Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site eddie.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!eddie!gds From: gds@eddie.UUCP (Greg Skinner) Newsgroups: mod.music Subject: Love-Hounds Digest Message-ID: <221@eddie.UUCP> Date: Mon, 17-Feb-86 13:10:27 EST Article-I.D.: eddie.221 Posted: Mon Feb 17 13:10:27 1986 Date-Received: Wed, 19-Feb-86 01:06:14 EST Organization: MIT Lusers and Hosers Inc., Cambridge, Ma. Lines: 434 Approved: gds@eddie.mit.edu Love-Hounds Digest Monday, February 17, 1986, 13:10 Today's Topics: Desert Island miscellanea, Left Of Center, Morgan Fairchild, etc. folk/Creem/Husker/Kraut II/Christian Death Kerrang! Talk Talk (2 msgs) Siouxsie in US; Brazil Christian Death/rock seminar whitney and if your lips which i have loved, should touch [][][][][][][][][][] Date: Wed, 5 Feb 86 07:10:14 est From: nessus (Doug Alan) Subject: Desert Island miscellanea, Left Of Center, Morgan Fairchild, etc. > From: Tim Wicinski > 9. Robert Fripp - Exposure > The Best King Crimson Album. Ever. Yeah, great album! But it's nothing like King Crimson. And Daryl Hall (oh boy!!!) co-wrote and sings on several of the songs -- can you dig it? > From: Shelli [Re desert island] > Andrew Lloyd Webber, etc: .... Requiem Planning on a funeral? With that attitude, you'll never get off. > Madonna: Like A Virgin (** Put in to aggravate Doug **) Why not just bring the 12 inch single for "Material Girl", and play it over and over again? Quite appropriate for a desert island. The song "Like a Virgin", might strike too close to home if stranded alone. > Zula: Next Year in Jerusalem > (** The obvious alternative for Jews **) You're not thinking of converting are you? And you really want to brainwash the impending kids to *your* religion, don't you? > From: Susanne E Trowbridge > It has a new song by Suzanne Vega, "Left of Center," which is pretty > crummy (for lack of a better descriptive adjective) -- she did it in > concert and I didn't like it then, either. One expects more from SV, > one of the coolest women in the universe. It sounds like a stab at > the Top 40. I only heard "Left of Center" once -- in concert, but I liked it. And I have to agree with Jimmy H about A Lot Of Maniacs -- they sure don't do much for me. > Do you ever wonder what your fellow Love-Hounders and net.music contributors > look like? Yeah, so I went and visited some of them. They always look totally different than you expected. > I do. Perhaps we could put together some kind of photo album! Then I > can find out if Larry Palena is really green and slimy or if he only > writes that way. He's probably really mottled blue and slimy.... > A Morgan Fairchild look-a-like, > -Sue Did you bleach your hair recently? -Doug [][][][][][][][][][] Date: Wed, 5 Feb 86 8:39:59 EST From: Hofmann Subject: folk/Creem/Husker/Kraut II/Christian Death re: CREEM Yeh, Sue - we can probably argue for years as to just what is folk music ... I would probably argue that acoustic guitars are passe for folk music and you would argue etc etc etc ... stick to your guns, tho and don't belive my horseshit. as for CREEM - this has always been a good prozine - not exactly for who and what they cover but for the level of humor, they don't take themselves seriously like Rolling Stone or Musician or for that matter a whole bunch of fanzines like Max R&R and the like. And unlike the other prozines they aren't afraid to take chances on new writers (ya oughta send them some of yer stuff ...) I think you are confusing the "kick ass" type attitude with Kerrang! which reviewed Hounds of Love too, ain't? Well, got my Husker Du tix last night ... Kraut is playing on Saturday in B-more (which in case you don't know it they've picked up the UK SUBS old string breaker and are now Kraut II (yet another band with two guitars)) Has anyone heard of Christian Death? [][][][][][][][][][] Date: Wed, 5 Feb 86 09:33:56 est From: nessus (Doug Alan) Subject: Kerrang! > I think you are confusing the "kick ass" type attitude with Kerrang! > which reviewed Hounds of Love too, ain't? Yeah, they did. But it wasn't just a review -- they guy rambled on for three pages about how Godlike Kate Bush is. So you see, Kate is kick ass.... "I'm gonna fill your head with lead" Doug [][][][][][][][][][] Date: Wed, 5 Feb 86 10:03:27 EST From: think!harvard!bu-cs!sam (Shelli Meyers) Subject: Talk Talk Isn't the name of that new Talk Talk song "Life's What You Make It"? Or am I confused? ----- Shelli :-) [][][][][][][][][][] Date: Wed, 5 Feb 86 10:03:00 PST From: valerie%sdcc13@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu (Valerie Polichar) Subject: Re: Talk Talk You're not confused; it's Life's What You Make It. Interestingly, the song has been likened to Tears for Fears. [][][][][][][][][][] Posted-Date: 05 Feb 86 09:00:34 PST (Wed) Subject: Siouxsie in US; Brazil Date: 05 Feb 86 09:00:34 PST (Wed) From: tsung@aero Heard on the radio a few days ago that Siouxsie and the Banshees are "putting finishing touches" on their new album, and as soon as that's done they'll do concerts here in the U.S. Just saw "Brazil" yesterday. Good movie, very disturbing. Near the end of the movie I suddenly realized that, hey, this is just like a recurring nightmare I have (recurring in theme, not situations) -- ************************************************************** MAY BE A SMALL, SMALL SPOILER ************************************************************** in which I go from watching somebody being chased to suddenly become the person being chased, and everytime I think I had escaped, I am found (and have to start running again). ******************************************************** END OF POSSIBLE SMALL SPOILER ******************************************************** Any resident psychologist like to comment on that? I think I've read that this movie is a nightmare that Gillem has. Is it nightmare as in an actual dream? More info anybody? (sorry it had nothing to do with KB or even music ...) Fu-Sheng p.s. Doug, if you were not joking, Whitney Houston is a black singer, who is some relative of Dionne Warwicke's, and had a big hit (a coupla hits?) last year. She's probably won some "best newcomer" awards or something. I doubt you'd be interested in her music, though. [Whitney Houston is Dionne Warwick's cousin. --gregbo] [][][][][][][][][][] Date: Wed, 5 Feb 86 15:35 MST From: "James J. Lippard" Subject: Christian Death/rock seminar Reply-To: Lippard@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA Yes, I've heard of Christian Death, though I haven't heard much by them. That reminds me of an article I wrote in October for ASU's "Campus Weekly" (alternative campus newspaper) about a rock seminar I went to, and here it is. The article was never printed, as the newspaper folded. (Note: There was originally an additional paragraph about a fourth type of backwards message--the kind that's at the end of the first side of "The Dreaming".) Druids were Satanists. Van Morrison reads Celtic literature. Therefore, Van Morrison's music is evil. I had hoped this kind of feeble guilt-by-association reasoning applied to rock music by religious fanatics had died off. No such luck. The above was typical of the reasoning presented at a seminar on rock music on October 21 by Christian Life. Not only is the first premise false, the conclusion is a non sequitor. Things looked promising enough at first. A quote from the Confucian philosopher Mencius about how the multitudes "act without clear understanding" was projected on the large screen in Neeb Hall before the presentation began. When the show finally started, the speaker gave some facts about the size of the music industry and its influence on society. For a while things were rational. Since the seminar was focusing on the seamy side of rock, it seemed reasonable to show slides of Lou Reed shooting heroin on stage, Sid Vicious, Kiss, and so forth. Still, the impression was given that this was representative of the majority of rock music. Obscure groups such as Demon, Lucifer's Friend, and the Flesh Eaters say nothing about rock in general. Apparently the writers of the seminar were aware of this, because it then shifted to analyzing album covers of fairly popular groups. But this analysis was taken to a ridiculous extreme, pulling interpretations out of a hat. If an album cover had a cross on it, it was automatically blasphemous. Any other religious symbols on an album along with a cross were putting down Christianity by calling it "just another religion." Other symbols also drew criticism. From the following Bible verse, Luke 10:18, it was concluded that lightning bolts are a demonic symbol: And He said to them, "I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning." Since all lightning bolts are evil, the lightning bolts in the logos of Kiss and AC/DC show that they are in league with the devil. Interestingly, on the backs of many electrical appliances is a symbol which serves as a warning of potential shock hazard--a yellow triangle containing a lightning bolt exactly like the one in AC/DC's logo. Surely this is a more obvious source than the Bible for AC/DC's lightning bolt, given the electrical symbolism in their name and many of their album titles. As the Jesuits knew, if you teach a child your ways early, he will likely follow them for the rest of his life. But to conclude from this that Led Zeppelin is trying to influence children because there are children on the cover of their _Houses of the Holy_ album is absurd. In the interest of "fair play", quotes from several artists denying any involvement with the occult were given. But these were shrugged off, including the disclaimer at the beginning of Michael Jackson's _Thriller_ video which says, in part, "this film in no way endorses belief in the occult." Michael Jackson is a devout Seventh Day Adventist, so I seriously doubt he had any more intent in promoting the occult through _Thriller_ than the creators of Caspar the Friendly Ghost. Finally, the seminar got to its most entertaining subject: backwards messages on rock albums. There are several types of messages commonly referred to as "backmasking," most of which were covered. The first is a message recorded normally, then placed on an album in reverse. The example given was from ELO's Face the Music album, which says "The music is reversible, but time is not. Turn back, turn back..." There is little doubt about the content of such messages. The second type of backwards message is where words are sung backwards, phonetically. On Black Oak Arkansas' live album _Raunch and Roll_, there is no question about what they are trying to do when the singer shouts "Natas!" The conference speaker seemed to imply that this message was unintentional, however, when he gave an example of a song by Christian Death. The words are sung backwards (as seen on the lyrics sheet), but pronounced in reverse letter-by-letter rather than phonetically. He seemed surprised that this resulted in nonsense when reversed. The third type of backwards message is where a perfectly ordinary record album is played in reverse to produce gibberish and creative imaginations supply the translations for supposed messages. According to the speaker, this must occur in one of three ways. Either they are intentional, accidental, or spiritual. They can't be intentional, because creating such a message is unimaginably complex. They can't be accidental, otherwise we would hear messages saying such things as "God is love" or "the elephant is on the back burner" as often as we hear messages about Satan. Therefore, the messages must be spiritual (i.e., Satan caused them to occur). This completely ignores what has already been well-established as the source of these messages. Someone person plays his records backwards, listening for evil messages, and hears something that sounds like the word "Satan". He then tells his friends to listen for the message, and plays it for them. Since they have been told what to hear, their mind fills in the difference between the noises on the album and the alleged message. This explanation was mentioned, but was dismissed out of hand because, the speaker claimed, the backwards messages are as clear as most rock lyrics are forwards. He played the first message, in Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust", without telling the audience what to hear. I heard no message, but he told us that we clearly heard "start to smoke marijuana". When the tape was played again, I could hear it. The rest of the messages of this type played at the seminar were accompanied by text on the movie screen telling the audience what to listen for. I closed my eyes to ignore the hints, and was unable to hear anything but gibberish. The same method was used and the same results obtained by several other audience members I questioned after the presentation. In addition, an anti-rock program aired a few years ago on the Trinity Broadcasting Network stated that there were several messages on Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven", including "here's to my sweet Satan" and "there is power in Satan". The rock conference, on the other hand, combined these two into one large message which began "my sweet Satan" and ended "whose power is in Satan". Having heard the TBN version first, those were what I heard when they were played at the conference. If the words "there is" can be mistaken for "whose", isn't it possible that the same is true for the rest of these messages? Even the transcriber of the backwards messages had problems coming up with words to fit the message. The slide for Rush's live version of "Anthem" played backwards read: Oh, Satan, you--you are the one who is shining, walls of Satan, walls of (sacrifice?) I know. As any ventriloquist knows, many sounds can be mistaken for many other sounds. An m for an n, a t for a d, a c, a z, or a th for an s. Given that the most frequent letters in the English language are ETAOINSHRDLU, it is no surprise that something sounding like "Satan" is quite common. With enough effort, evil symbolism and backwards messages can be found anywhere. Try visiting a record store and finding satanic symbols on Christian album covers, or listening to some Christian albums backwards. I'm sure much can be found with little difficulty. It is true that most rock is not Christian. It is even true that much of it conflicts with the Christian faith in some way. But to bury these points in a mire of fuzzy logic and fanaticism by engaging in a witch hunt is counter-productive. Before the conference, I commented to a friend that if "Stairway to Heaven" was played backwards, the presenters would have destroyed any credibility they had. That, unfortunately, was the case. Jim (Lippard at MIT-MULTICS.ARPA) [][][][][][][][][][] Return-Path: Date: Wed, 5 Feb 86 12:23:12 EST From: Susanne E Trowbridge Subject: whitney WHO is Whitney Houston? Gee, Doug, don't you follow Top 40 Radio? Whitney is the voice behind "pop hits" like "You Give Good Love" (a soggy ballad). I believe this was a Billboard #1 hit (altho from what I've heard about the reliability of Billboard rankings, this may not mean much). Her debut album sold about a zillion copies. In her new video, she is dressed sort of like Madonna, only she's black. My favorite Top 40 song is Billy Ocean's "When The Going Gets Tough (The Tough Get Going)" because it has a great synth hook. -Sue [][][][][][][][][][] Date: Wed, 05 Feb 86 16:01 PST From: MAILMAN References: Christian Death/rock seminar Randomness: He who spends a storm beneath a tree, takes life with a grain of TNT. [][][][][][][][][][] From: ittatc!sii!mem Date: Thu, 6 Feb 86 04:10:51 est Return-Path: Apparently-To: mit-eddie!love-hounds Shortly after the Challenger explosion, I was listening again to some Suzanne Vega (actually making a tape that I had promised and forgotten about), and heard some lyrics in a totally new context: " I am falling down the stairs .. I am thrown against the sky I am raining down in pieces I am scattering like light ... scattering like light " talk about your unintentional meanings. Anyway, my 8-year-old son gave me a true interpretation of this song-- a view from a person who is a possession that somebody doesn't take care of very well (letting it fall down the stairs, throwing it into the air until it breaks). Sigh, I'm getting too old to think by myself... -mm- [][][][][][][][][][] Date: Thu, 6 Feb 86 04:30:43 est From: nessus (Doug Alan) Subject: and if your lips which i have loved, should touch Valerie sent me a whole bunch of wonderful poems by e. e. cummings (thanks Val!) and they are really great, so I'm postinging one for you to read and be converted to an e. e. cummings fan: it may not always be so; and i say that if your lips, which i have loved, should touch another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch his heart, as mine in time not far away; if on another's face your sweet hair lay in such a silence as i know, or such great writhing words as, uttering overmuch, stand helplessly before the spirit at bay; if this should be, i say if this shoule be-- you of my heart, send me a little word; that i may go unto him, and take his hands, saying, Accept all happiness from me. Then i shall turn my face, and hear one bird sing terribly afar in the lost lands. -Doug [][][][][][][][][][] -- It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under. Greg Skinner (gregbo) {decvax!genrad, allegra, gatech, ihnp4}!mit-eddie!gds gds@eddie.mit.edu