Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site mit-eddie.MIT.EDU Path: utzoo!decvax!bellcore!petrus!scherzo!allegra!mit-eddie!gds From: gds@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU (Greg Skinner) Newsgroups: mod.music Subject: Love-Hounds Digest Message-ID: <2245@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU> Date: Mon, 9-Jun-86 04:46:04 EDT Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.2245 Posted: Mon Jun 9 04:46:04 1986 Date-Received: Mon, 9-Jun-86 17:41:24 EDT Organization: MIT Lusers and Hosers Inc., Cambridge, Ma. Lines: 319 Approved: gds@eddie.mit.edu Love-Hounds Digest Monday, June 9, 1986, 04:48 EDT Topics: T. Dream / VHS Hi-Fi NME News Re: Letter to "Sounds" // "Voix Belgique" Re: Letter To *Sounds* Non-random observations Dr. John [][][][][][][][][][] Date: 6 Jun 86 13:18:00 PST From: "ROSSI J.A." Subject: T. Dream / VHS Hi-Fi Reply-To: "ROSSI J.A." I just got back from a trip to DC and Philly (Apparently, the NUSC VAX cluster blew up, or something while I was away, so I have not seen any issues of this digest between May 23 and today so pardon me if this is a rehash of anything which transpired previously). While traveling through Philly, I heard some Rock station giving away tickets ti an upcomming Tangerine Dream show. I was stunned, since TD isn't something usually mentioned by DJs between cuts by Led Zep and Bryan Addams. So, I stopped the car, put up with about 30 min of more of the bland Rock fare, and sure enough, there is some promotion for the movie Legend going on, and there was a contest for TD tickets. Now, I'm sure that if Tangerine Dream are comming tpo Philly, they must be on tour. Does anybody have any details, is it just starting, Is it over??? If there is a tour are Boston, Hartford or NY on the list? If anybody has an opportunity to see this band perform live, it is worth it (interesting music via electronics, an unusual paradox). As for the movie Legend, if you liked Sword and thge Sorcerrer, you will love it. Same plot (in general), much better visuals, much more fantasylike than any movie I've seen. Even Tom Cruise (SP?) was not objectionable in the movie. Of course, however, the main drawing ticket is the Tangerine Dream soundtrack. This is by far there finest soundtrack to date. The traditional sequencer ostinatos were absent, the music is much more reminiscent of their early stuff. An interesting combination results when Jon Anderson does the vocal track with TD in the background (I don't thgink I could tollerate a whole album of that particular combination, but it probably has a lot more musical possibilities than the Vangellis combo). Unlike Vangellis, TD usde Anderson's voice as an instrument (even with age, I still have to admit Jon Anderson has one of the most musical vocal expressions in the business, Falme away !!) as it should be used. Roxy/Ferry fans will also appreciate the final track (credit background) by Brian Ferry (no TD). So if you like TD, enjoy fantasy movies about elves, gobblins, and very large demons (Tim Curry), or feel a strong sexual attraction to Tom Cruise (and could put up with him even with sholder length hair) than you should see Legend. Finally, I have ordered the Kate Bush Laser Disk of the video compilation. Hopefully, it is up to the sound quality standards that LaserVision is capable of. I also ordered the concert at the Hammersmith LV disk. Unfortunately, it appears that in the short run, the only way to get decent coppies of the HoL videos is to do VHS Hi-Fi recordings from MTV getting the audio from the FM stereo simulcast mode. Has anyone done this? Has anyone ever recorded MTV in Hi-Fi? If so, is the quality sufficiently worth it to keep a deck ready to record the videos if and when they are played? John ------ [][][][][][][][][][] From: Jeff Dalton Date: Fri, 6 Jun 86 18:47:27 -0100 Subject: NME News Morrissey sez: "Obviously Madonna reinforces everything absurd and offensive. Desperate womanhood. Madonna is closer to organized prostitution than anything else. I mean the music industry is obviously prositiution anyway but there are degrees." Means nothing, of course. Record News: Robyn Hitchcock: 'Invisible Hitchcock' (Glass Fish via Rough Trade) a retrospective LP of unreleased material from 1980-85 -- out this week. Well, that means either it arrived last week and all copies have been sold, or else that I'll be luckly to see it this month. Sometimes. -- Jeff [][][][][][][][][][] Subject: Re: Letter to "Sounds" // "Voix Belgique" Date: Fri, 06 Jun 86 21:58:59 -0700 From: J. Peter Alfke >From Hugh Maher's letter to "Sounds", re one critic's attack on Kate: >I find it (as the saying goes) "Amazing" that the >oh-so-literal meaning of the song (i.e. lashing out at snotty-nosed >frustrated rock-star failures-turned sniping critics such as himself) >failed to pierce his Sugar-Walled brain. Perhaps we should convince >Sheena Instant to cover it, and bring it down to his level. Um, while I do agree, from the excerpts you posted, that the snotty- nosed critic in question could benefit from a nice cup of coffee homeground [:-)], I must admit that I don't see where you get your interpretation of "The Big Sky" from. I always thought it was about daydreaming watching clouds. (Sound like Kate herself, don't I?) Perhaps you're just trying to mindf*ck the folks at "Sounds"? @@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Incidentally, I was flipping through that very same magazine (well, not the same issue) today and saw that one of their critics went all soft and mushy over the new 4AD "Mystere du Voix Belgique" album. Belgian folk songs, as one would expect, but the writer seemed caught up in the same kind of wordless transcendental ecstasy that one usually gets only from the Cocteau Twins. I'm intrigued, but can't find it. Anyone got it? Heard it? Seen it? --Peter Alfke "I would have made this instrumental but the words got in the way ..." PS: So Hof has resorted to putting his hands over his ears and yelling. Christ. How old is the guy anyway? (S'okay, he can't see this.) [][][][][][][][][][] Date: Sat, 7 Jun 86 03:39:10 EDT From: nessus (Doug Alan) Subject: Re: Letter To *Sounds* > From: J. Peter Alfke > From Hugh Maher's letter to "Sounds", re one critic's attack on Kate: >> I find it (as the saying goes) "Amazing" that the oh-so-literal >> meaning of the song (i.e. lashing out at snotty-nosed frustrated >> rock-star failures-turned sniping critics such as himself) failed >> to pierce his Sugar-Walled brain. Perhaps we should convince >> Sheena Instant to cover it, and bring it down to his level. > Um, while I do agree, from the excerpts you posted, that the snotty- > nosed critic in question could benefit from a nice cup of coffee > homeground [:-)], I must admit that I don't see where you get your > interpretation of "The Big Sky" from. I always thought it was about > daydreaming watching clouds. (Sound like Kate herself, don't I?) Well, let's take a closer look at some of the lyrics: They look down at the ground, missing. But I never go in now -- I'm looking at the Big Sky, ... You never understood me, You never really tried. ... This cloud, this cloud says "Noah, c'mon and build me an Ark" And if you're coming -- jump 'coz we're leaving with the Big Sky ... You want my reply? What was the question? I was looking at the Big Sky And let's recall something Kate once said about this song: "It's also suggesting the coming of the next flood how perhaps the 'fools on the hills' will be the wise ones." So who are these people who look down at the ground missing the true meaning of life? Who never understood Kate and never really tried? Who demand replies from her to boring questions? Who are doomed to drown the next time the riff-raff are purged from the Earth? Seems to me like the "frustrated rock-star failures turned sniping critics" are awfully good candidates. "No it doesn't" Doug [][][][][][][][][][] Date: Wed, 28 May 86 16:46:06 cdt From: ll-xn!uwvax!astroatc!gtaylor (G.N. Excelsis-Deo) Subject: Non-random observations Organization: (Get back to your) Work Area, Madison, WI >Random observations: These aren't random. You're merely coming up with a pattern which emerges from what initially seem to be unrelated concerns. I've tried in my usual circumlocutionary way to suggest that I share what seems to be your collection of observations. I also don't really have anything to gain from claiming that I've got anything that looks like answers and erudition, either. It might make me feel cool, but I can get that from someplace else a little better (having my wife praise my coffee or getting that next soundtrack job or getting a raise). Once you've got the pattern pinned down, this might seem a bit more like a dilemma, but one you've seen before in other places. >We can't agree whether or not rock is a fad. That'll be a problem all right. Why not talk about the fact that the concept of a fad presupposes a whole culturally elitist apparatus that nearly all of us love to manipulate at the drop of the hat. >We can't justify putting down >"commercial" music and hence cannot give good reasons why people >should listen to progressive music instead of top 40 I suspect that it's because you've not asked Wicinski and Hofmann about it, and they've had their hands full thinking about other stuff. Ditto Krajewski and Ingogly. I'm merely the sort of aging and ineffectual boffin who's read enough Frogspeak to go about answering that question by asking another one: What are we attempting to justify when we "put the stuff down". Or perhaps "who" is better than "what." It gives away the answer somewhat, though. If there's one thing that Hofmann has a real handle on, it's the notion that the labels and the stances are being co-opted and we're just sitting there like chumps the whole time. Perhaps the Hof does go in for the critical equivalent of "cut and burn" agriculture, but he's got the right idea at heart: we're looking for something besides the single crop starvation plans that put sugar in the tea of the Big Boys. How about a little subsistence ag of our own (as Candide put it...cultivate our own gardens)? >(at least without using >quasi-moral arguments "Madonna promotes pathological materialistic values" >or vague quasi-elitist statements "Residents are more challenging music >because they deconstruct pop :-)"). Here's where I think I'll draw the flames. I don't think you'll have any choice BUT to make value-based arguments. If you're deft and lucky, you'll be charged with elitism perhaps or dismissed as someone who thinks too much. If you're lousy, you'll pretend to make value-neutral pronouncements that will succeed only in making you look like a buffoon or a bigot-whether you're a Baptist, a Skin, a Trotskyite, or just another fan. At the bottom of all this, the question for me is not "What is Art?" but "What is GOOD Art?" How is Art good? A nice place to begin is to stifle the urge to capitalize the word, perhaps. >We can't argue against trendiness >because if rock is a fad, then we're all guilty of trendiness. This dilemma is a part of what my mother called "Good Trouble." It is the kind of semi-insoluble dilemma from which one emerges as either an escapist or as a better person. I prefer personally to locate myself solidly in my own time, be suspicious of my urge to make all other times look like mine (thanks to old Heidegger, but may I never have to read him again!), and puzzle out whether there is, after all, something of an "essential core of being" (We call it "soul", Aretha and I) in either the net of Greg-In-The Present, or any of those other objects out there. Those nasty and shifty PostModernists have bandied about the notion that art functions as a "system of self-knowledge". Perhaps that's what I am suggesting. >Anyone wants to try to sort this out? Where's Greg Taylor when we >need him? :-) Everyone, I hope, *should* want to sort this out. That's why most of us are here. As for me, I'm obviously still cranking out the elliptical verbal fogbanks-waiting to head home and kill off a righteous heap of Red Beans and Rice and a bottle of New Beaujolais and listen to the cassette that Hofmann sent me. Any of you ugly weasels going to Uselessnix? "As one who sees within a dream, and, later/the passion that had been imprinted stays,/but nothing of the rest returns to mind,/such am I- for my my vision almost fades/completely, yet it distills within/my heart the sweetness that was born of it."(Dante/Paradiso,XXXIII 58-63) [][][][][][][][][][] Date: Thu, 29 May 86 19:07:03 pdt From: seismo!scgvaxd!tcville!wwiii!meyer (Mike Meyer) Subject: Dr. John Organization: Hughes ISPL (The Animal Lab) Speaking of toe-tapping New Orleans piano, Dr. John/Mac Rebbanack himself has got a couple of wonderful albums out on the label Clean Cuts. These feature solo piano from the good ol' Nite Tripper, vocals on a couple of songs. They are awesome, the pressings are wonderful, and I understand that a book featuring transcriptions of many or all of the pieces is available somewhere, with or without the record, for those who want to do it themselves. One of the albums is called "Dr. John Plays Mac Rebbanack", the other title escapes me... Anyone know more about the book/course/or whatever it is? This seems like a wonderful thing to sequence in on my Mirage.... -- Mike Meyer Image and Signal Processing Lab Hughes Aircraft EDSG El Segundo, CA {seismo,ihnp4,allegra,cit-vax,cbosgd}!scgvaxd!tcville!meyer [][][][][][][][][][] -- 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