From: owner-support-system-digest@smoe.org (support-system-digest) To: support-system-digest@smoe.org Subject: support-system-digest V7 #164 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, October 1 2004 Volume 07 : Number 164 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [support-system] typically long response to support-system-digest V7 #163 ["over pavema" Subject: [support-system] typically long response to support-system-digest V7 #163 danmac wrote: >but i agree that it's really strange no one is talking about Liz, meanwhile >she has been actively touring, and her songs are on the radio all the time, >her face is everywhere, VH1, MTV..etc.. >a few of my friends have theories about Liz's next album. >either a)she'll be dropped from Cap. records and get scooped up by some >other label and release an album of cool "jeremy engle" type songs that >we'll all love. >b) Cap will keep her on to give her one more push and she'll release >another album similiar (but crappier) to the last one - and there will be >even LESS to talk about on this list, and us liz fans are going to go our >seperate ways. i just got back from my first extended visit to L.A., and i really have to wonder how much impact the move had on liz and her muse. i don't want to offend people who live there and love it, but traveling the area from hermosa to ventura, mulholland and bel air, santa monica and brentwood and venice and redondo, i have to say i pretty much didn't love it. some places are cool, certainly a lot of the people are cool. but the driving is sick, and if you see someone walking? you just assume they must be a loser because they're not in a car (which is where you see 95% of people, and 80% of them are on the phone in their car, to the point where you really feel loser-ly yourself if you're *not* taking a call while you're driving). i don't have any unique insights into L.A. i've never wanted to go, but have been fooled before by other cities, and sort of hoped it would be better than i expected. it was not. and i can see where it might not be an inspirational place for what i'll call 'difficult' music, like the kind we thought liz was capable of. (in l.a.'s defense, they have the best radio stations i've heard anywhere in a long time -- the station with steve jones' (ex-sex pistol) show is excellent. and i enjoyed driving around listening to something we don't have back east -- 24-hour all-chinese stations. i say that without a trace of irony; i like that station and was pretty much never tempted to change it. what that says to me is that i get as much from a station where i can only understand the numbers (cho er liu ba ba liu liu, you can tell it's a phone number) as i get out of the crappy english-language stations back east. plus, the voices are very melodic (these are mostly talk radio stations, i didn't hear much chinese music on them). great commercials, too.) but driving up the PCH (having no fucking idea how inaccurate the map was in terms of how long and how far it was to go from santa monica to ventura and try to get back down in time for a dodgers game (which i missed entirely) great road, btw, though i prefer route 1 up near half moon bay), i was thinking about l.a.'s musical history. sure, you have X and henry rollins (though, technically, he got started in d.c., but whatever). you have guns n roses and the doors (though, technically, jim morrison was from my home town). you have the fleetwood macs and the linda ronstadts and the eagles and jonis. and the closest analogy i could come up with was joni mitchell, who is head and shoulders above all of them, maybe along with jackson browne, but people i've met who know him say he has a rat bastard's temper (and i never knew he played on nico's early solo albums -- you learn something every 3 weeks, i swear!) -- and i think i've run through my thoughts on the liz / joni comparison before, and will spare everyone this time. but the l.a. i saw (and admittedly i only saw 1% of it) is not a place that's conducive to the sort of songs that liz does best. what it *is* conducive to is always comparing yourself to everyone else. that one's richer, that one's tougher-looking, that one's more beautiful, that one's taller, that one has bigger tits, that one has a better-looking girlfriend or better hair or better job or whatever. these forces lend themselves to films and sitcoms. not usually to great lyrics and music and poetry. and lyrically, joni mapped out l.a. on 'court and spark' and 'the hissing of summer lawns' and 'ladies of the canyon' so accurately that doing it again would be lame, both as plagiaristic and as almost certainly inferior. that may be like saying the velvets did new york, so why bother with the dolls, television, the ramones, patti smith, or the strokes. but it's a different place. new york changes every couple of years pretty dramatically. i don't know l.a. well enough to know, but it seems like a place that becomes a more extreme version of itself every few years, not different. so, i don't mean to sound like i'm attacking southern california. i didn't like it very much, but i don't live there, i don't know the best places to live and thrive and get support of an underground creative community, etc. i'm sure all those good things exist. and while i didn't like it, i would say i hate it less irrationally now that i've been there. hermosa beach, for example, seemed a lot like san francisco, though i'm sure it's not). but it doesn't seem like a place where success would breed more quality. it would seem to breed greed and envy, and maybe a desire not to be yourself (which is risky), but to be someone else who seems more together. all of which makes larry david such a remarkable case. a guy who succeeds in spite of his own worst instincts, and can't seem to help but be himself, however ill-fitting that self might be, especially in l.a. and which also explains liz making several comments about how fabulously rich some people like rick rubin are, and they remain 'outlaws', and she was quoted as saying it very...jealously. like achieving that house off beverly glen was something she aspired to more than a little. for people who live there, who know the place, i'd ask you: is it a place where a talent like liz's can thrive and grow? or is it more likely to be co-opted (falling back on my anarcho-syndicalist phase lingo) and ultimately buried, in favor of whatever is hot today (or, in liz's case with avril, yesterday)? i don't want to start blasting los angeles, but i'm genuinely curious. with this move out there, is it going to be that much harder for her to snap back and create something that's as great as a lot of us think she's capable of? i'm voting it's harder, but would be fine with being told to go fuck myself. also, i recommend two things which are not liz-related, but which might be relevant to things she's gone through as an artist: the new newsweek has an interview with bob dylan, and an excerpt from his autobiography which are both very interesting takes on what it's like to be an artist under siege from fans who expect more from you than you ever consciously meant to offer. and the pavement dvd, 'slow century'. the documentary and band narration over their videos both dramatically increased my opinion of the band and its accomplishments. and they say a few things about not selling very many records, and how they came to terms with that (sort of like johnny ramone says things on the same topic in 'end of the century', the ramones documentary -- what's all this with centuries lately?). check them both out. they're both worthwhile. o p five hours later, i'm chewing screwing myself with my hand - -pavement ------------------------------ End of support-system-digest V7 #164 ************************************