Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Date:         Tue, 29 Dec 1992 10:28:03 EST
From:         "Michael H. Bloom" <MHB@MITVMA.BITNET>
Subject:      Our egg nog contains no naugahyde

From:         Thumper <watson@HG.ULETH.CA>
Subject:      santa cums through

> Ok... now it's hooked up, but there's one small problem:  I don't own a
> single CD as yet.  I'm about to correct that problem and want to know from
> you guys the following:  What CD should have the dubious honor of deflowering
> my CD player and why?  I don't want it to be something you already know I
> own on cassette either...  :)

Okay, just so I can say something other than "Fred Frith"--

One of the immediately likeable features of CD's if you're used to turntables
is that you can get continuous performances of up to 80 minutes out of them,
so you might wanna go with something that should be listened to altogether.
I've resisted re-purchasing a lot of the same recordings over again in the new
medium, but I was delighted with Steve Reich's _Music for 18 Musicians_ on CD,
without having to get up and turn the record over in the middle-- and put up
with the fadeout. Similarly, the "Dark Star" to "Saint Stephen" transition on
the CD of _Live Dead_ is way cool. You might go for something comparatively
freewheeling like Phish's _Junta_ (no, I don't have it yet myself). You can
tickle the hockey player's ear with the new CD of the Allman Brothers Fillmore
East concerts, which has all sorts of extra material (don't have this either).

Or get some really intense world music, like the Nonesuch series of gamelan
recordings from Java-- you can trance out splendidly on this stuff, plus you
get to hear those nippled bonang gongs :-) in their proper milieu.

Or something that's just not available in any other medium... _Thursday
Afternoon_ by Brian Eno?

Nah, I can't resist it. Run out and get Fred Frith's _Gravity_.

From:         WK7@CORNELLC.BITNET
Subject:      The Return of Jim Dandy...ugh

> Just when I thought it was safe to start 1993, came the diturbing news
> that the one and only(thank god) Jim Dandy and Black Oak Arkansas are
> being resurrected and are visiting Ithaca in a couple weeks. Gack !

Well, that's truly wretched news. I saw them in the middle of a triple bill,
between Spooky Tooth (I think the last tour with Mike Harrison, just before
Gary Wright split and went solo) and King Crimson (the first American tour of
the Wetton/Bruford version-- first time I'd seen them). Boy, were they out of
place-- not to mention godawful grotesque. The guy I went to the show with
said he'd heard them described as "six guys with guitars, each guy knows one
chord, and they try to coordinate a whole song." But he did admit later that
he thought the rhythm guitarist with the huge handlebar mustache and the fur
boots had cool stage presence.

Crimson was spectacular, of course. Fripp spoke to the audience, noting that
he had played on that very same stage a year ago on a double bill with Yes
(I came down with the flu that day or I'd'a been there) and that that was
where he met Mr. Bart Britford, as he was wont to call Bruford. He also said,
"I have a suggestion from this gentleman over here that we should play louder.
Instead, perhaps you could listen a bit more intently."

From:         MEDIA MAVEN S_SWANK <S_SWANK@TWU.BITNET>
Subject:      re: CD's in wrong package

> I remember a story from a few years back, when the soundtrack to the
> movie "Sid and Nancy" came out.  It was on the same label as a
> Lawrence Welk polka compilation CD, and somehow they shipped out several
> thousand Sid and Nancy CDs in the Lawrence Welk covers and vice versa.
> So the polka fans were getting the Clash and what have you, and the
> Sid worshippers were getting " ah one-a and a two-a anda one-two-three..."
> One of Welk's publicists commented that the LW fans were probably quite
> shocked...but not as shocked as the Sid Vicious fans probably were.

Note that the Ramones are provably more intelligent than Lawrence Welk: they
can count to *four* :-)

From:         El chahuistli <U33963@UICVM.BITNET>
Subject:      December drivel

> Anyone have the scoop on The Space Negros' _The Space Negros Do Generic Ethnic
> Muzak [tm] Versions of all Your Favorite Punk/Psychedelic Songs from the
> Sixties_ ?  Bloom, as you probably know, this is a Cambridge band.  Is this
> any good? The title itself is quite intriguing.  It's on the Arf Arf label.

Yeah, it's kinda fun. The Space Negros is basically Erik Lindgren (Birdsongs
of the Mesozoic) at his most sarcastic. This disc is ten year old recordings,
and groups like 3 Mustaphas 3, Boiled in Lead, Hypnotic Clambake et al. have
upped the ante for ethnic music performance, so just strumming a dulcimer like
Lindgren sometimes does isn't gonna cut it. But hearing "My White Bicycle" with
ersatz belly dance rhythms is a hoot, very definitely.

There's a real good story about where this material comes from and where it
ended up. Lindgren's day gig is providing jingles and production music and
other recording services for a variety of clients, and he had a commission
to do soundtrack music for an architecture firm that had the interesting
notion of presenting its ideas as videotapes rather than drawings. This firm
bid on a lot of large scale urban development projects in third world nations,
which meant among other things that the client whose approval they wanted was
very often the strong man himself. Lindgren would be told what country it was,
and he'd concoct some vaguely appropriate music-- but, rather than write new
melodies all the time, he quickly hit on the idea of borrowing the themes from
his favorite old '60s tunes, to see how "A Question of Temperature" would look
in a djellaba and turban. He says at one showing, the potentate specifically
complimented the music and requested that the composer be told-- and after all
these years he can't be sure, but he believes the client who said this was
Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator, and the song was "We Will Fall" by the
Stooges!

> And what about Hal Russell's _Hal's Bells_ (ECM)? It's described as a "nod to
> Albert Eyler by the late multi-instrumentalist."  I know there was a lot of
> talk about Eyler a bit back.  Surely, this might interest Sonia.

I believe there was an early but extremely idiosyncratic Ayler recording with
the title _Bells_. BTW, it's Ayler with an A.

> Renato (Who starts teaching in exactly two weeks) Barahona

Good luck! I'll post my review before then, I promise :-)

From:         gmgettie@THAMA1.APGEA.ARMY.MIL
Subject:      Santa, are you listening?

> OK, Santa, I hope you're listening. Here's what I want for Christmas.
>
> The new Dream Theatre,

Aw, it's not that good.

> Something by Testament, Megadeth, Suicidal Tendencies, Mekong Delta, Celtic
> Frost, Napalm Death (NOT!), Praxis, Primus, Ministry, Allan Holdsworth,

Why not? Improvising guitarist Derek Bailey said Napalm Death was his favorite
thrash band. And why wasn't there any Henry Cow on your list, dude?

> 4) Me to find some music that Mr. Bloom has never heard of.

We'll just see about that!

> 6) A post about Allan Holdsworth so "n.n." stops talking about Madonna.

Okay. Since the only Xmas present I received was Ken Koester's mostly medieval
Christmas tape (which I quite liked, and I'm really not being insulting when I
say it reminds me of what I like about Philip Glass), I went out on Sunday and
gave myself a couple of presents: the Dixie Dregs' reunion CD, which is pretty
good, and _Wardenclyffe Tower_, which is really nice, a step back from the
somewhat stultifying harmonic density of _Secrets_. Steve Hunt's tune is weak,
but on the other hand, as a friend of mine pointed out, he has one of the least
enviable gigs in the world: he gets to take his solo after AH has blown away
everybody else in the room. Does drummer Gary Husband really play keyboards?
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic