From: owner-support-system-digest@smoe.org (support-system-digest)
To: support-system-digest@smoe.org
Subject: support-system-digest V10 #31
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support-system-digest      Sunday, April 6 2008      Volume 10 : Number 031



                               Today's Subjects:
                               -----------------
  [support-system] Review Written By Liz                 [AWeiss4338@aol.com]
  [support-system] RE: support-system-digest V10 #30 "Liz & Wareham mentioned"  [arthur miller <artmiller@hotmail]
  [support-system] Re: support-system-digest V10 #26  ["Tom Conlon" <tjconlo]

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 21:35:27 EDT
From: AWeiss4338@aol.com
Subject: [support-system] Review Written By Liz

 From the NY Times Book Review. it's the autobiography of Dean Warham she's
writing about.

And I'm thrilled that Liz is back. It's been way too long. It's also nice  to
see the list active again.
Andrea


Frontman


By LIZ  PHAIR


Published: April 6, 2008

Freddie Mercury once said, bI want it all and I want it now.b This
appetite
might aptly be called the rock bnb roll disease, and Dean Wareham seems to
have  caught it. Or is in recovery. Or is somewhere along the road. Part
confessional,  part unsentimental career diary, Warehambs bBlack
Postcards: A Rock
& Roll  Romanceb reads like good courtroom testimony: to the point, but
peppered with  juicy and unsolicited asides. _Dominick  Dunne_
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/dominick_dunne/
index.html?inline=nyt-p
er)  would make sure his seat was saved before excusing himself to use the
restroom.

_Skip  to next paragraph_
(http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/books/review/Phair-t.html?_r=1&8bu&emc=bua
2&oref=slogin#secondParagraph)

_Enlarge This Image_
(javascript:pop_me_up2('http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/04/06/books/Ph
air-t.html', 'Phair_t',
'width=504,height=600,scrollbars=yes,toolbars=no,resizable=yes'))

(javascript:pop_me_up2('http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/04/06/books/Ph
air-t.html', 'Phair_t',
'width=504,height=600,scrollbars=yes,toolbars=no,resizable=yes'))
Rahav Segev
Dean Wareham performing with Luna at the Village Underground in  New York,
2001.



BLACK POSTCARDS
A Rock & Roll Romance.
By Dean Wareham.
Illustrated. 324 pp. The Penguin Press. $25.95.


Wareham is a respected  cultural figure who cut a wide swath through the
b90s
independent music scene  both in America and in Europe, fronting such beloved
bands as Luna and Galaxie  500 (though, in the case of Galaxie 500, this
frontman status was deeply  contested by his bandmates, accelerating the
groupbs
eventual demise, which is  captured hilariously in an anecdote at the
beginning
of the book). He portrays  himself as a surprisingly unsympathetic character.
He visits a prostitute. He  makes people angry. He follows girls home after
the show. He snorts coke. No  apologies are made because this is, after all, a
rock bnb  roll autobiography. Late nights, a lot of drugs, a little
infidelity  (well, maybe not just a little, but I wonbt give away the
ending) b thatbs
par  for the course, right? His honesty is challenging and humbling. Yet, for
an  egghead (Wareham is a graduate of both the Dalton School, the progressive
and  prestigious Upper East Side preparatory academy, and Harvard) with an
elective  reading list to rival Art Garfunkelbs (_Thomas  Mann_
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/thomas_mann/ind
ex.html?inline=nyt
- -per) , _Mark  Twain_
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/samuel_langhorn
e_clemens/index.html?inline=nyt-per) , AndrC) Malraux,
Nietzsche, to name a few), he seems perfectly happy to  partake in whatever
recreational opportunities come his way, with enviable  disregard for the
consequences. Guilty? Not guilty? What are we as a jury to  think?


The facts, at least, are straightforward enough. Thanks to what must have
been meticulously kept tour diaries, a rich harvest of the who, what, where
and
when of Warehambs past makes up the bulk of his story. The heyday of
alternative  music was a heady time, and Wareham was at the heart of it. After
the big
  business of arena rock trampled through pop culture in the 1980s, with its
smoke  pots and high ticket prices, a fresh crop of homegrown bands espousing
the  D.I.Y. ethos, culled from the underground punk scene, suddenly came into
vogue.  A countercultural wave with roots in political and social activism
swept the  nation, culminating in the enormous success of bands like _Nirvana_
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/nirvana/
index
.html?inline=nyt-org)   and _Pearl  Jam_
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/p/pearl_ja
m/index.html?inline=nyt-org) . These
self-proclaimed nerds conquered the world for a time, making up  in
originality and earnestness what they lacked in glitz and swagger. It is the
arc of
their ascendancy and, at the end of the decade, inevitable decline that  is
documented so vividly in Warehambs prose, from the point of view of an
authentic
creative force within this world.
Born in New Zealand in 1963 into a middle-class family, the second of four
children, Wareham recalls a passion for music at a very young age, when he
formed definitive opinions about records before he was even old enough to
date:
bMy father ... brought home Nina Simonebs bHere Comes the Sun,b
wherein
Nina  covers _George  Harrison_
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/george_harrison
/index.html?inline=nyt-per)  and _Bob  Dylan_
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/bob_dylan/index
.html?
inline=nyt-per)  and the Bee Gees, and delivers what I consider to be the
greatest  recorded version of bMy Way.b Joe Cockerbs bCocker Happyb
was also a
favorite,  with his stellar version of bWith a Little Help From My
Friends,b
which he did  far better than the _Beatles_
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/b/beatles_
the/index.html?inline=nyt-org) .b
The author is nothing if not a connoisseur. But Warehambs real gift is his
ability to capture the minutiae of daily life in a rock bnb roll band and
somehow make it universal. Itbs as if a curtain were brushed aside and we
all
got to go backstage and experience the lives of those who ran away to join the
circus: we ride in buses, drive in vans, count T-shirts, bicker with our
bandmates, play shows, get courted and booted by record labels, make albums,
fall
head over heels and, throughout, rub elbows with countless influential
artists of the day, crisscrossing the globe in tour trajectories so
overlapping
and incestuous it makes you want to call in a band traffic controller just to
keep all the names straight.
Filled with humor, Warehambs memoir is fast-paced and memorable, peopled
with
  characters you could find only in the music industry. There is Kramer, the
irreverent producer/sound man/bass player who pals around with Dean and the
band  during a few Galaxie 500 tours. An avid stoner who records brilliant
records at  warp speed, Kramer is prone to jumping onstage during a set
whether or
not he is  invited. His playful pranking endears him to Wareham, but falls
flat with the  rest of the band. The friendship between the two men echoes
that
of Jake Barnes  and Bill Gorton in bThe Sun Also Rises,b with Kramer as
the
oft-quipping Bill,  and Dean, the taciturn Jake.
But not all the subplots in bBlack Postcardsb are so happy-go-lucky. One
particularly unforgettable story involves the rags-to-riches-to-rags-again
tale
of a high-flying A & R executive at Elektra named Terry Tolkin, whose
musical discernment never translated into the other areas of his life. Riding
around in limousines, showing up late to work, throwing outrageous parties for
artists and charging it all to the label, the surprisingly likable Terry finds
himself on shaky ground as a corporate realignment threatens to squeeze him
out
  of a job: bIf he had signed just one platinum act, all would have been
forgiven.  Instead he gave them Luna, Stereolab and the Afghan Whigs.b
Things go
from bad  to worse, until bTerry had lost his wife, which he pretended not
to
care about.  Now he had lost his job. ... Six months later he was working at a
gas station in  New Jersey, changing oil and brake liners by day, snorting
heroin by night.b
One of the things bBlack Postcardsb does so well is shatter the illusion
that  rock bnb roll is all fun and games. Things pile up. The weight of
the
accumulated past begins to take its toll. Wareham fights to stay engaged in
his
creative efforts, sometimes at the expense of the stability of both his family
  and his band. Sick of rumors, sick of disgruntled fans, bad hotels, bad
gigs, he  may be writing down his remembrances partly to set the record
straight.
But his  supreme interest is clearly and purely music. It is the scaffold on
which he  hangs most of the feelings and fragments included in the book. Even
his writing  style has a rhythm to it: passages move rapidly back and forth
between incident  and impression, creating a kind of (Ibm not kidding) rock
bnb
roll. If the writing suffers from a tone of  detachment throughout, the author
is well aware of it. In fact, the long journey  to inhabit the present is the
bookbs crowning sentiment. Comparing himself with  his young son, Wareham
tells his therapist about his struggle to be in the here  and now:
bbJack has this incredible ability to enjoy the moment,b I told Bernie.
bHeb
s  always smiling and laughing and having a good time, while Ibm sad about
the past  and worried about the future. ...b
bbYoubre pissing on the present.b
bbWhat?b
bbIf you have one foot in the past and one in the future, then youbre
pissing  on the present.bb
The day of reckoning comes when Wareham is forced to face a crossroads of his
  own making. Having just left his wife, he sees his son out with the nanny on
the  street but cannot approach him because he cannot find the words to
explain why  he will no longer be living at home:
bI gathered myself and walked down Crosby Street, through SoHo, across Canal
Street and back to my studio, where I rolled on the floor and sobbed again.
Strange sounds came out of my throat, from deep down inside b guttural,
primal
  noises that I didnbt know were in me. But they were there.b

Liz Phairbs albums include bExile in Guyville,b bLiz Phairb and,
most
recently, bSomebodybs  Miracle.b

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 12:48:54 -0400
From: arthur miller <artmiller@hotmail.com>
Subject: [support-system] RE: support-system-digest V10 #30 "Liz & Wareham mentioned"

> Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 21:48:43 EDT
> From: AWeiss4338@aol.com
> Subject: [support-system] Typo
>
> And that should be Wareham. Studip mistake.
> Andrea

Don't know what that is, maybe missed in transit.
Anyhoo...

Liz reviews in the NY Times Book Review Sunday April 6, 2008

The full book review is at
"http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/books/review/Phair-t.html"

April 6, 2008
Frontman By LIZ PHAIR
(a review of )
BLACK POSTCARDS
A Rock & Roll Romance. By Dean Wareham.
Illustrated. 324 pp. The Penguin Press. $25.95.

"Freddie Mercury once said, I want it all and I want it now. This appetite
might aptly be called the rock n roll disease, and Dean Wareham seems to
have caught it. Or is in recovery. Or is somewhere along the road. Part
confessional, part unsentimental career diary, Warehams Black Postcards: A
Rock & Roll Romance reads like good courtroom testimony: to the point, but
peppered with juicy and unsolicited asides. Dominick Dunne would make sure his
seat was saved before excusing himself to use the restroom."



_________________________________________________________________
Get in touch in an instant. Get Windows Live Messenger now.
http://www.windowslive.com/messenger/overview.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_Refresh_
getintouch_042008

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 13:23:56 -0400
From: "Tom Conlon" <tjconlon@gmail.com>
Subject: [support-system] Re: support-system-digest V10 #26

I found this show, and another, on a free download site. Here are teh show
recordings and links:

2005 - Joe's Pub (mp3) http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5BQF6YAH

1995 - Town Hall (mp3) http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MDY9XS1E

The sound quality is awesome on the Joe's Pub recording. Thanks j.!

Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 12:33:20 -0400
> From: "J. Alan Doak"
> <SNIP><http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/49610-liz-phair-reissues-iexile-in-guyvillei-signs-to-ato>
>
> Speaking of bonus, there is a soundboard recording of Liz's acoustic
> show August 1, 2005 at Joe's Pub.  It's complete with sound check, and
> the sound is pristine.  It's at Dime, so you'll have to sign up.
>
> http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=125454
>
> j.

------------------------------

End of support-system-digest V10 #31
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