🚀 go-pugleaf

Love-Hounds Digest			Monday, June 9, 1986, 04:48 EDT

Topics:

			 T. Dream  / VHS Hi-Fi
				NME News
	      Re: Letter to "Sounds"  //  "Voix Belgique"
			 Re: Letter To *Sounds*
			Non-random observations
				Dr. John

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Date: 6 Jun 86 13:18:00 PST
From: "ROSSI J.A." <rossi@nusc.ARPA>
Subject: T. Dream  / VHS Hi-Fi
Reply-To: "ROSSI J.A." <rossi@nusc.ARPA>


I just got back from a trip to DC and Philly (Apparently, the NUSC VAX
cluster blew up, or something while I was away, so I have not seen any
issues of this digest between May 23 and today so pardon me if this is a
rehash of anything which transpired previously).

While traveling through Philly, I heard some Rock station giving away 
tickets ti an upcomming Tangerine Dream show.  I was stunned, since TD isn't
something usually mentioned by DJs between cuts by Led Zep and Bryan
Addams.  So, I stopped the car, put up with about 30 min of more of the
bland Rock fare, and sure enough, there is some promotion for the movie Legend
going on, and there was a contest for TD tickets.  Now, I'm sure that if
Tangerine Dream are comming tpo Philly, they must be on tour.  Does anybody
have any details, is it just starting, Is it over???  If there is a tour
are Boston, Hartford or NY on the list?  If anybody has an opportunity to
see this band perform live, it is worth it (interesting music via electronics,
an unusual paradox).

As for the movie Legend, if you liked Sword and thge Sorcerrer, you will love
it.  Same plot (in general), much better visuals, much more fantasylike than
any movie I've seen.  Even Tom Cruise (SP?) was not objectionable in the
movie.  Of course, however, the main drawing ticket is the Tangerine Dream
soundtrack.  This is by far there finest soundtrack to date.  The traditional
sequencer ostinatos were absent, the music is much more reminiscent of their
early stuff.  An interesting combination results when Jon Anderson does the
vocal track with TD in the background (I don't thgink I could tollerate a
whole album of that particular combination, but it probably has a lot more
musical possibilities than the Vangellis combo).  Unlike Vangellis, TD usde
Anderson's voice as an instrument (even with age, I still have to admit Jon
Anderson has one of the most musical vocal expressions in the business, Falme
away !!) as it should be used.  Roxy/Ferry fans will also appreciate the
final track (credit background) by Brian Ferry (no TD).  So if you like TD,
enjoy fantasy movies about elves, gobblins, and very large demons (Tim Curry),
or feel a strong sexual attraction to Tom Cruise (and could put up with him
even with sholder length hair) than you should see Legend.

Finally, I have ordered the Kate Bush Laser Disk of the video compilation.
Hopefully, it is up to the sound quality standards that LaserVision is capable
of.  I also ordered the concert at the Hammersmith LV disk.  Unfortunately,
it appears that in the short run, the only way to get decent coppies of
the HoL videos is to do VHS Hi-Fi recordings from MTV getting the audio
from the FM stereo simulcast mode.  Has anyone done this?  Has anyone ever
recorded MTV in Hi-Fi?  If so, is the quality sufficiently worth it to
keep a deck ready to record the videos if and when they are played?

John
------

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From: Jeff Dalton <seismo!mcvax!aiva.ed.ac.uk!jeff>
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 86 18:47:27 -0100
Subject: NME News

Morrissey sez: "Obviously Madonna reinforces everything absurd and
offensive.  Desperate womanhood.  Madonna is closer to organized
prostitution than anything else.  I mean the music industry is
obviously prositiution anyway but there are degrees."

Means nothing, of course.

Record News: Robyn Hitchcock: 'Invisible Hitchcock' (Glass Fish via Rough
  Trade) a retrospective LP of unreleased material from 1980-85 -- out this
  week.

Well, that means either it arrived last week and all copies have been
sold, or else that I'll be luckly to see it this month.  Sometimes.

-- Jeff

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Subject: Re: Letter to "Sounds"  //  "Voix Belgique"
Date: Fri, 06 Jun 86 21:58:59 -0700
From: J. Peter Alfke <alfke@csvax.caltech.edu>


>From Hugh Maher's letter to "Sounds", re one critic's attack on Kate:
>I find it (as the saying goes) "Amazing" that the
>oh-so-literal meaning of the song (i.e. lashing out at snotty-nosed
>frustrated rock-star failures-turned sniping critics such as himself)
>failed to pierce his Sugar-Walled brain.  Perhaps we should convince
>Sheena Instant to cover it, and bring it down to his level.

Um, while I do agree, from the excerpts you posted, that the snotty-
nosed critic in question could benefit from a nice cup of coffee
homeground [:-)], I must admit that I don't see where you get your
interpretation of "The Big Sky" from.  I always thought it was about
daydreaming watching clouds.  (Sound like Kate herself, don't I?)

Perhaps you're just trying to mindf*ck the folks at "Sounds"?

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Incidentally, I was flipping through that very same magazine (well, not
the same issue) today and saw that one of their critics went all soft
and mushy over the new 4AD "Mystere du Voix Belgique" album.  Belgian
folk songs, as one would expect, but the writer seemed caught up in the
same kind of wordless transcendental ecstasy that one usually gets only
from the Cocteau Twins.

I'm intrigued, but can't find it.  Anyone got it?  Heard it?  Seen it?

						--Peter Alfke
"I would have made this instrumental
 but the words got in the way ..."

PS: So Hof has resorted to putting his hands over his ears and yelling.
    Christ.  How old is the guy anyway?  (S'okay, he can't see this.)

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Date: Sat, 7 Jun 86 03:39:10 EDT
From: nessus (Doug Alan)
Subject: Re: Letter To *Sounds*

> From: J. Peter Alfke <alfke@csvax.caltech.edu>

> From Hugh Maher's letter to "Sounds", re one critic's attack on Kate:

>> I find it (as the saying goes) "Amazing" that the oh-so-literal
>> meaning of the song (i.e. lashing out at snotty-nosed frustrated
>> rock-star failures-turned sniping critics such as himself) failed
>> to pierce his Sugar-Walled brain.  Perhaps we should convince
>> Sheena Instant to cover it, and bring it down to his level.

> Um, while I do agree, from the excerpts you posted, that the snotty-
> nosed critic in question could benefit from a nice cup of coffee
> homeground [:-)], I must admit that I don't see where you get your
> interpretation of "The Big Sky" from.  I always thought it was about
> daydreaming watching clouds.  (Sound like Kate herself, don't I?)

Well, let's take a closer look at some of the lyrics:

	They look down at the ground, missing.
	But I never go in now --
	I'm looking at the Big Sky,
	...
	You never understood me,
	You never really tried.
	...
	This cloud, this cloud says "Noah,
	c'mon and build me an Ark"
	And if you're coming -- jump
	'coz we're leaving with the Big Sky
	...
	You want my reply?
	What was the question?
	I was looking at the Big Sky

And let's recall something Kate once said about this song:

	"It's also suggesting the coming of the next flood how perhaps
	 the 'fools on the hills' will be the wise ones."

So who are these people who look down at the ground missing the true
meaning of life?  Who never understood Kate and never really tried?
Who demand replies from her to boring questions?  Who are doomed to
drown the next time the riff-raff are purged from the Earth?

Seems to me like the "frustrated rock-star failures turned sniping
critics" are awfully good candidates.

			"No it doesn't"

			 Doug

	


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Date: Wed, 28 May 86 16:46:06 cdt
From: ll-xn!uwvax!astroatc!gtaylor (G.N. Excelsis-Deo)
Subject: Non-random observations
Organization: (Get back to your) Work Area, Madison, WI

>Random observations:

These aren't random. You're merely coming up with a pattern which emerges
from what initially seem to be unrelated concerns. I've tried in my
usual circumlocutionary way to suggest that I share what seems to be
your collection of observations. I also don't really have anything to
gain from claiming that I've got anything that looks like answers and
erudition, either. It might make me feel cool, but I can get that from
someplace else a little better (having my wife praise my coffee or
getting that next soundtrack job or getting a raise). Once you've got
the pattern pinned down, this might seem a bit more like a dilemma, but
one you've seen before in other places.

>We can't agree whether or not rock is a fad. 

That'll be a problem all right. Why not talk about the fact that the
concept of a fad presupposes a whole culturally elitist apparatus
that nearly all of us love to manipulate at the drop of the hat.

>We can't justify putting down
>"commercial" music and hence cannot give good reasons why people
>should listen to progressive music instead of top 40 

I suspect that it's because you've not asked Wicinski and 
Hofmann about it, and they've had their hands full thinking
about other stuff. Ditto Krajewski and Ingogly. I'm merely the
sort of aging and ineffectual boffin who's read enough Frogspeak
to go about answering that question by asking another one: What
are we attempting to justify when we "put the stuff down". Or
perhaps "who" is better than "what." It gives away the answer 
somewhat, though. If there's one thing that Hofmann has a real
handle on, it's the notion that the labels and the stances are
being co-opted and we're just sitting there like chumps the whole
time. Perhaps the Hof does go in for the critical equivalent of
"cut and burn" agriculture, but he's got the right idea at heart:
we're looking for something besides the single crop starvation
plans that put sugar in the tea of the Big Boys. How about a little
subsistence ag of our own (as Candide put it...cultivate our own
gardens)?

>(at least without using 
>quasi-moral arguments "Madonna promotes pathological materialistic values"
>or vague quasi-elitist statements "Residents are more challenging music
>because they deconstruct pop :-)"). 

Here's where I think I'll draw the flames. I don't think you'll have
any choice BUT to make value-based arguments. If you're deft and lucky,
you'll be charged with elitism perhaps or dismissed as someone who
thinks too much. If you're lousy, you'll pretend to make value-neutral
pronouncements that will succeed only in making you look like a buffoon
or a bigot-whether you're a Baptist, a Skin, a Trotskyite, or just another
fan. At the bottom of all this, the question for me is not "What is Art?"
but "What is GOOD Art?" How is Art good? A nice place to begin is to
stifle the urge to capitalize the word, perhaps.

>We can't argue against trendiness
>because if rock is a fad, then we're all guilty of trendiness. 

This dilemma is a part of what my mother called "Good Trouble." It
is the kind of semi-insoluble dilemma from which one emerges as
either an escapist or as a better person. I prefer personally to 
locate myself solidly in my own time, be suspicious of my urge
to make all other times look like mine (thanks to old Heidegger,
but may I never have to read him again!), and puzzle out whether
there is, after all, something of an "essential core of being"
(We call it "soul", Aretha and I) in either the net of Greg-In-The
Present, or any of those other objects out there. Those nasty and
shifty PostModernists have bandied about the notion that art functions
as a "system of self-knowledge". Perhaps that's what I am suggesting.

>Anyone wants to try to sort this out? Where's Greg Taylor when we 
>need him? :-)

Everyone, I hope, *should* want to sort this out. That's why most of
us are here. As for me, I'm obviously still cranking out the elliptical
verbal fogbanks-waiting to head home and kill off a righteous heap of
Red Beans and Rice and a bottle of New Beaujolais and listen to the
cassette that Hofmann sent me. Any of you ugly weasels going to 
Uselessnix?

"As one who sees within a dream, and, later/the passion that had been
imprinted stays,/but nothing of the rest returns to mind,/such am I-
for my my vision almost fades/completely, yet it distills within/my
heart the sweetness that was born of it."(Dante/Paradiso,XXXIII 58-63)

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Date: Thu, 29 May 86 19:07:03 pdt
From: seismo!scgvaxd!tcville!wwiii!meyer (Mike Meyer)
Subject: Dr. John
Organization: Hughes ISPL (The Animal Lab)

Speaking of toe-tapping New Orleans piano, Dr. John/Mac Rebbanack
himself has got a couple of wonderful albums out on the label
Clean Cuts.  These feature solo piano from the good ol' Nite Tripper,
vocals on a couple of songs.  They are awesome, the pressings are
wonderful, and I understand that a book featuring transcriptions of
many or all of the pieces is available somewhere, with or without the
record, for those who want to do it themselves. 

One of the albums is called "Dr. John Plays Mac Rebbanack", the other
title escapes me...

Anyone know more about the book/course/or whatever it is?  This seems
like a wonderful thing to sequence in on my Mirage....

-- 
Mike Meyer
Image and Signal Processing Lab
Hughes Aircraft EDSG
El Segundo, CA
{seismo,ihnp4,allegra,cit-vax,cbosgd}!scgvaxd!tcville!meyer



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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, gatech, ihnp4}!mit-eddie!gds
gds@eddie.mit.edu