From: owner-trajectory-digest@smoe.org (trajectory-digest) To: trajectory-digest@smoe.org Subject: trajectory-digest V2 #77 Reply-To: trajectory@smoe.org Sender: owner-trajectory-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-trajectory-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk trajectory-digest Sunday, August 9 1998 Volume 02 : Number 077 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Dan Bern and Joy Askew And Veda Too [meredith ] Re: Dan Bern and Joy Askew And Veda Too [sleeper ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 08 May 1984 23:31:41 From: meredith Subject: Dan Bern and Joy Askew And Veda Too Hi! Hard drive failures are a bitch. Might I recommend avoiding them at all costs? :P Traffic on I-95 is also a bitch, because it prevented me from getting together with our own Lori and Kat for dinner this evening as they passed through town on their way to the Newport Folk Festival. Oh well. Now I can finally respond to a few of the things that have been bandied about here lately. (Sorry, this will probably be a bit long.) Jim introduced: >Hi, I just joined the list so thought I'd say hello to everyone! So >hello! Hello, and welcome!!! It's great to see that Veda did indeed win some fans doing the Freedy Johnston gig. >1 - Is the Women In (E)motion live CD worth getting? Is it full band or >solo? How's the sound quality? It's on the pricey side, but I'll get >it if its a must have... Is it worth getting? Yes, definitely, but then all of her stuff is worth getting. :) Half is with the band, and half is solo. All of it was recorded in Germany. The sound quality is great (it was recorded with the intent to release). It's a bit less intense than actually being in the audience, and it was her first trip to Germany so she was a bit subdued, but it's still got some really great stuff, including the only live version of "79 Rose" I'll probably ever hear. >2 - Are there quality tapes of these Bottom Line shows I mentioned >floating around? I have some good stuff (but no Veda) for trade... I didn't tape her Freedy Johnston opening set, but I did tape both sets last weekend and I have several other NYC performances as well. Please contact me privately and I'll be happy to work something out with you! >3 - Does she ever play as a headliner in the NYC area? She has done several sets at CB's 313 Gallery, which doesn't do "headliners", but it's close enough. She's never done a set longer than 45 minutes in the NYC area, and I desperately want that to change soon!!! Even at the Mercury Lounge you can play for an hour if you're the last act of the evening. Something ... anything. I have tapes of Canadian headlining performances with the full band, and I just *have* to experience that firsthand. Sigh. Hopefully with Bottom Line Records planning to finally start promoting _Spine_ soon something like that will materialize. >4 - Does she play more as a solo performer or with the band? I loved >both shows, but prefer the full band. It depends on where she is. It's obviously cheaper for her to go solo when she's traveling far from home, but she has brought the band with her to Europe on a few occasions. I know there are plans to bring the full band (including the guitarist Ford Pier, who hasn't joined her on the East Coast yet) to the NYC area as part of the _Spine_ "tour", whenever that happens. Any and all info about that will definitely be posted here. :) I just hope that if Veda must continue to open for people, she'll for once open for somebody whose total talent quotient matches more than that of her pinky toe. I actually felt sorry for Oh Susanna and Kinnie Starr at the Scrappy Bitch shows, and while Freedy Johnston's music is nice, it totally pales in comparison to Veda's work. And then there's Dan Bern. I know I said I wouldn't say anything more about him, but since others here have chimed in I just can't help myself. (Advance apologies to any Bern fans in the gallery) How do I hate Dan Bern? Let me count the ways: - -- Frat boys with guitars do *not* excite me. - -- Songs about aliens that fuck monkeys and stalking Ani DiFranco's mother are not funny. They are blatantly offensive. - -- In order to make me care, a guitarist has to know more than three chords. - -- The constant Bob Dylan comparisons are just stupid. Bob Dylan made it without being able to sing because he could at least write good songs. Dan Bern does not write good songs. He writes wordy, sophomoric junior-high free verse disguised as songs, then actually makes money by shrieking and bleating them at people who willingly paid to subject themselves to the assault. (Susan Werner gives voice lessons in Philly -- I'll gladly get him in touch with her!) - -- People actually go nuts over him. I wanted to stand on my table in the middle of his set and scream out "What is WRONG with you people??? You just witnessed 30 minutes of genius and you still can't see what a gyp this jerk is?!?" Anyway. I could go on for hours, but I won't. :) Suffice it to say that I sincerely hope Veda doesn't open for him again. I can't take that more than once in one lifetime. On to happier things: One person I'd love to see on a bill with Veda is Joy Askew. I second Chris' exhortation to check her out if you haven't already. She was Peter Gabriel's keyboardist and backing vocalist for a while, and I thought she was pretty cool then. I was already familiar with her work from a 1988 EP she put out called "Kyoto To Hollywood", which I used to play on my college radio show. Then I saw her open for Happy Rhodes in Philadelphia a couple years back, and she totally blew me away. Imagine a cross between Chrissie Hynde (in appearance) and Shona Laing (in sound), and you've got Joy Askew. She's got a dynamite band backing her up now, too. I'm seriously considering attending her gig at The Living Room on the 22nd, but since Veda is doing two shows over the next two nights I'm not sure if I can handle an extra trip into NYC... Rachel mused aloud: >Now I'll tell you one double bill I wouldn't miss: Veda with Jane Siberry. >I can just imagine the oddity of it. With Veda's fashion sense and >Siberry's irreverant humour, I have a feeling that at least for me, the >music might even be secondary to the performance of two personalities. Yow!!! (Not to mention Jane's fashion sense too... ;) *That* would be amazing. I could actually envision it happening at The Bottom Line, too! I would just have to implode or something - two of my musical goddesses on the same stage. I wouldn't mind seeing Veda perform with Meryn Cadell or Cindy Lee Berryhill again, either. N.B. to Sue: I gave Veda a sampler tape of Emily Bezar (and Susan James and Ingrid Karklins to round it out) the other night. If you keep working on Emily I'll keep working on Veda, and maybe someday we'll realize our shared dream of seeing the two of them perform on the same bill. ;) Finally, Rachel wondered: >And one last note, has anyone seen The Brutal Telling yet? Because I saw >it last week and was wondering what other people thought of it as an >entire piece rather than just some dancing with great Veda music. What is The Brutal Telling? Do tell and give details! +==========================================================================+ | Meredith Tarr meth@smoe.org | | New Haven, CT USA http://www.smoe.org/~meth | +==========================================================================+ | "things are more beautiful when they're obscure" -- veda hille | | *** TRAJECTORY, the Veda Hille mailing list: *** | | *** http://www.smoe.org/meth/trajectory.html *** | +==========================================================================+ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 8 Aug 1998 10:54:44 -0500 (CDT) From: sleeper Subject: Re: Dan Bern and Joy Askew And Veda Too On Tue, 8 May 1984, meredith wrote: > Rachel mused aloud: > >Now I'll tell you one double bill I wouldn't miss: Veda with Jane Siberry. > >I can just imagine the oddity of it. With Veda's fashion sense and > >Siberry's irreverant humour, I have a feeling that at least for me, the > >music might even be secondary to the performance of two personalities. > > Yow!!! (Not to mention Jane's fashion sense too... ;) *That* would be > amazing. I could actually envision it happening at The Bottom Line, too! > I would just have to implode or something - two of my musical goddesses on > the same stage. It occurs to me that one of the people I'd adore seeing Veda share the stage with is, quite simply, Ani. I've seen it before and it's tremendous. Ani could play bass for Veda, Veda could play keyboards for Ani and it would all equal to this overly-tremendous musical epiphany. Plus, they're friends and like to walk around holding hands and that's cute. > Finally, Rachel wondered: > >And one last note, has anyone seen The Brutal Telling yet? Because I saw > >it last week and was wondering what other people thought of it as an > >entire piece rather than just some dancing with great Veda music. > > What is The Brutal Telling? Do tell and give > details! That would be the contemporary dance show on Emily Carr that she did the music for which is currently touring fringe festivals and getting excellent reviews but I'm not quite sure -- beyond the music -- how warranted the raves are. Speaking of that, I still don't own the Emily Carr music album and, sigh, don't even know what it's called. There was a myth about the availability of Canadian music *in* Canada. A total myth. Rachel Who's about to go to work, trudgetrudgetrudge. ------------------------------ End of trajectory-digest V2 #77 *******************************