From: les@jmdl.com (onlyJMDL Digest) To: onlyjoni-digest@smoe.org Subject: onlyJMDL Digest V2005 #80 Reply-To: joni@smoe.org Sender: les@jmdl.com Errors-To: les@jmdl.com Precedence: bulk Archives: http://www.smoe.org/lists/onlyjoni Websites: http://www.jmdl.com http://www.jonimitchell.com Unsubscribe: mailto:onlyjoni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe onlyJMDL Digest Saturday, March 19 2005 Volume 2005 : Number 080 ========== TOPICS and authors in this Digest: -------- Re: Sacrilege ["Ric Robinson" ] RE: Sacrilege [Mark-Leon Thorne ] Joni Covered [Mark-Leon Thorne ] Re: Joni Covered [Jerry Notaro ] Re: Joni Covered [Bob Muller ] Re: Joni Covered [FMYFL@aol.com] Joni on Public TV in 'CheeseHeadLand' next week [Brian Gross ] Re: Sacrilege ["Mark or Travis" ] RE: Sacrilege ["Ruth Davis" ] Re: Joni Covered [Randy Remote ] Re: Kiss my ax, I said [Randy Remote ] RE: Sacrilege [Bob Muller ] RE: Sacrilege [Em ] I Can't Believe it [Bob Muller ] I Can't Believe it ["Richard Flynn" ] Re: I Can't Believe it [Randy Remote ] Re: I Can't Believe it ["Mark or Travis" ] Re: Sacrilege ["Mark or Travis" ] Re: I Can't Believe it [revrvl@comcast.net (vince)] Re: Joni Covered [Deb Messling ] RE: Sacrilege [Deb Messling ] Oddly enough... [Randy Remote ] Re: Oddly enough... [Bob Muller ] Re: Oddly enough... ["Gerald A. Notaro" ] Blue Mountains Folk Festival (SJC) [Mark-Leon Thorne ] Re: Mingus ["Gerald A. Notaro" ] Re:Jo Stafford ["Gerald A. Notaro" ] Re: Song for sharin', or buy yourself a mando, Lynn [JRMCo1@aol.com] Re: Joni Covered [JRMCo1@aol.com] Nice article about TBOS and Dreamland [Brian Gross ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 08:09:50 -0000 From: "Ric Robinson" Subject: Re: Sacrilege Just don't like the song Bob, no matter who does it! - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bob Muller" To: "Ric Robinson" ; "JoniList" Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2005 11:30 PM Subject: Re: Sacrilege > Ric Robinson wrote: > I don't like Woodstock.> > > But which one, Ric - all of them? I actually like them all but think that > the Shadows & Light version is THE bomb. > > Bob, who doesn't need to say which is his least fave > > NP: REM, "Losing My Religion" > Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 22:58:38 +1100 From: Mark-Leon Thorne Subject: RE: Sacrilege Love Twisted. Love Centrepiece. Lead Balloon really lives up to its name. To my ears, anyway. Sex Kills is on my rarely listen to list too. Mark in Sydney NP The Avalanches - Rolling High. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 23:07:09 +1100 From: Mark-Leon Thorne Subject: Joni Covered Hi gang. I don't know if this has been a thread before or not but I was just curious if any polls on Joni covers have been taken. What are people's favourite covers of Joni songs? I'll throw my 2 cents worth in. For a faithful recreation, you can't go past Wynonna's, "Help Me". I love PM Dawn's, "Night In The City" and as a gay man, Kind of Like Spitting's, "The Last Time I saw Richard". What does everyone else think? Mark in Sydney NP Brian Kennedy - A Case of You ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 08:06:45 -0500 From: Jerry Notaro Subject: Re: Joni Covered > Hi gang. I don't know if this has been a thread before or not but I was > just curious if any polls on Joni covers have been taken. What are > people's favourite covers of Joni songs? > > I'll throw my 2 cents worth in. For a faithful recreation, you can't go > past Wynonna's, "Help Me". I love PM Dawn's, "Night In The City" and as > a gay man, Kind of Like Spitting's, "The Last Time I saw Richard". > > What does everyone else think? Mine: Bonnie Raitt - That Song About the Midway Barbra Streisand - I Don't Know Where I Stand Diana Krall - A Case of You Jerry ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 06:22:05 -0800 (PST) From: Bob Muller Subject: Re: Joni Covered Hi Mark - I'm not particularly fond of Wynonna's Help Me, but only because her objective seemed to be to recreate Joni's version as close as possible, which doesn't captivate me as much as someone who takes a familiar song like Help Me and puts a radical twist on it - Guv'ner's version for instance, or Brian Stoltz who throws a slow Red House Painters electric burn on it - smokin'. Like Jerry, I think it doesn't get much better than Bonnie's take on "Midway" - one of the few that basically does Joni's version but infuses it with so much more soul & feeling that she leaves Joni's own version far behind. ANYTHING from Lydia van Dam's Joni tribute. ANYTHING from Rachel Z's "Moon At The Window" Joni tribute Chaka Khan's fantastic "Man From Mars" Jason Falkner's power-pop treatment of Both Sides Now k.d. lang's breathtaking Jericho Clive Gregson & Christine Collister's jawdropping Same Situation Among many. many, MANY more... Bob NP: Laura Love, "Bang Bang" Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 09:39:27 EST From: FMYFL@aol.com Subject: Re: Joni Covered In a message dated 3/18/2005 7:11:45 AM Eastern Standard Time, mark-leon@iinet.net.au writes: > What does everyone else think? > > Jim Nabor's BSN :) Actually, I agree with Muller : ANYTHING from Lydia van Dam's Joni tribute. Happy Weekend Everybody! Jimmy Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got till it's gone - ---John Wayne Bobbitt ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 07:08:54 -0800 (PST) From: Brian Gross Subject: Joni on Public TV in 'CheeseHeadLand' next week Public TV slates Womens History Month specials Press-Gazette Six programs relating to Womens History Month will be broadcast on Wisconsin Public Television, including WPNE, Channel 38, Green Bay. The lineup:  At 8 p.m. Monday, American Experience: The Pill focuses on the birth control pill developed by two elderly female activists who demanded a contraceptive women could eat like aspirin. At 9 p.m., P.O.V.: Chisholm 72 Unbought & Unbossed follows the story of the late Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress and the first black woman to run for president. At 10:30 p.m., American Masters: Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart and Mind profiles the independent woman who resisted the whims of mainstream audiences and the male-dominated recording industry to explore territory outside of accepted pop music. http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/news/archive/et_19962103.shtml Brian in sunny south jersey Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got till it's gone --Roberta Joan Anderson, who never lies Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 09:23:02 -0600 From: "Happy The Man" Subject: Costello Rant's @ SXSW (Joni Content) From SXSW by Michael Corcoran and Jeff Salamon ....Wearing his usual outfit, a suit and fedora, Elvis Costello told a standing-room-only audience of several hundred fans at the Austin Covention Center that big-box stores and the overpricing of albums are to blame for the problems of today's record industry. "I love record stores, but they will have to adapt or die," he said Wednesday. Later, seeming to contradict his complaint about expensive CD's the Englisman added, "One of the big gripes I have against the big record stores (is), I hate seeing (Joni Mitchell's) 'Blue' for 5 pounds. It should be 50 pounds....like a masterpiece." If art can increase in value, he reasoned, why not music? (perhaps because records are mass -produced objects but paintings are one of a kind? Just guessing here.) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 07:34:42 -0800 From: "Mark or Travis" Subject: Re: Joni Covered Mark-Leon Thorne wrote: > Hi gang. I don't know if this has been a thread before or not but I > was just curious if any polls on Joni covers have been taken. What > are > people's favourite covers of Joni songs? Sherelle Smith - Edith and the Kingpin Mark E. in Seattle ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 07:40:38 -0800 From: "Mark or Travis" Subject: Re: Sacrilege Ric Robinson wrote: > I don't like Woodstock. > > There, I've said it. I feel much better now, thanks. I still have trouble with Joni's original version on Ladies of the Canyon. Look in the Smoe archives searching on the word 'hyuddahs' for further discussion of this topic ;-) > (Which is your least favourite Joni track?) Probably 'The Fiddle and the Drum' although having seen the live performance Joni did on the post-Woodstock Dick Cavett show, I've learned to appreciate it a bit more. Mark E. in Seattle ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 17:22:21 GMT From: "Ruth Davis" Subject: RE: Sacrilege I detest "Circle Game" and "Down to You." I also despise the yodeling on the original version of "Woodstock", although I like Joni's later, post-yodeling, guitar version. Can't stand "Willie" or "Blue Boy", either. O.K. with everthing else, though. I actually like DED, including "Ethiopia". Ruth in Richmond ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 11:06:23 -0800 From: Randy Remote Subject: Re: Joni Covered Mark-Leon Thorne wrote: > What are > people's favourite covers of Joni songs? > The Byrd's '73 version of "For Free" with David Crosby at the helm. Ann Wilson's (Heart) rendition of "River". Richard Thompson's "Black Crow" ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 11:16:07 -0800 From: Randy Remote Subject: Re: Kiss my ax, I said Mr. K left out the in-between period: Ibenez jazz guitar, Fender Strat with hex pickup. Catherine, you get the Most Creative Subject Lines Award! The Mando. Bros info was cool. Wonder if she still has the instruments. RR (straight/self-indulgent/dislikes tie-dye) Catherine McKay wrote: > More stuff found on the Acoustic Guitar site whilst trying to do anything but the work for which they pays me. Suddenly realizing what VG stands for... > > JONI MITCHELL'S STAGE AX > > Q. > Does Joni Mitchell still play Martin guitars live on stage? > Gus Di Bella > Buenos Aires, Argentina > > A > The Roland VG-8 has replaced Mitchell's Martin. The acoustic Martin rarely joins Joni Mitchell on stage these days. She plays in a profusion of alternate tunings-as many as 90 different variations. Many of these tunings work great in the controlled environment of the recording studio but fail miserably under the rigors of touring. Extra-low tunings are particularly hard to manage on stage. Add to that the hassle of trying to tune an acoustic guitar between every number and you have a formula for public frustration. For several years now Mitchell has solved her on-stage tuning dilemma by using modern digital processing technology. With the Roland VG-8 Virtual Guitar she is able to change tunings at the flick of a switch. The strings themselves stay in > standard tuning, but the tuning coming out of the speakers varies according to her needs. To accommodate the Roland unit Mitchell uses either a Parker Fly or custom electric guitar built by Fred Walecki. For more information on > the Roland guitar processor, go to www.rolandus.com. > -Paul Kotapish > > Catherine > Toronto > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > > > --------------------------------- > Post your free ad now! Yahoo! Canada Personals ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 11:34:07 -0800 (PST) From: Bob Muller Subject: RE: Sacrilege Wow, Ruth...Down To You??? That's one of my favorite Joni songs and a song that I would say is "essential Joni" or the essence of what Joni is all about...that is, sharp unique cliche-free lyrical imagery, and composition more than song. Not that I'm saying you have to like it, but could I press you to detail just what it is that causes you to DETEST it? I'd be interested to know. As for the Woodstock yodel, it rubbed me the wrong way the first time I heard it but now I think it's a very relevant part of the song as it was originally conceived; almost like a chant that represents Joni 'getting back to the garden' & reclaiming her spiritual roots. Of course, there's a difference between appreciating something and liking it. Bob NP: Ani, "If it isn't her" Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 11:38:03 -0800 (PST) From: Em Subject: RE: Sacrilege - --- Bob Muller wrote: > Wow, Ruth...Down To You??? That's one of my favorite Joni songs and a > song that I would say is "essential Joni" or the essence of what Joni > is all about...that is, sharp unique cliche-free lyrical imagery, and > composition more than song. Not that I'm saying you have to like it, > but could I press you to detail just what it is that causes you to > DETEST it? I'd be interested to know. that surprised me too! "Down to You" is exactly the kind of stuff I'd like there to be more and more of! Em ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 13:52:11 -0800 (PST) From: Bob Muller Subject: I Can't Believe it http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0007UMMHC/qid=1111182571/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/103-9500611-9187003?v=glance&s=music&n=507846 This is a break from the painting covers she's done on all the other comps. I like ! Still no tracklisting - maybe there's some surprises there too? Bob NP: Death Cab For Cutie, "The Sound Of Settling" Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 17:24:43 -0500 From: "Richard Flynn" Subject: I Can't Believe it Where is that photo from? This would be a good surprise--she secretly recorded a new album. ;-) I finally got DJRD on Compact Disc and I must say I love it as I've never loved it before. No getting up to turn over the records! I think my twenty-two year old self just wasn't ready for it. (Though my 21-year-old self wore out the groves on Hejira.) I can't really articulate why it seems new to me, but it does. Richard - -----Original Message----- From: owner-joni@jmdl.com [mailto:owner-joni@jmdl.com] On Behalf Of Bob Muller Sent: Friday, March 18, 2005 4:52 PM To: JMDL Subject: I Can't Believe it http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0007UMMHC/qid=1111182571/sr=8 - -1/ref=pd_csp_1/103-9500611-9187003?v=glance&s=music&n=507846 This is a break from the painting covers she's done on all the other comps. I like ! Still no tracklisting - maybe there's some surprises there too? Bob NP: Death Cab For Cutie, "The Sound Of Settling" Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 14:32:46 -0800 From: Randy Remote Subject: Re: I Can't Believe it Something tasteful, wtf is up with that? Here is a larger view of it: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B0007UMMHC/ref=dp_product-image-only_0/104-4257938-8903921?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=507846 I love this photo! Bob Muller wrote: > http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0007UMMHC/qid=1111182571/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/103-9500611-9187003?v=glance&s=music&n=507846 > > This is a break from the painting covers she's done on all the other comps. > I like ! > > Still no tracklisting - maybe there's some surprises there too? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 14:32:40 -0800 From: "Mark or Travis" Subject: Re: I Can't Believe it Bob Muller wrote: > http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0007UMMHC/qid=1111182571/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/103-9500611-9187003?v=glance&s=music&n=507846 > > This is a break from the painting covers she's done on all the other > comps. I like ! From the 'Hejira' shoot I take it. Very cool! Mark E. in Seattle ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 14:33:11 -0800 From: "Mark or Travis" Subject: Re: Sacrilege Bob Muller wrote: Of > course, there's a difference between appreciating something and > liking it. > Ain't that the truth?!! Mark E. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 22:53:37 +0000 From: revrvl@comcast.net (vince) Subject: Re: I Can't Believe it No tracklisting, no new recordings, gees, could this be more re-packaged product from someone who ahs attacked the business side of music for years and said she would never do a greatest hits album? Vince - -------------- Original message -------------- > Still no tracklisting - maybe there's some surprises there too? > > Bob ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 17:56:31 -0500 From: Deb Messling Subject: Re: Joni Covered I prefer the covers where the performer teases out a new sound rather than "faithfully recreating" the original. I really, really liked David Krakauer's instrumental version, klezmer-style, of The Fiddle and the Drum, from the tribute at Symphony Space in New York. I guess this choice is cheating, because it's not available on any of Bob's CDs. As far as what is available from Bob, ditto ditto ditto on the stuff by Christine Collister and the Lydia Van Dam Group. - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Deb Messling -^..^- messling@enter.net - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 18:01:04 -0500 From: Deb Messling Subject: RE: Sacrilege I was indifferent to Willie until I heard the Dick Cavett tape. In spite of the fact that Joni has always defended the album form, with songs in context, I find I can discover a song in a new way when it's OUT of context, all by its beautiful self. I don't know enough about music theory to defend my opinion, but I would say that Willie is one of those songs that sounds more like an art song than a folk song. At 12:22 PM 3/18/2005, you wrote: >Can't stand "Willie" or "Blue Boy", either. - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Deb Messling -^..^- messling@enter.net - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 15:08:25 -0800 From: Randy Remote Subject: Oddly enough... One week before the release of Joni's "Songs of a Prarie Girl" CD, (April 26), Judy Collins will release "Portrait of An American Girl". And again, no track listing. We'll have to see if this too is the latest retro collection. I think it's part of some vast "Girl" CD series, and will probably include Liz Phairs "Songs of a Foul-Mouthed Girl", Sinead O'Connor's "Portrait of a Pissed-Off Girl", Courtney Love's "Limericks of a Vomiting Girl", and Ashlee Simpson's "Tracks of a Lip-Syncing Girl". Also, today was the last day to order Martin's Judy Collins Signature Ltd Ed. guitar. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 15:15:08 -0800 (PST) From: Bob Muller Subject: Re: Oddly enough... Randy, I'm sure that Jerry knows for sure but I'm pretty sure that Judy's is all new and includes her cover of "Song About The Midway" amnog others. Bob NP: Smashing Pumpkins, "Luna" Randy Remote wrote: One week before the release of Joni's "Songs of a Prarie Girl" CD, (April 26), Judy Collins will release "Portrait of An American Girl". And again, no track listing. We'll have to see if this too is the latest retro collection. I think it's part of some vast "Girl" CD series, and will probably include Liz Phairs "Songs of a Foul-Mouthed Girl", Sinead O'Connor's "Portrait of a Pissed-Off Girl", Courtney Love's "Limericks of a Vomiting Girl", and Ashlee Simpson's "Tracks of a Lip-Syncing Girl". Also, today was the last day to order Martin's Judy Collins Signature Ltd Ed. guitar. Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 18:39:26 -0500 (EST) From: "Gerald A. Notaro" Subject: Re: Oddly enough... It is a whole new studio album. Jerry Bob Muller said: > Randy, I'm sure that Jerry knows for sure but I'm pretty sure that Judy's > is all new and includes her cover of "Song About The Midway" amnog others. > > Bob > > NP: Smashing Pumpkins, "Luna" > > Randy Remote wrote: > One week before the release of Joni's "Songs of a Prarie Girl" CD, > (April 26), Judy Collins will release "Portrait of An American Girl". > And again, no track listing. We'll have to see if this too is the latest > > retro collection. > I think it's part of some vast "Girl" CD series, and will probably > include > Liz Phairs "Songs of a Foul-Mouthed Girl", Sinead O'Connor's > "Portrait of a Pissed-Off Girl", Courtney Love's "Limericks of a > Vomiting Girl", and Ashlee Simpson's "Tracks of a Lip-Syncing Girl". > > Also, today was the last day to order Martin's Judy Collins Signature > Ltd Ed. guitar. > Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 12:08:18 +1100 From: Mark-Leon Thorne Subject: Blue Mountains Folk Festival (SJC) Hi all. For those in the Sydney area this weekend, the 10th Blue Mountains Folk Festival is on at Katoomba. Janis Ian will be performing as well as Irish folk singer, Brian Kennedy whose cover of Joni's A Case of You is one of the best I've heard. Here is their website, http://bmff.org.au/ Mark in Sydney NP Ronan Keating/Yusuf Islam - Father and Son. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 17:18:24 -0800 (PST) From: Warren Smith Subject: Tree Museum proposal I have a proposal for a large State Park to be designated "Tree Museum." Also, many smaller Tree Museums. Charge all the people a dollar and a half. Educate on Urban Sprawl. This will be a huge tribute to Joni's work. Lifetime achievement award. Upon your request, I will email a Word Document attachment of my proposal for your review, comments, and brainstorming ideas. Three pages of details plus some background pages. Too big to post here. I am working now on getting this proposal ready for consideration. Let's keep it within JMDL for now, not leaking it to the public until it is in a more final form. Let me know if you would like me to email the Tree Museum proposal to you. Warren NJTreeMuseum@Yahoo.com Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 20:38:23 -0500 (EST) From: "Gerald A. Notaro" Subject: Re: Mingus littlebreen@comcast.net said: > Oh, come on, Jerry, you hate all six cuts from Mingus???!!! Hate them all. Though I do love Mingus doing Mingus. Jerry ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 20:43:23 -0500 (EST) From: "Gerald A. Notaro" Subject: Re:Jo Stafford littlebreen@comcast.net said: > Jerry -- > > A dear, departed friend of mine (died of AIDS in '89) turned me on to Jo > Stafford -- and to "Jonathan and Darlene Edwards" -- I am so thankful they reissued them on cd's as The Best of, Volumes One and Two. I had the LP's, also. When I was doing dinner theater, mostly comedies, mostly Neil Simon, we would play them during the meals. If we heard laughter, we knew we had a good audience and we were going to have good shows, If not, we knew we were in for trouble. I just loved all the bio stuff they would put in the liner notes. All made up so seriously. A kind of humor that is now sadly gone. Jerry n.p.- Shawn Colvin - You and the Mona Lisa ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 21:12:01 EST From: JRMCo1@aol.com Subject: Re: Song for sharin', or buy yourself a mando, Lynn Catherine writes: Joni Mitchell did indeed make a trip to his store on Staten Island in 1976, where she bought a Gibson K-4 mandocello, built around 1915. It is a large (guitar-sized) version of the Gibson F-4 mandolin and is tuned C G D A, one octave below a mandola. I like that story. Moreover, I love the way Joni writes about real life experiences she's had...true to life people, places and phenomena. The Chelsea Hotel, the Champs D'llyse (sp?) right on down to a blue hotel room. I ought to design a Joni-allusion world tour someday. And I've come to love the mandolin of late...maybe it comes from listening to Les rock his like at hurricane at Jonifest...and there's David Grisman and Jerry's stuff from "Grateful Dog" and things of that nature. I likes that too. I've got a 1913 Gibson F-4 mandolin I'm going to bring to the next Jonifest...will you play it, please, Les? Or maybe I'll go down to Los Angeles and camp out with it at the "Daily Grill" until Joni comes along. Has she ever recorded using mando, Lynn? - -Julius ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 00:42:55 EST From: JRMCo1@aol.com Subject: Re: Joni Covered or Brian Stoltz who throws a slow Red House Painters electric burn on it - smokin'. I'll be sure to request "Help Me" from him when I'm down New Orleans way. He'll be playing at a Paz's birthday bash next weekend. Thanks for the tip! That'll be sweet if he'll play it...we'll have to record. - -Julius ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 22:19:48 -0800 (PST) From: Brian Gross Subject: Nice article about TBOS and Dreamland http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2005/03/17/1110913717067.html?oneclick=true Writing in her own blood, but for deaf ears By Warwick McFadyen March 19, 2005 Joni Mitchell's clear-sightedness has always cut through the cant and glitter of not only the music business, but her adopted country, America, writes Warwick McFadyen. This is a nation that has lost the ability to be self-critical, and that makes a lie out of the freedoms. - - Joni Mitchell Canadian Joni Mitchell has never been blinded by the sheen of bright surfaces. Her clear-sightedness has always cut through the cant and glitter of not only the music business, but her adopted country, the US. Mitchell's preceding quote was from an interview with fellow songwriter Elvis Costello in a recent issue of Vanity Fair. The context was the release of The Beginning of Survival, a compilation of Mitchell songs from the '80s and '90s. There is a large difference, however, between this selection and her Dreamland CD, which was released about the same time. Whereas the songs on Dreamland were picked by Mitchell to be representative of her career, Survival is more specific in its aims and themes. Mitchell told Costello that she regarded Survival as "her best work". This is some claim to make on two counts. First, in light of her earlier work, such as the classics The Circle Game and Both Sides Now and the albums such as Blue, Court and Spark and Hejira; and second, that in the main, the albums from which Survival was drawn were largely ignored by the public. "They were introduced into a very awkward period in American culture," she told Costello, "when people just didn't want to look at it . . . It's a bad time to be right. This (Survival) is my best work, and it has not gone into the culture. I wanted to be a voice in there. I wanted to participate, but the songs had been deemed sophomoric and negative." It is true that the songs don't skip down the sunny side of the street on Survival. Mitchell puts society, particularly American society, under the microscope. The cells of moral decay are magnified and then held up to the light. It is dissection by artistry. Mitchell the vivisectionist doesn't stand alone in her work; she calls in giants of philosophy and literature to be with her. How many artists would have the temerity, and the talent, to approach W.B. Yeats, Nobel prize winner, and tack on their own words to a piece of his? Mitchell did it on Slouching Towards Bethlehem on Survival, originally from her 1991 album Night Ride Home. Slouching Towards Bethlehem, one of Yeats' greatest poems (note to record company - Yeats is spelt thus, not Yates as in the liner notes), has three Mitchell stanzas woven into it. Next to "for what is this rough beast its hour come at last slouching towards Bethlehem to be born", Mitchell sings "hoping and hoping as if by my weak faith/the spirit of this world would heal and rise/vast are the shadows that straddle and strafe and struggle in the darkness troubling my eyes". In another, The Three Great Stimulants (Survival, originally from Dog Eat Dog, 1985) she takes the thoughts of the 19th-century German philosopher Nietzsche and puts them in a modern context. Nietzsche had said that life had three illusions: "One is chained by the Socratic love of knowledge and the delusion of being able thereby to heal the eternal wound of existence; another is ensnared by art's seductive veil of beauty fluttering before his eyes; still another by the metaphysical comfort that beneath the whirl of phenomena eternal life flows on indestructibly . . . The more nobly formed natures . . . must be deluded by exquisite stimulants into forgetfulness of their displeasure. All that we call culture is made up of these stimulants." Mitchell has always been seen as the model confessional songwriter, but it does an injustice to the sweep and scope of her work to downplay her concerns in relation to culture and society. An illustration to this is seen in part of the Vanity Fair interview in which she speaks about the The Three Great Stimulants: "The three great stimulants of the exhausted ones are artifice, brutality and innocence. It should be 'corruption of innocence'. The more decadent a culture gets, the more they have need for what they don't have at all, which is innocence, so you end up with kiddie porn and a perverse obsession with youth." Apart from calling her cat Nietzsche, Mitchell has a link to the philosopher going back to schooldays in Canada, when one of her teachers, Arthur Kratzmann, formerly of Queensland, and described by her as a seminal influence, urged her to "write in her own blood". It was an echo from Nietzsche. Six songs in the middle of Survival are the album centrepiece: The Beat of Black Wings, No Apologies, Sex Kills ("Sex sells everything. Sex kills."), The Three Great Stimulants, Lakota and Ethiopia. They stand out as equal to anything the singer-songwriter has done. If nothing else, this collection forces a reassessment of her work from the '80s and '90s, when Mitchell was using technology more in the studio and painting canvases of sound, both dense and, as it turned out, demode. The title, The Beginning of Survival, is taken from a letter (reproduced in the liner notes) by a native-American Indian, Chief Seattle, supposedly written to the government in the 1800s. The validity of the letter, and its authorship, have been questioned. The letter is a plea against the destruction of his people's way of life, and with it their environment. "Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? . . . And what will happen when we say goodbye to the swift pony and hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival?" One suspects that whether myth or substantially true it is, for Mitchell's purposes, beside the point. The metaphor is the message. Despite her reputation and her awards, such as Grammys, and induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Mitchell and the music business have always been at loggerheads. Two years ago she was leaving the "corrupt cesspool". Fifteen years ago she said that she felt she didn't fit in anywhere in the industry. It adds verisimilitude to this exchange with Costello. Mitchell: "I can't remember anything I ever wrote." Costello: "Do you know other songs?" "I don't know anything." "You don't know any songs?" "Nothing." "By other people?" "No. I don't know my own songs." The pity is, even if Mitchell is being slightly disingenuous, there has been a collective loss of memory towards her music. The Beginning of Survival is the water bottle in a cultural desert. Drink. The Beginning of Survival and Dreamland are out now. Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got till it's gone --Roberta Joan Anderson, who never lies __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Make Yahoo! your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 23:29:25 -0800 (PST) From: Smurf Subject: Re: Nice article about TBOS and Dreamland - --- Brian, a font of Joni content lately, quoted Warwick McFadyen: > Slouching Towards Bethlehem, one of Yeats' greatest > poems (note to record > company - Yeats is spelt thus, not Yates as in the > liner notes) Note to Warwick McFadyen, the poem is entitled "The Second Coming," not "Slouching Towards Bethlehem." - --Smurf, waking up in the middle of the night just to say that __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Make Yahoo! your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ------------------------------ End of onlyJMDL Digest V2005 #80 ******************************** ------- Post messages to the list by clicking here: mailto:joni@smoe.org Unsubscribe by clicking here: mailto:onlyjoni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe ------- Siquomb, isn't she? (http://www.siquomb.com/siquomb.cfm)