🚀 go-pugleaf

Love-Hounds Digest			Saturday, December 21, 1985, 13:56

Today's Topics:

			   Drinking is Great
			      Robert Fripp
			 Today's History Lesson
			      Suzanne Vega
		   Dead Kennedys/STD/Mighty Sphincter
		      Re:  Today's History Lesson

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Date:     Wed, 11 Dec 85 9:51:38 EST
From: Jim Hofmann <hofmann@AMSAA.ARPA>
Subject:  Drinking is Great

Not really sure if this is "appropriate to this newsgroup"
but I had this review sitting on my disk for awhile with
nothing to do with it (after I sent it to my local friendly
zine) ... tell me if you don't like this ...

Various Artist, Drinking is Great (Fatal  Erection,
1985)  This  comp  was mostly brought about through
the efforts of Portland scenesters and Tom  Pig  of
Poison  Idea  who  basically  chipped  in to form a
their own label called, ahem, Fatal Erection.  This
45  RPM  disc  just  reeks of hell-bent leather and
hardcore gospel that absolutely shreds.  The  title
comes  as  reaction  to  the Oregon liquor control
piggies who have banned all  underage  people  from
clubs  even  if  a  separate drinking area existed.
This has killed a  large  portion  of  these  bands
audience  and  until  they  can get a hall or a bar
willing to have non-alcoholic shows  (fat  chance),
it don't look too good.  Well, score up another one
for right wing piggies  at  least  for  the  moment
'cause  judging  from  the urgency of this music, I
doubt if this scene will die.

Side one starts off with Poison Idea, who  you  may
be  familiar with through that killer Pushead compi-
lation, Cleanse the Bacteria.  This  band  features
two  heavies  (and I mean that literally these guys
are BIG!) of the Portland scene,  Tom  Pig  (who  I
mentioned  before) and Jerry A. who also have their
own wrecking company (!).  I wonder if  this  means
they  practice  in  condemned  buildings.   Anyway,
based on first hand knowledge, a Poison  Idea  show
is  an  exercise  in gross and offending excesses.
In short, fun.  They throw boogers  at  each  other
and  Jerry A. has been known to spit on the ceiling
and let the slime drip back into his mouth.  Under-
neath  this  hard  shell lies guys who write lyrics
like "when you laugh at those  with  less,  where's
the  humor  at"  (Laughing  Boy),  so there must be
something here, huh?  The other song on  this  side
is by Etherteen (E-13) and is about discovering you
have  Pancreatis  disease  by   noticing   "yellow
floaters"  in  your toilet.  I feel the bile rising
just thinking about it. Anyway, you might notice
the chorus is metered at 7/4 - thereby implying t
there might be more to these guys than first imagined.

Second Side starts of with Lockjaw, hate band  from
Seattle, that enjoys popularity among the skinheads
in the area.  It's called "You Dick".  Final  Warn-
ing  ends  up  the  7" with "I quit" a protest song
protesting, gee, against just about  anything  they
could  think  of.   Since this recording, Final
Warning has quit and broke up. Either  way, you can't go wrong
with the price (2.25 through Systematic mail order)
and  it's great to hear another side of the country
that isn't L.A. or San Francisco.

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Date: Wed, 11 Dec 85 11:31:47 cst
From: Chris Jepeway <ots!chris415@rice.ARPA>
Subject: Robert Fripp



is touring???  Where? When?

jepeway


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Date: Wed, 11 Dec 85 22:48:00 est
From: Tim Wicinski <wicinski@nrl-css.ARPA>
Subject: Today's History Lesson


on this date (Dec. 11) in 1844 - Nitrous Oxide was first used for tooth 
extraction.

on this date one hundered and thirty years later (1844 + 130 = 1974), Hofmann
used Nitrous Oxide for the first time at a party.  The outcome...well
see for yourself.

you lh babbling idiot...but at least I'm not hofmann.

tim


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From: umcp-cs!aplcen!uucp@seismo.CSS.GOV
Return-Path: <umcp-cs!aplcen!uucp>
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 85 23:30:34 EST

>From ins_aset@jhunix Wed Dec 11 15:23:36 1985 remote from jhunix
Date:     Wed, 11 Dec 85 15:23:23 EST
From:     Susanne E Trowbridge <ins_aset@jhunix>
To:       love-hounds%mit-eddie.arpa@seismo.UUCP
Subject:  Suzanne Vega

VEGA SHEDS THE FOLK LABEL 
(c) Baltimore City Paper.  Reprinted without permission.

Perhaps Suzanne Vega should have run the other way the first time someone
called her a folk singer.  Granted it's not an entirely inappropriate tag -
her roots are in New York's famed Folk City club, and her self-titled
debut album earned raves for the best girl-and-her-guitar musings since
Joni Mitchell's early LPs.

Still, the folk label will probably just serve to turn off a lot of people
who might otherwise enjoy Vega's considerable talents as a songwriter and
performer.  And judging from her November 23 performance at Goucher's
Kraushaar Auditorium, Vega's out to prove that she wants to go way beyond
that narrow niche of folk.  She and her four-piece band opted firmly for
popcraft, often reducing her acoustic guitar to just part of the mix,
contrary to the sparse sound of the album.

If the fleshed-out, full-band treatment detracted a bit from the delicacy
of Vega's compositions, the capacity crowd didn't seem to mind.  They
applauded the beginnings of the songs as well as the ends, and gave her
a rousing standing ovation.  Even Vega seemed a bit bemused by the intensity
of the reception.

Of course, she could have led the crowd in a chorus of "Tom Dooley" and
still have sounded positively modern after her opening act, Roger McGuinn.
It was a little sad to see the former Byrds frontman performing feeble
acoustic versions of classics like "R
"Turn, Turn, Turn" and "Mr. Tambourine Man"; his quavering voice only
served to make the absence of the legendary Byrds harmonies that much more
noticeable.  His dazzling fretwork on "Eight Miles High" almost saved the
show, but on the whole it was embarrassing to watch, and made Vega look
even more fresh and exciting by comparison.

If she at first seemed to embody the captivating cool of her heroine, German
actress Marlene Dietrich, she gradually turned on a winsome charm, delighting
the audience with tales of her travels through Europe.

After opening with an a capella number, "Tom's Diner," Vega launched into a
set that included all 10 songs from her album.  There was the eerie, empty
soul speaking in "Cracking," lover's games of "Freeze Tag," and a punchy
version of her should-have-been-a-hit single, "Marlene on the Wall."

She also introduced several new numbers, some very good, like the gently
rocking "Luka."  Then she announced giddily that she had written a song for
an upcoming film, \fIPretty in Pink\fR, directed by teen movie meister
John Hughes of \fIBreakfast Club\fR fame.  But Vega couldn't transcend the
wretched category of Movie Soundtrack Song - "Left of Center" was the low
point of her performance, and as she sang her hand firmly covered the strings
of her guitar, as if she had to will herself not to play along, just for
this one song.

Since she has been touring both alone and with her band, it is hard to tell
where she'll go from here.  If a little more electric guitar and a tougher
beat will get her a wider audience, that's ok; her clear, pretty voice 
doesn't need to change a bit.  Vega is simply too good to be written off
with a confining label like "folk singer."


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Date:  Wed, 11 Dec 85 23:49 MST
From: "James J. Lippard" <Lippard@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA>
Subject:  Dead Kennedys/STD/Mighty Sphincter
Reply-To:  Lippard@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA

Today it snowed in Phoenix for the first time since 1939.  The weather
was cold, windy, and rainy all day and most of the night.  That's
important for what I describe later.

The show was held at the Party Gardens, which used to be Madame
Toussad's Royal London Wax Museum.  All that's left of the wax museum
stuff is a little carousel with horses which used to have wax figures of
Goldie Hawn and some other movie stars on it.  This is near the back of
a pretty large room, a stage was built in the front.

Since STD didn't show up (they were arrested in New Orleans while en
route to Phoenix), the show was opened up by a folk singer who sounded a
lot like Bob Dylan.  I didn't catch his name.  Surprisingly, nobody
booed him or anything, and he got applause and whistles.

Mighty Sphincter was pretty bad, the most entertaining things they did
were play the theme from the TV show "The Munsters" and have a shouting
match with some girl in the audience.  They came up with an impromptu
song for her benefit, called "suck my dog's weenie" (that being the full
lyrical content).

Then, after a fairly long delay, somebody from the Party Gardens came on
and said that the contract with the DKs said they were supposed to play
outside (the Party Gardens has a large grassy area out back) and that
Jello refused to sing unless everything was moved out there.  He then
asked people to please go out quickly and not make a fuss.  I was
surprised at how many people actually did, given the weather conditions
I mentioned above.  After a bunch of people went out, the band came on
and began playing (and then the people realized they'd been had and came
back).

The DKs put on a really good show, a lot like the ones described here
earlier.  Jello did make a number of local comments, like talking about
apartheid in Arizona--the indian reservations--when he did his spiel on
"USA for South Africa".  I was pretty impressed, this was the first time
I'd seen them.  They've been in Phoenix a couple times before, and I was
going to go the last time, but the show was postponed due to Jello's
laryngitis and I couldn't make it to the rescheduled shows.

   Jim (Lippard at MIT-MULTICS.ARPA)

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Date: Thu, 12 Dec 85 03:53:09 est
From: nessus (Doug Alan)
Subject: Re:  Today's History Lesson

> From: Tim Wicinski <wicinski@nrl-css.ARPA>

> on this date one hundered and thirty years later (1844 + 130 = 1974), Hofmann
> used Nitrous Oxide for the first time at a party.

What took him so long?

			"Cutting out little lines"

			 Doug

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-- 
It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under.

Greg Skinner (gregbo)
{decvax!genrad, allegra, ihnp4}!mit-eddie!gds
gds@mit-eddie.mit.edu