From: owner-mad-mission-digest@smoe.org (mad-mission-digest) To: mad-mission-digest@smoe.org Subject: mad-mission-digest V8 #209 Reply-To: mad-mission@smoe.org Sender: owner-mad-mission-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-mad-mission-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk * If you ever wish to unsubscribe, send an email to * mad-mission-digest-request@smoe.org * with ONLY the word unsubscribe in the body of the email * . * For the latest information on Patty's tour dates, go to: * http://www.pattygriffin.net/PattyInConcertDB.php * OR * go to http://www.atorecords.com * . * PLEASE :) when you reply to this digest to send a post TO the list, * change the subject to reflect what your post is about. A subject * of Re: mad-mission-digest V8 #___ gives readers no clue * as to what your message is about. * Also, PLEASE do not quote an entire digest when you reply to the * list. Edit out anything you are not referring to. mad-mission-digest Sunday, August 15 2004 Volume 08 : Number 209 Today's Subjects: ----------------- MM: NPC: looking for Dana in Berkeley [Mooodeee@aol.com] Re: MM: NPC: looking for Dana in Berkeley [DLWildflower@aol.com] MM: patty in ny times ["amber bass-patterson" ] MM: NY Times article [Robin Hall ] MM: Patty's Two-Page New York Times Article [Matt Haven Subject: MM: patty in ny times on the front page no less! http://nytimes.com/ homepage http://nytimes.com/2004/08/14/arts/music/14GRIF.html?8hpib article. amber Absolutely Nia - A Joyful Workout for Your Body, Mind and Spirit. It's All You Need! www.nia-nia.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2004 17:26:40 -0400 From: Robin Hall Subject: MM: NY Times article There's a BIG article about Patty in the NY Times today (Saturday). Lots of pictures. Almost feels like something meant for the Sunday Arts and Leisure section, but then some editor decided it should run today. Anyway, it's a pretty good article - some history, some interviews. Robin ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2004 22:33:30 -0700 From: Matt Haven Subject: MM: Patty's Two-Page New York Times Article Patty is the star of a two-page article in Saturday's New York Times. From http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/14/arts/music/14GRIF.html ... AUSTIN, Tex. - Patty Griffin's loyalists need not squint at the credits to know that the Dixie Chicks rode to gold and glory singing songs that she wrote - "Top of the World," "Truth No. 2" and "Let Him Fly." They know that Bette Midler's pounding version of "Moses" is borrowed and that any Emmylou Harris CD is likely to include one of Ms. Griffin's songs. But longtime fans prefer Patty Griffin unmediated. They want that voice - sometimes regretful, sometimes rollicking - accompanied by a tentative piano or an acoustic guitar that she mastered only 10 years ago, one chord a week, while slinging pizza in Harvard Square. So a solo tour this spring filled auditoriums from Town Hall in Manhattan to the Fillmore in San Francisco. And on Aug. 18 Ms. Griffin is scheduled to appear in Central Park, midway through a national tour, along with her mentor Ms. Harris, Gillian Welch and others, who will alternate sets, swap instruments and sing backup for one other. Until recently, Ms. Griffin's lyrical and melodic gifts were a cultish secret. The artists who sang her songs, in styles as eclectic as her vintage wardrobe or her repertoire of laughs, were her staunchest fans. But now they are joined by growing numbers of record-buyers and concertgoers who not long ago barely knew her name. Ms. Griffin's latest CD, "Impossible Dream" (ATO Records), released in April, could sell 300,000 copies at its current pace by next July. That is nearly twice the sales of "1,000 Kisses," nominated for a Grammy in 2002, and about equal to Ms. Harris's most recent release, "Stumble Into Grace." Ms. Griffin, who is 40 and now based in Austin, came late to the stage and the recording studio; her career has been more a series of accidents than a well-wrought plan. She didn't own a guitar until she was 16 and even then she didn't learn to play it properly for years. A piano came much later, after she had already recorded two CD's. The singer's formal education ended with high school in a Maine mill town, where her father taught physics and her mother tended to seven children born in as many years. The house was too small for nine; the vegetable garden was a necessity. Her mother's days were filled with load after load of laundry and Mason jar after Mason jar of pickled beets. Her mother sang as she worked. Made-up songs. Hymns. Patsy Cline. "Ol' Man River." "Man of La Mancha." Ms. Griffin went home to Old Town, Me., while recording the latest of her four studio CD's. At the kitchen table she recorded her parents, now in their 70's, singing several bars of "The Impossible Dream." Their voices, private as a lullaby, are at the midpoint of the recording of the same name. "I understood when I was really little, making up songs with my mother and hearing her voice in the house, that music was wonderful and singing was something I loved more than anything else," said Ms. Griffin, who is slight, shy and has a tangle of red hair. "But we didn't know anyone who did it for a living, except maybe cover bands, at weddings." So from 1984, when she fled the cold for Florida with a girlfriend, until the mid-90's, when a guitar teacher in Massachusetts cajoled her onto a tiny stage with him, she worked at numbing jobs. In Delray Beach, wearing a hairnet she even today calls humiliating, Ms. Griffin waited on tables. In Cambridge, Mass., she spent a half-dozen years at the same Pizzeria Uno, until, she said, "I knew I'd kill somebody if I stayed another minute." Through it all, when asked what she did, she never put on airs. ` "I'm a waitress,' " she recalls answering. "I didn't see myself as someone who sings." But the dreary jobs, the last as a switchboard operator at Harvard, among women who talked of hard lives that bent but did not break them, "inspired the stories that came to be songs," Ms. Griffin said. Their stoic labor, and her own, were grist for "Making Pies," "Florida" and "Mother of God." The poems she started writing in high school and the music she played in her head were coming together. "I was getting glimpses of what it felt like to write something I wanted to sing," she said. "Sometimes it comes right out of your chest and reminds you that you're in there - you're not empty." Every song has a story, whether a season of unrelenting storms in her adopted hometown ("Rain") or the deathbed regrets of a relative ("Top of the World"). The bitter cold of a Maine winter and her mother's hymns to Mary recur again and again. A brief marriage became a virtual songbook of hard-won forgiveness. "Kite Song" was written to comfort her best friend and art director, Traci Goudie, who feared for a 19-year-old brother on the eve of the war in Iraq. "I worked myself into a frenzy as I often do," Ms. Goudie said. "And Patty calmed me down as she often does. And her calming me down turned into art." The genesis of the melodies she creates defies explanation, Ms. Griffin said. Sometimes a song fills her head, whole. Sometimes a few bars feel like a bridge and she attends to the gaps later. She never writes down the notes. "If it wants to be around, it sticks with you pretty fast," she said. She is more at ease on the guitar but alternates with the piano because it brings out different parts of her voice. "I sit down to play and see what happens," she said. "Usually sounds come out and they make themselves into shapes. It's like finding the sculpture in the rocks." Ms. Griffin stumbled into a record contract based on a self-made demo tape that she had planned to use only to get little gigs in Cambridge. She found herself in a New Orleans recording studio, with Ms. Harris eavesdropping as she finished "Wrecking Ball." There, 10 simple songs were turned into a lavishly produced CD that both she and the record company hated. Instead, under the title "Living With Ghosts" (A&M Records) they published the original tapes. Ms. Harris was now hiring Ms. Griffin for backup harmony and introducing others to her music. Ms. Griffin spent a miserable year in Nashville making a recording that never got released, but it included several songs that became title tracks for the Dixie Chicks. Radio play time and residuals from Chicks album sales remain her steadiest income. Nashville seemed to her too tough a town, she said, so she settled in Austin. She bought a two-family house in a funky neighborhood of students and artists, a modest but sassy place, confidently painted lime green with a red door and furnished with 1950's patio furniture, Chinese novelty lamps and objects found at yard sales. It even has a tenant, a Norwegian bass player, who mows the lawn when she is on the road. In the last year, Ms. Griffin has indulged a few fantasies: a professionally landscaped garden and a screened gazebo that she uses as a yoga studio. "I found my female pack here," Ms. Griffin said of her life in Austin. These women, all Southern, taught her that "might could" is a compound verb and that toothpaste soothes mosquito bites, she said. And they encouraged her shoe fetish. Greater fame, should it come, could disrupt all that, said Ms. Griffin, who strolls here unrecognized. She seems grateful for the fact that she is "just making a living," satisfied to be "mainly a word-of-mouth person." Should the glitter beckon, what would happen to the quiet she needs to compose and write? "This has worked for me so far," she said. "But who knows how long it can go on? I know what I value, what makes me happy. If I have the courage to remember that, I'll always have enough." ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 06:52:02 EDT From: MikeBrns4U@aol.com Subject: MM: What does PATTY mean to me? Jim Morrison: "Is everybody in? Is everybody in? Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin. WAKE UP! You can't remember where it was. Has this dream stopped? PG: "Let's write a story of a tidal wave We ran out of luck We ran out of days We ran out of gas A hundred miles away from a station..." FEAR CHANNEL: WE'LL SWALLOW YOUR SOUL. Mike Burns: I'll tell you about Texas radio and that it never plays their local heroine. Out here in the perimeter here is what PATTY means to me. P stands for Politeness to others, not Profanity. Patty uses no foul language in her songs, and therefore I bury this already beaten horse by saying I shall not use any more in her room. It is true that two of Patty's songs, "Regarding Mary" and "Not Alone," are used in the movie Niagara, Niagara, a magical tale about a boy who falls in love with a girl with a really bad case of Tourette's Syndrome. But just because Patty's songs are featured prominently in that movie does not mean she condones or promotes curse words, so get my filthy mind out of the gutter and get thee behind me. P stands for Patty not Peaches. They are both singer-songwriters, and both come from the folk tradition. The two just played Boston on Sundays in May, one week apart. While Patty wins awards for folk excellence, Peaches looked away and turned anti-folk. Like Patty, Peaches went electric, but she did not stop there. Peaches broke from the folk tradition completely, going electronic, all the way to electroclash. While Patty is polite onstage and regrets "Useless Desires," Peaches embraces sex and profanity in all its forms and substances, both in her songs and in her performance dance/art. Peaches crowd surfs, imbibes drinks offered by complete strangers in the crowd, throws water and even spits up on the crowd. By way of reward for indulging her excesses, Peaches invites audience members to come up on stage to trade singing lines from her biggest hit song, "[Freak] The Pain Away." Peaches' persona, just like Madonna, has "absolutely no regrets." At the end of Peaches' set at the club Axis two weeks ago, while the audience was applauding and shouting for more, the stage was empty and the lights were down. Suddenly over the speakers we heard Peaches saying, "You are now backstage... drinking Yaeger... with Peaches!" The crowd roared. Then we heard her disembodied voice again. "You are still backstage...banging Peaches!" P stands for Positive Vibrations, not Provocation and Personal attacks. Patty's songs contain no direct personal attacks to anyone by name, and therefore there shall be none made by me in future here. If you can't say anything nice about people... LET'S GET TOGETHER. P means staying on Point. The point is not about me but Patty herself. And Performance art, namely music. And Politics, to a lesser extent, mainly because of her choice of charity, fighting for a landmine-free world, is a political statement. and So too is her latest album, Impossible Dream. The Point is Possibilities of Peace through having Principals for which to stand on, and coming to Profound understandings of which to land on, and taking Pleasures grand with which to grab hold on. And then Pass along. To share knowledge and treasures gained along the journey. By unloading our minds we lighten each other's loads. "And you will stay here until you obtain true enlightenment." Meanwhile A means, "This is the new Art school." If I have anything to say outside the bounds of the Mad Mission statement of purpose, then there it will be said. Outside. Outside of polite society. Out here in the perimeter. "Out here we is stoned/ Immaculate," as Jim would say if he were still here. Which is where we may even now be, outside MM. For my last two MM posts were banned. (Actually only my very last MM post. I then tried to send that very banned post a second time, one day later, under a different subject. But that's the oldest trick in the book and silly old me, don't I know tricks are for kids?) So I have no way of knowing at this very moment as I'm editing this -- yes, I can and do edit myself on occasion -- will I once again be branded, Banned? But I have taken the bull by the horns and chosen to censor myself this time, to bow down before the MM ways and means and traditions committee, to acknowledge the errors of my evil axis ways, to recant, repent and repledge myself to the Patty Pleasure Principal, all in the hopes of being given one last chance to play nice with the kids. And if I'm not given that chance, then this will be my last dance. "Goodbye goodbye goodbye old friends You won't be seein' me again... ...Even I'm gettin' tired of Useless desires..." For now. I may try to join the club one more time again when The Sweet Harmony Traveling Review comes through town in August. For last time I was banned for a few months, then let me back in. For all I know "I'm sitting here in limbo/ Waiting for the tide to roll..." "The further I go More letters from home never arrive And I'm alone All of the way..." If I am indeed doing the limbo dance, the only way you are reading this is because you are of the very few who actually supported me in my recent struggles. You may have even indicated you would like to read me if necessary outside the confines of MM. If that is so, I can't thank you enough. I truly was touched, touched by angels, touched in the head, but this old altar boy was not thank Goddess touched by the family priest. Speaking of the altar, are there any gay MM couples out there getting their marriage licenses in Gay Mad Massachusetts today? If so, hey, congratulations! Here's to the Bride & Bride. And the Groom & Groom. Cheers. Today, May 17, the very first Gay All The Way Day, is truly a historic day in this country, and long overdue, as Massachusetts becomes the first state to grant legal marriage licenses to gay couples. It gets so very cold in the winter here, and there unfortunately are still deep pockets of resistance to free thinking, but today makes me proud once again to say: Don't blame me [America], I'm from Massachusetts. "To dream the impossible dream..." NO LONGER BANNED IN BOSTON, NOW GAY MARRIAGE BANNS IN BOSTON! THE BAY STATE BECOMES THE FIRST GAY STATE! PARADISE REGAINED AS ADAM & STEVE ARE IN EDEN! Now where was I, oh yes, as an old folk singer once said long before he started shilling for panty ads on TV, "To live outside the law you must be honest." So when I am outside MM, heaven knows, anything goes: Colors, pictures, sounds, links to animation, and text fully unabridged. My world is yours and welcome to it. But back to MM land, T means Taking Time to celebrate what others have done for me. And that means getting a new CD player. I apologize again to those people out there who have been so kind to share their Patty weed with me -- and again you know who you are -- and I haven't even heard it yet. But I promise before the end of the month I will get a new CD player. I previously shared my pathetic excuses regarding my pathetic health so I won't even go there again, I just need to get myself down to the Music Man. Mad Magic Mirror tell me today Did all my Missionary Friends have fun at play? I see Bon-bon, whom Patty left speechless in Pittsburgh. Big Electric Cat got your tongue? I see Ldoggy, whom was blasted by Patty in Boston. (BTW, LD, I'm sure I'm not Gary. I'm not sure of much else right now but that.) I see Charl. And you should all see Charl's art design work. Color me absolutely fabulously impressed. Here's the address. http://www.designck.com charl@designck.com (Hope you don't mind my sharing, Charl. Patty should give you a ring.) Finally there is a Y. Why are we here? This may be Patty's room, but this is the house that Murph built. Big Brother is watching and waiting for this to stop right now if he hasn't already pulled the plug, so as brother Jimi says, "Let me put an end/ And you will never hear/ [Curse] music again." To sum up: Patty is My Impossible Dream Weaver. A Humdinger of a Hummingbird. The 11th Heaventh Wonder Of The World. For it is a Sad Sad Sad Sad World that knows not The Mad Mad Mad Mad Girl. She's On A Mad Mission From Goddess. She's The Pride & Bride Of Boston. She's... The Dish That Ate Pittsburgh. Peace & Love, Patty & Anarchy In The USA. ...Mike Burns has kissed and missed the building... ------------------------------ End of mad-mission-digest V8 #209 *********************************