Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Date:         Wed, 23 Dec 1992 14:31:07 EST
From:         "Michael H. Bloom" <MHB@MITVMA.BITNET>
Subject:      Warning: contains self-promotion

Let me get the business out of the way first: I'll be playing again at the
Middle East Cafe under the name "Chenrezi" (my favorite Tibetan god-- he's
the one with the thousand arms and thousand eyes). It'll be largely improv,
me on the Indonesian tuned gongs and marimba and whatever other percussion
I feel like bringing, and bassist Craig Schildhauer, and some old analog
synthesizers for ambience. We're playing with "Nixon's Leg," an ad hoc band
of people that hang out with Inner Beauty and Debris, and "Happy New Year,"
another ad hoc improvising association (notice a pattern here?) featuring
Ron Anderson of the Molecules, Glenn Sorvisto of W.O.O., and 99 Hooker of
Fracture (from San Francisco, New York, and San Francisco respectively).
This all takes place a week from today, Wednesday, December 30, at 9PM.

From:         "Gary M. Gettier" <gmgettie@THAMA1.APGEA.ARMY.MIL>
Subject:      re: Epistemelogy 'R Us

> different types of music. There are many types of heavy metal. You got
> Progressive (Fates Warning, Queensryche), Thrash (Pantera, Metallica,
> Megadeth), Industrial (Ministry), Death (Entombed, Possessed, Napalm Death),
> Black (Venom, Celtic Frost), Pop [aka poseur glam crap] (Poison,
> Warrant, Bon Jovi, ad nauseam), and then there's Hard Rock (Trouble, Tesla,
> Great White) etc.

I can (sometimes) tell these apart, but dollars to doughnuts Marcia can't,
Leonard can't (and this isn't a criticism, I'll get to that later :-), and
I might even bet against Tim on this one. You have to know the vocabulary
of metal in general to know the differences. Whereas even a Ruxpin knows
that it's classical if'n it's got lotsa violins in it :-), and similarly,
saxophones = jazz, Marshall amps = metal, pedal steel = country & western,
accordions = polka, etc.

>   ... Have any of *you* heard of Mekong Delta? Well, you'll hear about them
> in a few weeks after I receive the CD by them I had to order specially from
> Germany.

Yeah, got a record (on a German label) titled after that Poe story, "The Music
Of... " and I can't remember the guy's name. I thought it was impressive-- as
apposed to most metalheads, they knew the virtues of judicious silences (and
if that's not a straight line for Leonard, I don't know what is :-) and had
some unusually bizarre changes and rhythms. Definitely a winner.

> I want to hear your favorite Henry Cow tune.

It's called "Amygdala" and it's on _The Henry Cow Legend_, the sock on the
white background, available wherever fine ESD product is sold-- and since
they share distribution with Rykodisc, they're available pretty widely.
Everything on that record is great (except the bonus track, which is radical
free improv and badly mixed to boot), so just buy the fucking thing already,
you won't be wasting your money.

From:         Chrome-Plated Megaphone of Destiny <alevin@TOPCAT.BSC.MASS.EDU>
Subject:      Comp Tape & new stuff

> *SHUDDER*
> I actually like some Queensryche and Fates Warning, but don't EVER call them
> Progressive. I know progressive, and they ain't it.
                         ..
I tried to not be Queensryche impaired, so I acquired a "preview copy" of
_Operation Livecrime_ on video. I didn't mind that every frame had the words
"Special Preview Copy" dropped in over the video image, but I did mind that
the sound quality was sorta like listening to a Radio Shack clock radio with
a pillow over it. However, based on the limited musical information coming
out the speaker, I'd have to agree with Adam on this one. At best, they're
munchkin progressives, not too far from Rush (who I like, but...)

From:         Leonard Watkins <ISTS024@UABDPO.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: piss metal

> I don't really care what an artist does, i object to gov't funding for stuff
> that is not art....pure and simple Mapplethorpe's work is not art a bottle of
> piss is not art......it's not art...........L.W.

Leonard, you're not catching on, are you? You simply can't make this statement
and be taken seriously, not without floating more reasoned justification than
"it's excrement." I happen to think war is icky, but does that mean I don't
think movies depicting war aren't art? Or Picasso's "Guernica"? Or the "1812
Overture"?

And besides, it's not just a jar of piss (which I'd have a hard time finding
the artistic relevance of by itself), it's a juxtaposition of two emotionally
charged objects: the stream of piss, and the crucifix. Ya gotta admit, those
images together certainly communicate *something,* real forcefully. Even you,
who profess not to find it art, are powerfully moved by it-- at least enough
to argue the point with some vehemence, thereby proving yourself wrong...

From:         "Out,
              out - you'll not feel the fall-out..." <OLIVOTTO@ITNCISCA.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: piss metal

>         The only point is that if you take this to the limit then you allow
> a government (or whoever in charge of controlling funds) to decide what is
> art and what is not. Not so easy, neither so right!

Yup. One of the first things dictators seize control of is art. Tim's told us
all the sordid tales of how Soviet thought control fucked over Prokofiev and
Shostakovich. I saw an astonishing exhibit called "Decadent Art" in Chicago,
a recreation of a show the Nazis put together when they first came to power in
Germany, whereby they basically slandered everybody they didn't like-- came up
with spurious justifications why any image that didn't make Aryans look like
big, bland, conquering heroes was verboten. Of course racially impure artists
were blacklisted, but ultimately, anything that wasn't a Hallmark card got the
axe. Anton Webern couldn't get any of his obsessively detailed Swiss watch
music performed (never mind that ten years before he'd been one of the
unquestioned talents to watch), but he said the hardest part was having to
sit in the concert halls and look respectful while they played mega-pompous
orchestral marches at a volume well above his threshold of pain.

From:         "Out,
              out - you'll not feel the fall-out..." <OLIVOTTO@ITNCISCA.BITNET>
Subject:      Is this a foreign language or what?

> Just thinking... I'm listening to the 3rd volume of the King Crimson's mon-
> ster box "Frame By Frame". There are two songs I've known for some years,
> but still the meaning of titles escapes me; they are
>
> Matte Kudasai
> Thela Hun Jingeet

Ilia's correct, "Matte Kudasai" is "Please wait" in Japanese. It's in the
lyric too, Adrian is singing to his wife from on tour. He did a few tunes
on this theme, but the marriage still didn't survive. _Inner Revolution_ is
his equivalent of _US_-- of course, not as good.

"Thela Hun Ginjeet" is an anagram for "Heat in the jungle," which refers to
the streets. They didn't have a title for this, or lyrics, or anything-- just
called it "the fast urban tune" or something like that-- so they sent Adrian
out with a tape recorder in hand to try to come up with something. So he's
mumbling stuff about urban danger into his tape recorder-- "He had a gun in
his hand," etc.-- when some street thugs accost him. They hear the tape and
think he's a narc or something, and he thinks they're gonna waste him, but
he talks his way out of trouble-- then turns the corner and bumps into a
couple of police officers, and goes through exactly the same rigamarole
with them. All of this is in the lyrics.

From:         Thumper <watson@HG.ULETH.CA>
Subject:      pure fun

> Isn't this what happened with Led Zep in the 70's?

Kinda, yeah. Except they didn't have a huge marketing campaign to redefine
the word "alternative" at the same time.

> Ummm... did I miss something?!  I hope this offer wasn't embedded in lyrics
> of "Hey Mickey"...

I had trouble believing it either, so I went back and checked. (No, I don't
own this record, I went to the Tufts radio station and played their copy.)
The relevant verse goes: "So go ahead and give it to me, any way you can /
Any way you wanna do it, I'll take you like a man," the last phrase sung in
her breathiest Mae West. How else can you interpret this? :-)

> ...  My faves:  "The Beat of Black Wings", "Coyote", "Woodstock".
> Bloomdido proof: "The Beat of Black Wings", "River", "Refuge of the Road".

"Refuge of the Road" is a terrific song, as is "Coyote," and I could see Spirit
of the West doing a kick version of it. I do notice a preponderance of tunes I
dislike-- all those giggling airhead soliloquies from _Blue_, for instance.

> Libby says, "forget it, if all yer gonna do is listen."   :)

Okay, I'll bang the bodhran too.

> I paid a visit to my dentist the other day and put on the supplied ear phones
> and was poked and drilled to Chet Baker's "Winter Wonderland"... how lovely.
> It was nice...  I suppose there would be inappropriate tunes for listening to
> while you're getting tortured by a dentist... like "RDA" by the Rheostatics
> which includes lovely samplings of high powered drills...  I mentioned this to
> my dentist and told him that I'd ask y'all for recommendations to add to his
> playlist -- what do you guys think?

John Zorn. Skinny Puppy. _Uncle Meat_.

> Lower Beverly - Razorbacks (Carol)     <--- the give head song

How come you never played this for me?

>           ...  OK?   Who's gonna be around anyhow?

I don't get vacations *sniff*