Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Date:         Mon, 23 Nov 1992 12:49:04 EST
From:         "Michael H. Bloom" <MHB@MITVMA.BITNET>
Subject:      OMC? We don't need no stinkin' OMC!

Here's some music I picked up this weekend:

Cop Shoot Cop, _Consumer Revolt_: a clanky, creaky, Frankenstein's monster
assemblage of post-punk spare parts. This is to Gang of Four what Zeppelin
was to Willie Dixon, noisy and immediate, with a full-bore adrenalin rush
bearing down on you like a 40 foot semi on the freeway. Specifically, Cop
Shoot Cop has two bass players who sing, a percussionist whose kit contains
pieces of literal junk he finds in the streets, and a guy with a keyboard
sampler. They oscillate between political passion and weltschmerz at warp 8.

Charles Hayward, _Survive the Gesture_: this is the aged, terminally cynical
counterpart to the above. The former drummer/songwriter of Quiet Sun, This
Heat, Camberwell Now, and probably a couple others I've forgotten, writes
some of the most morose music in captivity, full of lines like "Let's pretend
our lives have meaning." The drumming is much more exuberant and propulsive
than the lyrics would have you believe, and Hayward also plays keyboards and
various additional drones.

Buddy Sarkissian (sp?), _Kef Time Las Vegas_. Found this in the same used
record store as the Hayward, in a big box marked "Free-- water damaged!" I
took it home, let it dry off, gave it a new plastic sleeve, and it sounds
fine. It's gotta be 25 years old, a vanity label recording of a Las Vegas
belly-dance band of expatriate Armenians, and it's swell! Buddy is the band-
leader and the dumbeg player, and the other instruments are oud (fretless
Arabic lute), kanoon (plucked zither), guitar (real nice looking big-body
Gibson), clarinet, and the Arabic tambourine and/or finger cymbals. A few
tunes are in those odd eastern European dance meters like 9/8 and 10/8,
but the bulk of it is in straight time so the tourists will know it's
supposed to be dance music. Nevertheless, it's good stuff. Apparently
"kef" translates as "good time," so the album title might be translated
"Party time, Las Vegas!" I initially hoped it was a misspelling of "kif"
(a Middle Eastern term for cannabis). I also fished out of the same box
something that looked like German brass band music-- which it was, but a
lame parody of it, like the Portsmouth Sinfonia doing polkas.

BTW, in the same shop I looked around for a capella stuff for Marsha, and
the closest thing I found was three barbershop quartet records-- no glee
clubs. I know I used to see old Beelzebub records around, but now the shop
I like to go to has the records at knee level, you gotta crawl around to
look at them.

And now we return you to our regularly scheduled blather, without OMC's:

From:         Tim Johnson <ST402711@BROWNVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: M-PERSON, A Cappella, Purple One, DEBBIE!

> >So, any cassette tape deck recommendations, gang?
>
>   Not that you will like.  I paid more for my tape
> deck than for my amplifier and speakers combined.

Tell me about it. I've got three consumer cassette decks, each one with some
chronic malfunction: one that runs too slow, one that won't record the right
channel, one that just ate a live Caravan tape this weekend :-( I need to
just junk them all and go whole hog, buy a Nakamichi or something robust,
something that'll last me more than a year and a half. That means I need to
lay hands on an extra $500. Anybody else want to buy the Urban Ambience
cassette, or the Judas & Natasha Experiments CD?

From:         Little Inquisitor <U33963@UICVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Malcolm x

> Second, it's commonly referred to a *crescent* or crescent moon.  In fact, as
> some of you are surely aware, the Arab world's equivalent of the Red Cross is
> known as the Red Crescent Organization.

And here's a bit of trivia: there was a town somewhere in Europe, right on the
front lines of the Moslem/Christian hostilities, which the Moslem army had a
plan to capture by means of a daring dawn raid. The plot was foiled because
the town's bakers were awake at the time, heard the army preparing to attack,
sounded the alarm, and saved the day for Christianity. As a reward, the local
suzerain gave the bakers the right to bake special rolls in the shape of the
Moslem crescent. And that's where croissants came from.

From:         crispen <crispen@EFFTOO.BOEING.COM>
Subject:      Re: Malcom x question

> An apology is due to all of you (especially Leonard and Bloomdido).
> I thought that the K of C and Phi Gam were silly enough wrt Mr. X
> that everyone would catch on that it's a prank.

No problem.

> It is, of course, DOCTOR X (in _Operation Mindcrime_), not MALCOLM X
> who was the K of C Fiji.

Hmm, now I gotta go get some Queensryche... and it's not like I don't have
enough to listen to already.

From:         Little Inquisitor <U33963@UICVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Plaster penises, Pareles and Panning Sinead

> From my favorite column in the _Reader_ ("News of the Weird"), 11/20/92:
>            "Sculptress Cynthia Plaster Caster, who creates plaster-of-paris
> models of rock stars' penises, has recently been battling music mogul Herb
> Cohen over the ownership of 25 of her gems, including a cast of Jimi
> Hendrix's penis. In May several local bands staged a benefit concert at
> [Cabaret] Metro ("Hard Aid") to help her with her legal fees."

Most curious. Why is Herb Cohen (who managed Zappa for 10 years before
Frank decided he was an insupportable crook) involved at all? Zappa does
mention the Plaster Casters in his book, but only as a disinterested
observer; i.e. Cynthia's business interests are in no way connected to
Frank's, nor was his mighty sword preserved for posterity. BTW, your list
of titles should have included the Who's last studio album, _It's Hard_.

> On Pareles: Michael, I'm amazed at you calling him perceptive.  He's a
> ponderous, pompous, pain in the posterior.  Let's just take any of his
> columns at random during the next couple months and analyze them seriously
> for content.  I only read his stuff in the NYT; perhaps he writes in other
> publications, and he's better there, but I, for one, am not impressed.

I don't see the Times very often, but when I do, I look for Pareles's stuff.
I do think he's on to something, although he does exemplify a lot of what's
obnoxious about the New York personality type :-) I also saw a really nice
piece he wrote for an airline in-flight magazine, about going to Bali to
study gamelan music. At the end, he describes how he bought a kenong gong
to take home as a souvenir, and everybody that had to deal with his baggage
was impressed and proud of him-- in Indonesia; as soon as he got back home,
our Customs functionary looked at it quizzically and said, "What is that,
a wok?" Makes a fella proud to be an American.

From:         The Chrome-Plated Megaphone of Destiny
              <ALEVIN@RCNVMS.RCN.MASS.EDU>
Subject:      Catch of the Day

> I picked up Phish's _Junta_ yesterday. This was their first album which
Elektra
> has just rereleased. The back of the box showed two discs worth of titles, so
I
> was surprised when I opened the longbox to find only one jewel box. It turns
> out that there is a new type of jewel box called a "brilliant box" which
allows
> you to store two discs inside a regular sized jewel box. Does anyone if you
can
> buy these separately as replacements? I'd like to pick up some of these to put
> some of my other 2 disc sets in.

This is a relatively new wrinkle in CD storage technology. I know of one other
recording that uses this format of box, the double live Foetus. I'd like to
get hold of some of these boxes too. Let us know if you spot any.

So of the three Phish recordings that now exist, which one is the best? I've
got a cassette of _Lawn Boy_.

From:         Thumper <watson@HG.ULETH.CA>
Subject:      phish heads, phish heads, rolly polly phish heads...

> I just got off the phone with Santa and he says that if I locate his g-spot,
> I'll get a CD player for x-mas.  Libby wants a combination walkman/chastity
> belt....

As Zappa once said, "It looks just like a Telefunken U-47."

> So what's on everyone else's musical wish lists?

Gee, do you think there are enough box sets out this Christmas? Anyone get
_Jefferson Airplane Loves You_ yet?

From:         Peter <peter@PSYCHNET.PSYCOL.UAS.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Election/Triumph

> Since California was written off by Bush weeks before the election as hope-
> less, I too voted my heart:  Ron Daniels.  Now this is a person who truly
> doesn't put megabucks huge business first.  Too bad everyone's wired only
> to megamedia, and have no clue about political platform realities.

Well, I'm wired to micromedia, and I haven't heard of Ron Daniels either, so
why don't you give me a clue? I think it's a terrific idea to vote for fringe
candidates-- if you sit out the election, pundits assume you're just apathetic
rather than concretely disgusted with the process, whereas if you vote for the
urban spaceman of your choice, they know that the candidates from the pink pad
and blue pad parties are unacceptable. It's kinda like how Detroit didn't get
its act together to build a decent car until Americans "voted" for Honda and
Toyota by buying Accords and Celicas in droves.

From:         mjferzig@MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU
Subject:      Catalog

> There's this neatocool catalog called "Music in Motion". It's like 60 pages
> of music-type gifts, books, posters, clothing, tapes, jewelry, instruments
> and paraphenalia, educational materials, home furnishings, T-shirts etc. I
> though of you all when I saw the "Kitty sings the blues" T-shirt...

Last time I was at Tanglewood I checked out their gift shop, and one item on
sale was a "note" pad, heh heh, decorated with a little staff, with a G major
triad notated thereupon. I was thinking of making myself obnoxious by asking
the clerk, "Do you have this in a tritone?"

> All the ladies swoon when the tenor sings...
> ...but the bass takes them home! - Norman Luboff

I wish it were true :-(