From: owner-support-system-digest@smoe.org (support-system-digest) To: support-system-digest@smoe.org Subject: support-system-digest V6 #257 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 Thursday, September 25 2003 Volume 06 : Number 257 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [support-system] pictures of Liz at the Austin City Limits Music Festival ["lunchbox" Subject: [support-system] pictures of Liz at the Austin City Limits Music Festival Enjoy... http://imageevent.com/lunchbox/lizphairataclfest I didn't meet her like the last time I took pictures, but I got much better shots. I also got some video clips, of which I've posted a few. ImageEvent only allows 10 meg file sizes, so I had to trim them greatly. The movies may or may not be working properly right now, but I'm looking into it, so check back later if you have trouble. - -Wes [demime 0.97c-p1 removed an attachment of type application/ms-tnef which had a name of winmail.dat] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 23:43:27 -0400 From: Catherine Molanphy Subject: [support-system] UGO.com interview http://www.ugo.com/channels/music/features/lizphair/interview.asp Not sure if you all have read this one already... it's quite good. - --Catherine ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 00:46:36 -0400 From: Catherine Molanphy Subject: [support-system] "Demo Survival" list -- 2nd installment Fantasize (SD--WCSE) VERDICT: I could go either way ORDER I HEARD THEM: demo first My first impression of the WCSE version of "Fantasize" was a positive one; while I could hear that the sound was fuller than on "Shelved Demos", she seemed to have preserved the spirit of the original; a sense of cathedral-like echo. A nice spookiness was created by the punctuating organ chords, and she kept that in the WCSE version. I'm undecided as to whether the spare arrangement on SD was more beneficial to the overall feel of the song; suffice it to say, I would have been just as happy if she had kept it as is. Flower (GS--EIG) VERDICT: it cleaned up nice ORDER I HEARD THEM: official release first It's funny... this is one of the demo/studio transitions that I had never previously spent much time dwelling (brooding?) on, but now I'm beginning to think that it's the most interesting one. It's sort of easy to overlook the actual performance quality of "Flower" because the shock value of the lyrics tends to loom larger than life and make one forget the song's musical virtues. (Really! There are musical virtues to Flower! I swear!) So, starting with the composition itself: if you reduced Flower to a sentence, you could say that Liz paired a mind-numbingly simple, schoolyard chant-like melody with lyrics so sexual they would make Larry Flint blush. And you could say that the idea was to make people uncomfortable, not by the boldness of the language alone, but by matching that language with such a whimsical tune. That whole virgin/slut, innocence/uhhh... what's the opposite of innocence? Anyway, that whole world of "slashes", of dichotomies that Liz has admitted she loves to play with. And yeah, you would have a truth there, but not the whole story. On Girlysound, Liz plays that simple contrast to the hilt. The rhythm is metronome-exact, her voice purposely sing-songy. You can almost *see* her in your mind, standing in the schoolyard singing this dirty song to her girlfriends and snickering before they trade rubber bracelets and sneak a cigarette before recess ends. Maybe it's even a candy cigarette. Anyway, if she had sung it completely without accompaniment, all you'd get would be that squicky, gross-out factor, and it would be a clever joke and that's it. But there's more there... there's that ONE note played staccato on the guitar throughout, and that adds something to it. It adds unease, not the unease of listening to dirty talk, but of something really ominous lurking just beneath the surface. Now listen to "Flower" on EIG... she's eschewed that single guitar note for something else... honestly, my music knowledge is failing me right here and now. What would you call that sound? Somebody help me... anyway, besides giving the song a sort of Laurie Anderson cred, that sound repeated throughout EIG Flower makes me think of metal, something futuristic and unpleasant. Forceful and abrupt. And the vocals are different... the girlish, sing-songy Liz is still there singing the slow refrain, but slightly echoey, as if a memory. But this time the foreground Liz (the one singing quicker) is singing in her low register, flatly, the way she sings throughout the album, but even more more menacing in her lack of emotion. My point is, in the EIG version, that slight "unease" which is only hinted at on Girlysound, is brought front and center. And if I had to define what that unease is supposed to be about, I'd say it's supposed to be about the lizard brain. "Lizard brain" is my own personal shorthand for our most basic instincts, our instincts for fighting and fucking and eating and running away, that kind of thing. Neurologists have pinpointed the origins of those feelings as the ancient parts of the brain, the parts that are identical to the brains of reptiles. So, I just say lizard brain. (I guess if I had been a psychology student 40 years ago I would have just called this the "id" and have done with it... but noooooo, I had to be alive during the Age of Biopsychology. Feh.) I think that with "Flower", Liz is saying something about the power of our lizard brains, how they're constantly with us no matter how reasonable and thoughtful we want to be. How they're always sort of waiting there, ready to take over at a moment's notice if we're not careful, if we don't keep a tight control over ourselves. So there's fear there... fear of the "monster" within us. Liz gives her lizard brain a voice, and what it says is all this stuff about BJs and penises of many hues and... you get the idea. Uhhh... what was the point of all that high-falutin' talk? Oh yeah... I think she definitely improved on the demo with this one. Girlysound "Flower" is one-dimensional.... EIG "Flower" explores other aspects. It's the good-time studio version of the year. - ------------------------ Just two tonight... I'm out of breath. (Can you believe it?) - --Catherine ------------------------------ End of support-system-digest V6 #257 ************************************