From: owner-support-system-digest@smoe.org (support-system-digest) To: support-system-digest@smoe.org Subject: support-system-digest V4 #281 Reply-To: support-system@smoe.org Sender: owner-support-system-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-support-system-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk support-system-digest Friday, November 2 2001 Volume 04 : Number 281 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Michael Penn to produce on Liz's new album [antonino miceli ] review of Breathe concert [Andy Peters ] Gary Clark [Andy Peters ] Re: Gary Clark [robert joyner ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 23:59:23 -0800 (PST) From: antonino miceli Subject: Re: Michael Penn to produce on Liz's new album i am sorry to say that this the end of an era. Moving out to Chicago and going to LA signifies the end. am ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 09:53:53 -0500 (EST) From: Stephen Griffes Subject: wait, HUH? from that sonicnet thing: >>Phair said backstage at Saturday's Breathe breast cancer benefit concert, where she performed three tunes with Third Eye Blind<< what? weird. i, for one, am pleased to hear she's working w/ michael penn and that she seems happy about it. should be very interesting! i must say i don't really get the pete yorn thing though...i can't stand his music and don't really know why he would be doing production on a Liz Phair album of all things. i haven't really read any press about it though, so i guess i'm not qualified to make a judgment. steve. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 07:24:18 -0800 (PST) From: Andy Peters Subject: review of Breathe concert From the Orange County Register, Oct. 29, 2001 Lackluster Breathe benefit falters The breast-cancer charity concert suffocates from lack of excitement and organization. By BEN WENER Criticizing charitable music ventures is a bit like picking on the mentally challenged. It just isn't right. For instance, you might despise every artist who turned up recently at The Concert for New York City'' - -- although if you do, you really should consult a physician. Yet to lambaste the performances when intentions were so sincere is to spark unwarranted debate. Theoretically no one plays a benefit gig in the hopes of standing out or earning raves; they're there for the cause. And audiences often respond with forgiving fervor. If rabid fandom tends to create blind spots in a person's aesthetic judgment, then rabid fandom at a charity event tends to gouge out rational thought altogether. Take your average Deftones fanatic. His loyalty to the metal gods could be so intense and unwavering that Saturday night at the Wiltern Theatre, during a five-hour endurance test of a special event dubbed Breathe,'' lead singer Chino Moreno merely needed to belch into his microphone to get a round of applause. A few minutes worth would have won a standing ovation and gotten donations at the door on the way out. So take this diatribe with a grain of salt -- for if I intend to live with myself until at least Christmas, I must be honest and state that Breathe,'' a production (dis)organized by the Step Up Women's Network and Stephan Jenkins of Third Eye Blind, was the worst benefit concert I have ever seen. And if a statement from the stage by the brother of late R&B superstar Aaliyah is to be believed, it raised a whopping $41,594 for breast cancer research. Frankly, any one of these acts could have written that check without thinking twice and spared us the annoyance. To be somewhat less harsh, this thing was headed toward disaster from the get-go. An eclectic lineup is a brave goal, but sweet English songwriter Julia Fordham on the same bill as the rap-rock nuts of Crazy Town? Critics' darling Liz Phair and critics' whipping post Sugar Ray? Then its future grew darker. Given the immediate concern for victims of the Sept. 11 attacks and the outpouring of support for the victims, it seemed that Breathe'' would suffocate because of a lack of interest. Days before it was set to take place it was relocated from the 6,000-seat Greek Theatre to the 2,200-seat Wiltern -- and Saturday night it didn't come close to filling it. Maybe people instinctively knew better. Perhaps they suspected that an evening whose big boast was a duet between Seal and 3EB simply wasn't worth their tax write-off. Could be that they knew their $100 and then some would buy them lengthy gaps between sets -- gaps that were often as long as the sets themselves. (Kudos to Tom Hanks, by the way, for graciously signing autographs and allowing fans to snap photos during each gap.) Whatever the reason, they stayed away with a vengeance. And they were smart. Apart from roaring but drastically dissimilar sets from Nikka Costa and the Deftones and all-too-brief appearances from Phair and Remy Zero, this was a parade of pointlessness. Fordham's slickness, which opened the show, was hopelessly out of place. Crazy Town, plagued by microphone glitches, was impossible to hear. Sugar Ray performed its usual hits and was remarkable only during Mark McGrath's daring dart to the balcony to sing Fly.'' Seal appeared early on for a lovely acoustic reading of Prayer for the Dying,'' but spent the bulk of his closing turn debuting new material. Which is wrong, if you ask me -- but then, excepting one or two tunes, no one bothered to play anything appropriate for this gathering anyway. What started admirably suddenly became less than altruistic, as artists seemed more concerned with plugging their latest wares than the race for a cure. Jenkins and his crew spat out only oft-heard radio favorites -- and yanked Phair on stage for a crummy version of Jumper.'' Lil' Kim, who disappeared as fast as she arrived, supported the cause by showing off her implants in a skimpy bikini that had STOP on one and GO on the other. On the upside, the Deftones wailed abrasively -- and, on Change (In the House of Flies),'' convincingly -- then added the Jurassic 5 for a slamming collaboration. Costa's hip-rattling moves proved she has studied Prince well. Phair chugged through Supernova'' and, with Jenkins' help, revived the unprintable gem from her Exile in Guyville'' album. And Remy Zero's Cinjun Tate proved that regardless how nebulous his band's material remains, he is blessed with a voice that someday could rival Jeff Buckley's. All of that, however, could have been condensed into about 45 minutes. Ah, if only. Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. http://personals.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 08:06:15 -0800 (PST) From: Andy Peters Subject: Gary Clark Is Gary Clark the same guy who the lead singer/songwriter for the late 80s/early 90s pop band Danny Wilson, who sounded a lot like Steely Dan? "got this info from the website of Clark's Management company: GARY CLARK is currently writing with LIZ PHAIR for her new album and recently produced NATALIE IMBRUGLIA for RCA. Gary just completed producing NICOLA CHARLES for Mushroom Records and has written a song for VITAMIN C. He has also worked in the past with k d lang and Lauren Christy. Sounds like this guy was brought in to pop-i-fy Liz's sound" Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. http://personals.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 08:36:03 -0800 (PST) From: robert joyner Subject: Re: Gary Clark - --- Andy Peters wrote: > Is Gary Clark the same guy who the lead > singer/songwriter for the late 80s/early 90s pop > band > Danny Wilson, who sounded a lot like Steely Dan? Yep, that would be the guy. He also released a solo album recently but it looks like he is mainly doing songwriting and production work with other artists now. ===== - ------------------------------------------------------------ "But life is good; it's not as bad as Thom Yorke would have you believe." - Noel Gallagher, Oasis - ------------------------------------------------------------ Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. http://personals.yahoo.com ------------------------------ End of support-system-digest V4 #281 ************************************