From: owner-support-system-digest@smoe.org (support-system-digest) To: support-system-digest@smoe.org Subject: support-system-digest V4 #286 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 Wednesday, November 7 2001 Volume 04 : Number 286 Today's Subjects: ----------------- five more pictures added [Kenneth Lee ] Brad Wood [Dermich@aol.com] ot - i went cd shopping yesterday... [Stephen Griffes ] Re: state of affairs [robert joyner ] Exile x 2 [Kate Stewart ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 22:47:12 -0800 From: Kenneth Lee Subject: five more pictures added Hi all, I've added five more pictures to the ever-growing image gallery. Take a look. Sorry, no info about Liz or her new album in this post... - -Ken kenmlee@ix.netcom.com MeSmErIzInG - AnOtHeR LiZ PhAiR WeBsItE http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Club/2471 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 13:59:20 EST From: Dermich@aol.com Subject: Brad Wood Rick said: >I actually recently picked up a cd produced by Brad >Wood- the cast album for Hedwig & the Angry Inch (the >1st version for the off-broadway production, > he didn't produce the film soundtrack). It rocks!! You are so correct. That's a SUPERB recording of those great songs. However, I'm pretty torn, because the sweel fellas of Girls Against Boys played extensively on the movie soundtrack, which is also excellent. But as Rick said, no Brad there. So get them both! It's some of the best durned rock 'n' roll music I've heard for a very long time. Derek ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 17:13:52 -0500 (EST) From: Stephen Griffes Subject: ot - i went cd shopping yesterday... and i thought i was buying the new Garbage album, but somehow i accidentally ended up with "The Cardigans on Crack". What the hell? hmmm. Steve. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 22:23:50 From: "steve kisko" Subject: state of affairs I tried so hard to not reply to that last digest, but some of the opinions expressed therein were so annoying, and I guess I still feel strongly about Liz's music. It didn't help that I listened to Exile last night for the first time after a very long no-Phair period. Nothing can ever invalidate that album, no matter how hard Liz tries to make herself irrelevant, so I guess I'll always be a fan in some way. Andrea wrote about preferring WCSE because she's an adult & prefers to hear what other adults have to say. I'm an adult, EIG is a work of incomparable brilliance by an adult, and I'll NEVER take WCSE over EIG. There's hardly anything memorable about it (maybe you could remember that album & the subsequent tour as "the keyboard era"). There's nothing to trip over on WCSE (and I'm not speaking pharmacologically) -- every song sounds like it *could* be a single. Everything is just *so* accessible, not just from the sickeningly sweet production, but from the song structures, which were obviously refigured to conform to verse-chorus-verse (i.e. radio) style. We all know (or we all should know) that said re-tooling wasn't Liz's idea, but she was more than willing to do whatever it took to get a green light from whomever (Matador? Capitol? Scott McGhee?). The *important* difference between EIG & WCSE, for those of us who appreciate Liz's craftiness & originality before her "honesty" or the "emotional truths" of her lyrics, has nothing to do with thematic content (marriage, baby, divorce, successful transitions from outsider to insider), and everything to do with the songs' unusual structure, melody, riffs/chords, shaky vocal performance, etc.: the things about Liz Phair that made Liz Phair the unique artist she was. This discussion list reads so often like another uninformed music rag article -- you know, they're always talkin' about the lyrics! (what's worse, Liz doesn't even write lyrics that confuse anymore -- she's more into spelling it out nowadays, so that no one has to do any thinking). Who here has even noticed these changes? Anyway, to wrap it up in a neat little package, WCSE sucks, long live Exile in Guyville; the next album will not be the "work of art" Liz wanted it to be 2 years ago and the new songs will NOT be the greatest she's written since EIG; there IS such a thing as selling out, and yes, Liz has definitely sold out: the ship has sailed, the shark has sunk, the bowl is cashed. Fortunately, there are other artists out there who, despite their "maturation", continue to make really interesting, droll, challenging, rocking songs (PJ Harvey & Bob Pollard are 2 prime examples -- thank god for them). SK _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 17:29:44 -0800 (PST) From: robert joyner Subject: Re: state of affairs - --- steve kisko wrote: > anything memorable about it (maybe you could > remember that album & the > subsequent tour as "the keyboard era"). There's > nothing to trip over on WCSE > (and I'm not speaking pharmacologically) -- every > song sounds like it > *could* be a single. Everything is just *so* > accessible, not just from the > sickeningly sweet production, but from the song > structures, which were > obviously refigured to conform to verse-chorus-verse > (i.e. radio) style. I find this to be a bit of a weak arguement. Your arguement here seems to be against the form used as opposed to the quality of the song. To follow your logic, any song following a verse chorus cerse structure is automatically faulty and not very good. Similarly, anything done by liz outside of her orignal structure used on EIG is not viable or good. I don't find this to be true at all. Also there seems to be a bias against production in your rant. Produced or radio-friendly doesn't automatically mean shitty (no matter how much your indie hipster ethos may want it to be). there are great records that are highly produced (the first two garbage records) and a poor records that are highly produced (the latest garbage albums, imho). Lots of the songs on WCSE are highly produced. Some are good (Johnny feelgood, what makes you happy, uncle alvarez) and some are bad (baby got going, love is nothing) in my opinion but i'm not so close-minded as to just rule them out as a matter of principle. I think that Liz is just as capable of producing good music under the WCSE setting as she was of the EIG setting. Is a EIG a masterpiece? Yes. Is WCSE a piece of shit? No. WCSE, judged for what it is, is a good, but not great, album. We > all know (or we all should know) that said > re-tooling wasn't Liz's idea, but > she was more than willing to do whatever it took to > get a green light from > whomever (Matador? Capitol? Scott McGhee?). Judging by the shelved demos and the WCSE sessions cds, I don't think that such a request was that bad an idea. A lot of the stuff that was done up to that point would have amounted to album that would have been a lot worse than how WCSE turned out. Without a lot of the verse chorus verse sweetly produced stuff she did with Brad Wood, I think the album would have been not very good. I'm for good sounding records how ever they are structured as opposed to bad songs that fit the right mold (are lo fi and have unusual structure, melody, riffs/chords, shaky vocal performance). > and everything to do with the songs' unusual > structure, melody, > riffs/chords, shaky vocal performance, etc.: the > things about Liz Phair that > made Liz Phair the unique artist she was. Oh darn, Liz isn't quirky anymore. Nice opinion but not necessarily true. Take a song like Uncle Alvarez. I guess steve didn't know that liz was programming her key board and it malfunctioned and was spitting out some totally off the wall sequence. She then taped it and incoporated that into the loop used in the song Uncle alvarez (Janet Rains told me about this). Quirky, just not within a guitar based sound. And that is often steve's arguements. It's all about the guitar with this guy. Steve doesn't think Liz is capable of viable music outside of a guitar sound. And I guess we just tend to disagree. > since EIG; there IS such a thing as selling out, Nothing sets off the good old bullshit detector like the cries of sell-out. Unless you are selling your records out of the trunk of your car, then you've sold out. It's just a matter of degree after that point. Robert Joyner ===== - ------------------------------------------------------------ "But life is good; it's not as bad as Thom Yorke would have you believe." - Noel Gallagher, Oasis - ------------------------------------------------------------ Find a job, post your resume. http://careers.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 21:11:57 -0800 (PST) From: Kate Stewart Subject: Exile x 2 Howdy, Last night I made a tape of both Exile in Guyville and Exile on Main Street, by alternating the tracks like so- Rocks Off, 6'1", Rip this Joint, Help Me Mary, etc. I have listened to it all the way through a few times and I am amazed at how well it turned out- a lot of the songs flow into each other and it is interesting to think about how Liz wrote the songs to respond to EOMS. (Has anyone done this before?) Anyway, I would recommend doing it if you have both albums. It almost fits onto a 120 min. tape- Strange Loop gets cut off, or I guess you could burn it onto 2 cds. It might spice up your Liz-life while waiting for the new album. :) - -Kate Find a job, post your resume. http://careers.yahoo.com ------------------------------ End of support-system-digest V4 #286 ************************************