In the mail today: the new Free Design, out on Marina. This is one for you, Alan, you softy. I don't know if I really like it. It's the first stuff by Free Design I've ever heard, and if it's true that everybody first hates it, then I may change my mind later. It may just hit me in the wrong moment now; I'm too much into disco fun stuff these days, but at one point later, when I'm sad or old or both, this album will surely help me brush my nerves.
Although there is one "funny" Dixieland-tune on it, the entire record has something ultra-serious, which I basically appreciate in these silly days, when everybody in the media always tries to be so funny, peppy and spritzy. No, Free Design isn't like that at all, they seem to come from a loophole out of the space/time continuum; if you would have to write nice linernotes for them, you would probably call them timeless.
The best parts are when they sound like Mamas and Papas and I think it has something to do with the compositions. It's a record in celebration of singing and that makes one want to sing along; only when the composition is too steep you can't. But in a luxurious well-styled big home, f.i. by a fireplace, just listening to this CD could be really nice, like christmas... you could even read a book while it's playing. Just ignore the remark on the back side of the cover, which says: "play loud!"
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------------------------------
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 11:47:47 -0500
From: Clayton Black <clayton.black@washcoll.edu>
Subject: Re: (exotica) Who Am I?
> From: Ross Orr <mambofrenzy@earthlink.net>
> Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 11:22:44 -0500
> To: Exotica Mailing List <exotica-digest@lists.xmission.com>
> Subject: (exotica) Who Am I?
>
> So I still think you're better buying 10 records for one dollar each
> than one "famous" record for $10. You'll hate six of them, but love
> one of them as if it were your own child.
>
> The three others will stack up in one of those annoying "maybe"
> piles, that all list veterans will agree are the curse of our
> existence. . . .
Well said. But I don't see the "maybe" piles as the curse of my existence.
They represent a kind of reservoir of potential in the dry periods between
trips to thrift stores, when I imagine that I will rifle through them
(sometimes I actually do it) and come out with a gem to put on a tape (I'm
still not up to CD-burning), after which I can put the record away until
it's time to "re-discover" it. In isolation amid more standard fare on an
assorted tape, the odd-ball tune from a "maybe" album can be a welcome
diversion. Maybe I misunderstand your interpretation of the "maybe"
pile--i.e. the albums that turned out to be worthless from beginning to end.
But if I just don't listen to them long enough, they become maybe albums
again. Now that I look at my words, that sounds a bit like the logic of an
addict.
Great work, by the way, on the spaceship logo. Very classy.
As an aside, my brother called me up one day to ask if I knew who Hugo
Winterhalter was. After I assured him I did and that I own a fair number of
the man's (I recall one member of the list referring to him as a--if not
"the"--God) albums, he told me that he was the lawyer for Winterhalter's
son. I made sure to refer him to the Space Age Pop site for all he needs to
know.
Clayton
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------------------------------
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 11:50:40 EST
From: DJJimmyBee@aol.com
Subject: Re: (exotica) Piccioni's The Tenth Victim
I have the right tempo version in vinyl and it is a fine recording...I've only listened once though and I've had it a year now
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------------------------------
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 12:42:22 -0500
From: nytab@pipeline.com
Subject: (exotica) [obit] Fadhili Williams Mdawida,George T. Simon,Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula
February 15, 2001
Fadhili Williams Mdawida, Kenyan Singer and Songwriter, Is Dead
NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb. 14 (AP) ù Fadhili Williams Mdawida, a singer who is credited with writing "Malaika," a ballad now known around the world, died on Sunday of an undisclosed illness. He was believed to have been in his late 60's.
"Malaika," or angel in Kiswahili, is a love song that Fadhili, as he is known in Kenya, said he composed in 1959. It tells the story of his first love, a girl he could not marry because he could not come up with the required bride price.
Throughout his life, he said, he hardly made any money off the song although better-known singers like Miriam Makeba, Harry Belafonte and Boney M did.
Fadhili returned to his homeland in 1997 after living in the United States for 15 years. Until he was hospitalized, he had been performing weekly at a Nairobi hotel. He is said to have composed more than 200 songs.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Music critic George T. Simon, the original Glenn Miller Band drummer who swapped his sticks for a pen and eventually earned a Grammy for his acclaimed liner notes, died Tuesday of pneumonia following a battle with Parkinson's disease. He was 88.
In 1937 Simon sat in with the fledgling Glenn Miller Band. But he opted for writing over drumming, and became editor-in-chief of Metronome magazine in 1939.
As a writer, Simon worked for the New York Post and the now-defunct New York Herald-Tribune. He also served as executive director of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the organization behind the Grammy Awards.
In 1977, Simon won his Grammy Award for best album notes -- his contribution to the collection ``Bing Crosby: A Legendary Performer.'' Simon was hand-picked by Crosby to write the liner notes for the release.
Simon's late brother Richard was the co-founder of the publishing house Simon & Schuster, and one of his nieces is singer-songwriter Carly Simon.
========
Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Influential Aborigine artist Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula, whose work helped popularize Aboriginal art and sold in auction rooms for record prices, died Monday. He was believed to be about 75.
Tjupurrula died in poverty in a desert camp in central Australia, the Art Gallery of New South Wales said Thursday.
Tjupurrula was one of the most widely acclaimed of the Papunya Tula school of indigenous artists who pioneered the Aboriginal technique of dot painting.
Last year, one of Tjupurrula's paintings, ``Water Dreaming at Kalipinypa, 1972,'' sold at auction for $263,145 (496,500 Australian), a world record.
His work, symbolic depictions of the Australian landscape interwoven with Aboriginal myth, was borne out of despair following his enforced removal by the government from his traditional land, according to scholars.
Tjupurrula and about 1,400 other Aborigines were relocated from their remote desert homelands and housed in the community of Papunya, 190 miles west of the central city of Alice Springs.
By the mid-1980s, Tjupurrula's work was selling for thousands of dollars around Australia, although the artist regularly often was paid only a fraction of the value of the paintings by unscrupulous dealers.
Unable to work due to illness in his later life, Tjupurrula lived in a desert camp, nursed by his daughter, until his death.
