From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V6 #114 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 Monday, June 19 2006 Volume 06 : Number 114 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [loud-fans] it works! [Steve Holtebeck ] Re: [loud-fans] it works! [2fs ] [loud-fans] an Enigma? [2fs ] [loud-fans] what an LF/Ant never forgets? [2fs ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 07:57:20 -0700 (GMT-07:00) From: Steve Holtebeck Subject: Re: [loud-fans] it works! From: Aaron Mandel >I was ready to be disappointed, and I'm not. I lost interest in Anton >around 17th Century Fuzzbox Blues... are "Pop Song 99" and "Flow Thee >Water" representative of the songs he writes now? I loved "Pop Song 99". "Pop Song 99" is an older song, as the title might indicate. I'm surprised it didn't make it on to an album before this one. Someone asked if the song title was an R.E.M. joke. Yes it is, but I don't know exactly why. "Flow Thee Water" is a newer song, and not exactly representative of the songs Anton writes now. Hyperbole aside, I think it's easily the best song he's written in this century. One of my favorite moments on WiiW is the segue from "Flow Thee Water" into "Remember You". "Remember You" is kind of a minor song in the Zombies canon (b-side of "Just Out of Reach") and Scott & Anton make it their own. My copy of the CD arrived on Friday, and I'm loving it! It's full of examples Why We're All Here (on loud-fans). Anyone who hasn't already pre-ordered it should post-order it immediately! WORKSFORME, as they say is bugzilla - -Steve ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 16:46:10 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: [loud-fans] it works! On 6/18/06, Steve Holtebeck wrote: > > From: Aaron Mandel > >I was ready to be disappointed, and I'm not. I lost interest in Anton > >around 17th Century Fuzzbox Blues... are "Pop Song 99" and "Flow Thee > >Water" representative of the songs he writes now? I loved "Pop Song 99". Anton's problem is, maybe, the opposite of Scott's: Anton writes too many songs, and doesn't seem to have a good handle on what's good. (Scott seems to be such a perfectionist that he finishes too few songs, maybe.) At any rate, I suspect he lost you because after 17CFB, he suddenly seemed to be releasing a CD every few months, each of which seemed to contain different versions of the same handful of songs, none of which were all that good. I exaggerate: at least 2/3 of the Bevis Frond compilation is very good, but he's prone to being facile and putting out passable filler that, collectively, drags down the overall quality of his output. One of my favorite moments on WiiW is the > segue from "Flow Thee Water" into "Remember You". "Remember You" > is kind of a minor song in the Zombies canon (b-side of "Just Out of > Reach") > and Scott & Anton make it their own. Agreed on both counts. On my first concentrated listen, one thing I notice is more acoustic textures - mosly acoustic guitar, but also piano - more prominent than before. At the same time, lots of synths - and as someone (Gil?) commented, who knew Anton was such a keyboard wiz? Two minor minor quibbles: on "Rocks Off," there's this "brrrwww" guitar bit, a downward slide of some sort, that punctuates certain phrases - but it recurs too often for my taste, and in headphones at least becomes distracting after a while. Probably just me. Also, it's curious that an album that, so far as I know, exists in no other format or formation of tracks has "bonus tracks." I know that that's because they were written and recorded later than the other tracks on the album - but their status as "bonus tracks" is a bit unfortunate, because I think Scott's "Don't Bother Me While I'm Living Forever" really should have ended the album - I'm in the "big long song ending the album" school. Of course, ending with that track would have required either breaking the careful Scott/Anton alternating sequence (discounting the covers), or putting one of the "bonus" tracks elsewhere than at the end of the CD. Then again, Anton's "I've Been Craving Lately" (the actual last track) actually sounds more like a bonus track: it seems a bit more off-the-cuff than the rest of the album, and even ends with goofy studio chatter and playing with noises. If it, in fact, had been the only bonus track and had been separated from the rest by 15 seconds of silence or so, that might have worked. But, anyway, quibble quibble quibble. My impressions are very positive otherwise. And I'm just glad tehre are actual new Scott songs (even though one of them isn't new: "Total Mass Destruction") - and hey, good new Anton songs (and the good, older one that's been released twice before, though only as an mp3 at Anton's site and on that "Mood Hat" live limited edition thing). Also: the back cover almost makes it look as if the 125 logo was designed after it rather than pre-existing! (But no cover of "Vado Via"? Or "Paranoid"!) - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 21:44:24 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: [loud-fans] an Enigma? Here's the first few seconds of John Trubee's infamous "A Blind Man's Penis" as heard on the first "Enigma Variations" compilation: < http://homepage.mac.com/spanghew/.Public/xtrubee.mp3>. Now, here's the first few seconds of "Total Mass Destruction" (altered to be in roughly the same key): . I anticipate a medley. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 22:37:21 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: [loud-fans] what an LF/Ant never forgets? Are there plans to put up the lyrics to the new CD at the LF site (or Anton's, for that matter - although I haven't checked there), or do we have to diligently transcribe them ourselves? - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V6 #114 *******************************