffeine-Free Coke and I almost fell asleep driving back somewhere around Fredericksburg. I will never drink caffeine-free colas after that again. Janet's Rule # 4 and 5 remind me of one of the few significant arguments I ever had with Maura, which was on a drive back to NC from Rhode Island. She drives very conservatively by any standard (which, if she'd gone to Italy, would've have meant hand-size death-grip imprint marks on every car she would've ridden) thru the NYC-NJ-DC area. She didn't want to listen to any of my disks and I didn't want to listen to her Top 40. We listened to 8 hours of NPR punctuated by some snippets of WHFS when we were passing thru MD. We were both hopping mad and it took us some time to figure out a reasonable compromise. The drive back from Dover on Monday night was a lesson in Janet's Rule # 2, as well. I had enough caffeine that I had to stop every 45 minutes and Do The Number One. This was mitigated by the fact that I was going about 90mph+ on the Washington Beltway and a good chunk of the way back on I-95 thru Virginia and NC. Most of NC went by at about 85-95mph. After riding on the German autobahn and the Italian autostrade for the last week, everything seemed a little slow and very conservative, even the Washington Beltway. This mirrors the fastest transit I ever made from Baltimore to my parents' house in Richmond VA - two hours, mostly going 90mph, about 8 years ago, also over a Labor Day weekend. Is it just me, or have the American highways been getting markedly faster in the last 10 years? However, I'd been up all but 8 of the last 48 hours and I ended up stopping ay my parents' house since I'm sure I would've finished my journey as a piece of tightly-compacted wreckage. I learned from when I blew through a speed trap going 68mph in a 45mph zone, asleep, in my car driving back from SXSW a few years ago. Even the loathsome habit of dipping only buys you a little time when you're that tired, and I eschew dip and chew when I'm in garrison. Francis J. H. Park http://home.sprintmail.com/~durandal - -- "To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That's when you will have to make a decision. To be or to do? Which way will you go?" - COL(Ret) John R. Boyd, USAF (1927-1997) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 07:38:42 -0500 From: "Keegstra, Russell" Subject: RE: [loud-fans] Iconography On Tuesday, September 03, 2002 6:53 PM, Andrew Hamlin wrote: > River Phoenix, who also lived fast, died young, looked beautiful, and > departed us with most of his talent undeveloped, seems likely to be > completely forgotten in a few more years. I expect he will have to plunge into total obscurity before he is "rediscovered" and made cool for a new generation. Isn't that how these things go? No such thing as instant iconic status. 'Cept for maybe Zappa. Russ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 04 Sep 2002 08:57:48 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: [loud-fans] Wire: Read and Burn 02 Available In case you haven't heard, Wire's READ AND BURN 02, the second in their series of limited-run releases of completely new material, is now available - -- but will only be sold at http://www.posteverything.com and at their tour stops this fall. No retail, no other mail order, just from the site and at the shows. (Incidentally, the North American tour begins tonight, in Denver.) Posteverything buyers also get a freebie included with R&B02: the "WIRE designed fragrance 'The smell of YOU.'" Be very afraid. For those of you who haven't yet had the head-in-wind-tunnel experience of READ AND BURN 01, it too is still available at posteverything. that's the lowdown, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 04 Sep 2002 09:29:40 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Furrier Psychedelics At 10:56 PM 9/3/2002 -0400, Boyof100lists@aol.com wrote: >If anyone else cares, I noticed some early Furs reissues today, with restored >artwork, remastered (in this case I'm thinking it would be a drastic >improvement) with extra tracks, for about 12 dollars each. Having actual >artwork (the notoriously bad packaging of Columbia products in the eighties >is old news, I know) would make it worth the buy. I never thought the old CDs were bad, aside from the low levels (even by late '80s CD standards) on THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS. It's more like CD remastering has come a long way since then. I remember that the Midnight Oil catalog sounded great to me when the bulk of it came out on CD in 1989 or 1990; today, one listen to 20,000 WATT RSL (which is itself about five years old now!) makes me wish they'd do a round of re-remasters! Time Marxes on. Anyway, the first three Furs CDs have been available in remastered form since June, and they sound fine. The bonus tracks are better than those on the recent spate of Blondie and X reissues (boy, those bands didn't leave much of value on the cutting room floor!), but not essential, IMO, so what you're really paying for is improved sound (vast improvement on THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS, nice gains on the other two) and full booklets with artwork. THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS is shrinkwrapped with the UK cover showing, but like Rhino's Bowie reissues, you can flip the booklet to the US cover. But oddly, FOREVER NOW only has the UK cover, and the US cover isn't reproduced anywhere in the booklet. I have no idea if Sony is going to redo MIRROR MOVES (since it's The One With The Hit Single, you'd think so), MIDNIGHT TO MIDNIGHT, and the underrated "comeback" albums BOOK OF DAYS and WORLD OUTSIDE. I hope they do. Lest anyone think I'm making fun of Mark for only noticing the Furs CDs this week or for being unduly '80s-fixated, I didn't know there was a new Peter Murphy until I saw a barely-used copy at Grimey's on Saturday. The *briefest* track on it is 6:34! I popped it into the CD player on the way to work today, so after my 20-minute commute I'm only 2 1/2 songs into it! Nothing grabbed me like DEEP's "The Line Between the Devil's Teeth," "Cuts You Up," or "Strange Kind of Love," but then again, the first three tracks of DEEP aren't immediate grabbers either. I did think that what I heard was like "Peter Murphy sings Peter Gabriel" -- the first song threatened to turn into "The Family and the Fishing Net," and I half expected the second to turn into "Zaar." Will report again when I've actually heard the whole thing, preferably more than once. later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 04 Sep 2002 09:33:49 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: [loud-fans] Wire tour date correction I had said that the Wire tour begins tonight in Denver -- it actually starts on FRIDAY the 6TH of September. I had the Denver part right, though. Here's the N. American dates, straight from posteverything.com: >FRI 6 DENVER CO - Bluebird Theater >SAT 7 SAN DIEGO CA - Casbah >SUN 8 LOS ANGELES CA - El Rey Theater >MON 9 SAN FRANCISCO CA - Fillmore >TUE 10 SEATTLE WA - Showbox >WED 11 PORTLAND OR - Crystal Ballroom >FRI 13 MINNEAPOLIS MN - First Avenue >SAT 14 CHICAGO IL - Metro >SUN 15 TORONTO ON - Lee's Palace >TUE 17 CAMBRIDGE MA - Middle East (Down) >WED 18 NEW YORK NY - Irving Plaza >THUR 19 PHILADELPHIA PA - Gasoline (Making Time event) >FRI 20 WASHINGTON DC- 9:30 Club >SAT 21 ATLANTA GA - Echo Lounge >SUN 22 AUSTIN TX - La Zona Rosa > >SPECIAL GUESTS > >The Standard from Portland >all west coast dates except Seattle >The Oxes from Baltimore >Cambridge through to Atlanta later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 04 Sep 2002 10:01:25 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Bumbershoot report At 08:35 PM 9/3/2002 -0500, Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: >And Miles, I won't even *mention* _New Adventures in Hi-Fi_ - oh wait, I >just did. It has grown on me some since its release...but it still strikes >me as longwinded, with most tracks at least a minute or two too long. Sounds like you're downgrading it again -- I remember your last reassessment of it as being mostly positive with the "most tracks at least a minute or two too long" caveat as more of a quibble, whereas now it reads like a verdict. Of course, we are talking about tempos and track lengths and such, so maybe that's a partial explanation of your focus. My opinion hasn't changed: NEW ADVENTURES sounds great the way it is. The tracks that are supposed to be relatively concise ("Departure," "So Fast, So Numb," "Low Desert," and the great "Bittersweet Me" -- one of those rare songs like Prince's "Pop Life" that actually got *better* to me upon repeat exposure as a single) already are. The longer songs don't bore me at all and feel like they're already at the right lengths. I'll stay on our (so far) NS topic by throwing out a tempo/length theory: maybe your problem with NEW ADVENTURES isn't so much the song lengths as it is the track sequencing. The longer songs are front-loaded. Five of the first six songs are five minutes in length or longer. By contrast, six of the final eight songs are 4:11 or less ("Zither," "Low Desert," and "Departure" all clock in at less than 3:30). But see, your *impression* is that the album's chock full of "longwinded" songs, when I think it's the first impression that's sticking. It's understandable -- I mean, put in the CD without reprogramming or random playing, and while your interest is most keen, you're hearing the long ones all in a row. But it's not a wholly accurate statement, unless you really do want a 30-second "Zither" and 1:30 "Departure." presumptuously accounting for the opinions of people I know, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 11:09:50 -0400 (EDT) From: dmw Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Wire tour date correction On Wed, 4 Sep 2002, Miles Goosens wrote: > >The Standard from Portland > >all west coast dates except Seattle > >The Oxes from Baltimore > >Cambridge through to Atlanta oxes are a really scary band, all instrumental complex metally stuff that sounds like it's all improv but is actually tightly written. nice to know that instead of playing a show the same night as fugazi for a change i'm playing a show the same night as wire -- jeez. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 13:24:48 -0400 (EDT) From: Michael Mitton Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Wire tour date correction > > >The Standard from Portland > > >all west coast dates except Seattle > > >The Oxes from Baltimore > > >Cambridge through to Atlanta > > oxes are a really scary band The Standard has a lead singer who sounds like a braying goat. I'm not kidding. - --Michael ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 10:31:29 -0700 From: "Michael Zwirn" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Wire tour date correction Michael wrote: > The Standard has a lead singer who sounds like a braying goat. I'm not > kidding. a-yup. Not my favorite band from Portland. n.p. KCRW simulcast on the web ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 04 Sep 2002 12:43:34 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Iconography At 06:53 PM 9/3/2002 -0700, Andrew Hamlin wrote: >Seriously though, does anyone have any ideas on what makes an icon? Time, >obviously. Living fast and dying young make practical prerequisites. But >why does time anoint certain beautiful corpses and not others? James Dean >is alive and well almost fifty years after he died of a broken neck. River >Phoenix, who also lived fast, died young, looked beautiful, and departed us >with most of his talent undeveloped, seems likely to be completely forgotten >in a few more years. Well, does anyone know the history of James Dean's *legend*? If we could hop to 1964, a world still largely unexposed to the "counterculture" that venerated him as a sort of Founding Father, a world without EASY RIDER, would he be just another died-young celeb instead of JAMES DEAN: THE MUTANT KING? In other words, would James Dean's place in public memory in 1964 be about where River Phoenix is right now? later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 04 Sep 2002 13:06:24 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Bumbershoot report At 05:09 PM 9/3/2002 -0500, Wes_Vokes@eFunds.Com wrote: >I don't disaggree with anything anyone is saying, really... I just think it >is weird that I have never heard the comment (well, from anyone whose >comments re: music I take seriously) "That CD has way too many fast >songs!".... I don't have a copy at hand to verify if tempo factors into this, but IMO we've been seeing a "too noisy/hard!" variant with SOULJACKER. That is, at least as far as I can judge from comments here, on Audities, and on Fegmaniax. Don't get me wrong, I've thoroughly enjoyed the first three eels releases, but SOULJACKER is the first one that I *love,* in part because of the John Parish dissonance factor adding bite throughout, but mostly because it keeps things varied. On all the other eels albums, I'd want to like them more, and could certainly recognize that nearly every song was a good 'un, but I always wanted to up the dynamics and fuzz, and have fewer low-key confessional concoctions. To me, SOULJACKER achieves the right balance, putting enough different and noisy things into the mix to let the softer slower stuff contrast and shine. But if I remember most of the opinions I've seen expressed, I don't remember anyone else being as nearly excited about SOULJACKER. Of course, this could be a replay of the dynamic I saw with my favorite Mark Eitzel album, WEST: I thought the poppier, more melodic approach not only served Eitzel well but made the trademark Eitzel-y harrowing stuff ("Stunned and Frozen," "Fresh Screwdriver") far more effective. Those who already loved what Eitzel was doing saw no need for him to change and felt disappointed/sold out, and maybe that's how those who were already well-served by ELECTRO-SHOCK BLUES felt about SOULJACKER, I dunno. later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 11:13:27 -0700 From: Tim_Walters@digidesign.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Mope Rock [was Bumbershoot report] >OK, *precisely* speaking, some of the tempos are fast. But do they *feel* >fast? A good question. Drake often sings drawn-out melodies over fast rhythms. This is probably one of the things that give him his distinctive melancholy-but-not-lugubrious quality. Another might be that he doesn't use minor keys very often. I recently attended a panel where one of the speakers insisted that major keys are inherently happy and minor keys inherently sad, in a cross-cultural, physiologically based way, and I wanted to tie him to a chair and make him listen to alternating Nick Drake and klezmer music for a while. Or, to be more self-aggrandizing and really isolate the one variable, "Shenandoah" and "Down Among The Dead Men." >To take your point, maybe one of the reasons I like PINK MOON besides its >brevity is that it mixes things up more than I'm consciously thinking. I may not have been thinking clearly enough to have that point in mind, but it's a good one. >I do >think that 28 minutes of it goes further than 60 minutes would. I very much agree. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 04 Sep 2002 13:13:34 -0700 From: Elizabeth Brion Subject: [loud-fans] Catching up Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: > Silly question, based on random thoughts after reading an interview the > other day: how many of us here have had songs written about, to, or for > us? How did/do you feel about that, if so? I was once engaged to a guy who wrote songs for or about me on a regular basis.... the feeling varies based on a lot of things. Three of them I thought were absolutely kickass songs, plus they made me go all mushy, so that was a pretty great thing. A fourth, which he was particularly enamored of, I didn't think was among his best work (although it still had a good mush factor), so that was just awkward. A fifth, which I thought was an amazing song, was inspired by a photo that he'd seen of me as a gawky, lonely child, so that was kind of depressing. I kind of wished he hadn't told me that, because I wouldn't have necessarily picked up on it myself. It was a depressing song anyway, but it would've been fine if I hadn't taken it personally. Mostly, I wish I still had a recording of them. Oh well. Re the all-midtempo all the time album craze: My problem isn't so much with any single album's lack of rock as that maybe 70% of the artists whose albums I buy automatically (or at least used to) have fallen into that pattern in the last few years. So I'm having to really work to keep from developing an entirely midtempo collection. I'm quite sure there was an album at some point that I thought could use a ballad or two, but I can't remember what it was. And I think SOULJACKER is great. On birthdays: I'm November 3rd. On birthday coincidences: My sister, my mother and I were all born on one of our respective grandmothers' birthdays. My mom came from a big Catholic family, but with my sister and me it was two kids, two grandmas, so that's gotta be statistically amazing. Or does it? That's all, I think... ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 16:38:11 -0400 From: "Larry Tucker" Subject: RE: [loud-fans] spoon |-----Original Message----- |From: Boyof100lists@aol.com [mailto:Boyof100lists@aol.com] |Sent: Tuesday, September 03, 2002 10:44 PM |To: dana-boy@juno.com; loud-fans@smoe.org |Subject: Re: [loud-fans] spoon | | |I got a promo poster of the latest Spoon record as part of a |care package |when I DJd if anyone wants it. |-Mark S. |np: The Bigger Lovers "Honey in the Hive" (buy this now, |thank me later) Pardon the cross list post, but yeah Mark this is an amazing album. I've had not had an album hit me so completely in the last few years since Elliott Smith's XO. For fans of Velvet Crush, it doesn't get much better than this. As Mark said "buy it now". Every one of its 11 songs are stick in your head memorable. It also reminds me of the Mayflies USA, but is SO much better. Mark, I think previously you asked me about their first album, which I think is really good (maybe more Big Star like), but this one really delivers on the potential that album hinted at. I'm pretty sure the band's name must be a take-off on Big Star (Big Star - - Sister Lovers) - -Larry .....call me enamored. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 19:15:48 -0400 From: Dave Walker Subject: [loud-fans] Sad news (ns) I don't know if anyone here was a fan, but this musician death has hit me harder than most. James Stinson, founding member and one half (with partner Gerald Donald) of the Detroit electro band Drexciya, passed away last night from heart complications. For over a decade, Drexciya built up a highly regarded catalog, releasing records on some of the best-respected labels in the field: Underground Resistance, Rephlex, Warp, Tresor, and Clone. I never actually met James myself, though we had quite a few mutual friends and acquaintances. Drexciya's music, though, was the soundtrack of my 1990's, from the early raw and futuristic 12" singles onward. They were the band that took Parliament's _Motor-Booty Affair_ as their starting point and fully integrated the techno-bass sound of Model 500, Afrika Bambataa and the unfettered noisy experimentation of the early Aphex Twin. -d.w. "most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps" ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 18:32:11 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Mope Rock [was Bumbershoot report] On Wed, 4 Sep 2002 Tim_Walters@digidesign.com wrote: > I recently attended a panel where one of the speakers insisted that major keys > are inherently happy and minor keys inherently sad, in a cross-cultural, > physiologically based way, and I wanted to tie him to a chair and make him > listen to alternating Nick Drake and klezmer music for a while. Or, to be more > self-aggrandizing and really isolate the one variable, "Shenandoah" and "Down > Among The Dead Men." What sort of panel was this? A consortium of first-grade music teachers? Hard to believe that anyone else would seriously advocate such a grossly oversimplistic view of music. - --Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html Today's Out of Context Quotation: ::"I mean, I castrated pigs and dipped snuff when I was younger":: ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 16:48:56 -0700 From: Tim_Walters@digidesign.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Mope Rock [was Bumbershoot report] >What sort of panel was this? A consortium of first-grade music teachers? Even worse: science fiction writers. It was a not-too-serious "xenomusicology" (i.e., what would alien music be like?) panel at Worldcon. >Hard to believe that anyone else would seriously advocate such a grossly >oversimplistic view of music. Actually, there are lots of musicologists who believe this. For example, check out: http://www2.shore.net/~laura/Ulysses/Sirens/noteminr.htm And to be fair to the panelist, I don't think he would have claimed that all major-key songs are happy and all minor-key songs are sad, just that these assignments are not arbitrary or culturally derived. But I don't even believe that. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 19:56:58 -0400 From: Dana Paoli Subject: [loud-fans] tv tonight (ns) Aimee is on the Tonight Show tonight. You know, I always used to think that that spelling of Amy was a modern affectation, but I was wrong. A few days after savaging the Rolling Stones (on 9/1), the NY Times today runs a story in the National section about how great they are. Hmmmmmm. I didn't get a chance to see if it makes the Times vs. Times section of Slate. - --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: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 19:29:14 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Mope Rock [was Bumbershoot report] On Wed, 4 Sep 2002 Tim_Walters@digidesign.com wrote: > >Hard to believe that anyone else would seriously advocate such a grossly > >oversimplistic view of music. > > Actually, there are lots of musicologists who believe this. For example, check > out: > > http://www2.shore.net/~laura/Ulysses/Sirens/noteminr.htm That the diatonic scale (yr basic scale) would be very old is unsurprising, being based as it is on naturally occurring harmonics (widdled with in current tuning, of course). But I'm not sure I buy the reasoning of Bob Fink (quoted at the link) re dissonance. First, since the scale is derived from the overtone series*, even a single note carries such "dissonances" within it. More importantly, the whole notion of dissonance implies polyphony, which arose first more or less accidentally and only very much later intentionally and in a developed manner, no? Finally, worrying about which note of the scale (major or minor) comes first, and concluding that since major is less dissonant, it's less painful, ignores the effect of chord inversions...which still sound "major" in whatever inversion, even when the first interval is a minor third (like E, G, C). Uh-and, your two-song example is clearer than any of that! * correct me if I'm wrong here, but the overtone series more or less spells out the intervals in descending order, from octave, to fifth, to fourth, to ~major third, ~minor third, an "off" note ~very flat seventh relative to the fundamental, ~major second (back to consonant octave), ~~minor second? With each being half of the preceding frequency? I'm just remembering about how notes in open position on the trombone went... I should read up again on the physics of sound - been 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 ::American people like their politics like Pez - small, sweet, and ::coming out of a funny plastic head. __Dennis Miller__ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 19:37:58 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Mope Rock [was Bumbershoot report] > http://www2.shore.net/~laura/Ulysses/Sirens/noteminr.htm Oops - hit send too soon last time. A few other things: music that's entirely consonant (w/in the notions of that term as developed in western art music) is, uh, dull - *not* contenting or soothing. Even something so simple and basic as a dominant seventh works *because* its slight degree of dissonance asks for resolution. "Happy" and "sad" are, I think, more a question of the dialectic between dissonance/consonance, tension/resolution, and the relative proportions thereof, than simply major or minor. And maybe it's just me - but I have a hard time hearing Nick Drake's *voice* as anything but less than happy. (Likewise, one of the more amusing aspects of the "Come On Eileen"/Eminem "bootleg" is how the chipper Dexy's track emphasizes the rather cheery tone of Mr. Mathers: he might *want* to sound threatening, but his voice can't really do it. At least not on that track.) One more example, this time about tempo: to me, the strings in Charles Ives' "Unanswered Question" sound very mournful - despite their playing essentially the same sequence as Pachelbel's Canon, which in its upbeat tempo (the best-known part) sounds quite cheery. (Approximately C, Em/G, Am/F, G...) As usual, I'm posting half-asssed w/o having listened to any of this stuff recently. Corrections based on actual ears are welcomed. - --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__ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 20:53:29 -0400 (EDT) From: dmw Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Mope Rock [was Bumbershoot report] On Wed, 4 Sep 2002, Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: > And maybe it's just me - but I have a hard time hearing Nick Drake's > *voice* as anything but less than happy. (Likewise, one of the more i'd go so far as to call "pink moon" "exuberant," even. but the only one i have is "bryter." ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 20:36:23 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: [loud-fans] Hank Dogs This was discussed briefly here a month or two back - finally got around to listening to my naked promo copy. I like it okay - one of the singers really reminds me of Beth Orton, and sometimes the music fits that as well (in her more acoustic moments, less some of the electronics more prevalent on her first album than on later ones). - --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 ::[clever or pithy quote]:: __[source of quote]__ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 18:59:59 -0700 (PDT) From: Phil Fleming Subject: [loud-fans] Patty Griffin I couldn't agree more! It makes me wonder what that A&M record that was shelved sounds like.. Phil F. NP... about to be Splender _To Whom It May Concern_ - --- glenn mcdonald wrote: > Patty Griffin's new > album is, for me, a > perfect example of the converse, a slow record > *without* the two or three > moments of fervor, and it just dies. Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes http://finance.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 22:10:56 -0400 From: "jer fairall" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] tv tonight (ns) > Aimee is on the Tonight Show tonight. She's also on Craig Kilborn on the 10th. Carson Daly's show may also be of interest to some people (or maybe just me) this week as Jimmy Eat World are on tomorrow and Jake Gyllenhaal on Friday. Jer np: BACHELOR NO. 2 (LOST IN SPACE still not here and I need my Aimee fix) Your Actions Can Help! Support Strong Environmental Protections http://www.care2.com/go/z/2532 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 22:25:38 -0400 From: "glenn mcdonald" Subject: RE: [loud-fans] Patty Griffin > [1000 Kisses] makes me wonder what that A&M record that was > shelved sounds like.. Since writing my disappointed review of _1000 Kisses_ I've actually heard _Silver Bell_, the one A&M ate, and an extremely bitter rant on the subject will be forthcoming. _Silver Bell_ borders on great, and in my opinion the contrast between it and _1000 Kisses_ casts everything I thought was wrong with _1000 Kisses_ into even sharper relief. Patty badly needs somebody with lots of money and their head not embedded in their own lower intestine to step in and liberate it. glenn ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 20:46:05 -0700 (PDT) From: Phil Fleming Subject: RE: [loud-fans] Patty Griffin So what does _Silver Bell_ sound like? I was a big fan of _Flaming Red_ though IMO it could have used some major resequencing (the last 3 songs drag the record down in a big way). I was neither here nor there about _Living With Ghosts_. Phil F. (who is STILL waiting for his Aimee Mann CD to arrive) NP... The Dismemberment Plan - _Change_ - --- glenn mcdonald wrote: > Since writing my disappointed review of _1000 > Kisses_ I've actually > heard _Silver Bell_, the one A&M ate, and an > extremely bitter rant on > the subject will be forthcoming. _Silver Bell_ > borders on great, and in > my opinion the contrast between it and _1000 Kisses_ > casts everything I > thought was wrong with _1000 Kisses_ into even > sharper relief. Patty > badly needs somebody with lots of money and their > head not embedded in > their own lower intestine to step in and liberate > it. > > glenn Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes http://finance.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 23:01:37 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: [loud-fans] Yet Another Adventure in Hi-Fi Long-time readers of this column (okay, it's not a column - but it would be, if I could figure out how to get Pine to display letters vertically) will note that, about once a year, usually spurred on by Miles, I decide to go and re-evaluate R.E.M.'s _New Adventures in Hi-Fi_. This year's go-round: Miles observed that my usual complaint (that most of the songs are too long) was probably colored by the album's front-loading of its longer tracks. Taking that into consideration, I listened to the album in shuffle mode this time. Of course, my CD player then decided to program tracks 2, 3, 1 as the first three selections... There's a simple, numerical matrix into which each track can be categorized: track number, overall quality-of-song (1 is best - 1 point deducted if I had to relisten to the track just to remember which one it was), and time to be trimmed from track (rounded to the nearest minute). Parenthetically, I'll note the track's actual time. So: 1, 2, 1 (4:31) 2, 1, 1 (5.08) 3, 1, - (5.26) 4, 2, 1 (5.09) 5, 1, 1 (5.25) 6, 3, 2 (7.18) 7, 2, - (3.29) 8, 1, - (4.05) 9, 2, 2 (5.33) 10, 1, - (5.01) 11, 3, 2.34.05 (2.34.05) 12, 2, 1 (4.13) 13, 3, 1 (3.32) 14, 1, - (4.05) So, the actual album is 65.32, I'd trim it to at least 52 minutes. (But see my final remarks.) Comments: 1. "West...": Too slow and droopy to work as an opener, although I like it well enough otherwise. 2. "Bomb": I like this song a lot - but it doesn't need to be five minutes long. 3. "Leper": I like this song even more - the best song here, I'd say. 4. "Undertow": This is one of the ones I couldn't remember, but I liked the chorus. Of course, now it's slipped my mind again. 5. "E-Bow": Even though this does a good job of building up, I remember looking up and thinking, "it should fade now." That was at about 4:30. So we'll call it 4:40. But it's actually 5.25. 6. "Leave": Intro's a minute too long. The rest of the song's another minute too long. I'm not sure it's not two minutes too long. The chord sequence is pretty rote. I'll pretend the noisy synth is innovative and interesting rather than annoying and pointless. 7. "Departure": Undistinguished, until the chorus with its upside-down bass, except as a louder, faster track when it's needed. I'll keep it, though. 8. "Bittersweet...": I like this one just fine, thank you. 9. "Mine": Get *on* with the arrangement already! Doesn't Stipe take like three verses before anything other than that guitar enters? 10. "Binky...": Another favorite from this record. 11. "Zither": R.E.M. really should face up to the fact that they should not do instrumentals unless they're less than two minutes long and based on surf music. Miles rhetorically asked whether this track should be cut down to thirty seconds or 1.30, based on my "a minute or two too long" comment. Uh, my reply is, yeah, sure - in fact, get rid of the whole thing. This is a b-side, at best. Sorry guys. 12. "Numb": Which song is this? 13. "Desert": Which song is this? Oh yeah - they were hanging around with Bono and the Edge and really liked "Bullet the Blue Sky." 14. "Electrolite": Whoa! Crank up those arthritic bones and *motor*! Nah, I like this one. One strength, even in many of the weaker songs: they *sound* good, particularly the guitar sounds, which almost redeem snoozers like "Low Desert." I think the other problem with this record - and it's one that seems to have plagued their last several albums - is their fondness for minor-key dirges that sound less composed than jammed, or simply found beneath Peter Buck's fingers. (Undertow, E-Bos, Leave, So Fast, and Low Desert - at least - fall into this category more or less.) If I hear A minor moving to F and then to G one more time, I think I'll scream. It's interesting that a band that's taken such pains to avoid repeating itself *sonically* - to the extent that for years it swore off completely the sound that had identified itself - doesn't break bad writing habits. My suggestion? Stop writing with the guitar in hand. Hear it in your head, write at the piano, whatever. So what happens if you take only the songs I've ranked with "1" and lop off the "excess" time? You get 27-28 minutes of prime material. Then if you lop the time off the "2"s, and add the results to the best stuff? You get a 44-minute album that's mostly very good. Instead, in reality, you've got an album that sags pretty deeply through almost half its overall length. - --Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::SCENE 2: ::Aunt Fritzi applies lipstick in the mirror. In the next room, Sluggo ::removes his ever-present cap and blows his nose in a red handkerchief. ::Nancy enters the room and accuses Sluggo of stealing the donuts that ::Aunt Fritzi made for her. Sluggo looks at the clock, which reads 8:54, ::and says he'd better hurry or he'll be late for his trombone lesson. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 21:05:11 -0700 (PDT) From: Phil Fleming Subject: [loud-fans] Hodgepodge of opinions and other crap - --- Wes_Vokes@eFunds.Com wrote: > So why is it that everyone complains when an album > has too many > slow/mid-tempo songs, but almost no one does when it > is, say a punk album > with no songs that have BPM under 140? Actually, I LIKE it when there's a song on a punk record that slower that 140. It's what I call a "breather" of sorts. There's usually at 2 on any punk record. Not that I listen to a whole lot of punk records anymore. > For me, the > issue is song quality > and where that fails, enough productions touches to > distinguish between > songs... That was the thing I LIKED about Aimee Mann's _Bachelor No. 2_. I thought it was too samey sounding, but the lyrical content and enough production 'tricks' made it an easier disc to listen to. I agree with everyone about the new Aimee Mann record, but at least it's a slightly quicker tempo than the majority of the last one. It just seems like now that her record company troubles are more or less done, she has nothing very good to write about. > Jeff Sez: > > Not sure what the deal is here - but what is it with > these folks in their > late thirties/early forties (raises hand) who seem > incapable anymore of > writing the occasional quicker song? Even one can > marvelously liven up an > album (although a few more might be needed at a show > - so that's why God > invented the cover song). I couldn't agree with you more...except for maybe the cover song theory. Thanks to that, I now think that any middle-of-the-road AOR band out on the road pulls out the peppy cover tunes to make up for the fact that they can't write (record company forbidden?) a 'rocker' (for lack of a better term). But what would I know?, Phil F. NP... The Dismemberment Plan _Change_ (still) Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes http://finance.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Sep 2002 01:45:09 EDT From: Boyof100lists@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Furrier Psychedelics In a message dated 9/4/02 10:27:55 AM Eastern Daylight Time, outdoorminer@mindspring.com writes: > Lest anyone think I'm making fun of Mark for only noticing the Furs CDs > this week or for being unduly '80s-fixated, I didn't know there was a new > Peter Murphy until I saw a barely-used copy at Grimey's on Saturday. The > *briefest* track on it is 6:34! I popped it into the CD player on the way > to work today, so after my 20-minute commute I'm only 2 1/2 songs into > it! I bought the new Peter Murphy a few months ago, and popped it in while driving from Greenville to Charleston. It was still going when I reached the halfway point Columbia (a horribly depressing city only good for stopping to use the bathroom and get a Coke), which is about an hour and a half (I drive about 62mph...it is 100 miles) and the album was enough to get me that far, though by the time I hit Columbia (which Pat Conroy calls "the armpit of the world" or something like that and I agree) I found I had a hankering not for a Coke, but for the tangy taste of human blood. Not going anywhere for a while? - -Mark, buying the first Furs reissue tomorrow...how many times does the word "stupid" appear in the lyrics on that record? p.s. the world ended on December 31, 1989 ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V2 #314 *******************************