From: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org (shindell-list-digest) To: shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: shindell-list-digest V3 #389 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, October 30 2001 Volume 03 : Number 389 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [RS] It ain't 'Jingle Bells' ["Gene Frey" ] [RS] Laura the Sophomore and Kristy the Newbie ["Gene Frey" ] Re: [RS] Re: Laura the Sophomore and Kristy the Newbie [FJPQ@aol.com] Re: [RS] "Love, Before You Go." [Janet Cinelli ] Re: [RS] "Love, Before You Go." [patrick t power ] [RS] Article from the Sunday Republican [Jeff Bernstein Subject: [RS] It ain't 'Jingle Bells' Hey you guys, Vanessa wrote: >>Ron, I honestly didn't see the very BLATANT Christmas theme until I just >>got your e-mail! And I was like, "Oh my God am I blind???" << At one of his shows, Richard said that perhaps 'Love, Before You Go' was really more of an Advent song than a Christmas song. Gene F. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 09:13:01 -0500 From: "Gene Frey" Subject: [RS] Laura the Sophomore and Kristy the Newbie Hey you guys, Laura, like a sophomore picking on a new freshman, wrote: >>I assume that the newest kid on the RS block, Kristy the Lurker, will >>submit to the same stringent initiation rites and hazing rituals as I did >>when I was a Delta Sigma Gamma RS pledge. To jog your collective >>memories: 1. At least one difficult RS literacy quiz with very ambiguous >>and challenging questions << Well, Laura, in the spirit of inclusiveness and community that you are obviously showing Kristy, I have produced a five question pop quiz for Kristy. Can Kristy score higher (pro-rated) than your 4.25? Let's see: 1) Richard was in a band with Dar Williams and Lucy Kaplansky. It was named Cry Cry ____? 2) Richard wrote a song about a vine clinging to a home in which he once lived. The song is called: a) Wisteria b) Diptheria c) Boogie Oogie Oogie d) Ode to a vine clinging to a home in which I once lived. 3) Richard's fourth solo CD, 'Somewhere Near Paterson,' was released in what year? a) 2000 b) 1492 c) 1776 d) 12 B.C. 4) Richard's fourth solo CD was titled 'Somewhere Near ________'? 5) What song does Richard never, ever, ever play in live performance? a) The Weather b) The Weather c) The Weather d) The Weather Decision of the judges is final. Gene F. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 09:24:59 EST From: Rongrittz@aol.com Subject: [RS] Re: Laura the Sophomore and Kristy the Newbie >> Richard wrote a song about a vine clinging to a home in which he once lived. << Which reminds me . . . I had a last-second emergency gig Friday night, and when I started taking "Shindell-only requests," someone asked for the above-mentioned song, and he asked for it by asking "Do that pretty song about the disease." And he was serious. Go figure. RG ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 09:49:59 EST From: Rongrittz@aol.com Subject: [RS] An amazing coincidence. >> 3) Richard's fourth solo CD, 'Somewhere Near Paterson,' was released in what year? a) 2000 b) 1776 c) 1492 d) 12 B.C. << Amazingly and incredibly and coincidentally, those four dates actually mirror the time period between each of Richard's four CDs!!!! RG ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 10:24:50 EST From: LBECKLAW@aol.com Subject: [RS] Re: Rilke sites In a message dated 10/29/2001 9:07:03 PM Eastern Standard Time, owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org writes: << Anyone know a good Rilke site on here >> I like either littlebluelight.com or geo.cities.com/Paris/LeftBank, which is a good archive of Rilke's work. Laura ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 10:45:18 EST From: LBECKLAW@aol.com Subject: [RS] Re: Love, Before you Go In a message dated 10/29/2001 9:07:03 PM Eastern Standard Time, owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org writes: Hey, Granted, I have not yet had the good fortune to hear Richard sing this in concert yet. But, reading the lyrics, does anyone else interpret this as a song for a daughter/son who is going off on their own, a la She's Leaving Home or even a little bit Wild World (Cat S.)? Or it it... Just Me P.S. Note to self: buy halloween candy ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 14:00:56 -0500 From: Elwestrand Subject: Re: [RS] "Love, Before You Go." I don't really see the x-mas in this song although I do see the strong spiritual overtones. I think this is an amazing song which applies to all of us. Well, personally anyways I think we are sent here to learn something and no matter how rough our lives are we are sent here with love and for our benefit. I feel this pretty strongly and I think this song captures this idea beautifully. I think it is curious that his other new song is "I Am," given that phrases biblical importance. Is our seminarian having a fit of religiousity? E Who's favorite Rilke poem is the one about Ariel (its exact title escapes me) and whose favorite movie is the Rilke based "Wings of Desire." ________________________________________________ Get your own "800" number Voicemail, fax, email, and a lot more http://www.ureach.com/reg/tag - ---- On Mon, 29 Oct 2001, Rongrittz@aol.com (Rongrittz@aol.com) wrote: > >> The other song, "Love, Before you go", it is suppose to be on a > Christmas > album right?? I think, maybe, he should have thrown in, I don't know, > something like the snowy day or something to make me think of Christmas > time. > << > > I think a close reading of the lyrics might reveal more of a Christmas > theme > than you might think . . . read on . . . > > LOVE, BEFORE YOU GO > > Love, just a word before you go > Just a few things you should know > Come and sit here by my side > Love, how I wish that you would stay > There can be no other way > I must send you on your own > > Love, here's a place and here's a name > Love, she will hold you in her arms > And show you who you are > > Love, you'll be hungry, you'll be weak > You'll be tempted, you'll be free > To turn away from me > Love, dressed in rags and all alone > You will wander from your home > You will wonder where I am > > Love, you will live and you will die > Love, you will laugh and you will cry > But only for a while > > There's a world that you must bear > They're waiting for you there > To bring them from the night > And lead them to the light > > Love, here's a place and here's a name > Love, she will hold you in her arms > And show you who you are > And show you who you are > And show you who you are ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 19:38:14 EST From: FJPQ@aol.com Subject: Re: [RS] Re: Laura the Sophomore and Kristy the Newbie Ron wrote: << "Do that pretty song about the disease." And he was serious. >> yes...its a chore to tame Listeria. fran ;) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 17:58:11 -0800 (PST) From: Janet Cinelli Subject: Re: [RS] "Love, Before You Go." I just don't see it at all! I just don't get it!! Feeling dumb, Janet - --- Vanessa Wills wrote: > Holy crap. > Ron, I honestly didn't see the very BLATANT > Christmas theme until I just got your > e-mail! And I was like, "Oh my God am I blind???" > > thank you so much. oh what a good day. Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. http://personals.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 21:16:59 -0500 From: patrick t power Subject: Re: [RS] "Love, Before You Go." Janet wrote: <> Indeed, there is a bit of reading into this one, but I've had a couple of things occur to me . . . While it's a bit odd for a father to refer to his son as "Love", try imagining this as a God's last words to Christ before sending him off to the world to redeem it. This came to me as a possibility as I tried to resolve the "she will hold you in her arms." The other possibility was Mary speaking to Jesus as a baby (although "Come sit here by my side" doesn't quite fit, nor does "You'll be tempted . . . to turn away from me"), knowing what was ahead for him, predicting perhaps the role of one Ms. Mary of Magdela? A stretch either way? Both ways? Pat _________________________________________ LOVE, BEFORE YOU GO Love, just a word before you go Just a few things you should know Come and sit here by my side Love, how I wish that you would stay There can be no other way I must send you on your own Love, here's a place and here's a name Love, she will hold you in her arms And show you who you are Love, you'll be hungry, you'll be weak You'll be tempted, you'll be free To turn away from me Love, dressed in rags and all alone You will wander from your home You will wonder where I am Love, you will live and you will die Love, you will laugh and you will cry But only for a while There's a world that you must bear They're waiting for you there To bring them from the night And lead them to the light Love, here's a place and here's a name Love, she will hold you in her arms And show you who you are And show you who you are And show you who you are ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 21:18:51 -0500 From: Jeff Bernstein Subject: [RS] Article from the Sunday Republican In Whately cellar, music label thrives Sunday, October 28, 2001 By WILLIAM FREEBAIRN Record label thriving in Whately WHATELY In the early 1990s, Jim Olsen, a local disc jockey, read in a music industry trade magazine that changes were coming that would soon allow people to run a record label from their homes. Today, he does. Olsen, 43, is president and co-owner of Signature Sounds, which he runs from a basement room in his Whately house. His partner in the venture is Mark Thayer, who runs a Palmer recording facility for the business. The label is one of the leading folk music record companies in the nation, although it has only three full-time employees. It has released about 40 albums. "We've kept the overhead low," Olsen said. The label specializes in music with roots in folk, blues and country, but also influenced by modern sounds, including sub-genres that are sometimes known as Americana or alt-country. The label is thriving even as the music industry is changing as a result of growing artist demands for control of their product and increased Internet distribution of recordings. Olsen was somewhat bored in his job as a disc jockey for eclectic Greenfield radio station WRSI, where he became program director and music director. In the early 1990s, friends who were musicians got him involved in a fund-raising project for regional food banks that involved developing a CD in conjunction with Thayer. By producing a series of fund-raising records in the 1990s, starting with Homegrown Christmas and Homegrown Harvest, Signature Sounds was born. "Those Homegrown records, that was real on-the-job training," Olsen said. The albums raised more than $10,000 each for local soup kitchens, food pantries and survival centers. One of the first successful acts the label signed was the group Salamander Crossing, which developed into a national touring act with a loyal fan base. Another artist, Erica Wheeler, reached popularity with her 1996 album, "The Harvest," parts of which were featured on National Public Radio. At first, albums sold only 1,000 or 2,000 copies. Olsen and his partner learned they had to give away hundreds, eventually thousands, of copies for free to promote a recording. "One of the reasons we focused on folk and singer-songwriters is the grassroots nature of it," Olsen said. Such artists promoted themselves by performing regularly in coffee houses, inspired loyalty among fans and often produced their own music in home studios. All of this reduced the cost to the record label. Rock music, by contrast, often requires hundreds of thousands of dollars in marketing and advertising spending, Olsen said. The turning point was striking a deal in 1996 with a national distribution company. Koch Distribution handles about 60 independent labels and gets their records into hundreds of stores around the country. Prior to that, a patchwork of regional distributors handled sections of the nation, but vast swaths were off-limits to the fledgling label. "We couldn't get anything into the Midwest at all," Olsen said. Even so, success early on meant a CD selling 6,000 copies. With its low overhead, Signature could make money, or at least break even, on such sales. The label releases from six to eight albums a year. Today, a top seller moves 25,000 copies. About half of the label's CDs are recorded at the Signature Sounds recording studio in Palmer. Changes in the music industry have worked to Signature Sounds' advantage in some ways, Olsen said. "As the larger labels consolidate, suddenly there's a lot of very worthy artists out there looking for (record) deals. I've been approached in the last year by artists who I would have never dreamed I would be in a position to sign." Signature Sounds signed the U.S. distribution rights of Canadian singer Fred Eaglesmith after his label let him go. He has proven very viable for the label, Olsen said. The big music labels have no patience any more to develop artists who lack immediate sales, Olsen said. Signature Sounds is 90 percent owned by partners Olsen and Thayer. The remaining 10 percent is owned by former Northampton singer Dar Williams and her manager, who invested early on to help Olsen's project. Two new additions to the label's roster are Peter Mulvey and Richard Shindell, established singer-songwriters who were seeking a new label in 1999. Their deal, through Young/Hunter Management, with Signature Sounds is unusual. The artists pay to produce a finished album, and the label spends a similar amount for marketing and promotion. The label and the artist split the net profits equally. The innovative arrangement may be a sign of things to come in the record industry, where artists are fighting to retain ownership of master tapes of their music. In traditional record deals, such tapes remain the property of the record label. The deals with Shindell and Mulvey provide that Signature Sounds licenses the finished recording from the artists, who retain ownership and, therefore, control. "We have a little more flexibility to make innovative deals," Olsen said. At the same time, not every artist can receive the degree of control and revenue that Shindell and Mulvey have obtained, he said. "If we tried to do that with all of our artists, we'd be out of business." However, the company next week is launching a new label, Catalyst Disc, in conjunction with a Boston management company, in which it will collect a fee. Charlie Hunter, a principal in the management company representing Shindell and Mulvey, said he approached Signature Sounds because larger labels were uninterested in sharing their revenues and giving up control of master tapes. "We believed the creators of the art should really own the copyright." A precedent for the deal was set by another act Hunter represented, Dar Williams, who had a similar deal with Razor and Tie Records. Signature was growing, but needed a nationally known artist to raise its profile and compete with larger firms like Rounder Records, Hunter said. He said he believes such licensing deals will become more common, especially in niche genres such as folk, blues and jazz. The Internet presents both a challenge and an opportunity to the company, Olsen said. The company makes more than 10 percent of its sales through the Internet. But in addition, it allows for more promotional effort to be carried out at lower cost. Of course, overall music sales are down, as music is swapped over the Internet and copied from CD burners. The company must continue to grow if it is to survive, he said. Right now, the business is "barely a living," and any profits so far have been reinvested in the business. He believes Internet distribution will change the economics of the business, perhaps irrevocably, in the coming years. Olsen said he is ready to become more of a promotion and production company when needed. But for now, the folk music business is changing only slightly. "I'm working in a genre of business that is very old-fashioned," Olsen said. "It's the kind of audience that loves that personal relationship with the artist and the idea that they are supporting the artist directly by buying a CD at a show." ------------------------------ End of shindell-list-digest V3 #389 ***********************************