From: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org (shindell-list-digest) To: shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: shindell-list-digest V3 #468 Reply-To: shindell-list@smoe.org Sender: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk shindell-list-digest Tuesday, December 18 2001 Volume 03 : Number 468 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [RS] Disappointments ["Dave McKay" ] [RS] a dissenting opinion ["Norman A. Johnson" ] Re: [RS] a dissenting opinion [patrick t power ] [RS] Re: peace man, cool yeah [LBECKLAW@aol.com] [RS] Re: I may have been hasty [LBECKLAW@aol.com] [RS] Dar ["Norman A. Johnson" ] Re: [RS] Re: I may have been hasty [Vanessa Christina Wills Subject: [RS] Disappointments Tom wrote: > The only real disappointment I think I had this year was Jonatha Brooke's > STEADY PULL, which seemed like a sock-drawer full of stylistic dead ends. Gracious! Once I get my CDs back I'll be able to finalise the order, but there's no doubt that Steady Pull will be my #1 of the year! Got in February in San Diego, and it's been in constant rotation since! It even edges out Five Stories! This is actually proving to be more interesting than the Best Of thread! Dave. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 17:36:47 -0500 From: "Norman A. Johnson" Subject: [RS] a dissenting opinion Dar walks on water. But seriously, I really like OTL... despite the screaming. I think many of the songs on the live album are distinct from and in my opinion, better than the studio album versions... for instance: "As Cool As I am", "The Ocean", "What do you hear in these sounds?" and especially "The babysitter's here". I love Dar's "thanks" in the middle of the babysitter. I loved the rambling stories preceeding Yoko and Babysitter. Norman ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 18:04:04 -0500 From: patrick t power Subject: Re: [RS] a dissenting opinion About Dar's "Out There Live", Norman remarked: <> This CD is okay for what it is . . . a chronicle (of sorts) of Dar's career thus far. However, I have several other recordings of Dar in concert that are far more engaging as her personality comes through more than on this disc. True, the stories that lead in to the songs are great to hear, but they shouldn't be the *best* tracks of the CD, which I tend to believe they are. Like Norman, I worship the ground Dar walks on, but this CD pretty much left me thinking, "Eh!" -- not "Eeeyew"; not "Oooooh" . . . just "Eh!" I think I've listened to it in its entirety once. Pat _______________ ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 19:42:17 EST From: LBECKLAW@aol.com Subject: [RS] Re: peace man, cool yeah Isn't it funny: Ron G. loves Tom Russell, but I don't; Lee calls Jonatha Brooke's Steady Pull "turgid" (Jeez, what the heck does that mean? Wasn't that in the dirty part of the Godfather book I used to hide under my bed?) and it's one of my favorite 2001 cd's, and Lee hates John Gorka's new one, another of my faves. Guess that's what makes this list, and the world, so interesting (dissenting opinions, that is). I'd hate this list if we all agreed...it'd be so turgid! [G] On another note, Ron G., yes I think Richard would cover all of Tom Russell's songs fabulously (as he would most songs), but it doesn't make me like Tom Russell's songs much. In fact, it irritates me cause I think "Gosh, Richard could sing this so much better!" Turgidly, Laura ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 19:48:19 EST From: LBECKLAW@aol.com Subject: [RS] Re: I may have been hasty I may have been too hasty in dissing Honesty Room, especially on this particular list (rest assured I didn't do so on the Dar List, if there is one). I do get the sense that this album needs a lot more listening and that in time, I will grow to like and maybe even well, y'know, like it alot... I'm sorry if I offended any Dar fans with my slam. I do need to give this some more listening, up close and personal, without kids screaming in the back of the car. Perhaps I bought the wrong Dar album as my first... Laura ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 19:59:06 -0500 From: "Norman A. Johnson" Subject: [RS] Dar Laura wrote about THR: >>I'm sorry if I offended any Dar fans with my slam. I do need to give this some more listening, up close and personal, without kids screaming in the back of the car. Perhaps I bought the wrong Dar album as my first... << As one of the "Dar walks on water" fan club, I'm not offended. THR takes repeated listening, particularly the latter half of the album. I agree that MORTAL CITY is more accessible than THR... at least it was for me. I received them both at the same time and fell in love with MC immediately ("February", "The Christians and the Pagans", "The Ocean", and "Southern CA....") while a full appreciation of THR took longer. Then again, it took me a long time to see just how good a certain other artist's debut album was. I shall not tell his name... but his initials are RS. I hear that this RS guy has a list of his own. ;-) Norman PS-- Laura, the thing about the Babysitter is that there are TWO story lines going on. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 20:33:35 -0500 From: Vanessa Christina Wills Subject: Re: [RS] Re: I may have been hasty hey, Laura... psssssst... I've listened to a LOT of Dar over the years. Still feel the same way now that I did four and a half years ago when I first heard of her. (And yes, for some reason, I do remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I first heard the name "Dar." Go figure.) I think the world is separated into Dar-lovers and Dar-Eh!-ers. Dar makes me go, Eh! Always, Eh! Not just sometimes. All the time. The OTL debate made me think of someone else, too. Whenever people ask me about Dar, I say, "Oh, she's pretty cool," and then I launch into an animated retelling of her Anne Boleyn/Strawberries/Masterpiece Theatre story from Falcon Ridge last summer (which, by the way, was _hilarious_; the woman is nothing if not hysterically funny). I remember vivid details of her story about the Yoko Ono song, but hardly one note of the song, itself. I mean, don't get me wrong. You can do a lot worse than Dar Williams, as far as singer-songwriters go. She just ain't my cup of tea. I hear her in my friends' cars, at folk festivals, on the Cry3 album, and that's enough. It's just _enough_. But I think the main problem is that I just can't relate, at all. The Nields launch into "Gotta Get Over Greta," or "This Town is Wrong," and I can relate. Paula Cole sighs, "I tell myself that love is truly giving...somehow I justify this, hoping you will understand me, hoping you will love me back..." and I can relate. Nick Cave sings--well, I don't want y'all to think I'm crazy, but let me tell you that sometimes, I can relate to the guy. Richard sings about the freaking Confederate soldier, for christ's sake, and he cuts so deep to the core of what makes the guy a human person that by god, I can relate. That, IMHO, is what makes Richard GREAT and not just really, really good. But Dar starts singing about her damned babysitter and I just want to run into "The Ocean" fast with a lot of heavy stones in my pockets. I have absolutely no idea what she's talking about. I mean, obviously, I do...but then, I don't.* I feel like her songs are just so darn Dar-centric. Life According to Dar. Darology. The World of Dar. The woman's songs, lovely as many of them are, are all Greek to me. Not the literal meaning of the songs, so much as the whole Life Experience Journey that they allude to and stem from. Completely foreign. So, I respect Dar as an artist doing her thing, but hey, it's just not my speed. I hear the songs, frequently enjoy the songs, but I don't feel them. - --V, a.k.a. the Devil on Laura's left shoulder. *On the other hand, Peter Mulvey sings "The Ocean", and Boom! I understand. I feel the song. Richard salvages the beauty in "Calling the Moon," and Boom! I can't hardly get enough of it. So I think a lot of it has to do with delivery, as well. I've always found Dar's voice wayyyyy too "pretty"; wish it had more texture. LBECKLAW@aol.com wrote: >I may have been too hasty in dissing Honesty Room, especially on this particular list (rest assured I didn't do so on the Dar List, if there is one). I do get the sense that this album needs a lot more listening and that in time, I will grow to like and maybe even well, y'know, like it alot... > >I'm sorry if I offended any Dar fans with my slam. >I do need to give this some more listening, up close and personal, without kids screaming in the back of the car. > >Perhaps I bought the wrong Dar album as my first... > >Laura > - -- "I am a citizen of the moment. I have built my white picket fence around the now." -The Tick ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 22:21:57 EST From: Tom926@aol.com Subject: [RS] Re: Dar (for Laura and Vanessa) Just because you can admire a Picasso painting doesn't necessarily mean you want it hanging in your living room. There are lots of people I feel that way about--John Gorka is one. Tom Waits. Give me some time and I can probably name a whole buncha more. I mean I like Dar, have the cds, have seen her live (and yes she is funny on stage--but so is, surprisingly, Alison Krauss--who'da thunk it?), but I don't swoon. I don't think she has yet to make a flawless cd. A good deal of The Honesty Room, for instance, bores me. And that babysitting song! I make sure to have lots of protein handy when I hear it. But don't mind me. I am in a curmudgeonly mood these days. Hearing that The Cathedral of St John the Divine went up in a blaze and two gorgeous tapestries are lost didn't help. Sigh. I need to listen to some Richard. Tom ------------------------------ End of shindell-list-digest V3 #468 ***********************************