From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V5 #253 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, November 11 2005 Volume 05 : Number 253 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [loud-fans] Jeffrey the Norman's mix - disc 2 ["Stefaan Hurts" ] [loud-fans] Wall to Wall link! ["Bradley Skaught" Subject: [loud-fans] Jeffrey the Norman's mix - disc 2 Here's the review of the second disc of Jeffrey's mix. Hopefully, this part of the review will be without those nasty Word symbols that ended up in the first part. As per usual, the songs are rated from hero (4) to zero (0). Four Tet: You Were There With Me An atmospheric mixture of what sounds like all sorts of bells and wind chimes, a drumbeat and some heavy breathing in the background. Maybe the bells are sleigh bells and a bored Santa is making a dirty phone call? Doesn't matter, it sounds great! (3.5) Meat Beat Manifesto: Long Periods Of Time Wow, this takes me back to Saturday evenings in the late eighties, when I first got to hear Meat Beat Manifesto on part two of Domino, a program on Belgian radio that exposed my stale punk/hardcore mind to all sorts of music I had blocked from my ears the previous five years or so. Meat Beat Manifesto blew me away then, and maybe Mr. Dangers doesn't blow me away as much as he used to, but it sure is good to know he's still around and being put on mixes. (2.5) Martha & The Muffins: Swimming This song isn't sung by Martha, but by one of her Muffins (although you can hear Martha, and her niece, in the background). Some of the guitar bits reminded me of Brian Eno's "St. Elmo's Fire" from "Another Green World". (3) Daniel Lanois: Ice Daniel Lanois songs tend to gently creep up on you, and "Ice" is no exception to that rule. Wonderfully haunting. (3) Ass Ponys: Fire In The Hole Rootsy rock with a singer who, oddly enough, sounds like he's singing out of a pony's ass. (1) Mitch Easter: Telepathic World This song is pleasantly enough psychedelica lite, but doesn't really stick. (2) Art In The Dark: Answer Not sure if this is part of the ongoing early eighties revival we're having now or if this really is an old track (the production makes me think it's the latter). At first it didn't do all that much for me, but it grew on me. Uptempo new wave pop. (2.5) Shady: Prosperous The singer sounds like he's trying to stay in tune while he's desperately searching for his Azmacort (tm). A more urgent version of Tindersticks et al? Made me giggle and at the same time it got stuck in my head. (2.5) Frank Sinatra: She Says This is a weird tune, and, if I didn't have the track listing in front of me, I would never have guessed this was ol' blue eyes. More like something you'd expect on one of the last Johnny Cash albums (except maybe for the syrupy string arrangements). Frank, with a couple of little girls doing the backing vocals, while someone uses what seems like clackers (remember those?) to emphasize every statement Sinatra sings. (3) American Music Club: I'm In Heaven Now Scott Miller's former boyfriend ("I used to go out with Mark Eitzel, but it didn't make my life okay"). Is this from the new AMC album? (3) The Fall: Wings Live recording. What can I say, sounds like The Fall. Mark E. Smith's sneering drone/droning sneer always manages to draw me in. (3) April March: Pauvre Lola Haven't heard any April March in *ages*. Don't know if this is anything more recent, but it sure sounded cute with what seemed like afro-brazilian sounds, and pauvre Lola cackling in the background. (2.5-3) Alice Cooper: Unfinished Sweet Right before I was about to make my mind up about going to the dentist, Jeffrey puts this song on his mix. I'm not very familiar with Alice Cooper's music, but this track got me interested in hearing more from this up and coming talent. (3) Bullette: We Are Not From Sugar High-pitched female vocals with a Butthole Surferesque organ (from the Rembrandt/Pussyhorse era) and droning guitars in the background. (2) Doleful Lions: Watch The Skies/A Boys Life With lions like this, lambs should have no fear. Not bad, but not something I'd buy. (2) The Green Pajamas: Seven Fathoms Down And Falling I always thought The Green Pajamas were one of those cookie-cutter powerpop bands. This song proves me wrong. Addictive and hypnotic. The bass sounds an awful lot like the one in Michael Penn's "Out Of My Hands". And there's that "St. Elmo's Fire"-like guitar again for a couple seconds! (3) House Of Swank: Star Trek Cool Raw Sex (remember them from French & Saunders?) version of the Star Trek theme tune! (3.5) Thanks once again, Jeffrey, for this entertaining mix! Toodlepip, - -Stef ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 17:04:49 -0800 From: "Steve Holtebeck" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Jeffrey the Norman's mix - disc 2 On Thu, 10 Nov 2005 13:39:11 -0800, Stefaan Hurts wrote: > The Green Pajamas: Seven Fathoms Down And Falling > I always thought The Green Pajamas were one of those cookie-cutter > powerpop bands. This song proves me wrong. More like cookie-cutter psych-pop (if you're being genre-ist). I had the GPs pegged as an Elephant 6-type band the first time I saw them at Terrastock II, except they were doing it long before most of those bands started and continue to do it long after they've all stopped. And they're ridiculously prolific. Between band releases and Jeff Kelly solo releases, it's a full time job keeping track of everything they put out. And they just released a new album, probably while I was writing this. - -Steve ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 17:58:05 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Jeffrey the Norman's mix - disc 2 On 11/10/05, Stefaan Hurts wrote: > Ass Ponys: Fire In The Hole > Rootsy rock with a singer who, oddly enough, sounds like he's singing > out of a > pony's ass. (1) Ha! Oh well - every mix needs a track that someone thinks sucks... ;) > Mitch Easter: Telepathic World > This song is pleasantly enough psychedelica lite, but doesn't really > stick. (2) This is a demo (thanks Larry T.!) of a track later (much later) redone - - with Shalini's vocals - on Shalini's _We Want Jelly Donuts_ CD. > Art In The Dark: Answer > Not sure if this is part of the ongoing early eighties revival we're > having now or if this really is an old track (the production makes me > think it's the latter). At first it didn't do all that much for me, but > it grew on me. Uptempo new wave pop. (2.5) Actual early eighties stuff: another Athens, GA band. > Frank Sinatra: She Says > This is a weird tune, and, if I didn't have the track listing in front > of me, I would never have guessed this was ol' blue eyes. More like > something you'd expect on one of the last Johnny Cash albums (except > maybe for the syrupy string arrangements). Frank, with a couple of > little girls doing the backing vocals, while someone uses what seems > like > clackers (remember those?) to emphasize every statement Sinatra sings. > (3) Former lister Dana Paoli posted this on his (recently departed) blog The Mystical Beast . Don't know how many song files are still up there, but there's some interesting (and sometimes amusing, and sometimes obnoxious) writing on display. > American Music Club: I'm In Heaven Now > Scott Miller's former boyfriend ("I used to go out with Mark Eitzel, but > it didn't make my life okay"). Is this from the new AMC album? (3) Nope - this is an old b-side. I think it's on the AMC website-downloadable comp called 1984 or something like that. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 22:11:37 -0800 From: "Bradley Skaught" Subject: [loud-fans] Wall To Wall I picked up a really great album today by Chris Mills. It's called The Wall To Wall Sessions. I've got a couple of his albums, and i've seen him live a couple times and was never really blown away, but this new album is really something special. The songwriting makes me think of a combination of Mark Eitzel, Rhett Miller and Loudon Wainwright III, and the production is like Leonard Cohen's _Death of a Ladies Man_ or Plush's _Fed_. His voice has a bit of the dry, gruff character that Eitzel and Miller (and maybe Alejandro Escovedo) have. It's smart and funny, but very direct, too--deceptively simple. The arrangements are very lush, but it's not necessarily bombastic or heavy--it's definitely got a lively, Phil Spector kind of energy to it. Apparently it was all recorded live, too, which I think it fantastic. Here's a link with some sound--check out "The World Some Sad Hour", "Escape From New York", "Chris Mills Is Living The Dream" and "You Are My Favorite Song". By the way, Sinatra's ""She Says" is from the outrageously great (and depressing) concept album, Watertown. It was written and produced by 60's pop guys Bob Gaudio and Jake Holmes, and is really the only album Sinatra made with an ear towards producing somethign akin to the orchestral pop of the era. But it's very dark and sad--a strange album for sure. I think it's still way out of print, but it's usually easy to find on vinyl--a great, lost album. love, B ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 22:15:56 -0800 From: "Bradley Skaught" Subject: [loud-fans] Wall to Wall link! Duh! http://www.chris-mills.com/disc.html B ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 01:43:04 EST From: JRT456@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Wall To Wall In a message dated 11/11/05 1:19:29 AM, treesprite@earthlink.net writes: > I think it's still way > out of print, but it's usually easy to find on vinyl--a great, lost album. > It's only available as an import, but I was able to find WATERTOWN easily (and cheaply) enough via Amazon last year. I was tracking it down as a Jake Holmes fan, and his albums from the '60s would probably appeal to a lot of folks here. ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V5 #253 *******************************