Chalkhills Digest, Volume 10, Number 27

                   Friday, 9 July 2004

Topics:

           ... Not Including The Rolling Stones
The ENTIRE XTC CATALOG FOR LESS THAN $12, or In Which I Just F'n
                Dogs Die; Rachael Yamagata

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Their poison inks behind me / At the bottom of the sea.

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Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 15:51:41 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ryan Anthony <hamsterranch@yahoo.com>
Subject: ... Not Including The Rolling Stones
Message-ID: <20040630225141.2508.qmail@web51108.mail.yahoo.com>

Mark Fisher, in Digest 10-26, apprises us Yanks:

"The Observer's music supplement ran a poll of the 100
best British albums yesterday. Guess who didn't
feature?

"Number one was the Stone Roses ..."

I'm assuming the full and complete name of the poll
was: "The 100 Best British Albums Released In
1989-1992 By Bands With Names Which Include A Word
Beginning With 'Ro --' And A Word Beginning With
'Stone' Not Including The Rolling Stones."

Ryan Anthony
An independent Internet content provider

P.S; Sensei Relph-san: The new email address for
submissions (chalkhills@chalkhills.org) is just way
too long and complicated and hard to remember.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 19:23:27 -0400
From: "Duncan Watt" <dwatt@fastestmanintheworld.com>
Subject: The ENTIRE XTC CATALOG FOR LESS THAN $12, or In Which I Just F'n
Message-ID: <200406302318.i5UNIm9t022847@secure.sinewave.com>

Give The F Up, You Little Bastards.
> Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the record label named Rhino
> is sadly a shell of its former self. Most of the people who made the
> company's reputation are long gone (some to a promising upstart
> called Shout! Factory), and Rhino is really just a catalog reissue
> department for Warners' labels now. And I seriously doubt they're
> interested in the effort to do XTC properly. I'd be surprised at this
> point if they ever finish off the Elvis Costello reissues they
> promised before some of the talent slipped out of Rhino.
>
> = Derek =

...because everybody's just going to download/steal 'em anyway, and there's
no money in selling little plastic discs with real music on them anymore,
even with wonderful, beautiful music on them, esp. from musicians you
haven't already been listening to for the last 15 years. And now that...

http://www.allofMP3.com

...is offering basically THE ENTIRE XTC CATALOG, 15 ALBUMS, 238 SONGS,
LEGALLY, FOR DOWNLOAD, FOR ABOUT $11.90 (depending on what format you choose
to download it in, I used "192k .mp3" as an example), you've, collectively,
gone and DEVALUED ALL MUSIC, ART OR NOT, TO ABOUT, SAY, ONE FUCKING CENT PER
MEGABYTE.

No, it's not the Caps Lock, I'm officially yelling. At *you*. *You* STOLE
ALL OF THE MUSIC I WAS GOING TO LOVE IN THE FUTURE by somehow justifying
STEALING the *very music you love* from the very musicians who dedicate
every waking hour to making the music that you love and would have loved for
the rest of your life, and in the process, making it impossible for those
very musicians to make a living doing it! Exactly HOW do you expect Partsy,
one of the greatesty pop musicians alive, to make any money from his
recordings?

Hm? Did you nip the Napster thing in the bud when you had a chance, all
those years ago? Hm?

Oh, and, by the way, there's like *every band ever* on
http://www.allofMP3.com. For one cent per megabyte. Really. I'm not joking.
Want the whole Clash collection, 266 songs? Go ahead, TAKE IT! At 4MB/song,
it's only ten bucks! And really convenient, too. There's even an 'allofMP3
Explorer' client you can use, to make it REALLY convenient. What if there's
a new XTC 'album'(I guess you cant call 'em 'albums' anymore, just 'bunches
of songs'), you can get it RIGHT NOW for SIXTY CENTS. Do you wonder why it
hasn't come out yet? Even if the Russians WERE paying the artists AT ALL,
say half of the take, Partsy would have to sell FIFTY-TWO ENTIRE ALBUMS
(after splitting the 'take' with Colin 50/50, right?) just to buy a fucking
$8 SET OF GUITAR STRINGS.

"...this is not my beautiful house... this is not my beautiful wife..."

Nice going, America! In order to spite those 'greedy record companies'
(which admittedly were/are unbelievably greedy, don't get me wrong), you've
gone and cut off the MUSICIANS' goddamned noses! WAY to 'stick it to the
man'! Did NONE OF YOU figure out that the record companies were going to
keep on pulling in the zillions, while the artists YOU WANT TO HEAR BUT WILL
NEVER EVEN KNOW EXIST NOW would get cut?

None of you? All of you pompous little shits screaming "I don't want to pay
$15 for a CD that only costs 25 cents to make". Did it not occur to you that
you were paying for artists' MUSIC, not the goddamned PLASTIC they make the
CD from? Sure, most of it was going to the drooling CEOs of fat-suck-pig
corporations, but that was ALREADY a problem YOU created for the artists by
refusing to support local music, local radio, local record shops, local ART.
Then, you took away the little money real musicians COULD pry out of the
claws of the Big Three. In order to what? To 'stick it to the corporations'.
Yay! You *did* it!

So, you're left with 'grandfathered' artists (with already-established
fan-bases from the pre-Napster times), and vacuous pop CARTOONS who can make
huge money from non-CD merch sales, like, say, Avril Lame-vigne and my new
favorite 'artiste', Lil' Jon. The ONE WAY real musicians can still eke out a
living is on the road, trying to suck a dribble of money from ClearChannel,
who now owns 80% of the big-money booking in the US, along with the radio
stations that promotoe the shows! Don't EVEN get me started on the patent
ClearChannel just forced through patenting ALL SAME-NIGHT DISTRIBUTION OF
ALL RECORDED MUSIC.

Hope you like your music with ONE CHORD, in LOCKSTEP TIME, with some twit
screaming about something that you last cared about when you were drawing
the KISS logo onto the cover of your Biology book, because VERY, VERY, FEW
REAL MUSICIANS CAN MAKE ANY MONEY AT ALL doing what all of us wished they
would f'n do:

ACTUALLY PLAY WONDERFUL, BEAUTIFUL, LIFE-GIVING... MUSIC!!!

"...hate to say I told you so, alright"

Your Happy Friend Duncan, who has officially Given The F Up. I'm done
complaining, as there isn't anything left to complain about. Over and Out.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 21:54:18 -0400
From: "Ben Gott" <bgott@rectoryschool.org>
Subject: Dogs Die; Rachael Yamagata
Message-ID: <fc.00870b4a00203e3300870b4a00203e33.203e3e@rectoryschool.org>

Gang,

Two things.  First, check out this review of the forthcoming album by
Dogs Die in Hot Cars.  (I love their two tunes "I Love You 'Cos I Have
To" and "Celebrity Sanctum," even though this reviewer, from
amazon.co.uk, doesn't much seem to like the latter.)

***

A breath of fresh air after the dreary round of new British bands that
seems to have cropped up in the last year, Dogs Die In Hot Cars'
"Please Describe Yourself" displays the jerky rhythms that marked the
greatest New Wave bands. But this is no retro sound. Sympathetically
produced by Madness/Dexys/Blur's Langer & Winstanley, this rises above
your usual unimaginative indie fare, emphasis placed firmly on the
overall band sound and band harmonies surrounding Craig Macintosh's
stuttering, wired vocals, but still packing a punch.

As demonstrated on "Godhopping", the band brim with energy, all
instruments and vocals sounding on the brink of release but kept in
check by the production, all to good effect. It may lose its footing
at times, and naming a song "Apples & Oranges" when your vocalist
sounds just like XTC frontman Andy Partridge may betray roots, but
these are minor quibbles. Sensibly for a debut, the band don't stretch
themselves too much; only one song (arguably the weakest--no song
should be titled "Celebrity Sanctum" ever) passes four minutes, and
there are no overblown pleas for world peace or saving children. What
you do get is a very satisfying, enjoyable debut album.

***

Also, you must all go to the iTunes Music Store and download a copy of
Rachael Yamagata's "Wore Me Down."  She reminds me a bit of Fiona
Apple, but this song -- produced by John Alagia -- is just about the
best pop song I've heard all year.

Love,
Ben

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End of Chalkhills Digest #10-27
*******************************

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