NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/bit/listserv/allmusic/14390

Text File | 1992-12-21 | 9.9 KB | 202 lines

Comments: Gated by [e-mail]
Path: sparky!uunet!paladin.american.edu!auvm!MITVMA.BITNET!MHB
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Date:         Mon, 21 Dec 1992 12:25:51 EST
Sender:       Discussions on all forms of Music <[e-mail]>
From:         "Michael H. Bloom" <[e-mail]>
Subject:      The deluge part 3: special morning price
Lines: 191

From:         Jeff Beer <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Re: The deluge part 2: gurls in bands

> I disagree with him on Joni.  While "Mingus" might be the album I like
> least, I like the period of her music in which Jaco was in the band.
> Don Juan's Reckless Daughter is great.

Okay, let me be more specific. I dearly love the first three albums-- some
day I wanna get naked with Libby Doe and listen to "The Dawntreader." Like
many people who went to college in the early '70s, I OD'd badly on _Blue_,
and while I like _For the Roses_ I think _Court and Spark_ and the live one
were cheesy-- the songwriting's too self-conscious, and I hate that band.
Then things get better again up to what may be a career peak at _Hejira_.
The only part of _Don Juan_ I listen to these days is the first side.
And like I said, I don't have any of her '80s stuff. Is this an error?

From:         Jeff Beer <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Re: The deluge part 2: gurls in bands

> You too  ?  I also wanted to play trumpet in her band, but that was the
> time she was still married to Michael Mantler, so that put a stop to
> that idea.  As for hiring women, the only one she seems to push is Karen
> Mantler... her daugther.

Yeah, I wanted to be her guitarist-- she always hired such lame ones for her
own projects, but generally used interesting people on Mantler's sessions--
remember Terje Rypdal's work on _The Hapless Child_?

Karen Mantler is trying so hard to be Carla redux, it's ridiculous. For Mom,
it must be like looking in the mirror (except Carla was much cleverer).

> On the issue of female musicians, she is distinctly anti-feminist.  She
> was intervewed by someone who was going to make a book on women jazz
> musicians, and her first response was "why would anyone want to do
> that?"  When they try pin it on how hard it is for women to make it in
> the music business, she will have nothing to do with it.  She seems to have a
> built in thick head on ignoring that.  For instance, she will say, "my
> band members said there were hecklers telling me to do the dishes, but I
> didn't hear them"

She's actually sorta carefully cultivated this image as a ditz, which seems
like one of those female tricks to me :-)

Some of the things she decides to do work out quite well. When she decided
she had to own all of her own publishing, she managed to hound everybody
she'd ever worked with, including George Russell and her ex, into selling
her the relevant copyrights.

On the other hand, the New Music Distribution Service never worked as well
as hoped, and ended up going bankrupt and squandering the resources of quite
a few valuable indies: Metalanguage, home of the early Henry Kaiser and ROVA
albums; 1750 Arch, who did the complete Conlon Nancarrow recordings, etc.

From:         "J.R. Ellis" <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Re: Incredible String Band

> As an aside, if you get the chance to hear Mike Herron's post-ISB solo
> album _Smiling Men With Bad Reputations_, you'll be pleasantly surprised.
> My favorite track on the album is "Warm Heart Pastry", featuring John Cale
> on viola, along with supporting musicians 'Tommy and the Bijoux' on guitar,
> bass, and drums-- who were in reality Townsend, Entwistle, and Moon of the
> Who!

Yeah, it's a pretty good record, although I still think Williamson was the
better songwriter. Has Heron done anything else since? Everybody got the
reissue of Townshend's _Who Came First_ yet?

From:         CHRISTIAN CHARLES KAZANECKI <[e-mail]>
Subject:      classical

>   I'm looking for classical music played entirely on acoustic guitar. I know
>   its out there somewhere, and I've seen transcriptions for various songs in
>   guitar magazines. If anyone knows the name of such an album so I could
>   order it, it would greatly be appreciated. Thanx and Merry Christmas-

I have a double album (that old vinyl stuff) of John Williams (the guitarist,
not the soundtrack weenie) and Julian Bream doing double guitar transcriptions
of a bunch of warhorses-- I don't remember what's on it, but I vaguely recall
my mother-in-law declaring when I played it that she found Mozart boring, so
I guess there's a lot of Mozart on it :-) Write if you want more information
or a dub or something... Also you should hook up with the Bridge label, who
recorded the Tod Machover opera; their CEO is a guitarist, so they release a
fair bit of guitar music. I think his name is David Starobin.

From:         Leonard Watkins <[e-mail]>
Subject:      cd's vs albums

> One thing that Vinyl has over cd's is the double album that folded was
> very useful at times and i think you know what i mean, try that with a
> cd case........Oh well they still make frisbee's........L.W.

I find you can clean on a Frisbee but you can't roll. I don't roll well in
any event, though, so your mileage may vary.

You have, however, put your finger on the one reason Judas & Natasha wanted
to make an LP. Even single sleeves, without the foldover, were useful. Can't
get a jewel box to work at all. Could it be that those damned Uni-packs have
a function in life? :-)

BTW, Leonard, re Danzig, you gotta stop worrying about the groups on Tipper
Gore's hit list, they all suck and nobody buys their records anyway, so just
chill and stop posting one-liners, okay?

From:         Michael <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Digital vs. Tape vs. Vinyl

> Frank Zappa claims that forcing music through a a/d converter filters out
> all of the emotion, the subliminal feeling deep within music.  He claims
> it cheapens it.  Howwever, I feel that it is important to note that
> Zappa stuff still comes out on CD.

This doesn't jibe with what he says in his book. In his chapter on how weird
it is to work with live players (especially the sort who join his groups :-)
he concludes that he has a slight preference for the humans and their eyebrows,
nothing like the strength of the statement above. He's reputed to be working
his cancerous ass off at the Synclavier even as we speak, storing as much of
his music as possible for a posterity that barely deserves it...

From:         Jeff Beer <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Re: Digital vs. Tape vs. Vinyl

> The audiophile folks tend to be analog proponents, saying it is more
> musical.  However, whenever they talk about music, I get the impression
> their knowledge of music is suspect.  For one thing, they tend to like
> records that have good engineering over good musical performances.  The
> classic audiophile record is the soundtrack to Casino Royale.  Casino
> Royale might be good film music, but it is hardly the type of thing to
> get excited about on a musical point of view.

Audiophiles are weird creatures IMHO. (Of course, I should talk...) The
stereotype I have of the hardcore hi-fi nut is, he's only got a couple
dozen records, and they're all recordings of the 1812 Overture, and he
only listens to the last bit so he can groove on the cannons :-)

From:         Dave <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Acid Jazz

> was labeled Acid Jazz, and had a lot of artists I'd never heard of

Has nothing to do with jazz, and not much to do with acid. It's a
new flavor of techno/house dance music.

From:         Another message from Rosemary! <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Re: Vinyl vs Tape vs. CD vs...

> one of the major reasons that
> corrupt-disks have become so popular is because the "record" manufacturers (wh
> do we still call them that?  cdn-made vinyl records went to dodo-land) earn a
> higher profit on those rainbow doo-hickeys than on chromium dioxide or those
> nice black things i blow my paycheques on.  (to me those long boxes are pretty
> stoooopid)

This is almost too easy. The clouds of smoke emitted by the majors on this
issue claim that the reason they need to hike prices are because of steep
royalty payments owed the artists-- and your hyperbarically oxygenated hero
and his billion dollar contract with Sony are prime culprits in this matter.

From:         [e-mail]
Subject:      _Blow Up_

> _Blow Up_ is also the name of a newly issued double CD by Television.
> The label is ROIR.  I think this might be the pre-Marquee Moon demo
> tapes produced by Eno along with some additional life material:
> a fourteen minute version of "Little Johnny Jewel" and others.  The
> second CD is 40 minutes long and has only four song titles listed.

That's _The Blow Up_. I don't know what ROIR added to it, but the original
cassette release was bootleg live material-- real good stuff, if you don't
have too many problems with Verlaine's singing :-)

From:         Sonia Kovitz <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Deranged

> Have to pass this comment of my husband's along.  I was playing my Metallica
> (EARLY Metallica) comp last night and he said, "You know, if I didn't know wha
> that was I'd say it was deranged foreign polka music."
>
> Oh the irrepressible images that came into my head once he said that...
>
> Sturdy maidens in long braids and leather jackets gallumphing up and down the
> polka hall.

Well, don't just stand there, SHOOT THE VIDEO! :-)

Sonia, it is now time for you to take the bull by the horns, and mess around
on your guitar without benefit of further instruction. Do something wildly
unlikely, and then figure out what else you'd have to do do make it musical.
Break all the rules, and then make a way cool mosaic out of the pieces. Make
it a goal that you should be able to show your teacher something absolutely
stunning by the next time you see him. Listen to the Sonny Sharrock records,
not so you can figure out what he did, but so you can figure out why.