From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V4 #214 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 Friday, August 6 2004 Volume 04 : Number 214 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [loud-fans] hard drive recorders (Neuros?) ["Larry Tucker" ] Re: [loud-fans] prehistoric swap review part deux [Aaron Mandel Subject: [loud-fans] hard drive recorders (Neuros?) I'm looking to replace my minidisc for live recording and am looking at some sort of hard drive recorder. I like the idea that with the Neuros II you can record to a wav file and transfer it via USB 2.0 and the FM broadcasting ability seems to be a cool trick for an mp3 player enabling you to wirelessly play it through your car's FM radio. I also see the firmware is upgradable. I've been reluctant to go the iPod route because of the inability to do live recording like I want. A comparable device I suppose is the iRiver H120, but it's a little more expensive and doesn't have VU meters. Any of y'all have any experience with a Neuros? http://www.neurosaudio.com/store/prod_neuros.asp Larry ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 10:08:03 -0500 (GMT-05:00) From: Miles Goosens Subject: [loud-fans] Why We Don't Live in Mauritania, Vol. XXIII http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3537314.stm later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2004 10:40:19 -0500 From: "Fortissimo" Subject: [loud-fans] prehistoric swap review part deux Before I review the second disc of Jer Fairall's swap, a correction to something I wrote in the first one: Back when Sam Phillips called a track "Entertainmen" on her 1996 album _Omnipop_, I commented in a review that it was the song title most likely to be wrongly "corrected" by overeager copyeditors. I was wrong: the new champ - spelled wrong by Jer, me, and nearly everyone else except the band and probably Matt Weber - is the Weakerthans' "Plea from a Cat Named Virtute" - not "virtue." This is John K. Samson's fault for being entirely too well-read (any other rock songs that namecheck Derrida and Foucault?): "virtute" can mean "virtue," but it probably means something more like "courage" or "valor" here. It's in the ablative case (according to an online Latin dictionary I found) and therefore means something like "with/by valor." Basically, it fits the last line of the song's lyrics. Anyway. You might recall that Jer's disc is called _Like They're in Some Book by Ayn Rand_ and is divided into a "Purple Side" (disc 1) and a "Pink Side" (disc 2). As Neil Young never said, out of the blue and into the pink: 1 The Bangles "Tear Off Your Own Head (It's a Doll Revolution)": The second (and consecutive) female-sung Elvis Costello cover here (disc 1 ended with the Mendoza Line covering "Sleep of the Just"). A little too shiny and smooth - without the chromatic bassline, the middle eight here is too static, for example. If I didn't know the original, I'd probably like this one pretty well - it's just that I miss Elvis's snarlier vocal and guitar tone. If it were 1986, the Bangles probably could have done what they did with Prince: take a slightly quirky song, smooth it out just a bit, and take it to the top of the charts in a quality but more palatable version. 2 Franz Ferdinand "Take Me Out": Is this the most ubiquitous song of 2004 or what? I now have four versions of it: the original (several times), remixes by Morgan Geist and Daft Punk, and a cover by the Scissor Sisters (who, unsurprisingly, re-envision it as cousin to "Benny and the Jets"). Anyway, a fine song from a wonderful record. 3 Now It's Overhead "Turn and Go": At first I thought that between my review of the first disc of this set and now, I'd bought CDs from three of the mix's artists (I mistakenly remembered "I'm Not Bitter" by the Minus 5 as being here - not sure whose mix I did have it on). This and the Weakerthans are the two I actually did buy. Someone somewhere said NIO sounds like what post-Berry R.E.M. might sound like "if they didn't suck." I don't think they suck, but that's a reasonable comparison. Andy LeMaster (if I'm remembering his name right) has a sort of smoky vocal tone with touches of nasality in the upper register, rather like that shave-head guy in that other band, and the band explores the same mix of organic and synthetic textures that p-BR.E.M.'s been interested in. The not sucking part though is that NIO is really really good at arranging and deploying those textures, and they write affecting songs as well. This one builds slowly, with tension created by a steady keyboard pulse and a slightly jagged electronic percussion rhythm. 4 Duotang "Words of Simon": Pointy, active bass, nearly taking a lead role; piano as rhythm/chordal accompaniment; quick tempo: this is kind of like pop-punk rearranged for, uh, Ben Folds and Peter Hook? I think I'll get to like it more - the song itself isn't quite hitting me yet. 5 Salteens "Let Go of Your Bad Days": The verse at first reminds me of that Orange Humble Band record from a few years ago, but simultaneously a little less quirky and less Big Star-derived. Some glockenspiel on the second half of the verse clues us in to the horns and string-sounds that show up between verses and on the instrumental section later. Nicely done bit of orch-power pop. 6 Rheostatics "Rain Rain Rain": Begins with a sort of Afro-Cuban percussion workout, over which snakes a kind of '70s-ish lead guitar line. But that's only the intro. The verse has a kind of slightly glammy Hawksley Workman feel to the vocal, but the instruments have a different feel to them I can't quite place, and include some pedal steel in the background. Uh - now we have a sort of martial beat that turns into quasi-seventies hard rock for three seconds: okay, this is definitely arranged by an ADD musician! Someone (Brian Block?) included a Rheostatics track or two on a mix a few years back, which I really liked. This one is perhaps more interesting than likeable - in that the constant starts and stops and stylistic shifts prevent the song from cohering until after what sounds like an ending (recorded live, with applause and "thank you"), after which the Afro-Cuban groove takes off - and then stops again after about thirty seconds. Curious, intriguing... 7 Dan Bern "I Need You": Begins with a near-Dylan impersonation (solo vocal and acoustic), then the full band in sort of a smoothed-out country-pop mode (pedal steel, acoustic piano, the kind of solid but unshowy bass/drums mix you might hear on a Freedy Johnston record). But it's a catchy song, and as I half-listen to lyrics while typing this, I hear that Bern's tossed in a few clever lines. Maybe a little too AAA for my taste - but maybe not, and in any event some quality work. 8 Falconhawk "Olympia": If I weren't listening, I might think this is standard indie-rock stuff - but since I am listening, I notice that I really like the oscillating guitar lick that anchors the verses, and the bell-like piano part under the choruses, and that within that fairly standard indie-rock template, the arrangement is clever and skillfully done. Something good to be said for quality craft within relatively narrow limits! 9 Too Much Joy "The Kids Don't Understand": I think the guitar and vocals both try to oversell the noise factor - it's the post-grunge thing, as if integrity is conferred by turning up the guitars. I'd like the bridge even better if not for that, and the brief little quieter respite before the following verse is nicely done - but the song is ultimately a victim of its arrangement. 10 Christine Fellows "Regret": Nice pacing, Jer - after the noisy guitars of the last track (whether I end up liking it or not), pulling back to the piano, vocals, and brushed snare of this track is very effective. The song itself: got kind of a country feel to it, but not in any sort of obvious, big-hat-wearing way, more in a kind of rootedness to the music - and does Fellows have a slight twang to her singing? This would wear thin after an entire album of same, probably - but I like this track. 11 Dresden Dolls "Coin-Operated Boy": Amusingly mechanical piano-and-drums rhythm - and a nice little filtering effect whereby after the first few lines, after the boy is "turned on," we realize the earlier parts have been a little distant and limited in frequency: the sound opens up. A broken-record effect (with an added, skipping beat) in the middle is also amusing, then we move to a middle section that's more direct and less mechanical. It goes on a little too long before returning to the "mechanical bit" though - and then *that* goes on too long. It's not quite five minutes long - would've been much more effective at about 3.5, I think. 12 The Stills "Of Montreal": Kevin Barnes should write a song called "The Stills," I think. Anyway...Big Rock - they're probably going to get compared to Radiohead (not very accurately, but it's the thing to do) and Coldplay, but I actually hear a bit more U2 in the mix - that is, in fact, a good thing. Trendiness or not aside, these folks do a good job at that Big Rock thing: lots of space in the mix (not empty space; reverberant, guitar-resonance-filled space), emotive vocals, fine sense of dynamics. 13 Patty Griffin "Sooner or Later": The song could be a country ballad, but the arrangement - with its electric piano and Lanois-like keyboard backdrop - puts it in a slightly less staid place. That piano, and the chord shift in the chorus, give it a soul-like feel, similar in some ways to _I Am Shelby Lynne_ although less dramatic in texture and scope. Good stuff. 14 Bettie Serveert "I'll Keep it with Mine": Probably the most popular Dylan song not released on his regular run of albums - seems like everyone covers this one. Speaking of the nightmares of copyeditors and other pedants: as most of us know (but not so many record-store clerks or music librarians know), "Bettie Serveert" isn't a name - it means "Bettie serves" ("Bettie" was some tennis player or other). Anycow...there's an odd little section of marching band horns that elevate the sort of mid-90s Matador records indie sound these folks do well - and the end, with a pig-squealing guitar *over* that, calls to mind Reeves Gabrels trying to agitate a Salvation Army band. In other words, the band does enough to move their material above the ordinary. 15 Bleu "Sayonara": The singer kind of reminds me of a slightly bolder Chris Von Sneidern. While the band doesn't quite have his melodic gifts, they still have a nice way with melody, and the lift into falsetto in the chorus is one of those tricks that's nearly surefire. Crunchy guitars over tightly constructed melodies - and for the first time in god knows how many years, I'm thinking of the couple of good tracks on that Fig Dish album. Hmm. That's odd. Anyway, pretty good stuff - I recall liking the other Bleu track that Jenny Grover sent me a few swaps back. May have to check them out... 16 The Paperbacks "Letters vs. Numbers": So who do you think would win? There are more letters than numbers (if we take that to mean numerals), but the numbers can gang up in any combo and still represent something coherent, whereas letter can only group themselves in certain ways. 93578 will beat "yewioch," I think - at least if the battle's for sense and not, say, ability to be yelled in a loud voice and frighten people. On the other hand, letters have a stronger power of abstraction...wait, the singer just used the word "meniscus." What the...? Anyway: I'm confused by this song, in that I remember its chorus and melody quite well, but I can't quite figure out (a) why I don't like it more than I do, or (b) why I like it as much as I do. A puzzler. 17. Emm Gryner "East Coast Angel": I've been hearing about Emm Gryner for years, and I've always kind of wanted to check out her stuff, but I never have. This song doesn't really move me forward in that direction: I like her voice, and the melody's fine, but the arrangement is a bit too smooth and radio-ready. There's a certain complacency to "girl and her piano" that kind of irks me, as if there's a sort of pre-existing emotional condition that comes with the setup allowing its fans to sort of coast into the songs... I dunno: the same is true of "guys and their loud guitars," "grizzled guy and his acoustic guitar," and "skinny glasses-wearing guy and his laptop" music too. I'm just an unfair bastard. 18 Ballboy "Dumper Truck Racing": Because Ballboy is a band of Scots, the Music Critics Guild has decreed that they must be compared only to other Scots acts. Subparagraph (b) notes that if there's a soft-voiced male singer, that comparison must be to Belle & Sebastian, while subparagraph (f) notes that if the vocalist sometimes talks rather than sings, Arab Strap must be brought up. Variously, therefore, melancholy either gruff and frank, or sentimental and literate, is required. Regardless, I'd heard a couple of this band's tracks before, and my only real problem is that they reward listening to lyrics, and I'm often hearing music in situations that don't really allow that. This particular track's music is a bit on the repetitive side, although when I do stop whatever else I'm doing and listen, the lyrics are indeed affecting. None of that is the band's fault, of course: I'm not about to be so arrogant as to fault a band for demanding that I actually listen to its music in order to fully enjoy it. And that's that. Jer mentioned to me that he thought I'd kind of disliked the first disc: not really, although I might have highlighted its limitations more than its virtutes. Uh, virtues. What often happens is I'll like a song well enough but not find anything in particular to say about why I like it well enough. It's easier to identify what makes the song not take off into the stratosphere for me. Looking over the track listing for both discs, there's nothing that jumps out at me and says "skip me, please," and only a few tracks that make me, if I'm pressed for time, think, okay, I'll listen to this later. So I, at least, consider the mix a success - and a lot of songs here, I think, haven't fully jelled for me yet, so I'll probably like it more later as well. - ------------------------------- ...Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com/ :: Miracles are like meatballs, because nobody can exactly agree :: what they are made of, where they come from, or how often :: they should appear. :: --Lemony Snicket ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2004 10:45:50 -0500 From: "Fortissimo" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] macha On Thu, 05 Aug 2004 01:50:36 -0400, "Jenny Grover" said: > Apparently there's a new Macha album. Anyone heard it? Yep. At first I was a bit disappointed - the first couple tracks sounded un-Macha to me, and in fact sounded as if Josh McKay had been digging through his Duran Duran collection a bit. But I was listening in the background at my computer: when I played it on my "real" stereo and listened more closely, I liked it a lot more, particularly "Cmon Cmon Oblivion" and the last track. And when you get down to it, the first two Duran Duran albums are really pretty good stuff. Mixing that in with Macha's typical East-Asian psychedelia makes some interesting sense. I think if you liked their other stuff, you'll like this one, and get a sense of progress as well. (Note: it really doesn't sound like that Seaworthy record much, even though it appears that Josh McKay did nearly everything on the new one except play drums (performed by his bro Mischo) - the "band" appears to be either notional at this point or in flux.) - --------------------------- J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 12:08:39 -0400 (EDT) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: [loud-fans] prehistoric swap review part deux On Thu, 5 Aug 2004, Fortissimo wrote: > 3 Now It's Overhead "Turn and Go": At first I thought that between my > The not sucking part though is that NIO is really really good at > arranging and deploying those textures, and they write affecting songs > as well. This one builds slowly, with tension created by a steady > keyboard pulse and a slightly jagged electronic percussion rhythm. In the same vein, I find myself liking the new Velvet Teen album. (Sounds kind of like Now It's Overhead, but not like R.E.M. Actually, I get the feeling they like Radiohead a lot.) Try the two 'Elysium' mp3s at: http://www.thevelvetteen.com/pianosite/bot_product.html > 10 Christine Fellows "Regret": Nice pacing, Jer - after the noisy > This would wear thin after an entire album of same, probably - but I > like this track. Actually, I didn't find that was the case with that album. Her second one, on the other hand, yeah -- not bad, just not as varied as I needed it to be. I suspect that in reality her second album is MORE varied than the first, but it's lacking whatever quality made the first one's consistency a virtue. a ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 13:09:21 EDT From: LkDylaninthmvies@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Resurfacing In a message dated 8/4/2004 2:46:54 PM Eastern Daylight Time, michael@zwirn.com writes: Haven't bought a new CD in ages. Looking for recommendations! I am still grooving on The Rosebuds album, MAKEOUT, from late last year. It has been in heavy rotation for about 9 months, and that hasn't happened (not counting Scott's music) since IF YOU'RE FEELING SINISTER or the first Of Montreal album (and I buy a fair amount of albums). It's simple, fun, moody, garagey...the only way it could be better is if Mitch Easter had done a Phil Spector wall of kudzu with 'em. Of Loudfans relation: Kelly Crisp, the keyboardist, told me they've had two different dates they were going to play with Shalini that didn't happen because of scheduling conflicts. She also said she's IMd with Mitch online, and him producing them would not be an impossibility. (YAY!!!) Of Montreal's SATANIC PANIC IN THE ATTIC is the most mature and complex thing they've ever done. If CHERRY PEEL was MEET THE BEATLES, then they're at SGT. PEPPER right now. Jeffrey says: And when you get down to it, the first two Duran Duran albums are really pretty good stuff. Thank you for admitting their first two records are really good. They are the only two DD albums I own. I have the remasters on both, and they sound damned good. ***On a completely unrelated note, the local paper pleasantly announced that there would be new voting machines this election, noting their "improvements." Not mentioned was that there is no paper trail to go with 'em. George Orwell was twenty years off. (the computer has) No memory at all of who I voted for, - --Mark S. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 14:07:07 -0700 (PDT) From: zoom@muppetlabs.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] prehistoric swap review part deux >If it were 1986, the Bangles probably could have done > what they did with Prince: take a slightly quirky song, smooth it out > just a bit, and take it to the top of the charts in a quality but more > palatable version. Er...Prince did an original version of "Manic Monday"? And here I thought "Macha" was short for Sir Lord Apparently Not Going To Be Represented By Magical Gems From An Aussie Suitcase, Andy Elvis Presley: Blue Moon (1954) from The King of Rock n Roll: The Complete 50s Masters (RCA) Alan Sparhawk: Well, its not Elvis. Its someone else. Zak Sally: No, this is Elvis. Remember when I played you this? The guitar doesnt sound like a guitar. It sounds like a Casiotone. Mimi Parker: It doesnt sound like Elvis, does it? Sally: Listen to what he does here. [Elvis starts singing falsetto.] Parker: Sounds more like Tiny Tim riding a horse. Seattle Weekly: Its from The Complete 50s Masters. Sally: I bought this after we read that two-volume [Peter] Guralnick thing. I read it, Scott [Lunt] read it. I thought it was one of the greatest bio-graphies Ive ever read in my life, and it made me love Elvis even more than I did before. SW: Were you an Elvis fan before you read it? Sally: I was an Elvis fan after the three of us went to Graceland. Parker: Ive always been an Elvis fan. You kind of cant not be. Sally: At first I thought this was Ennio Morricone. Sparhawk: Or a Suicide bootleg. Im serious. Bo Diddley: You Cant Judge a Book by the Cover (1962) from Bos Blues (Ace/MCA) Sparhawk: His diction is too good to be Bo Diddley. Is it Bo Diddley? SW: Yep. Sparhawk: Ill have to check this; I think it was on Ed Sullivan. But on one of those early TV variety shows, Bo Diddley was the first black performer. Ive seen the footage, and its ridiculous. Its just distorted as anything. It was before theyd really had a lot of experience with live bands on TV. And heres a guy who comes on, and they were playing on the show like they do at gigs, which was just, like, Turn it up. Sally: They had to get everyone to hear it. Parker: Yeah. Sparhawk: When theyd go in to record, theyd turn everything down. But when they would play gigs, it was just, like, crank that sucker up as loud as itll go. And it sounded like Sabbath. To this day, that was the best band ever on TV. Before they knew how to do it. It was amazing. Because his amps were just ripping, and hes just screaming. And theres that guy doing the maracas in a suit. [--Low's Alan Sparhawk, Mimi Parker, and Zak Sally, from a "Jukebox Jury" (blindfold test) conducted by Peter S. Scholtes, with occasional contributions from Hollis Mae Sparhawk, age 4; at http://seattleweekly.com/features/0431/040804_music_jukeboxjury.php ] ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V4 #214 *******************************