From: owner-trajectory-digest@smoe.org (trajectory-digest) To: trajectory-digest@smoe.org Subject: trajectory-digest V3 #33 Reply-To: trajectory@smoe.org Sender: owner-trajectory-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-trajectory-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk trajectory-digest Monday, March 8 1999 Volume 03 : Number 033 Today's Subjects: ----------------- wpkn interview highlights [meredith ] trinity show [meredith ] iron horse [meredith ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 07 Mar 1999 18:19:46 -0500 From: meredith Subject: wpkn interview highlights Hi! What a weekend! Veda was interviewed on WPKN in Bridgeport, CT at 12:30 on Friday afternoon. It was a great interview - she played a few songs live and talked a lot about the new album. She was on-air for just over 45 minutes. Songs played: (from CD) Noah's Ark Fifteen Years INSTRUCTIONS Three (live) Seasoned The Boy Who Lived In The Woods Batterie Kill Zone Tidbits from the interview: - -- "Batterie" (this is the song that has the line repeated, "God beat down my door") was inspired by the movie _Breaking The Waves_. I never would've figured this out on my own, but it makes perfect sense. (I loved that movie!) - -- The lyrics to "The Boy Who Lived In The Woods" (this is a song which was performed live in the shows last November - Barry sings on it as well, and it starts off with "when I was a boy/my parents left me" and later has a line about "I am a wonder" - I thought this might be a Nick Cave song at first) were written by Veda's friend Scot, who also designed the _Spine_ album artwork and things on her web site. - -- There are going to be some interesting computer effects employed on the new album - loops and such. Veda's friend Christoph, who deconstructed a couple songs on the 7-inch promo single is doing a lot of work on it. - -- If she ever does another video, which is a long shot, it'll be an animated video for "Pony Bride" (the happy love song she usually pairs up with "Clumbsy"). - -- She doesn't do a lot of writing at home, and really can't write on the road. She usually goes out to the cabin on the island to live in quiet seclusion and write. One song which was partially written on the road was "15 Years", which was the last song in the Emily Carr cycle to be written. She'd had the piano bass-line riff in her head for a while, and was just waiting to find something to use it with. She wanted to write a song showcasing how angry a person Carr was, and had all these text snippets referring to the period where Carr was too caught up in life to do any painting. Finally one day all of the text pieces suddenly came together, and she wanted to see how it fit with the bass riff, but she had no piano. So she banged the riff out on a kitchen table while she tried to hear the tune in her head and match that up with the lyrics as she'd arranged them. When she finally got to a real piano she found that it all had indeed come together perfectly. (This just blew my mind. :) Valerie Richardson, who conducted the interview did a really great job - she's been a fan for years, but had never met nor heard Veda play live before, so she was really having a good time too. Hers is one of my favorite shows on WPKN anyway -- I'd set the timer up on my stereo to start taping a little bit early, so I know that before the interview began she played a set of music including Robin Holcomb (Veda's request :), Happy Rhodes, and Rachael Sage. Contact me if you want copies of the interview. There's a wee bit of static in the background, but it sounds more like tape hiss than anything else. After leaving Bridgeport, Veda and the boys headed up I-91 to Wesleyan, my alma mater where Amy Jeffries was filling in for someone on WESU and interviewed her there too. (Amy, wanna post highlights of that?) Veda mentioned later that she'd been hoping to get a chance to meet Annie Dillard, one of her heroes who is a writer-in-residence at Wesleyan. Unfortunately, she's on sabbatical this semester - d'oh! (I'm just finding the concept of Veda wandering around the campus where I went to college just a bit too surreal. :) +==========================================================================+ | 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: Sun, 07 Mar 1999 18:40:47 -0500 From: meredith Subject: trinity show Hi! Friday night was the Trinity College show. After a stressful incident involving my car and one of the nice tow trucks who work for AAA, I got there just before things got started. The venue, the CLEO house is your standard college frat house, with a huge living room where the band was set up. I was having serious flashbacks to my own college experience all night, but I managed to pay attention to business well enough once the music got going. :) Veda said afterwards that it was the best show of the week, and I believe her. They played for almost two full hours, and everyone in the band was clearly having a good time. The highlight of the evening was a long, jamming, improv-laden version of "79 Rose" that gave everyone in the band a chance to rock out. My favorite part of all that was the back-and-forth between Ford and Veda, as they traded licks that got weirder and weirder until Veda was changing settings on her keyboard and then using the little "waah" knob to great effect, at which point Ford just held his guitar at arm's length behind him in front of the amp to produce a wail of feedback. Veda conceded defeat at that point, and then Martin launched into his bass solo. :) Surprises on the set list were "Precious Heart", the aforementioned "79 Rose", and "Three" (which sounded a bit too slow to me, but it was still great to hear). "Kill Zone" was also included by request in the first encore - god, but that song kicks ass. I didn't keep track of the entire set list, but once I can piece it together I'll post it here (unless someone else has it handy?). Tidbits from song introductions: - -- "Clumbsy" was written after the end of a long-distance relationship 2 years ago. Veda said she'd been in the middle of writing a love song at that point, and initially wanted to write something full of hate and revenge, but decided she was just sad. - -- Before "Pony Bride", which immediately followed "Clumbsy" (as usual), all she said was: "I'm not sad any more." There were about 30 people there, I'd say (it was hard to tell because people kept going in and out, which annoyed me mainly because most of them let the door slam shut behind them when they went), and I'm guessing there were far fewer Trinity students there than folks from the outside. Everyone seemed to really enjoy the show. Veda said it was nice to play in front of an appreciative audience - apparently the Pittsburgh and Philly shows weren't all that well attended. (Did anyone make it to either of those? It sounded like the Pittsburgh gig was a rather unique experience for all involved.) I got a chance to talk with Ford afterwards - I hadn't had an extended conversation with him before. He's definitely his own man. :) His second album should be coming out soon - I just checked A&B Sound and they only have his first one still, _Meconium_. He wasn't sure exactly when it'd be available. Speaking of availability, all who are looking for copies of _Songs About People And Buildings_ should order it through Veda's web site. If it doesn't say "Out of Stock", then she's got it. She did sell the last one she had with her at Trinity. (She's planning to release it on CD, maybe next year, also maybe with remixes and other songs from that same time period that never made it onto the original release. Whee!) +==========================================================================+ | 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: Sun, 07 Mar 1999 19:05:40 -0500 From: meredith Subject: iron horse Hi (again), Last night was the final American stop of this mini-tour, as Veda opened solo for 10,000 Maniacs at the Iron Horse in Northampton, MA. Despite the winter storm warnings and the dire traffic reports, woj and I headed up there anyway. (We're nothing if not predictable, not to mention stupid. :) It was rather of an adventure getting there ... but we made good time anyway, and got there not too long after the doors had opened, which left us plenty of time for dinner. Shortly before showtime Veda stopped by our table to say hello, and she said that one of her fans from Austria (who is also on this list), Stephan Wanner was there! He just happened to be in New York this weekend, and drove up just to see her play. (Alas, he'd arrived too late to go to the Knitting Factory show.) Es war echt schoen, Dich kennenzulernen, Stephan! :) Veda played for just half an hour, on her acoustic guitar and also on Dennis Drew's electric piano (which, I noted, didn't sound nearly as good as Veda's own keyboard). Set list: Seasoned INSTRUCTIONS 538 E. Georgia (! - thanks for requesting this, Stephan!) One Hot Summer Born Lucky To And From Ira Slumber Queen I noticed some other people in the audience who appeared to be there expressly to see Veda too, which was nice. She got a pretty good response from the crowd. It's got to be hard to open for a band whose audience is probably not used to "difficult" listening. (After seeing the Maniacs play last night I've cemented my opinion that they are now a Very Boring Band, which is a shame since they were my Very Favorite Band for years, but I digress.) I think if she can ever get her own gig at the Iron Horse it'll be pretty well attended. Hopefully in the fall, as part of the album tour ... Fortunately, by the time we left the precipitation had stopped and the roads were completely clear, so it was a breeze getting home. I hope Veda et al. had a similarly easy time getting up to Montreal today. +==========================================================================+ | 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 *** | +==========================================================================+ ------------------------------ End of trajectory-digest V3 #33 *******************************