From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V3 #2 Reply-To: loud-fans@smoe.org Sender: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk loud-fans-digest Saturday, January 4 2003 Volume 03 : Number 002 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [loud-fans] more iPod battery (ns) [dmw ] [loud-fans] Missing song found at last! [Charity Stafford ] [loud-fans] correction... ["Andrew Hamlin" ] Re: [loud-fans] squeak, squeak... [Stewart Mason ] RE: [loud-fans] more iPod battery (ns) ["Barnes, David" ] Re:RE: [loud-fans] more iPod battery (ns) [dana-boy@juno.com] Re: [loud-fans] more iPodery (ns) [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] Re: [loud-fans] squeak, squeak... [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] [loud-fans] About Schmidt ["jer fairall" ] Re: [loud-fans] About Schmidt [Michael Mitton ] Re: [loud-fans] About Schmidt [Stewart Mason ] Re: [loud-fans] About Schmidt [Dan Sallitt ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 07:58:24 -0500 (EST) From: dmw Subject: Re: [loud-fans] more iPod battery (ns) On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Dave Walker wrote: > In pretty much any situation where I'm listening to portable music (on > a bus, outdoors walking, in a semi-noisy office, etc.) the noise floor > is such that there's essentially no difference between a well-encoded > MP3 and the source CD. The earbuds do a pretty good job > of cutting out exterior noise, but you really don't notice how > loud the outside world is until you're trying not to hear it. :) i'm a recent, pretty ardent, convert to the etymotic in-ear phones of which dana's been a longtime booster. they're basically tiny speakers inside earplugs that give about ~22dB noise reduction, and they're extremely comparable in design (and comfort) to the earplugs i wear for show-going, rehearsing, commuting, etc. how they can get the bass response they do out of something so tiny is a mystery to me. i'd imagine they'd make yr ipod sound much, much better, and i find them very comfortable even for extended wear. much more comfortable than the highly-touted grado phones i bought. i won't get on the tired mp3 quality horse again. if you can't hear it, then it doesn't bother you. and i will admit that the newer generation of encoders is markedly better, even at 128K. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 10:51:25 -0500 (EST) From: Charity Stafford Subject: [loud-fans] Missing song found at last! I sent this once, but it went from my work e-mail, which might get refused by smoe.org for whatever reason - in any case, it hasn't appeared in my mail here yet, so just in case I'm doing it again. Some time ago - maybe a month or two back? - somebody (Jenny?) posted here looking for info on a song with a lyric "I live in a city made of bricks and steel, in a building by a river that flows like a (wheel?). I don't have much money, but if I did, I'd buy a little boat and I'd just sail away." I don't recall anybody coming up with an ID, which was frustrating for me because I recognized the song immediately and could "play" it in my head readily, but it was just something I used to hear pretty often on WMBR. Well, lo and behold, this morning the third-to-last song that Jon played on Breakfast of Champions was - "25 Reasons" by Red House. Apparently it was the only recording they ever did! A little googling yielded the following, so whoever it was that was originally asking, any any others curious, can hear the song - it's the 8th one down on the playlist. http://www.cyclespersecond.com/sounds/miscindie.html *I* feel better now! Charity ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 08:43:59 -0800 From: "Andrew Hamlin" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] squeak, squeak... CDNow lists the SOMETHING WILD soundtrack as still in print, for those who would like the original version of New Order's "Temptation." I've been laughing uproariously at "Sealab 2021" and "Aqua Teen Hunger Force." Anyone else? The new Johnny Cash just may be my Album Of The Year 2002. Any other opinions? Oh, and did anybody read THE MOUNT, Andy "Hi, my name is Jonathan Halyalkar, and I'm a shark jumper. I played Billy on Who's the Boss for the sole purpose of restoring ratings with my cute little face. I degraded the show. I can now come to terms with my problem, Only Raven Samone, and Andy Keaton can truly feel my pain. I was a shark jumper at the age of 5." - --From Jump The Shark's "Who's The Boss" forum at www.jumptheshark.com (courtesy Jer Fairall) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 08:53:57 -0800 From: "Andrew Hamlin" Subject: [loud-fans] correction... ...looks like the SOMETHING WILD soundtrack is out of print. Boo hiss. But it still has the original version of New Order's "Temptation." Please say it won't Talk Talk too? Andy "This book is dedicated to everyone who ever did anything no matter how sane or crazy whether it worked or not to give themselves a better life." - --Samuel R. Delany, from HEAVENLY BREAKFAST ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 03 Jan 2003 12:01:29 -0500 From: Stewart Mason Subject: Re: [loud-fans] squeak, squeak... At 08:43 AM 1/3/2003 -0800, Andrew Hamlin wrote: >I've been laughing uproariously at "Sealab 2021" and "Aqua Teen Hunger >Force." Anyone else? Big thumbs up from the Allston contingent -- Adult Swim has become something of a Sunday night ritual here. Not to mention Home Movies (moving to five nights a week starting 1/12), The Brak Show and reruns of my beloved Space Ghost Coast To Coast. While we were in Knoxville for the holidays, Charity and I (along with her sister and brother-in-law) stayed up until 3 a.m. on Christmas Eve just to see the Space Ghost Christmas Special for the first time in years. Click click click, indeed. Musical content: Calamine, who do the incredibly wonderful Sealab 2021 theme, have an EP available from www.cdbaby.com. None of the songs are as good as the theme (not on it, unfortunately), but it's not at all bad if you're into the whole girls-and-heavily-processed-guitars thing. Frankly, a Cartoon Network CD that included the Sealab theme, Schoolly D's "Finger Puppets" closing theme from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, some of the Sonny Sharrock music from Space Ghost and a few of Brendan Small's songs from Home Movies (particularly "Don't Stick Marbles In Your Nose") would be a most delightful purchase. Stewart NP: A LESSER OF TWO KNIEVELS -- popInterstate (new Seattle band with a major Young Fresh Fellows jones) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 09:44:11 -0800 From: "Barnes, David" Subject: RE: [loud-fans] more iPod battery (ns) I'd also like to think that one of these days we'll see some enterprising person come up with a hard-drive upgrade for the iPod that will permit those of us with the 5gb versions to fatten on up to 10 or 20 or 40... > -----Original Message----- > From: glenn mcdonald [SMTP:glenn@furia.com] > Sent: Thursday, January 02, 2003 9:10 PM > To: Dana Paoli > Cc: loud-fans@smoe.org > Subject: Re: [loud-fans] more iPod battery (ns) > > You can bet that by the time most people's iPods start dying Panasonic > will be selling better ones in Best Buy for $59, so if you're trying to > assess an iPod as a technology investment, it's bound to be shitty. > Three years from now we'll probably laugh hysterically at the idea that > anybody would pay $300-500 for a gadget that a) used moving parts > instead of solid-state, b) used local storage instead of streaming over > the net, c) had to have its music loaded into it from a separate CD > reader that took minutes to extract the contents of a single album and > had to look up the song names in an online database built up by > individual people reading them off the backs of the jewels cases and > personally typing them in, and/or d) isn't also a fully functional cell > phone and PDA. This whole area of technology is still in its > early-adopter days, and Apple's genius is to disguise that fact well > enough that lots of people are willing to join in before they probably > otherwise would have. > > Or, to restate this another way: iPods rock! > > glenn ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 13:10:52 -0500 From: John Sharples Subject: Re: [loud-fans] more iPodery (ns) Quoting Dana Paoli : > Anyway, I did some googling after work today, and the upshot is that -- Okay, you can just stop there. Yep, that's a fine way to pass the time. In fact, I recommend, after the "upshot", you finish things off with a smoke and a Coca-Cola. That's an afternoon right there. Boy Howdy! JS - ------------------------------- This mail sent through Brooklyn Law School WebMail http://www.brooklaw.edu/webmail - ------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 18:31:25 GMT From: dana-boy@juno.com Subject: Re:RE: [loud-fans] more iPod battery (ns) This whole area of technology is still in its > early-adopter days, and Apple's genius is to disguise > enough that lots of people are willing to join in before they probably > otherwise would have. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I'm basically in agreement w/everything glenn says. I do think that Apple hase made explicit something that's usually implicit: the iPod will be obsolete in two years or so, so they've designed it to stop working in about that time period. Might have been nice of them to mention that *somewhere* though so potential buyers could weigh that factor. But, since I didn't buy it (Santa did), and since it rocks, I'm not going to lose any more sleep. If you divide the cost by 24 (months) it works out to a very reasonable per-month charge for what it provides. - --dana ________________________________________________________________ Sign Up for Juno Platinum Internet Access Today Only $9.95 per month! Visit www.juno.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 14:14:09 -0600 From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] more iPodery (ns) Quoting John Sharples : > Quoting Dana Paoli : > > > Anyway, I did some googling after work today, and the upshot is that > -- > > Okay, you can just stop there. Yep, that's a fine way to pass the time. > In > fact, I recommend, after the "upshot", you finish things off with a > smoke and a > Coca-Cola. That's an afternoon right there. Ain't that the way it goes: first, you start by jiggling the iPod - "just testing," you claim - and then you start googling, and before you know it... And who was it here claimed they'd never jiggled their iPod? What's the statistic..."95% have, and the other 5% are liars"? ..Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html :: As long as I don't sleep, he decided, I won't shave. :: That must mean...as soon as I fall asleep, I'll start shaving! :: --Thomas Pynchon, _Vineland_ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 03 Jan 2003 15:46:22 -0500 From: jenny grover Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Missing song found at last! Oh my God! Charity, you nailed it! Thanks so much. I got the *Red* part right, anyway. They used to play that song so much on WPRB and I got it on tape, but had never written it down, even though I knew at the time. Time... that great eraser of weak memory connections. Jen ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 03 Jan 2003 15:49:32 -0500 From: jenny grover Subject: Re: [loud-fans] more iPodery (ns) John Sharples wrote: > > Quoting Dana Paoli : > > > Anyway, I did some googling after work today, and the upshot is that -- > > Okay, you can just stop there. Yep, that's a fine way to pass the time. In > fact, I recommend, after the "upshot", you finish things off with a smoke and a > Coca-Cola. That's an afternoon right there. > > Boy Howdy! > > JS Ranks right up there with shaking your i-Pod. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 15:07:03 -0600 From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] squeak, squeak... Quoting Andrew Hamlin : > CDNow lists the SOMETHING WILD soundtrack as still in print, for those > who > would like the original version of New Order's "Temptation." Are you in a timewarp? I thought CDNow was no more... ..Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html :: crumple zones:::harmful or fatal if swallowed:::small-craft warning :: ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 13:24:30 -0800 From: "Michael Zwirn" Subject: [loud-fans] Big Star at Dante's, Portland 12/28/02 Forgive, as always, the slightly lecturing tone. I post these to a variety of locations, and not all the readers are so well-versed in power-pop lore as Loudfans! Big Star and the Posies, Dante's December 28, 2002 I realize that I never posted a write-up of the Big Star show. This is an oversight that should be remedied immediately. First, the obvious-I saw Big Star in concert! Staggering. This is a band that broke up around the time I was born, and while only half of the members are still there (Chris Bell died, so his absence can't be criticized, only mourned), that's still remarkable. Of the bands who recorded my sadly out-of-date Desert Island Discs, I've now seen all in concert except for the Judybats, Daniel Lanois, and Dawn Upshaw. Linda Thompson and Big Star were two of the holes in the list, until 2002. The mood at the Big Star gig can be described as ecstatic. Alex Chilton has a reputation of a reclusive and difficult performer, but he was all grins during the concert, which was also the occasion of an impromptu birthday party. The set list drew heavily from #1 Record and Radio City, the albums that formed the foundation of the power-pop genre, rather than the critically-idolized but infinitely more depressing Sister Lovers. Jody Stephens, the drummer, was all rock-and-roll good looks despite spending decades off the stage. Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer of the Posies were the rhythm section, as they've been during the infrequent Big Star reunion concerts over the past couple of years, and both were in fine form. If you wanted a succint introduction to the power-pop genre in all its styles, you could have done far worse than attend this concert. The band started off with "In the Street," which Cheap Trick performs as the theme song to That 70s Show, and slammed through a host of brilliantly tuneful, urgent pop songs about girls and cars and teenage anomie, performed with guile and wit despite the fact that Chilton wrote them 30 years ago (and they were nostalgic even then!). Chilton's voice wavered somewhat-he doesn't hit those tenor notes like he once did-but Ken Stringfellow is a great singer and he aided on backup voicals. Throughout the show, Jon Auer performed the Chris Bell songs ("I Am the Cosmos" and a few others), Jody Stephens sang his own songs and one-time bassist Andy Hummel's ("For You" and the crowd favorite "Way Out West"), Stringfellow took the lead on a few numbers, and Chilton handled the majority. The quality of the performance was surprisingly strong, given that Chilton said that hadn't played guitar much recently, and the songs have some very tricky guitar lines. He and Auer alternated leads ably, and Stringfellow played bass with as much grace as he sings, plays keyboard, and does about a million other things. (He wins my Sixth Man of the Year award, because I saw him three times this year in a variety of settings and always did a great job.) Stephens is a really good drummer, and I hadn't appreciated how his drumming adds so much nuance to the Chilton/Bell songs; it's one of the elements that elevates Big Star above the power-pop masses. The overall sound of the show is Byrds, with more oomph, or Beatles without the sense of whimsy. "The Ballad of El Goodo" is one of the great unheard power ballads of the rock era, "Daisy Glaze" and "When My Baby's Beside Me" mix straightforward rock urgency with a melodically sophisticated pop touch. "Feel," "You Can't Have Me," and "Don't Lie to Me" are angry and bitter, but still insanely catchy. From Sister Lovers Chilton pulled the most crowd-pleasing numbers and ignored audience requests for major bummer anthems like "Night Time" and "Holocaust," which would have been as inappropriate as singing the latter at a bar mitzvah. Instead, he did the Kink's "Till the End of the Day," and the stupendous "Jesus Christ" (the best religious Christmas rock song of all time) and "Thank You." "Big Black Car" was the only downbeat number of the set, and yet Chilton was grinning while singing it. The crowd left amazed and cheering for more, and Chilton obliged some of the requests, chatted with audience members and seemed to be enjoying himself thoroughly. Astonishing. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 18:01:09 -0600 From: steve Subject: Re: [loud-fans] more iPodery (ns) On Friday, January 3, 2003, at 02:14 PM, Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: > Ain't that the way it goes: first, you start by jiggling the iPod - > "just > testing," you claim - and then you start googling, and before you know > it... ...you could be attending iPA. - - Steve __________ Miyazaki combines a grownup's humanity with the free imagination that many of us possessed at the age of 7 and that all but the geniuses lost. - Sarah Kerr ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 00:31:39 -0500 From: "jer fairall" Subject: [loud-fans] About Schmidt Given that this has made nearly every critics year-end list and been nominated for a bunch of awards, nobody needs me to bring this film to their attention but I saw it this afternoon and loved it. At first I was kind of expecting a different kind of movie considering that it was by the director of ELECTION, one of my very favorite films of recent years. There are several moments of deadpan comedy and at least one laugh-out-loud scene but it's actually a quiet and sad character study with a very un-Nicholson-esque Jack Nicholson performance. The inevitable Oscar nominations for Jack, Kathy Bates, Alexander Payne (for direction) and Payne and Jim Taylor (for writing) will be most deserved. I'd rank this one just below Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN and LOVELY & AMAZING but just above STORYTELLING and HOLLYWOOD ENDING on my short list of favorite 2002 movies that I've seen. And speaking of which, where are the Loud Fans top movies lists from the usual suspects (Andy, glenn, Stewart, Dan) or anyone else? Jer np: K's Choice, ALMOST HAPPY (as I finalize my 2002 albums list) Race to Save the Primates - every click provides food! http://www.care2.com/go/z/primates ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 00:50:18 -0500 (EST) From: Michael Mitton Subject: Re: [loud-fans] About Schmidt On Sat, 4 Jan 2003, jer fairall wrote: > And speaking of which, where are the Loud Fans top movies lists from the usual suspects > (Andy, glenn, Stewart, Dan) or anyone else? Since so many of the official December releases don't make it into theaters around here until well in to January, I don't think about a top ten list until at least midway through the month. But this has been perhaps the least exciting year for film for me in the past, say, five years. The only two films that really affected me this year were Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN and GOSFORD PARK (which was one of those December releases that I didn't get a chance to see until the end of January.) But there have been a number of other good films, and several more for which I have high expectations that I should get to see in the near future. So aske me again in about two weeks. - --Michael LS "Gangs of New York"--I like this movie less and less the more I think about it. While Day-Lewis was fantastic and worth the price of admission, the movie seems terribly trivial for such an epic. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 01:28:31 -0500 From: glenn mcdonald Subject: [loud-fans] 2002 (Films) OK, I'll play. As usual, my eligibility rules are that it played in a first-ish run in Boston during the calendar year. This was a disappointing enough year for movies, for me, that I think I only saw nine films that deserve to be in a top ten: 1. Donnie Darko 2. Kissing Jessica Stein 3. No Such Thing 4. What Time Is It There? 5. The Two Towers 6. All About Lily Chou-Chou 7. Possession 8. Signs 9. Solaris Honorable mentions: Lovely & Amazing, Maid in Manhattan, Spy Kids 2, Y Tu Mama Tambien. At the other extreme, though, I'm pleased to note that I got through the entire year without seeing a single movie I thought was genuinely awful. DVDs are going to change the movie business in deeper ways that we've yet realized, I predict. I already have my top four on DVD, #s 7 and 8 come out soon, and in a way the eventual DVD version of #5 will be more important than the theatrical version. Hmm. glenn ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 04 Jan 2003 01:35:11 -0500 From: Stewart Mason Subject: Re: [loud-fans] About Schmidt At 12:31 AM 1/4/2003 -0500, jer fairall wrote: >And speaking of which, where are the Loud Fans top movies lists from the usual suspects >(Andy, glenn, Stewart, Dan) or anyone else? Frankly, I really didn't see that many movies this year. Off the top of my head, I liked 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE, NO SUCH THING (not Hal Hartley's best by a long shot, but still a winner), CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, GOLDMEMBER (I may be in a minority here, but I liked it the best of the three -- it was the most consistently funny), LILO AND STITCH, FUBAR, the second Harry Potter and various things we saw during our abbreivated time in Toronto, particularly MORVERN CALLAR. On the other hand, haven't seen ADAPTATION, THE QUIET AMERICAN, RABBIT-PROOF FENCE, FAR FROM HEAVEN, all sorts of other things that I'll probably enjoy once I get around to watching them. What I'm happiest about is that I was not dragged to see THE TWO TOWERS this Christmas, thereby sparing myself the expense and discomfort of an extended nap in a seated position and sparing Charity the embarrassment of having to smack my knee every time I start snoring. I realize that they're marvelous cinematic recastings of classics of the fantasy genre and all that. That still doesn't mean I want to actually watch them. Try to explain this to my Tolkien-crazed mother- and sister-in-law, however. It's even worse than having to explain endlessly to people that no, I *don't* watch Buffy, and that while I love Japanese films and I love animation, I pretty much can't stand anime. S ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 04 Jan 2003 02:07:08 -0500 From: Dan Sallitt Subject: Re: [loud-fans] About Schmidt > And speaking of which, where are the Loud Fans top movies lists from the usual suspects > (Andy, glenn, Stewart, Dan) or anyone else? I'm not quite ready to make my list yet, but it will probably look something like this: 1. Esther Kahn 2. Far from Heaven 3. Late Marriage 4. The Believer 5. Russian Ark 6. Scarlet Diva 7. About Schmidt 8. Silvia Prieto 9. All or Nothing 10. No Such Thing 11. Hush! 12. Talk to Her 13. ivansxtc. 14. Margarita Happy Hour 15. Igby Goes Down 16. La Captive 17. waydowntown 18. Y Tu Mama Tambien 19. One-Hour Photo 20. How I Killed My Father 21. Secret Ballot All these films played for at least a week in NYC this year. - Dan ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V3 #2 *****************************