Chalkhills Digest Volume 11, Issue 10
Date: Monday, 28 February 2005
Chalkhills Digest, Volume 11, Number 10
Monday, 28 February 2005
Topics:
DID's
North America is dumb
Gentle Giant? That takes me back.....
Hunter S. Thompson
Re: Blogs
Interesting link
RE: Blogs
More fact straightening re: digital downloads
How to Write an Earworm
Administrivia:
To UNSUBSCRIBE from the Chalkhills mailing list, send a message to
<chalkhills-request@chalkhills.org> with the following command:
unsubscribe
For all other administrative issues, send a message to:
<chalkhills-request@chalkhills.org>
Please remember to send your Chalkhills postings to:
<chalkhills@chalkhills.org>
World Wide Web: <http://chalkhills.org/>
The views expressed herein are those of the individual authors.
Chalkhills is compiled with Digest 3.8c (John Relph <relph@tmbg.org>).
Each watch I smash apart / Just bringing near the hour.
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2005 17:21:33 +0100 (CET) From: N TURNER <member@turner2.wanadoo.co.uk> Subject: DID's Message-ID: <32572708.1108916493658.JavaMail.www@wwinf3003> I have pondered on the desert island disc thing and always said I'd never fall into the trap of making a list. So, here it is: 1) XTC - Drums and Wires 2) Divine Comedy - Casanova 3) Stranglers - La Folie 4) Jellyfish - Bellybutton 5) Jeff Buckley - Grace 6) Icicle Works - Small Price of a bicycle 7) Psychedelic Furs - Psychedelic Furs 8) The Jam - All Mod Cons 9) Frank Black - Dog in the sand 10) Pink Floyd - Piper at the gates of dawn It's a mix of things i brought with me from my schooldays - xtc,jam, stranglers and some stuff i picked up along the way. It's in no particular order apart from the top 3. By the way has anyone listned to an album call "Distant Plastic Trees" by the Magnetic Fields ? it's starting to grow on me (like moss). Bye Bye
------------------------------ Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2005 11:27:28 -0500 From: Benjamin Gott <bgott@rectoryschool.org> Subject: North America is dumb Message-ID: <799efbc606dfbf613497e2e5ba45f6ca@rectoryschool.org> Hi, all! Duncan wrote: > Why isn't XTC on iTunes? I know personally people close to the band > have been looking into it. Could it be because they haven't found a way > to do it without watering down the value of selling real CDs? Because > with the new model of subscription-based streaming songs, there's NO > WAY TO MAKE REAL MONEY FROM IT? I don't think that's the case. Just go to your American iTunes Music Store, click "Choose Store," and choose...Well, you can probably choose any of the other stores. I picked Spain, just for giggles, and found the following XTC albums available for 9.99 euros: Chips from the Chocolate Fireball English Settlement Drums and Wires Black Sea Oranges and Lemons Nonsuch The Big Express White Music Skylarking Mummer Go2 White Music The Compact XTC Black Sea Heck, they're even available on Greek iTunes! And Austrian iTunes! And probably every other European iTunes! They are not, however, available on American or Canadian iTunes. And that's just STUPID. Finally, Phil asks about blogs. Well, I've just started one, and it's boring unless you're interested in learning about the collaborative project between me and fellow Chalkhillian Paul Culnane: http://loquaciousmusic.blogspot.com If you'd like to hear songs from said collaboration, a trip to http://www.soundclick.com/BenGott will do the trick. Cheers, -Ben
------------------------------ Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2005 20:53:16 -0000 From: "Steve Morton" <steven.morton4@ntlworld.com> Subject: Gentle Giant? That takes me back..... Message-ID: <000d01c5178e$335f36c0$0100a8c0@mshome.net> Aaron Pastula said in his recent top 10: > 4. Gentle Giant - Free Hand > These guys never got the recognition they deserved. Not only could they > perform incredible vocal arrangements, but each member of the band could > proficiently play no less than fourteen instruments at the same time. I remember these guys from when I attended college on day release as an apprentice. A few of us would visit a friends house at lunchtimes and listen to all sorts of music, including GG, whilst eating packed lunches, playing darts and generally being teenagers. I still have an almost pristine copy of "Octopus" (which I no longer have a turntable to listen to) but unlike my XTC collection, I have not yet replaced it with a CD. The Shulman brothers, who were the core of the band, lived for a while in Gosport, just across the water from my home town of Portsmouth. Like Joe Jackson, they were local heroes to us kids in bands who played the Portsmouth and Gosport pub circuit. Aah, the memories! Coincidentally, Skylarking is probably my fave XTC disc and ranks up there with Revolver (Sorry Al la carte!) which was my first LP acquisition. These days, Snow Patrol and the Futureheads feature on my playlist but mostly I terrorise (sorry, educate) my kids with XTC on the car stereo. On one recent long journey, my teenage daughter having just been blessed with a rendition of Skylarking, asked "who is that country and western band that you keep making us listen to?". Simon Cowell has a lot to answer for! Back to Lurking. Steve Morton, Portsmouth UK.
------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 01:03:52 -0700 From: "Thomas Vest" <tvtwo@hotmail.com> Subject: Hunter S. Thompson Message-ID: <BAY18-F227987AD9364E2A3510ABEA1610@phx.gbl> Hello fellow chalkheads This is totally off topic here but I sense the possibility that many of you were Hunter fans so I thought I would pass along a bit of Hunter smartass that I read from his book "Kingdom of Fear". Man, I am bummed... Tv -- One Hand Clapping I knew a Buddhist once, and I've hated myself ever since. The whole thing was a failure. He was a priest of some kind, and he was also extremely rich. They called him a monk and he wore the saffron robes and I hated him because of his arrogance. He thought he knew everything. One day I was trying to rent a large downtown property from him, and he mocked me. "You are dumb," he said. "You are doomed if you stay in this business. The stupid are gobbled up quickly." "I understand, " I said. "I am stupid. I am doomed. But I think I know something you don't." He laughed. "Nonsense," he said. "You are a fool. You know nothing." I nodded respectfully and leaned closer to him, as if to whisper a secret. "I know the answer to the greatest riddle of all," I said. He chuckled. "And what is that?" he said. "And you'd better be right, or I'll kill you." "I know the sound of one hand clapping," I said. "I have finally discovered the answer." Several other Buddhists in the room laughed out loud, as this point. I knew they wanted to humiliate me, and now they had me trapped-- because there is no answer to that question. The saffron bastards have been teasing us with it forever. They are amused at our failure to grasp it. Ho ho. I went into a drastic crouch and hung my left hand low, behind my knee. "Lean closer," I said to him. "I want to answer your high and unanswerable question." As he leaned his bright bald head a little closer into my orbit, I suddenly leaped up and bashed him flat on the ear with the palm of my left hand. It was slightly cupped, so as to deliver maximum energy on impact. An isolated package of air is suddenly driven through the Eustachian tube and into the middle brain at quantum speed, causing pain, fear, and extreme insult to the tissue. The monk staggered sideways and screamed, grasping his head in agony. Then he fell to the floor and cursed me. "You swine!" he croaked. "Why did you hit me and burst my eardrum?" "Because that," I said, "is the sound of one hand clapping. That is the answer to your question. I have the answer now, and you are deaf." "Indeed," he said. "I am deaf, but I am smarter. I am wise in a different way." He grinned vacantly and reached out to shake my hand. "You're welcome," I said. "I am, after all, a doctor."
------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 13:01:55 -0800 (PST) From: MARK ELLIOTT <frontln99@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: Blogs Message-ID: <20050221210156.71180.qmail@web50106.mail.yahoo.com> PHIL SAID.. >Harrison's post about his blog makes me wonder if anyone else on Chalkhills >has their own blog... I'd like to start a list. >I've got two: >http://www.pkmeco.com/familyblog/ >http://www.pkmeco.com/cdablog/ TRY MINE: Not a blog but a FLOG... six new pictures a day with witty banter included: http://www.fotolog.net/r_decard/
------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 11:40:30 -0000 From: "Belinda" <b.blanchard@btinternet.com> Subject: Interesting link Message-ID: <007d01c518d3$4fec00c0$d42a9b51@davidfoh4tm83a> Anyone know anything about these guys dancing to an XTC song? http://www.netacompany.org/river_of_orchids.htm Belinda x
------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 10:05:01 -0800 From: "Kerry Chicoine" <kchicoine@whitehat.com> Subject: RE: Blogs Message-ID: <200502221808.j1MI8CJv012509@web3.sinewave.com> Phil Corless wrote: >>if anyone else on Chalkhills has their own blog... I'd like to start a list.<< I'll throw my toupee into the ring: www.myspace.com/kompost or www.kompost.blogspot.com kErrY NP: Jensen Bell -- Modern Dating Tips
------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 12:35:36 -0800 (PST) From: Jay Gillespie <marsilies@yahoo.com> Subject: More fact straightening re: digital downloads Message-ID: <20050224203536.24262.qmail@web54510.mail.yahoo.com> > Why isn't XTC on iTunes? I know personally people > close to the band have been looking into it. > Could it be because they haven't found a way > to do it without watering down the value of selling > real CDs? Because with the new model of subscription- > based streaming songs, there's NO WAY TO MAKE REAL > MONEY FROM IT? Actually, it's probably because iTunes hasn't made a deal with Caroline Records regarding their early albums yet. iTunes used to have the Geffen collection "Upsy Daisy Assortment" up though. It's doubtful that XTC has any say about how their material is sold apart from their albums post Virgin. Napster, on the other hand, Has 9 of their albums up for paid download, including Apple Venus, Wasp Star, and their respective demo albums. 7 of those are also available for streaming. So it seems doubtful that your reasoning why XTC isn't on iTunes is correct, especially considering that iTunes is one of the download services that doesn't offer subscription streaming. -Jay
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 17:12:37 EST
From: Hbsherwood@aol.com
Subject: How to Write an Earworm
Message-ID: <1ac.32d90507.2f50fcd5@aol.com>
(Adapted this from my blog...)
Do you know what an earworm is? It's a song so damned catchy that all you
have to do is hear it once and it will stick in your head until you either
a) drink yourself blind, b) get smacked in the head with an eight-iron, or
c) die. I'm given to understand there are other cures (a nice example can
be found at http://prettypictures.com/maim/), but at exactly this moment I'm
really not in a hurry to try them out.
I've been having a nice long wallow in Andy Partridge's Fuzzy Warbles
demos-and-lost-tracks series, and I've gotten the happiest earworm infection
I've had since 1989, when I first heard XTC's "Mayor of Simpleton."
The tune in question is called "I Can't Tell What Truth Is Anymore," on
Volume 6. Lyrically, you might be tempted to read it as an anthem for our
defeated and disgusted times, but really it's just a boy-loses-girl song. It
couldn't be a simpler bit of bubblegummy fluff -- I can easily imagine it
tootling along during the Obligatory Slapstick Chase Scene in an early
Scooby-Doo cartoon. It's one of those dangerously sticky-sweet cinnamon bun
that Partridge easily tosses out endlessly in his sleep (think "Cherry in
Your Tree," or the above "Mayor of Simpleton"), a talent he sometimes
disparages as beneath his dignity, not knowing what it's like to spend your
life wishing you could write just *one song* that catchy.
Even though it's only a demo, a candidate for an album (Nonsuch) that never
made it past the winnowing process, the thing is as expertly crafted, as
architecturally perfect a bit of candyfloss as you're like to come across
this year. Ergo, earworm.
So why's this particular song so damned skillfully done? What's the formula,
Mister Wizard?
1. Start with an introductory phrase that twists the melody very
slightly. In this case, the hook phrase is rendered in a minor mode, so one
note is different from the way you'll hear it in the rest of the song. A
deft application of a cliche. (Cliches are often exactly what's called for
in this particular artform.)
2. Repeat that slightly twisted melody only twice more: Once to
introduce the instrumental passage, and once to end the song. Symmetry.
3. It certainly doesn't hurt to stick to primary-color I-IV-V chords in
your verse and chorus. Meat and potatoes. Predictable. Solid.
4. But in your middle eight, go ahead and throw in an F#dim7 chord
(under "And if you've gone for good"...) to suggest incompletion and
anxiety. And of course write your lyrics so that the most significant word
in the whole song, the revelation of the cause for our narrator's anxiety --
"gone" -- falls exactly on that diminished chord. You do this because you're
a f*cking pop-songcraft god.
5. End your middle eight on that protracted V chord. Oh, absolutely,
yes. Again, a cliche, but this is a bubblegum song, not the Coffee
Cantata. When you play the song live, you can stretch that suspension out
over, hell, 32 bars, before crashing back down to the tonic to start the
next verse -- just like the rising ahhh's in "Twist and Shout." They'll have
to disinfect the theater seats.
6. Hint *forward*. In literature, it's called _foreshadowing._ Listen to
the lovely little chiming arpeggiated twin-guitar figures under the main
melody. It will assume more importance later.
7. Harmony vocal below the melody. Think late Beatles, think "Come
Together," think "The One After 909." Partridge does this as a matter of
habit, believing that the highest voice is the one that stands out. It's
pretty rare, especially in late XTC records, for vocal harmonies to ride
over the lead vocal like a bluegrass duet. And oh man, is it used to cool
effect here.
8. The guitar solo isn't really a solo at all; it's a carefully composed
instrumental passage, as formal as a minuet. Needless to say, it's an
absolute knockout. The Clapton-voiced guitar states a new melody as the
little chiming figure revolves. Then a small male choir picks up the figure
that had been played by the twin guitars under the verse (see why that
foreshadowing was so important?) as the Clapton guitar now begins to play
the verse melody. The two figures twine beautifully together, to end with
both entities playing the title line, the male voices taking the low harmony
and the guitar the melody. Subtle, understated, classically symmetrical --
did you ever think you'd hear those words describing a passage in a
*bubblegum song*?
9. In the outro, have the male voices pop back up with the same figure
they sang in the instrumental passage. More symmetry.
It looks so simple from the outside, but once you tease it open, its insides
are as finely wrought and carefully balanced as an expensive watch. A thing
of incandescent beauty.
Harrison "Wanna buy a hot Rolex?" Sherwood
------------------------------ End of Chalkhills Digest #11-10 *******************************
Go back to Volume 11.
1 March 2005 / Feedback