From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V4 #266 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, September 28 2004 Volume 04 : Number 266 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [loud-fans] revisited [Miles Goosens ] [loud-fans] Cale / Gabriel / Zevon / LeBon / Verlaine / Interpol / Scott who? ["Rex.Broome" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] revisited At 02:43 PM 9/26/2004 -0400, LkDylaninthmvies@aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 9/26/04 2:14:20 PM Eastern Daylight Time, >treesprite@earthlink.net writes: > > >> Duran Duran: Also, i'm tired of people bad mouthing Seven & The Ragged >> Tiger. >> I think it's every bit the equal of the first two, and "Union of the Snake" >> is >> straight up genius. >> > >I won't bad mouth it (because my dentures might fall out). Let's just say I >was disappointed, because they lost the groove they had on the first two. Sorry, Bradley, but I've gotta go with Mark on this one, with "Union of the Snake" in both video and musical form being an uninspired attempt to translate RIO's successes into formula, and ending up (surprise!) formulaic. >Also, I hate Simon LeBons godawful distressed leather jacket from this >period. Total Chess King clearance rack, circa 1983. Well spotted, sir. I think at that point in time, the New Romantics had finally exhausted the thrift store supply of old Roxy Music garb. reflexflexflexflexflex, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 10:08:46 -0700 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: [loud-fans] Cale / Gabriel / Zevon / LeBon / Verlaine / Interpol / Scott who? Bradley: >>I've been re-listening to the new John Cale and while I liked it when >>I bought the import last year, I like it even more now. It most closely >>resembles Artificial Intelligence and Music For a New Society in its >>attention to texture, electronics and rhythm. But there's also a bit of Vintage >>Violence in it--there's more humour and the songs have, generally, fairly >>simple structures. It's more buoyant and lively than he's been in awhile, too-- >>again it has some of that Vintage Violence off-the-cuff vibe, despite the >>electronic arrangements. Again, I love it. I think the lyrics are strong, really strong: everything Cale does well shows up here in top form, and the songs seem really focused and meandering at the same time, if that makes sense, and some of the shit that bubble to the surface either brings a smile to face every time out or chills me to the bone ("Somebody's coming who hates us"... brrrrr... and most of "Letter from Abroad"... he treads on disturbing ground and then just offhand drops a comment that says "You're in hell and you've become numb to just how bad that is"). Only the instrumental feels like a toss-off. The bonus track starts off sounding a little ramshackle and then becomes flat-out great. >>Cale definitely avoids the dreaded "Fogey with a laptop" traps. A few songs >>have some Chill-out-on-Ibiza style electronics, but there's plenty of >>inventive arranging and personality, too. Yes indeed. The way the album starts makes one say, "Oh no, he handed the whole production over to some young guy (Robbie Robertson syndrome)", but it evaporates quickly. The viola parts are great, and the vocal arrangements (and strings) are pure Cale; the "industrial-sounding" touches are nothing he wasn't already doing in the early '70's. I confess being mildly annoyed by the "sound effects/ambieant conversation" on "Reading My Mind", but then I realized he's always done that and it located me back in Cale Country, and now I like it fine. It struck me that someone who'd never heard Cale before might view him, based on this records, as a Peter Gabriel knockoff, and indeed this record sounds kind of like the album Peter Gabriel might make if he was (A) still good and (B) mercifully less well-funded. Question, though: was the phrase "things to do in denver when you're dead" somehow out there in the zeitgeist before Warren Zevon named a song that? It's just odd that it seems to have gone from Zevon to film title and landed as the chorus to a John Cale song (technically two of them) without much acknowledgement. The same song leads off with an Eno reference, so I get the impression that Cale is being a little cheekily pastichey there, but I also wondered if there's any direct connection between Cale and Zevon... is this a memorial tribute on some level? >>Duran Duran: Also, i'm tired of people bad mouthing Seven & The Ragged Tiger. >>I think it's every bit the equal of the first two I'd probably agree with the last bit, but then, I pretty much badmouth Duran Duran across the boards. Miles: >>My favorite Strat team has >>completed its rebuilding phase Mine, too... they're opening for Patti Smith again (although the last time I saw them Verlaine was playing a mutant Telecaster...) >>And in music news, um, I don't like the new Robyn Hitchcock (though Jeff does and will probably explain why) And I do, too, which won't surprise Miles... >>but I'm really psyched about the new Interpol album ...and I think I am, too, which probably will. - -Rex Broome (guitar and vocals, The Chameleons U.S. (II)) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 10:17:26 -0700 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: [loud-fans] What's Welsh for "that compression plug-in sounds cheap"? Bradley on Cale again: >>And the album is just out-and-out odd--a >>welcome bit of confident, intelligent eccentricity. >>It's probably not a great starting point for the unitiated Actually, pursuant to my earlier Peter Gabriel comparison, I was thinking of strongly recommending it to my friend who's a major Gabriel fan but doesn't really know Cale. Said friend is a real digital-production enthusiast and I fully expect him to detail for me why the album sounds more rinky-dink than I think it does, and for me to have to come back with my typical "maybe, but it has, like, songs and stuff", and then he'll tell me how good the recent solo projects by former A-Ha members are, and... well, maybe it's not worth it after all. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 13:23:16 -0400 From: John Swartzentruber Subject: Re: [loud-fans] What's Welsh for "that compression plug-in sounds cheap"? On 9/27/2004 1:17 PM Rex.Broome wrote: > Bradley on Cale again: > >>>And the album is just out-and-out odd--a >>>welcome bit of confident, intelligent eccentricity. >>>It's probably not a great starting point for the unitiated I ordered this CD last week, now everyone's scaring me off. Does the Eno/Cale CD that everyone on this list (and no one else) owns count as initiation? Or am I doomed to not like it because I'm starting at the wrong place? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 13:30:50 -0400 From: Dan Schmidt Subject: Re: [loud-fans] What's Welsh for "that compression plug-in sounds cheap"? John Swartzentruber wrote: > On 9/27/2004 1:17 PM Rex.Broome wrote: > >> Bradley on Cale again: >> >>>> And the album is just out-and-out odd--a >>>> welcome bit of confident, intelligent eccentricity. >>>> It's probably not a great starting point for the unitiated > > I ordered this CD last week, now everyone's scaring me off. Does the Eno/Cale CD that everyone on this list (and no one else) owns count as initiation? Or am I doomed to not like it because I'm starting at the wrong place? Oh, it's not all that weird, although certainly a lot less poppy and straightforward than the Eno collaboration. I am really digging the new Bjork. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 13:32:04 EDT From: LkDylaninthmvies@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] revisited In a message dated 9/27/04 11:56:16 AM Eastern Daylight Time, outdoorminer@mindspring.com writes: > Well spotted, sir. I think at that point in time, the New Romantics had > finally exhausted the thrift store supply of old Roxy Music garb. > Did you notice how the first album's sleeve was redone after Duran Duran got huge? Gone were the New Romantic frillies and there they were, looking like they did at the time of the reissue. Thankfully, with CDs, they reverted to the original sleeve. I can remember, I think it was John Taylor, saying in an interview around '84 that he'd never buy a record by an ugly band. That was the '80s right there. There was a clique in my high school called "The Duran Duran Girls," and they were identified by which member of the band's button they wore on their Forenza sweaters. One of the girls, Kristi York, sort of "made it" when she got hired by Interview magazine as a writer in the early nineties. Later, she was a music reviewer/reporter for Atlanta's Creative Loafing mag. Such the dedicated young fan, she ran around school during lunch and between periods getting a petition signed for the local schlock station to play "Save a Prayer" on the radio. SAVE FERRIS! - --Mark S. np: The Aislers Set HOW I LEARNED TO WRITE BACKWARDS ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 13:19:46 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Cale / Gabriel / Zevon / LeBon / Verlaine / Interpol / Scott who? I have nothing to say about John Cale except that my foray into his solo catalog, which followed an incredible live performance (still his only Nashville show ever) c. 1997, was both a revelation and a disappointment: revelatory in that I found a lot of stuff I liked, and disappointing in that none of it, even the official live stuff, matched the volume and intensity of the show that I saw. Don't have the new album, but will probably get it eventually. Anyway... Rex: >>>Duran Duran: Also, i'm tired of people bad mouthing Seven & The Ragged Tiger. >>>I think it's every bit the equal of the first two > >I'd probably agree with the last bit, but then, I pretty much badmouth Duran >Duran across the boards. Ha! Well, I'm not going to start advocating a D-squared-centric view or anything. Heck, I haven't even bothered to put their first two albums on my yearly lists, but lessee... I guess the debut slots in nicely at around #34 (between WH'APPEN and SHAKE IT UP, and trailing synthy Brit peers such as ARCHITECTURE & MORALITY and DARE); RIO at #41 o' '82 (between THE ENVOY, which is now close to being my #1 "why isn't it on CD?" candidate with THE NAME OF THIS BAND IS TALKING HEADS blissfully removed from the list, and SUBURBAN VOODOO). Which means that I like them for the pleasant trifles that they are, but I'm not making any sort of major argument on their behalf. "Ordinary World" and "Come Undone" were big surprises to me -- I never knew that they'd come up with anything worthwhile at that point, let alone making a flirtation with un-icky meanings of "moving" and "mature." >Miles: >>>My favorite Strat team > has >>>completed its rebuilding phase > >Mine, too... they're opening for Patti Smith again (although the last time I >saw them Verlaine was playing a mutant Telecaster...) I knew someone would find a punchline for that. >>>And in music news, um, I don't like the new Robyn Hitchcock (though Jeff >does and will probably explain why) > >And I do, too, which won't surprise Miles... Did I set the tone for the *mindset* of Fegs here? 'Cos mine is the only outright negative review since that Brian/Nuppy guy recanted his initial negative impressions, yet every positive post about the album leads off with variations of "can't see why so many people dislike it." Me, I *am* keeping score, and I feel pretty alone in my "ehhhh"ing right now. Well, I'm married to another "ehhhh"er, as her first listen on Saturday ended up with a "boy, I'm glad that's over!" and a relieved return to alternating discs of TNOTBITH... >>>but I'm really psyched about the new Interpol album > >...and I think I am, too, which probably will. Yeah, it does, a bit. >-Rex Broome (guitar and vocals, The Chameleons U.S. (II)) You might want to see Jeff's latest blog entry for yet another dissent on the Chameleopol theory. I think most of us who are investigating this claim are ending up thinking "same DNA pool, but not a clone." But on the bright side, you've ended up getting a bunch of us to buy Chameleons albums... later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 15:02:11 EDT From: JRT456@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Cale / Gabriel / Zevon / LeBon / Verlaine / Interpol / Scott who? In a message dated 9/27/04 2:16:03 PM, outdoorminer@mindspring.com writes: > I have nothing to say about John Cale except that my foray into his solo > catalog, which followed an incredible live performance (still his only > Nashville show ever) c. 1997, was both a revelation and a disappointment: revelatory > in that I found a lot of stuff I liked, and disappointing in that none of > it, even the official live stuff, matched the volume and intensity of the show > that I saw. > Cale and Joe Jackson are the only artists where the live bootlegs frequently improve on what are already often great albums. For Cale, try to track down FOR YOUR NEIGHBOUR'S WIFE, which includes plenty of great songs that fell between the space of recording SABOTAGE and HONI SOIT. If I read the press release correctly, Tom Waits fronts a Spencerless Blues Explosion on tomorrow night's Letterman. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 12:19:26 -0700 From: Matthew Weber Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Cale / Gabriel / Zevon / LeBon / Verlaine / Interpol / Scott who? At 03:02 PM 9/27/2004 -0400, JRT456@aol.com wrote: >If I read the press release correctly, Tom Waits fronts a Spencerless Blues >Explosion on tomorrow night's Letterman. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Well, *that's* already a vast improvement... Matthew Weber Curatorial Assistant Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library University of California, Berkeley Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope. The Holy Bible (The Old Testament): The Book of the Prophet Isaiah 5:18 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 12:36:29 -0700 (PDT) From: "Pete O." Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Cale / Gabriel / Zevon / LeBon / Verlaine / Interpol / Scott who? - --- Matthew Weber wrote: > At 03:02 PM 9/27/2004 -0400, JRT456@aol.com wrote: > > >If I read the press release correctly, Tom Waits fronts a Spencerless Blues > >Explosion on tomorrow night's Letterman. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > As I understand it, it's the same band minus the "Jon Spencer" prefix. - - ===== ====== "I hope I didn't brain my damage" H.J.S. ====== ===== __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 12:54:43 -0700 From: Michael Mitton Subject: [loud-fans] Back to Picture Book (Briefly) Upon learning that the Young Fresh Fellows' "Picture Book" was a remake of The Kinks, I thought to myself, Well surely the Kinks' version doesn't say, "Scooby-dooby-doo". That has to be pure McCaughey. But sure enough, the phrase is in the original. The television show Scooby Doo first aired in the fall of 69, while VILLAGE GREEN PRESERVATION SOCIETY was released in 68. So where did the phrase come from? Apparently Sinatra's "Strangers in the Night". At least, that was the source of the phrase for the television show. Just thought that was interesting. Oh, and the HP commercial is kinda brilliant. mm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 16:03:04 EDT From: JRT456@aol.com Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20[loud-fans]=20Cale=20/=20Gabriel=20/=20Zev o?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?n=20/=20LeBon=20/=20Verlaine=20/=A0=20Interpol=20/=20Sc ot?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?t=20who=3F?= In a message dated 9/27/04 3:48:11 PM, analogman@yahoo.com writes: > As I understand it, it's the same band minus the "Jon Spencer" prefix. > The band itself is now just the Blues Explosion, but Spencer's said to be sitting out the Letterman appearance while Waits takes the mic. They're playing it up like a wrestling storyline ("Is Jon kicked out of the band?"), which is fun enough. And while Television's opening for Patti Smith, the billing makes it look more like an Aerosmith/KISS kinda co-bill. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 15:22:01 -0500 From: Chris Prew Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Back to Picture Book (Briefly) On Sep 27, 2004, at 2:54 PM, Michael Mitton wrote: > > > Oh, and the HP commercial is kinda > brilliant. > > mm > > That is a very cool spot -- the visual was so intriguing I didn't pay any attention to the music. Have to listen next time. The recent Nike (was it Nike?) commercial where the young man gets strapped into "Michael Vick Experience" thrill ride was the first time I've actually laughed heartily at a commercial in a really long time. My wife doesn't know football at all and she got a good chuckle out of too. I think it was the guys little legs scampering frantically as the huge defenders pursued him. Classic. Chris ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 15:05:46 -0700 From: "Bradley Skaught" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] GBV/Cale / Gabriel / Zevon / LeBon / Verlaine / Interpol / Scott who? I take it back. The new Cale is probably a fine introduction. He already has five or six completely different "fine introduction" albums, so one more can't hurt, right? > Ha! Well, I'm not going to start advocating a D- > squared-centric view or anything. Right, i'm not saying that Duran Duran deserves to be re-evaluated with anything like serious consideration, but if you're going to have an opinion about them at all then i'm going to argue that Seven & The Ragged Tiger is as good, and at times, better than the first two. And while Simon was reaching some kind of fashion rock bottom (I think Arena is actually the low the point there), Nick was certainly in his stride and makes up for it. And I really do think "Union of the Snake" is way better than "Rio"--more interesting structure, cooler stupid lyrics, a brilliant arrangement rhythm-wise. It's like a cooler, more rewarding version of 80's Yes. If you know what I mean. If they were cool or rewarding at all. > "Ordinary World" and "Come Undone" were big >surprises to me -- I never knew that they'd come up >with anything worthwhile at that point, let alone making >a flirtation with un-icky meanings of "moving" and >"mature." I've caught them on TV a few times when they were supporting some of those more recent singles and they looked and sounded great. Lots of great twiddley digitil stuff going on and a cool sound in general. Again, this all falls short of advocating anyone seeking this nonsense out. > >>>And in music news, um, I don't like the new Robyn >Hitchcock (though Jeff > >does and will probably explain why) I like about half of it--there are the usual two or three brilliant, grown-up ballads--but over all it's nothing spectacular. It'll probably grow a bit, but not too much. On the hand, the three record "Bee Thousand: Director's Cut" is absolutely great! Some folks will complain that it's a vinyl only release, but really it's kind of supposed to be a vinyl experience--I don't see it working any other way. It's basically the two record version that Pollard worked up at some point, with an extra record of outtakes and songs used in the final version (or later.) Great trivia: How many people would have guessed that Bee Thousand was ultimately compiled and edited together on Pro Tools? If you take Saturday and Sunday's games and watch them back to back, you basically have the entire Giants' season in a nutshell. Maddening. I need another glass of wine... B ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 22:26:12 EDT From: LkDylaninthmvies@aol.com Subject: [loud-fans] Re: "gayish sensibility??" Oh, mistake...there is no comma in HEY NOSTRADAMUS! - --Mark S. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 22:11:54 EDT From: LkDylaninthmvies@aol.com Subject: [loud-fans] "gayish sensibility??" This looked of possible interest to the list (though the perky, gaycentric tone may make you wince): (posted to the Coupland list on Yahoo and taken from gay.com) You knew your family was crazy, but psychotic? That's the thesis of the upcoming "All Families Are Psychotic," the feature film version of "Generation X" author Douglas Coupland's 2001 novel. Coupland, whose gayish sensibility and pop-culture-saturated observations inform all his work, penned the book about a dysfunctional Florida family (complete with Thalidomide children, black-market babies and accidental incestuous HIV transmission) who gather to watch the lone career-minded family member, an astronaut, board the space shuttle. The film rights were originally picked up by queer rocker Michael Stipe. Now Dreamworks is manning the mission into space with first- time director Noam Murro at the control panel. Once casting and a shooting schedule are in place, all systems will be go.<< Speaking of Stipe, some characters in the movie SAVED! (which I didn't think was that great) are eerily similar to some characters, the "YOUTH ALIVE!" teen Christian youth group, in Coupland's last novel HEY, NOSTRADAMUS!. In the film, if you look closely in the background in a library scene, you can see an old, late '80s/early '90s poster of "Michael Stipe for America's Libraries" prompting you to read. Also, I wonder how Stipe likes to be referred to as "queer rocker." Oy. - --Mark S. np: queer rockers Of Montreal ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 23:24:07 -0400 (EDT) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: [loud-fans] "gayish sensibility??" On Mon, 27 Sep 2004 LkDylaninthmvies@aol.com wrote: > Also, I wonder how Stipe likes to be referred to as "queer rocker." If memory serves, he's talked publicly about his sexuality more recently than he's done anything that rocked. Just got done listening to Around The Sun for the first time, and... if this had been the first R.E.M. album after Berry left, it would have been almost as huge a disappointment as Up and Reveal were. Coming now, though, it makes me slightly hopeful. If any of the songs seems at all memorable after a second listen, I might even have something nice to say about it. Man, my expectations were low. One point that Around The Sun has in its favor as opposed to the last two: the single is not deceptively superior to the rest of the record. I'm not sure why it was chosen, actually. My original prediction that "Bad Day" foretold rockin' things to come, though, was completely wrong. a ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V4 #266 *******************************