From: owner-oppositeview-digest@smoe.org (oppositeview-digest) To: oppositeview-digest@smoe.org Subject: oppositeview-digest V4 #89 Reply-To: oppositeview@smoe.org Sender: owner-oppositeview-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-oppositeview-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk oppositeview-digest Sunday, April 7 2002 Volume 04 : Number 089 Today's Subjects: ----------------- OV: Lousy review [MinervAthene@aol.com] [none] ["claire barber (SRI)" ] OV: Re: if dels DO tour U.S. ["Guy-Michael Grande" ] OV: Uncut Review ["Andrew Douglas" ] OV: George Carlston's Two Cents ["William Kates" ] OV: as of 3:23 EST... ["Josh Neas" ] OV: sweet anticipation [kelly doudna ] OV: Just an opinion, etc. [JLCollins@aol.com] OV: Interview in Scotsman [nzck ] OV: Thanks for tips; comments on artists' stylistic growth/change; 300K sales ["Andrew Cameron" Subject: [none] I've just ordered a of the album copy from http://www.cd-wow.com/404.php #8.99 - in case there are other poor students out there! Am I the only one to wait to hear it. Seeing the Dels in Oxford - and cann'a wait! Claire ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2002 12:02:06 -0500 From: "Guy-Michael Grande" Subject: OV: Re: if dels DO tour U.S. Regarding the dels possibly touring the U.S. this year, can someone direct me to any contact info for JPR? I work with venues in Northampton, Massachusetts (Iron Horse Entertainment Group) and would love to try and get them into the Iron Horse Music Hall and/or Pearl Street Nightclub. Last time, closest they came was the Paradise in Boston and an NYC venue or two... the market here would definitely support the dels (it's a thriving five-college area and artistic community), and Pearl Street would actually be perfect for them (artists who play there range from Juliana Hatfield to the Old 97s to They Might Be Giants). Besides they'd have a built-in "street team" for promoting the gig! Feel free to email me off list if need be, and thanks. Cheers, Guy-Michael Grande Route Five Records www.guy-michael.com member: ASCAP, Folk Alliance, JPF proud endorsee: John Pearse Strings email: gmgrande@msn.com or routefive@hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2002 15:05:01 +0100 From: "Andrew Douglas" Subject: OV: Uncut Review Got May's Uncut this morning (should really subscribe and get that discount!). It's a got a rather poor review of the album, which disappoints me as they usually get it right. Of course, I base this on the fact that the stuff they say is good usually is, I've never really heard anything else that they've ditched so they could, in theory, slate a lot of very good albums. That last sentence made sense in my head but on reading it again, it's just confusing! :) andrew - ------------------------------------------- DEL AMITRI : Can You Do Me Good? 1.5stars! (out of 5) First sighting in four years of melodic Scottish soft rockers. The last we heard from Del Amitri was just before the 1998 World Cup when they performed the Scottish team's official theme song, "Don't Come Home Too Soon". As another World Cup rolls around, Scotland have scraped into the finals once more, but Del Amitri are struggling to find the form that once filled stadiums. Can You Do Me Good? is a collection of decent songs, and "Baby It's Me" and "Last Cheap Shot At The Dream" hint at former glories. What they lack, though, is a match-winner. The craft and skill are present but the fire and passion are not. It's as if they've settled for mid-table safety, knowing they're no longer going to make the Champions League. Nigel Williamson ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 06 Apr 2002 15:02:43 -0500 From: "William Kates" Subject: OV: George Carlston's Two Cents I'm with George on his point that some of the best albums do not immediately reveal themselves on first listen. For me it was Twisted, which I really didn't like the first time through - I couldn't believe how bitter and pissed off the songs were (hence the name?). Ultimately I came to love the record partially for the same reason that I initially didn't - these guys are unquestionably the kings of the pissed off love song. If I were to set down a top ten all time rock albums list, Twisted would not only be on it, it would be in a fight for top position. So, like George, I'm looking forward to the new record with ears open. P.S. I just read the Independent article and the stated need to sell 300,000 copies is troublesome if true (perhaps like so many other comments from our heroes, they are just trying to bait us and/or the general public). Part of the problem with SOSP in my opinion was that they seemed to be trying too hard to create hits along the lines of Roll to Me. Although Roll to Me always seemed to be intentionally crafted as two minutes of radio pop perfection, I think what they did on the remainder of Twisted repesents Del Amitri at the top of their form, with the songwriting, singing, instrumental performance and production all coming together to create the ultimate rock record. If the masses can't or won't appreciate such a record (or even become aware of it) enough to buy 300,000 copies, then f'em I say. I may be naive to think this, but for musicians of the caliber that Justin and Iain are, I would think that accomplishing musical goals as they seem to have done on Twisted would be enough of it's own reward to keep on going. Cheers. - - William George Carlston wrote: The only album so far that I've liked out of the box was Waking Hours. When Change was released I was SOOO disappointed on the first listen, but a funny thing happened; I ended up listening to it again immediately. Then a third time. Within a few days I loved it, and each release since has found the pattern repeating itself. (I even got past the mix/mastering on SOSP!) _________________________________________________________________ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 06 Apr 2002 15:24:34 -0500 From: "Josh Neas" Subject: OV: as of 3:23 EST... As of about 3:30 in the afternoon here in the states, according to amazon.co.uk, _Can You Do Me Good?_ is #17 in the album sales. Wow. I'm really impressed. Maybe this 300,000 isn't such an unlikely figure. :) 300,000 of course is barely anything here in the states. 500,000 is the minimal award of Gold. But still, after reading that Independant interview I'm getting terribly excited for this album and may not be able to hold off on waiting for the American release to order it. I will have to wait for my next paycheck. *laugh* But damn it all! I'll buy two copies, an American and British, if necessary. I'll feel even better about it if there are American bonus tracks because of the slight offset in release dates! *hint hint, guys* :) josh. " There is just one way to save yourself, and that's to get together and work and fight for everybody." - Woody Guthrie _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 06 Apr 2002 16:38:50 -0600 From: kelly doudna Subject: OV: sweet anticipation Woo-hoo! Amazon.co.uk informs me that they have dispatched my copy of "Can You Do Me Good." I can hardly wait to hear the entire album! I have enjoyed the singles songs on the web site and think it's great that they are trying new things. I, for one, would get bored if all their music continued to sound the same, and I imagine they would, too. Evolution is not a bad thing. I like the new songs, I think the video's a stitch, I like "Cry to Be Found," and I like the very first album (and things in between). This is not to say that I indiscriminately love everything just because it's them, but at the end of the day they're good at what they do, whatever style they choose to adopt to keep themselves interested. I am also waiting for my tickets for the Glasgow, Manchester, and London shows to arrive. I had to get 2nd level seats at Shepherds Bush Empire for the May 17th show (standing for the 18th). What's that place like? Will I still have a decent view? It looks like the capacity is around 1000? I'm getting the impression that it's a similar sort of venue to our First Avenue here in Minneapolis (which, by the way, was an excellent place to see the Dels a several years ago (Please come back, but don't play the Orpheum again!)). The Independent article was interesting. Kelly Minneapolis ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2002 18:30:02 EST From: JLCollins@aol.com Subject: OV: Just an opinion, etc. Hello fellow del-sters, I am coming out of the lurking mode i have been in to add my opinion to the fray. I have gotten ahold of a promo copy of the new cd and had it for about a week now, and have heard the new single and b-sides on the websites (my copies are somewhere over the atlantic as we speak) and can say that i am pleased with the new "direction" of the band, although it seems to me it's not so much a new direction as it is a natural progression from the previous singles and b-sides of CTBF and DCHTS. Anyone who remembers me from the SOSP tour (when i called in sick from a hotel room in Salt Lake City!) would tell you, i am a fan, in the strongest sense of the word. I have juggled work, school, and finances to purchase a ticket to the UK and will be attending the Glasgow and Manchester shows. I'd like to see if i can meet up with some fellow OV'ers before the shows, if possible. While I'm on the topic of tours, if Louann and Melissa are still on the board, can you e-mail me off list, please? Thank ye, back to lurking (maybe) Jamie ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2002 22:00:55 +0100 From: nzck Subject: OV: Interview in Scotsman Not sure if anybodys mailed about this already, but here it is from Friday 22nd March, The Scotsman Enjoy Zoe High priest of uncool Four years after they last made the Top 40 Del Amitri are back - but theyre hardly hip, and nor have they ever wanted to be, Justin Currie tells Aidan Smith Justin Currie is chuffed to bits. After almost 20 years of being forced to wear the hair shirt of pop naffness - and the hair pants as well - hes just glanced down a new list of uncool bands ... and Del Amitri arent on it. "Its an NME list, I think," he says. "Deacon Blue are still there and now Coldplay are on it. But theres no sign of us." Currie, though, isnt daft: he knows the Dels no longer being rated untrendy doesnt automatically translate as being miraculously hip. "All it means is weve been forgotten about, that people think its been next stop oblivion for us. And, you know, thats OK." Today Currie, 37, is running around his sunny but cluttered home trying to find the teapot. There are pictures of dead crooners on the walls but this one looks very much alive in his T-shirt, flared jeans and cowboy boots - even without his famous facial foliage (removed at record-company request). In the four years since the last of their 14 Top 40 hits, Del Amitri didnt quite make it to oblivion. Instead, Currie put down roots in Glasgows Charing Cross. "We always had this silly, pseudo-socialist policy that we wouldnt buy houses until we could afford to do it outright because we didnt believe in mortgages. Then we made a lot of money when a stupid song, Roll to Me, was bizzarely picked up by some radio stations in the US and became a big hit over there. Ian [Harvie, fellow band founder] freaked out about that because the song was so crummy, but I went and bought this place and justified it to myself because - ha, ha - I wasnt in hock to a dodgy bank that was ripping off the Third World. I know this isnt a politically correct thing to say but being able to buy it with cash gave me this great sense of power." So, Currie has been luxuriating in first-time home ownership and feeling all-powerful. He possibly mislaid the teapot on a few other occasions as well. The band started families, and they all went down the pub (a lot). Still, that doesnt account for four whole years of musical inactivity. Ah, but there was the unfortunate business of that Scotland World Cup football song, Dont Come Home Too Soon. It fanfared France 98, but as usual our boys were back before the postcards. "My biggest regret," mutters Currie. "We took a total slagging for it. The Tartan Army blamed us for Scotland not qualifying, saying the song wasnt jolly enough. So we decided it was time for a wee rethink " Curries muttonchops - apparently nurtured in a Fisons Gro-Bag - have gone. So too, he hopes, has "the inescapable feeling that Del Amitri had turned into one of those stolid, dependable groups like Squeeze - always around, but never doing anything particularly interesting". The new album is called Can You Do Me Good?. Rumours of their break-up, then, have been greatly exaggerated. There was a greatest hits collection, but they didnt want it released. It didnt sell well and they were pleased. It proved their record company were wrong: there werent any unwitting and untapped Del Amitri fans out there. "All of them had that shit already," says the upfront frontman. This is how Currie talks: their songs are "stupid" or "crummy" or "shit" and if a DJ picks up on them its "bizarre". He cheerfully admits they contain bits of other peoples songs. And he pleads guilty to writing too often about the rain, something of a Scottish pop obsession. "The word rain is the cheapest shortcut to sounding poetic. Whenever Hollywood scriptwriters are in trouble, they reach for that e e cummings line, not even the rain, has such small hands. Its lazy, and I admit it." If its not a contradiction in terms, whats the best Scottish rain song? "Maybe the Blue Niles Tinseltown in the Rain, though the Beatles Rain is the best ever." And the worst? "Sorry, but its got to be Raintown by Deacon Blue. Ricky Ross is a lovely guy, but Ive never got that Bruce Springsteenisation of Scotland thing - although thats pretty rum coming from me." Currie is pleased with the new album. "We got really blasi about releasing a record every 18 months. Now its like were starting over again, really exciting." He penned loads of songs during the bands extended holiday but - guess what? - he thought 50 per cent of them were "bog-standard, will-this-do? Del Amitri fare". So he dumped them. Now that the Scotland football team have got themselves a German coach, there would be a neat symmetry about the band hiring a leading exponent of Teutonic techno to oversee their comeback. They havent gone that radical, but they did mess about with different recording techniques, including computers, before hooking up with the hip-hop producer, Commissioner Gordon. Currie reckons the opening two songs, Just Before You Leave and Cash & Prizes sound "a bit loopy and groovy". The former is the first single; the latter seems to borrow from Joe Walshs Lifes Been Good in its litany of material excess. Or perhaps the line, "Ive got a hundred houses, some that Ive never seen", is just Currie the property tycoon in wishfulfilment mode. Then comes Drunk in a Band, a real list song. You point this out and he winces. "So it is. I hate list songs, Billy Joel killed them with We Didnt Start the Fire." But its a good one, you say - "Danny puts cones on the motorway, Donna dances tables in her lingerie" - its characters sound like real people. "They are. Theyre characters I knew when I was living in a rented flat in Partick. Great days." Out Falls the Past is about a man who "changes women like traffic switches lanes". Is it personal? "Not really. To sound horribly 1980s for a moment, Im a serial monogamist. But it becomes harder and harder for the opposite sex to trust you if they know your romantic history." Hes in a relationship at the moment. "If I ever try being a floozie, women run a mile." Apart from a few unusual bleeps and whooshes over the course of its 12 tracks, Can You Do Me Good? doesnt sound drastically different from other Del Amitri albums, and its hard to agree with Curries contention that it will probably "piss off" the old fans. Will it attract new ones? He claims not to care either way. "Weve never been cool," he says. "We grew out of a close-knit Glasgow scene, but were the pariahs of it. We desperately wanted to be on the Postcard label with all those groovy guys like Edwyn Collins but we werent trendy enough or good enough. And then when Melody Maker trumpeted us as the new Smiths, the talent scouts at Chrysalis were despatched to sign us - only to report back that wed already been on their books for six months. Thats pretty much how its gone for us." Currie might give you the impression he just bashes out his songs, but this is plainly rubbish - the lyrics are far too clever for that (and this album is a rain-free zone). "If some balloon at a record company thinks shaving off my sideboards will improve our image, Ill do it - this isnt high art. But if he wants me to write a Kylie Minogue song, he can f*** off. "Ive never been cool," he repeats, "and I never will be. Heres why: the other day I was at the airport. I was a bit bedraggled but everyone else was in a suit and I thought to myself: They know Im a rocknroll star. I felt great - while they were scurrying off to board meetings in Dusseldorf, I was wearing shades. Then I walked through the wrong exit and banged my head against a locked door. Ill never be cool because Ill always blow it." Can You Do Me Good? is released on 8 April by Mercury/A&M. Del Amitri play the Barrowland, Glasgow on 9 May. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2002 22:28:54 -0500 From: "Andrew Cameron" Subject: OV: Thanks for tips; comments on artists' stylistic growth/change; 300K sales Many thanks to George for his helpful comments and to the several of you who wrote to me privately about getting an NTSC version of the "Best of" videotape. I've been on the list for only a few days, and I can tell already that the OVers are a terrific group of people. So glad to have joined you. I want to echo George's comments about keeping an open mind toward the stylistic changes reflected on the new album. (Fortunately, the OV has been spared the vitriolic messages on this topic posted to the DA UK discussion thread.) Personally, the musicians I most enjoy and appreciate are those who keep growing and changing. I think it's good for me to be challenged by new influences and to evolve in my appreciation of what constitutes great music. It's not always comfortable to keep an open mind to new music, new styles and new arrangements, especially when you like the past music so much, as I do with Del Amitri. Goodness knows I love guitars, too. I could listen to songs in the style of "Here and Now" all day long. Ultimately, however, I think one is enriched and rewarded by being exposed to music that breaks new ground (yes, even if it hearkens to the past). That's not to say that extant devotees will or even should like the new songs. (After all, we're not to Del Amitri as the children of Hamelin were to the Pied Piper...or are we?). We all have different tastes, and there will be as many opinions about the new songs as there are list members. This is a good thing. Nonetheless, the Dels have earned credibility to me through consistent, exquisite songwriting and by crafting great music time and again. Consequently, I think it behooves me to give careful consideration to their new music to see what I can learn from it. I don't think they're changing just for the sake of change, nor just to pump up sales. Just as we probably do our jobs differently now compared with five years ago, I also expect musical artists to change. Some of the changes they (and we) try will be successful, others not. By learning from both successes and failures, they become better songwriters, musicians, and performers. Similarly, we probably become better appreciators of good music, though I'm certain they're not aiming for that outcome as they introduce new elements into their music. As George suggested, I have the distinct impression that the Dels (appropriately, in my opinion) make whatever music they d*** well please. They also (again, appropriately) don't give a rat's a** what I think of their music. They're the talent. I don't want them kowtowing to my fancies, nor to yours (no offense intended). Sorry for being so loquacious. I hope this message hasn't come across as a diatribe or as pretentious and preachy. I didn't intend for it to come across those ways. I think the Dels are blessed with extremely thoughtful and supportive devotees (okay, that was a little self-serving since I count myself in that group). I'm just trying to explain why I listen to their music long and hard before I form conclusions about it. On another matter, do you think Justin was serious in The Independent interview about the 300,000 sales figure? I hope it was a bit of hyperbole, though I'm afraid it might not be. I'll do my part to help them hit that sales figure. How many copies does each of us need to buy to hit the mark? Still waiting not-so-patiently for the singles and album... Andrew Cameron Dublin, Ohio, USA ------------------------------ End of oppositeview-digest V4 #89 *********************************