Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Date:         Mon, 28 Sep 1992 13:08:30 EDT
From:         "Michael H. Bloom" <MHB@MITVMA.BITNET>
Subject:      Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

From:         "OUT,
              OUT - YOU'LL NOT FEEL THE FALL-OUT..." <OLIVOTTO@ITNCISCA.BITNET>
Subject:      Still my ignorance shows its face...

>      Re the last Gabriel's album, the song "Steam" contains a sentence like:
>
> "You know your ladder from your snake"
>
>      I know that there is a game called "Snakes and Ladder" and is quite
> popular amnog English kids, but I don't know anything about its rules. Can
> anyone explain what this sentence means?

It's a board game with a hundred or so squares, where you try to advance to the
hundredth square, moving your piece the number of squares indicated by a throw
of the dice. Some of the squares have ladders connecting them, and if you land
on a square with the bottom end of such a ladder on it, you get to climb up to
the square where the top of the ladder is. There are also those pesky snakes,
which are the same deal in reverse: if you land on a square at the top end of
a snake, you have to slide down to the lower square that has the other end of
the snake. In the United States of America it's called "Chutes and Ladders,"
which makes things more obvious to our metaphorically-challenged populace :-)

From:         "(Jeff Beer)" <ujwb@UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU>
Subject:      Re: HaShana Tova

> BTW MBloom, have you heard Xenakis' Plelades?  It is a percussion
> piece.

I don't think I know this one. Is that the correct spelling? When I first read
your post, in my haste I thought it said "Pleiades," after the star cluster in
Taurus-- which would be a pretty cool thing to call a composition anyway. They
don't call this stuff space music for nothing.

From:         Maid in Bedlam <watson@HG.ULETH.CA>
Subject:      mondo bizarro

> Here's the info from the folk list:
>
> Title:		BOB DYLAN Acoustic/Good As I Been To You
>
> Songs:		frankie and johnny
> 		jim jones
> 		black jack davy
> 		canadee-i-o
> 		little maggie
> 		sittin on top of the world
> 		hard times
> 		step it up and go
> 		arthur mcbride
> 		tomorrow night
> 		you're gonna quit me
> 		diamond joe
> 		forggie went a courtin

A lot of these titles are preexisting songs known to the folk scene Dylan was
once part of. "Frankie and Johnny" and "Sittin' On Top of the World" are old
blues, "Hard Times" is either a Stephen Foster song (Syd Straw does a lovely
version) or a real cute ditty about the assassination of President McKinley
(check out the Boiled in Lead version on _Orb_). "Arthur McBride" is a great
Irish anti-draft number, sung (with completely different tunes) by Planxty,
Paul Brady, and Martin Carthy (I wonder which melody Dylan chose? He ripped
off Carthy quite extensively in the '60s). "Black Jack Davy" is sung all over
England and America. The rest of these are Grateful Dead songs :-)

> Notes:	All thirteen tracks were recorded live in 'one take'...no overdubs,
> no tricks.

I thought he always recorded in real time, no overdubs, although he relaxes the
"one take" rule sometimes. A video is just what he needs, kinda like the pope
doing an extended dance mix...

From:         Debbie Scheibal <DPDS@SIUEMUS.BITNET>
Subject:      Halloween Music

> I'll soon be doing my usual DJ routine at an annual Halloween
> Party.  I thought this year I'd try to go with a Halloween-ish
> theme.  I'd like to know if anyone could help out with some
> suggestions.  So far I'm thinking:   Hotel California, Bat Out of Hell,
> Werewolves of London,  Runnin With the Devil & Witchy Woman.

The Dead Kennedys, "Hallowe'en."

Lots of Zappa, starting with "Zomby Woof."

Anything by John Zorn's Naked City.

Anything by Univers Zero, especially "Jack the Ripper."

And plenty of Hawkwind, of course.

On Fri, 25 Sep 1992 12:20:00 CDT Just say no to F*m*ly V*l**s said:

>   There's a band that plays locally called Blind Willie's Johnson.  Probably
> my alltime favorite band name there.  Since you're a blues band, you might
> want to do some takeoff on a bluesman's name.  You know ... Blind Lemon
> Pledge or something ...

There used to be a shitty white blues band in these parts that called itself
"Blind Lemon Pledge and the Seeing Eye Dogs." Mr. Pledge, a/k/a A.J. Wachtel,
had something in common with Led Zeppelin: he claimed to have written all his
tunes. Otherwise, his main talent was for cadging drinks from the patrons. It
was a matter of pride with this band that they never rehearsed. I was playing
at that time with a guitarist who moonlighted as a Seeing Eye Dog, and also
booked a lot of their shows, and we found ourselves on a lot of double bills
with these clowns for this guitarist's convenience, and I grew to despise them.
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