Chalkhills Digest Volume 11, Issue 72
Date: Saturday, 24 December 2005
Chalkhills Digest, Volume 11, Number 72
Saturday, 24 December 2005
Topics:
He rook so dleamy, I'm in rove from afal!
Where Oranges Dribble
puffyamiyumifish
Re: Joining A Fan Club
RE: SNMNMNM
I learned that word from Howard Stern, honest
Re: Joining a Fanclub
rare 10inch ????
Looking for footprints..
Thanks for Christmas
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It's dawning, here is Christmas morning now.
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Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2005 09:05:36 -0000
From: Adrian Ransome <Adrian.Ransome@tsi-ltd.co.uk>
Subject: He rook so dleamy, I'm in rove from afal!
Message-ID: <497FEA72C392D3118AE700508B7311770D311919@nt4server03.tsi-ltd.co.uk>
in #11-71 Simon wrote:
>Can any Jellyfish fans explain this to me?
It's Puffy Ami Yumi, a Japanese pop duo who have a cartoon series ("Hi Hi
Puffy Ami Yumi") on one of the cartoon networks (which blend in nicely with
all the other Japanocentric Anime-esque flashing, exploding and screaming
cartoons that seem to be all the rage with the kiddies and animators
nowadays).
Believe it or don't, the wizard behind the Puffy Ami Yumi curtain is none
other than Andy Sturmer - the head Jellyfish. He is credited as "Musical
Director" in the credits that are squeezed into a 2cm wide rectangle and
scrolled at 4000mph a the end of each cartoon. I guess he has a firm hand on
their non-cel shaded musical outpourings too. Picking up a fallen star,
indeed.
ade
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2005 06:06:38 EST
From: Flyuponthewall@aol.com
Subject: Where Oranges Dribble
Message-ID: <1a1.427242b4.30da913e@aol.com>
Greets from snowy Syracuse, "Where oranges dribble." As no real local
radio exists and I only trust 1/2 of what my fellow chalkhillians recommend,
I only have a top 3 list of 2005 of music must haves. Of course I have just
discovered FUSE on direct TV, so the out look may be a bit brighter for this
40 something soul. Small plug for WBER radio in Rachacha (Rochester) NY will
be inserted here.
Death Cab for Cutie - Plans,
Groovy kool, So many lovely sounds, I wish I knew of them and
postal service years ago, SOUL MEETS BODY reminds me muchly of New Order
with a stolen mandolin vibe from REM.
The killers - Hot fuss
I was deeply saddened by exposure they received, I hope I'm not
becoming pop music junkie. I think The Cure has a healthy stepson.
Dogs die in hot cars-please described yourself
I'm sensing a theme here, must be CSI influenced. Andy had a
love child he's not telling anyone about? Bjork did have a few willing sperm
donors.
To quote Tony Kornheiser That's it, that's the list,
I have recently moved, and I unpacked my record collection and I
bought a vintage record player. Bands that I haven't listened to in 15 years
are still as fresh as they ever were. The hitmen, men without hats,
stranglers, heaven 17, sports, devo, Gary numan, The motels, the hawks, wall
of voodoo, Dead Kennedy's, black flag, x, Boomtown rats, 54:40 , split
enz(frenzy),martha and the muffins, Major thinkers. Lovely to catch up on my
20's like that :-}
Love peace and coconuts with special holiday cheers to Traci, Brenda,
Tracey,Melinda,Shelly,Jannelle, long time XTC friends and wonderful people.
Bill Goodlfellow
------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2005 08:27:06 -0500 From: jude hayden <jude.hayden@gmail.com> Subject: puffyamiyumifish Message-ID: <cfe8e1c00512210527g168bf1c9x74c5f364e99ee532@mail.gmail.com> Simon Knight said: >>>Can any Jellyfish fans explain this to me? >>> http://www.puffyamiyumi.com/video/PuffyAmiYumi_JoiningAFanClubVidFull_56.asx >>>Seriously, WTF is this? My head hurts - which is better than bleeding, like my ears are. >>>I'm hoping their intentions weren't serious. Probably not *too* serious, but it definitely has the stamp of approval from Andy Sturmer of Jellyfish - he's been the main producer/composer for PuffyAmiYumi for a couple of years now. I agree, that version of "Joining A Fan Club" is not great (I don't know why Andy decided to incorporate the guitar lick from No Doubt's "Just A Girl" in the verses, gosh darn do I ever hate them...) but a lot of other Puffy songs are quite good, super catchy pop music. Check out their (again, Sturmer-penned and produced) theme song to the Teen Titans cartoon. And I recommend the album "Nice." J-Pop rules! :-D Jude
------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2005 09:57:48 -0500 From: heccubus@aol.com Subject: Re: Joining A Fan Club Message-ID: <8C7D4560AF09A23-9A0-A00@mblk-d46.sysops.aol.com> >>Seriously, WTF is this? My head hurts - which is better than >>bleeding, like my ears are. >>I'm hoping their intentions weren't serious. Blame Andy Sturmer, he writes and produces them and that song is from their Puffy Amiyumi animated show album, on which Andy is the music director. Just goes to show how easily a great song can be ruined. A great quote of my friend Quiton Flynn when Ringo Starr covered 'Golden Blunders' by the Posies was when he posited Ringo thoughts when he heard it "That's a great song, I think I'll ruin it". Lincoln
------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2005 09:00:32 -0800 (PST) From: The Colonel <captainextraneous@yahoo.com> Subject: RE: SNMNMNM Message-ID: <20051221170032.10143.qmail@web34108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Tim Kendrick wrote: It's by a band called SNMNMNM and it's called "Power Pack Horse Crunch". Not sure if anyone has mentioned this band or album before, but it's very good. They are sort of a mixture of They Might Be Giants and The Sugarplastic. So if you like those 2 bands, then check out SNMNMNM! My response: It's funny that you mention SMNMNMN! I listened to this band several years ago on mp3.com (before it became a paid site) and grew to love many of their songs. I think your description is pretty right on too. I think I probably came across them originally due to the influence of TMBG. Now I'll have to check them out again!!
------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2005 09:09:06 -0800 (PST) From: Kzincat <kzincat98@yahoo.com> Subject: I learned that word from Howard Stern, honest Message-ID: <20051221170906.53083.qmail@web52103.mail.yahoo.com> Subject: Joining A Fan Club Can any Jellyfish fans explain this to me? http://www.puffyamiyumi.com/video/PuffyAmiYumi_JoiningAFanClubVidFull_56.asx LOL That is just really, really bad... I guess what else can we expect from a country that loves bukkake... XTC Related content: There is a small published newspaper called Jam Rag here in Detroit that has changed publishers. It was printed in someone's living room for many years (I said it was small!) and they had all the covers over the years, 2 of which were XTC related. http://www.jamrag.com/ Happy Holidays everyone, and have a Merry Christmas!!! Dave in Detroit
------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2005 09:53:19 -0800 From: David Gershman <dagersh@pobox.com> Subject: Re: Joining a Fanclub Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20051221093635.0283c4a8@mail.comcast.net> At 07:29 PM 12/20/2005, you wrote: >Can any Jellyfish fans explain this to me? > >http://www.puffyamiyumi.com/video/PuffyAmiYumi_JoiningAFanClubVidFull_56.asx > >Seriously, WTF is this? My head hurts - which is better than bleeding, like >my ears are. > >I'm hoping their intentions weren't serious. Only as serious as Puffy AmiYumi can get! They're a Japanese duo who are apparently quite huge there, and who are now breaking on the shores of the U.S., with their own cartoon series on the Cartoon Network. Think of them as a more current Shonen Knife; see their site http://www.puffyamiyumi.com/ for more on them. They're really pretty catchy...even if lighter than cotton candy. As for that cover, it (along with at least a couple of their albums) is produced by Andy Sturmer, so it's been given blessings from Jellyfish itself, you might say. Here's part of a review of the 2004 album it's from, from the "War against Silence" Web site; maybe a bit more than you wanted to know, but here it is... >You can go ahead and try, if you feel like it, >but I don't think you're going to be able to >make any happier a record than 59, the new >seven-or-eight-song mini-album by sugar-pop >grand-master Andy Sturmer and his protege/muses >Ami Onuki and Yumi Yoshimura. This was the >formula for their last full-length album, Nice., >too: Sturmer writes and produces, he and John >Fields play most of the instruments, and Ami and >Yumi yelp their uncontrivedly cheerful way >through the giddiest melodies any of them can >devise. 59 refines this idea further by ditching >any style experiments that don't sound like >they'd be capable of inducing glucose aneurysms >in hummingbirds, bookending the record with two >versions of what is almost certainly the >greatest teen-superhero theme song you or I will >hear in our lifetimes, and jamming in, in the >middle of the self-effacing sub-half-hour >running time, both an English-lyric rewrite of >the best song on Nice. and a belief-defying >Jellyfish cover that makes even Sturmer's >original hyper-florid version seem maudlin and torpid. >Puffy's enchanting debut album had only seven >songs, and Ami and Yumi's split solo album had >seven each, and perhaps this is really their >ideal form-factor. Admittedly a part of me knows >that calling this the perfect pop record is like >calling a squishy Krispy Kreme donut-lump the >perfect dinner roll. Surely this kind of manic >chirpiness is supposed to be tempered by some >small element of gravitas, or six or eight >inches of perspective, or at least the momentary >sound of John Denver being strangled. Surely it >invalidates this as an album that it needs so >many tricks to get through so few minutes. >Surely it matters that the biggest problem with >Ami and Yumi's phonetic English singing is that >it takes so much of their concentration just to >keep nonsense syllables in tune. Surely pop >can't be this simple, and if it is, surely there >are a hundred tossed-off records like this. >But I don't know a hundred of them. I'm not sure >I know ten. Sturmer's gadgety arrangements make >Talk Show seem rudimentary, and Ami and Yumi's >puppy-earnest melodies make We Are Shampoo seem >poutily self-abnegating. Puffy are the music >that Spice World deserved, or what you might get >by swiping Spy Kids through a miniaturizing ray. >My tolerance for glaze-bath squelch maxes out >around three, and even by the middle of the >third gelatinous donut I'm not precisely >enjoying myself anymore. But I can listen to 59 on loop for hours. >[. . .] Most bands would have to come down after >a TV theme, and plenty of bands have never >properly recovered (cf. the Rembrandts), but >Puffy barely pause. Drums clatter and snap, and >"Sunrise" surges to speed like the sun is >chagrinned it gave the moon a night's >head-start. Sturmer programs what may now be the >archetypal drum-machine hi-hat pattern, Fields >rumbles impishly through a bounding bass line >that Sturmer's DX7 fusillades glint off of like >sparks, Ami and Yumi do their haplessly charming >unsteady unison bleat, and I try to control the >order in which my body parts melt so the ears >come last. It's hopeless, of course, as I am >released by "Sunrise" only to be ambushed by the >dumbfounding cover of Jellyfish's "Joining a Fan >Club". Puffy's version is only three seconds >shorter than the original, but it's at least >eight or nine times as fast, and maybe >twenty-four times less ironic. Jellyfish's was >an episodic pastiche of a rock god's ascension >and disintegration, told only incidentally >through the narrating fan's obsessiveness. For >Puffy's version Sturmer has the inspiration to >tweak the narrative from male first-person to >female third-person and cut the buzz-killing >crown-of-thorns verse, which in Puffy's swoony >voices finally turns it into the fan-song the >title always intimated. In place of the >cut-and-paste musical structure of the original, >Sturmer gives Puffy a jubilant lurch-and-sprint >pace-tension, the verses writhing like >funhouse-mirror costume preening, the choruses >careening into guitar-snarl sprint. Ami and >Yumi's brashly approximate harmonies say more >about the way foolishness and compassion weave >into falling in love with idols than any words will ever somberly explicate. >[. . .] I don't know what Sony plans to do with >it in the US, where Nice. is still only a few >months old and already has the theme song. >Reduced to six songs 59 wouldn't be the same. >Expanded to twelve or fourteen it probably >wouldn't be the same, either. I can't say >there's no chance of it being improved, but >that's not usually the direction in which label >interventions take records. Maybe Puffy >AndyAmiYumi have another record in them that >will be amazing on so much larger a scale than >59 that it's inane of me to fret about what will >come to seem like a footnote. Or maybe these >little bubbly songs that Sturmer writes them are >holding Ami and Yumi back from much bigger art >they will one day learn to create by themselves. >Or maybe this is their last chance.
------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 00:20:00 +0000 From: <cornwallis@cwctv.net> Subject: rare 10inch ???? Message-ID: <20051222002000.PEV29634.aamta11-winn.ispmail.ntl.com@cwctv.net> i have in front of me a 10inch of the dissapointed...on the flip.."heavenly hell" and "of a kind".it says not for resale.the b sides sound like nonsuch extras.very good.i was amazed to find this at a christmas jumblesale.. kind regards, DAVE BANCROFT
------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 20:37:13 +0000 From: "Gerardine kooring" <gerardinekooring@hotmail.com> Subject: Looking for footprints.. Message-ID: <BAY110-F222CB34A10915550AE8721D3300@phx.gbl> Hi, I'm looking for Gert from the Netherlands who was at the XTC gathering in Swindon. Gert could you please drop me a line, thanks. Gerardine
------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2005 21:18:42 -0800 From: David van Wert <mcknife@earthlink.net> Subject: Thanks for Christmas Message-ID: <0553CD97-C23C-49D4-9D43-28AEB73E023F@earthlink.net> A tender lilting Christmas Song for you all... Copy/paste this if the link don't work... http://www.davidvanwert.com/2005/12/20/christmas-song/ yer pal, David http://www.davidvanwert.com/ "The meek shall inherit the Earth, except for a very thin layer at the surface." --Sovrana Sostrata
------------------------------ End of Chalkhills Digest #11-72 *******************************
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