From: speterse%peruvian.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (soren--Ms. Jackson if you're nasty)
Subject: Re: Kronto Review: fIREHOUSE - "Flying The Flannel"
Date: 7 Apr 92 00:09:19 MDT
Organization: The Erland Cult

In article <23606@scorn.sco.COM> leo@ph.tn.tudelft.nl writes:

>fIREHOUSE - "Flying The Flannel" (1991)
 fIREHOSE <--

>Produced by: Paul Q. Kolderie and fIREHOUSE
                               --> fIREHOSE <--

>For some reason or the other I could have *sworn* that fIREHOUSE was 
>a west coast party rock band in the Bon Jovi tradition. 

There are two different bands.  The band you just reviewed is fIREHOSE.
fIREHOSE have four albums out, the most recent on Sony, the first three
on the at-one-time-incredibly-hip U.S. independent label SST Records.

Firehouse (who, so far as I am aware, use capital letters as God intended), 
I am not familiar with, but everything I've heard about them would indeed 
suggest that they are a "party rock band in the Bon Jovi tradition."

Anyway, these are two completely different bands, with a one-letter
difference in the name.


>Now I feel a bit foolish admitting this, but the simple fact is that 
>I am completely lacking in musical knowledge that will allow me to 
>place this music in a specific context. 

>Let me try anyway :-)

[Excellent good job of reviewing what one doesn't know deleted]


>I want to end with a completely irrelevant and personal complaint 
>against Mike Watt, the bass player for fIREHOUSE. After I had 
>started listening to this CD, somebody posted an interview with him 
>on alt.music.alternative. It turns out that fIREHOUSE used to be on 
>an independent label (surprise surprise), but for this last album 
>they made the change to a major label (SONY/Columbia). In the 
>interview, Mike Watt had great fun barfing all over his more 
>mainstream colleagues on that label: "I despise all my label mates" 
>and more words to that effect. I *hate* it when artists do this. 

I wouldn't take it too seriously.  This sort of postering is very much 
part of what's expected of someone in Watt's position, partly because
alternative musicians are supposed to have that attitude, partly because 
it takes a certain amount of mental adjustment to being part of a
musical establishment to which one has been opposed for ones entire
professional life.  


>It 
>is so extremely childish, and my experience is that for every artist 
>who looks down on a fellow artist, there is somebody else who looks 
>down on *him*. 

I suspect he's very used to music industry types telling him he has 
"no commercial potential" and dismissing him completely on that 
account.  When he started out, I have no doubt that he fully expected 
to be looked down upon by damn near everyone.  

Watt is not a newbie.  He's been an alternative rock musician for
nearly fifteen years.  It's only very recently that any major label
would even *consider* signing him on terms he would be willing to
except.  

A lot of the "alternative" rhetoric *is* kind of silly.  However, from 
Watt's point of view, he has a lot of legitimate reasons to be distrustful 
of the major labels (there are too many stories of good "alternative" bands 
who sign to major labels, and proceed to get screwed over artistically,
financially and personally), and I will certainly grant him his ambivalence.


>Sorta like the situation with the artists' fans on 
>Usenet. I suppose if Mike Watt had net access, he would not want to 
>read Michael Bolton articles, and he would consider himself to be 
>possessed of "higher than average musical intelligence". Leo says: 
>"Feh".

I think he has more intelligence (REAL intelligence, not "musical"
intelligence) than that.  I've talked to him myself, and while he 
has very strong opinions about music, he also struck me as the kind
of sensible, polite, and generally okay person who would know when
it was appropriate to express them.

We elitist music snobs aren't all PSU freshmen after all. 

--
    "Tell  me, who *hasn't* felt close to the edge and down by the river" 
soren f petersen           :   	    i AM NOT	      :        --Andy Whitman
speterse@peruvian.utah.edu :  THE university OF utah  :
"How could I dance with another/When I saw him standing there"   --Tiffany
Newsgroups: rec.music.misc