Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Date:         Mon, 28 Dec 1992 10:28:06 EST
From:         "Michael H. Bloom" <MHB@MITVMA.BITNET>
Subject:      Post-egg nog depression

From:         David Elliott <dce@SMSC.SONY.COM>
Subject:      Re: CD Contains wrong music...

> My favorite CD "bug" is on one of the Front 242 CDs (I think it's
> "Tyranny, For You").  The last track's time is too long, so you end
> up with 11 minutes of silence after the music ends.  Best of all,
> it's a Sony(tm, probably).

The one that bit me was the first CD pressing of Zappa's _Sheik Yerbouti_,
where the track time was too *short* and just when the guitar solo starts
to get cranking it vanishes into dead air. I tried scanning past it, but
the overall time indicator seemed to rule. They re-mastered it correctly.

I used to do college radio DJ'ing, and it used to annoy me heavily when the
track listing didn't match the CD indexing-- you'd punch up the wrong song
and blow your whole effect. I guess it serves me right for not cueing.

There's room for another bunch of information in the CD's internal catalog,
a "sub-index" number. I've only run into three CDs that use it, including
_The Faust Tapes_, which is one continuous track, but the sub-index numbers
tell you where you are even though you can't skip right to the hot parts.

From:         The Chrome-Plated Megaphone of Destiny
              <alevin@TOPCAT.BSC.MASS.EDU>
Subject:      RE: Merry Sumpthin-a-rather

> Hey, who was that overweight guy with the red tights? Damn! That was Jerry
> Garcia!

Is that why the fall tour got scrubbed?

From:         Mike <MASUDA@SJSUVM1.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Is this a foreign language or what?

> btw, what is your opinion on the middle albums by Crimson?
> Lizard
> Starless
> Poseidon
> etc.

I love _Lizard_ myself. I think it's a work of great delicacy, unmatched in
the Crimso catalog. (_Islands_ is too wussy.) It gets bad press because (1)
Jon Anderson, gerbil-voiced singer of Yes, does a vocal number (this is why
my wife hates it) (2) the instrumental section after Anderson's vocal may be
the longest continuous stretch of improvising in the Crimson catalog, which
doesn't sit well with any but the most devoted fans; and (3) Fripp hates it,
for reasons that probably have less to do with musical quality than with the
circumstances surrounding its recording and the personalities involved. Once
I got to interview him, and I asked him about _Lizard_, and he wouldn't talk
about it at all-- but he did tell me how good _Islands_ was. Thanks, Robert.
I do like it-- I like all Crimson albums, even the dance mixes on _Three of
a Perfect Pair_. One of the things I did for my distinctly low-key Christmas
was watch the Live in Japan video, with Belew in his sash.

But I don't consider _Poseidon_ "middle period"-- or _Lizard_ either. To me,
the middle period is the Wetton/Bruford band, which also happens to be the
most monumentally brilliant rock band I ever saw perform. Despite Fripp's
gratuitous nastiness to me in the liner notes, I'm really happy with _The
Great Deceiver_, and I would not hesitate to recommend it to any Crimson
devotee.

From:         Mick Jeffries <MICK.JEFFRIES@UKWANG.UKY.EDU>
Subject:      re: Is this a foreign lan

> I asked Adrian Belew about both of those things after a Bears show here in
>  Lexington Ky once:  Thela Hun Ginjeet is "Heat in the Jungle", a popular
>  Belewism, also made reference to on solo material.

Oh yeah? What song(s)? Incidental lyrics in his endangered-species series?

> Matte Kudasai is japanese for "please wait".  Ain't that sweet?  Incidentally,
>  he was fab on the last solo tour (Inner Revolution, I guess).  Anybody catch
>  it?

Aw, I saw it and thought it was kinda lame: too many goddam bouncy songs in
A major, so it got to where "I'd Rather Be Right Here" sounded exactly like
"Pretty Pink Rose." Also he tied his hair back and wore this officious gray
business suit, so he looked like Lee Atwater jiving for George Bush. I'd also
gotten to see his soundcheck, where he wore a sweater and let his hair out
and played "The War in the Gulf Between Us," and that was much better.

> Mick Jeffries (All I want for xmas is a new King Crimson ensemble)

I want more. I want Fripp and Bruford to kiss and make up.

From:         Mike <MASUDA@SJSUVM1.BITNET>
To:           Michael Bloom <MHB@MITVMA.BITNET>

> Well, I went out and bought some CDs
> before the big Trap Day (Xmas is a trap),

I regard Xmas primarily as a day off.

Once I noticed that all the holidays in the USA are clustered at the hind
end of the calendar. It's pretty bare from winter to summer-- President's
Day, Patriot's Day in some jurisdictions, Memorial Day, and Independence
Day, and that's it until Labor Day. (My wife works for a European company,
so she doesn't get any of the war days, but she gets Good Friday off.) But
in the fall, you've got Columbus Day, Veteran's Day, Hallowe'en-- which is
not a day off but which is accorded more attention than most real holidays,
and the same applies to election day in election years-- then Thanksgiving
and the massive commercial hoopla culminating in Xmas, with New Year's Day
and Martin Luther King's birthday to wind down.

I decided this was semi-deliberate. I think humans aren't quite so highly
evolved as we like to think, and that there's a primitive component in our
brainstem that says, Hmm, days are getting shorter, weather's getting colder,
time to hibernate now! And society has discovered that we need these holidays
as distractions to keep us from snoozing out in December. Anyway, that's my
theory, so you can all run out now and try to sell it to the National Enquirer
(MIT researchers declare!).

> 1.  Moby Grape.  This debut album is quite impressive; it's got a touch of
>   the Dead sound without all the hoopla.  It's good music to prepare
>   breakfast.  Slightly Deadhead danceable, it has a certain charm to it.

They had their share of hoopla in their day-- Columbia released *five* of the
songs on it as singles, all on the same day. The only ones I can remember on
the radio (and not much of it) were "Hey Grandma" and "Omaha," which latter
got covered by the Golden Palominos 20 years later-- good song.

> 3.  Acid Jazz I.  Plain and simple, a house beat with scant bits of solo
>   improvisation.  I expected more than that.  It would have been cool to
>   hear the "Kind of Blue" style of soloing in there a bit more, but I
>   guess the emphasis is more on beat and dancing than on jazz.

More industry abuse of language. I'm getting to feel there should be some
sort of truth-in-labelling act applied to music-- that for something to be
called "alternative," it should sound provably unlike anything else :-)

> 4.  Prince o+>.  I gotta admit, after _Lovesexy_ came out, I lost interest
>   in the man.  Just for the hell of it, I took a chance on this one, and
>   I think it's a pretty good effort.  The funk is there, the badness is there,
>   but melody is lacking.

Generic problem with rap, don'cha think? I saw this preposterous "concert
special" the Paisley Park marketing team came up with-- tremendous amounts
of cleavage, with little bits of accompanying music-- and of the four songs
Prince deigned to do, two of them were rap numbers. One was a ballad in his
half-an-octave-higher-than-Smokey falsetto, which my wife wanted to skip.

I do want to thank you for giving me a way to talk about that album in ASCII.

From:         Tim Johnson <ST402711@BROWNVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Art, Language, and the comp tape

>  The solution to the comp tape problem.
>
>  The ALLMUSIC Boxed Set.
>
>  (Gotta move with the times, guys)

Well, yeah, but the box also has to be big enough to accommodate the Sonia
bondage pinup, Libby's bodhran, Drummer's haircut, a six pack of Ruxpinbrau,
my 872-page collected memoirs, Andy Partridge in a pear tree, etc.

From:         Russ Gelinas <R_GELINAS@UNHH.UNH.EDU>
Subject:      piss X

>   For some unknown reason, I've always thought "Piss Christ" was a
> pun on the French "piece Christ", meaning a figurine of Christ, a small
> statue.  I'll admit my French is horrendous; am I totally wrong here?
> Was the artist French?  Could his statement have been about the degrading
> of Christ by the selling of obnoxious little figurines?

Yow, what a delightful pun! Now I like the work even better!

>   OMC:  A recent Guitar Player asked their writers/editors to list great
> guitar albums/bands, for possible xmas gifts or something.  A few Allmusic
> notables were Sharrock's _Ask The Ages_, Flecktones _UFOTOFU_, Praxis, Bill
> Frisell _Where In The World_.  Some others I can't remember.  Heh, they're
> almost as hip as us.  Almost....

Did they mention my hero Fred Frith? Gary, I told you last week to go out
and buy the first Henry Cow album, but what I should have told you was to
go out and buy Fred Frith's _Gravity_, that's really the place to start
in the Cow literature. I hope this information doesn't arrive too late.

For all you Buckethead fans, I found another appearance by him, on Henry
Kaiser's _Hope You Like Our New Direction_-- they do a duo number, killer
guitar solos over a Synclavier backing, called "Teen Age Hellcats."
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