Original_To:  ALLM
Original_cc:  OLIVOTTO
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Date:         Thu, 28 Jan 1993 11:14:00 N
From:         "Out,
              out - you'll not feel the fall-out..." <OLIVOTTO@ITNCISCA.BITNET>
Subject:      A skull isn't much of a castle to live in...

Hi all!

        First of all -- I deleted the message where Michael Bloom announced
he has retired from his day job. I hope you'll be around for another while,
Mike. And I may be one of the next to leave...

>Date: 27 Jan 1993 10:38:00 -0500 (EST)
>From: MCINTYRE@MSUPA.BITNET
>Subject: desert island label
>
>>Maybe the question might best be put this way: If you were stranded alone on
>>an island, and you could have the complete catalog of only one record company,
>>which one would it be and why?  :-)
>
>I would have said TNR, but to date their output is a bit small to be my
>only music source. 8-)

        This is what one should actually call "defending one's own territory",
I think :). As for the output, John: it's going to grow... somehow. I do hope.

--- --- ---

>Date: 27 Jan 1993 22:59:06 -0500 (EST)
>From: canderso@cln.etc.bc.ca
>Subject: blame it on me
>
>I'm the one who had the full mailbox.  I haven't gone through my mail since
>friday and when I checked it this morning I ran out of memory on my disk in
>the middle of transferring mail.  My disk screwed up and I couldn't get
>help until this afternoon.

        Well, it can happen. The list is a tough one to keep up with. But
since you claim to be

>MADONNA'S  ***
>BIGGEST  *****
>FAN IN  ******
>FORT NELSON  *

we all *do* hope the disk quota wasn't bursted by the mail of some obscure
Madonna discussion list :). If so, be careful -- one of these nights you may
wake up screaming :) :)...

--- --- ---

>From: Thomas Andrew Bates <780@ef.gc.maricopa.edu>
>Subject: Peter Gabriel
>Sender: Discussions on all forms of Music <ALLMUSIC@AUVM.BITNET>

>I was wondering if anybody here know when Peter Gabriel is going to tour
>in the US.
>
>(I still never hear about him touring, just him going to other countries!)

        Who knows? He was supposed to start a world tour, in all five conti-
nents, in February 1993 -- i.e. now. But lately there has been no rumour about
this.
        Since we're on the subject, I've been privately asked (more or less)
to dump some information about Peter Gabriel and his latest things. I have a
couple of second-hand news -- they come from a common friend.
        About the album. _Us_ was ready about two years ago. "Ready" means
that any reasonable individual would have had it out in reasonable time. He
kept on working and working on it, instead. The guy, who heard the tracks at
that time, simply says that the effect of overproduction is evident now, and
the songs were far better. Carol may like to know that at that time his fave
"Kiss That Frog" was meant to be a song about young love, for his daughter who
was about 16 at that point. Not exactly what it is now...
        Peter was worried by the competition that two artists might have been
able to raise against his album in 1990 -- namely Sting and Paul Simon. This
is one of the reasons, apparently, why the album was deleted.
        Gabriel is reported to have been under the shrinks for five years, and
that is since, more or less, he split with his wife (Jill). The whole period
was witnessed by the presence of actress Rosanna Arquette in his life.
        If you remember, the official reason of their separation was that she
had appeared on the cover of Playboy. Peter got a bit angry and dumped her.
What very few people know is: 1) that picture was four years old; 2) it had
been taken when the couple wasn't together. Not nice, Peter -- what about hit-
ting the photographer with a bottle, if you were nervous? :)
        The real reason of their separation is a bit more complicated and sad.
Basically it had to do with a sense of guilt on Gabriel's side, which found its
way out through the splitting of the couple. Sorry, I won't reveal the reason
of that guilt -- that's a it private and would only rise the gossip level to
incredible noise. He's reported to have interrupted contacts with a huge number
of former friends, anyway, for similar reasons.
        An interesting insight on Gabriel's mind state was given by Peter Ham-
mill, who guests on "Digging In The Dirt". When we met in July 1992 I asked
him whether the rumour that he had attended a recording session at Real World
Studios was true. He said it was, so I tried to dig a bit further. What I knew
was astonishing to say the least. Hammill told me more or less: "I am sorry,
but I can't tell you anything about the song, since I was only played the 30
seconds I'm supposed to dub, I wasn't told the title and all I remember is
that my words were 'digging in the dirt -- to find the places we got hurt'.
And I don't know if my part is going to be there, either."
        That an artist doesn't play the existing version of the song to a
guest singer is weird to say the least. Draw your conclusions.
        My final feelings on _Us_ is that it is a good album; but instead of
opening up new ways as _Security_ did, it seems to recoil. I don't know, but
it has much of the middle-age crisis inside. It's "dark and sticky", as one
of the songs says. I guess the next one might be more revealing on the real
attitudes of the man, and if the standard schedule is followed we may expect
it for... 1998? ;)
        This is all that I know about the subject.

--- --- ---

>Date: 27 Jan 1993 23:01:01 -0500 (EST)
>From: Mike <MASUDA@SJSUVM1.BITNET>
>Subject: RE: The Prisoner (Herbie Hancock)
>
>NEVER NEVER keep your CDs in the hard plastic rectangle it comes in
>before you depart to your desert island.  You will be combing the
>island shores forever looking for something to scrape the damn things
>open... Gads I hate those plastic rectangles--they smell bad and
>they are impossible to open without a sharp tool.  If you use
>scissors to open them up, you run the risk of cutting into the
>section that contains the album notes.  They heat seal them
>so they are almost bullet proof.  I can imagine some poor sod
>dying from apoplexy from trying to get these damn things ripped open.

        Right, right, right. I got my first adventure with the damned
thing a few weeks ago when I came to America. In Italy we are apparently
simpler in this field :), and all one buys is the CD in the jewel box.
Most of USA records either have the cardboard box or the transparent
horror (though I read they'll be discarded soon). It took me exactly 30
minutes to open one without scissors!!! It was horrible!! You know, I'd
dragged my home with me but one always forget something, so I had no cut-
ting tools. Tearing, ripping -- didn't work. Nails, teeth -- neither it
worked. In the end I managed to open it somehow, and what's worst is that
the damned disc was crappy to say the least. Oh well.

>Anyone have horror stories of the CD packaging kind?

        Except for this one, no -- I've had enough that time. But I have horror
stories of the CD *stocking* kind. woj, what about you? :)

--- --- ---

>Date: 27 Jan 1993 23:05:46 -0500 (EST)
>From: Sonia Kovitz <skovitz@MAGNUS.ACS.OHIO-STATE.EDU>
>Subject: Tripping Out in Masuda-Land

>I feel strange, because I rarely let others listen to my music;  I'm
>  musically speaking a very shy person.  I thought that maybe if I let
>  Sonia and a handful of others hear a sampling of it, it would boost
>  my spirits.  Just hearing the positive feedback from Sonia has made me
>  very happy and made me want to carry on with other ideas with more
>  drive.

        Well, can't understand why, but this must be Mike Masuda, not
Sonia... and the address says Sonia. Nevermind.
        I admit to be utterly guilty: Mike gave me a tape when we met in
SF, and it's still on my desk. I'm ashamed, but my time's been very short
lately, and I've run into several problems that needed to be solved, so
you'll have to wait a bit for my review.
        I don't expect anything standard, though...

>Actually this tune was thumbed down by my previous band, because
>of its utter vulgarity.  Of course, people do get laid in San Jose, but
>it never seems to happen for me lately.  Bummer...

        Carol -- are you still planning to go to SF for the celtic music
festival? Sounds like Mike may need some help :)...

>BTW DO people put out CDs recorded on cassette four tracks?  That would
>be a challenge, wouldn't it?  You can't possibly get a "pro audio" sound,
>but to get it as close as possible would be rewarding in itself--instead
>of relying on top-notch equipment.  Hmmm...  ;)

        I had a longish on-line exchange of opinions on this subject with
the Buck-Naked one yesterday, yup, uncle Tom :).
        He said he loved "The Chessboard" recorded on 8-track and copied to
cassette more than he does the new version, recorded on 24-track and put
onto CD. I can believe him, to a certain extent, because paradoxically
sometimes when you have a poorer equipment things sound better. The average
4-track recorder is a compressor in itself. It compresses everything like
a bitch, and in the end, if you ping-pong the tracks and dub them a few
times the results sound just decent *because* of the lack of dynamics. When
your tracks are 24 and the tape runs at 15 or 30 ips, so you can afford to
put 90dB of dynamics on it, thanks to dbx, the whole thing starts to drive
you crazy because levels can change so much and so swiftly.
        Anyway -- as for CDs, somebody did. _Nebraska_ by Springsteen was
recorded on a glorious Tascam 4-track cassette at home. I believe that even
the famous campfire tapes by Michelle Shocked ended on CD in the end. And
those were *2* tracks!

>Heck, the Beatles did it with less.  Modern music is spoiled rotten.
>We have it too easy.

        Oh yes. It's almost impossible to convince a modern mixer to
*really* get into overload. The red light flashes, the circuit says
"hold on a second, there's something wrong" -- and limits the signal.
You simply can't record a guitar like that in "Ob-la-di ob-la-da"
anymore -- because *that* guitar would drive everything on red. Try
doing that with an SSL console, and good luck...

>Also, does anyone know what's going on lately with Yusuf Islam (aka
>Cat Stevens)?  Did you know that Peter Gabriel played flute on

        Last time I heard of him he was still in some monastery. I
guess the chances for him to get back in the arena of music are slim...

--- --- ---

>Date: 27 Jan 1993 23:40:39 -0500 (EST)
>From: Tim Johnson <ST402711@BROWNVM.BITNET>
>Subject: RE: The Stark Fist of Removal
>
>>You start thinking of words as having concrete, Platonic
>>existence of their own.  Wrong.  The right answer is that words represent
>>linguistic agreements between speakers of the language.
>>So, if the majority of people we know and talk to have already agreed
>>that "alternative" includes the Cure, etc. and that "progressive" doesn't,
>>for us to use the words in any other way would be the same thing as
>>saying that we don't want to communicate with everyone else.
>>To hell with "essential nature"s and applicability of the word to the
>>thing.  There are no decision makers in the linguistic community, and
>>I don't think you've got a snowball's chance in hell of convincing
>>everyone that they're using "alternative" wrong.  If you want to start
>>your own linguistic mini-community where the Cure's kind of music is
>>called "death metal", or whatever, count me out.

        The point is that categories in themselves are wrong. I wouldn't
mix two very different worlds and requirements -- that is the commercial
one and the artistical one. Record labels need labels (sorry for the pun)
to commercialise their products. Art doesn't need any label, *per se*.
        I've resigned myself to hear my music called "progressive". It
is wrong, and most of all it is false. My influences are different and
change in time. I have very little in common with what the majority of
the people call "progressive". Some of the songs on our album wink to
heavy metal, others have folk music influences, one is jazzy. What all
this has to do with progressive escapes me. It is alternative, but only
in the sense that it's surely out of the mainstream and was made at home,
in practice. But no Sub-Pop influences, I think...
        So -- the only label I accept (reluctantly) is that, extremely
vague, of Album-Oriented Rock, meaning that the record should be swallowed
as a whole, not as a collection of single songs.
        My attempt is to make my music sound like music, and that's that.
Also, I find it perfectly natural to put together some different songs
belonging to different musical cultures, because when I do it simply means
I'm in love with all these different kinds of music. Labels are unnecessary
in my opinion, and they are the real reason why the market is so confused.
And confusing.

>  See, when record execs looking to make a buck label
>their corporate music "alternative" they are abusing
>the language.  It is *not* correct to say that words
>can be defined and redefined at will.  While they are
>certainly fundamentally arbitrary, the word "alternative"
>carries a lot of connotative weight, which the men in
>suits are trying to capitalize on.

        Yup, agreed. And when they capitalise on it, what's alternative in
the end?

>rape in this way.  Ask yourself, for a second, *why* they
>want such a broad definition of rape....  They want such
>a broad definition of rape in order to pull a fast one.

        I think this example is perfect. It's the problem of statistics,
too: you can always read them in two ways at least. We have big truths,
small truths, small lies, big lies, statistics, and definitions (in obvious
order :) ). Remember John McIntyre when he found Van der Graaf Generator's
CDs filed under the New Age section? As much as rape is a kiss.

        Well, phew, what a way to start the morning... :)

        Ciao, Marco