Chalkhills Digest Volume 17, Issue 12
Date: Sunday, 18 December 2011
Chalkhills Digest, Volume 17, Number 12
Sunday, 18 December 2011
Topics:
2012 XTCalendar is now online
Re: World's Greatest Bands You've Never Heard Of
Wing Beat Fantastic
Jordi mentioned an interest in "Song Stories
Strange bedfellows at the NRBQ show
Other than Mary, are there songs about any female Christmas characters?
From A.V. Club's Will Harris
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Countdown to Christmas / 7 days!
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2011 15:27:58 -0800 From: "Paolo Di Modica" <notification+oi1edgiz@facebookmail.com> Subject: 2012 XTCalendar is now online Message-ID: <6c6e08d04d9e015b2ff9a85c81c29a2b@async.facebook.com> 2012 XTCalendar is now online. I hope you enjoy it. http://www.10ft.it/
------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:00:31 -0500 From: Christopher Coolidge <cauldron@together.net> Subject: Re: World's Greatest Bands You've Never Heard Of Message-ID: <02D659B7-521C-4DAB-A4E3-5438739426EA@together.net> Boy, haven't posted in a dog's age, still lurking after all these years, first joined this list back in'95. Interesting choices, Crack The Sky I've heard in passing during my college radio days, can't say I remember any of their songs, but they sounded progressive in the same way as early Ambrosia except without the hooks.NRBQ I love, I've been listening to their early album Stay With We and their album with Skeeter Davis on occasion lately, saw them live a couple of times fairly recently with Joey's brother Johnny on guitar, he's been a good fit in the band. Deaf School...are they available on CD? I have the double LP of Don't Stop The World/2nd Honeymoon that I haven't listened to in years, might be interesting to see if some of my online sources has them. My choices- 1. Pilot 2. Airwaves 3. The Motors All three had at least one hit in their day but seem to have been forgotten in the CD reiissue department. Especially Airwaves, who were three Welsh session musicians with connections to Rockfield Studios and Dave Edmunds who put out two excellent albums I found used for a couple of dollars each on vinyl in the early 80's. On Dec 3, 2011, at 12:16 PM, Chalkhills wrote: > Good Morning Chalkids... > Sort of in the one hit wonder topic thread, I often ponder XTC's > lack of mass appeal and I ask myself "Who are the world's greatest > bands you've never heard of ? "...Here's three of mine, will you > please share yours? 1) Crack the Sky 2) NRBQ 3) Deaf School My Internet Radio Station, Guerilla Musicsaw http://www.live365.com/stations/336124
------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:10:32 -0500 (EST) From: "sgot@busydigits.net" <sgot@busydigits.net> Subject: Wing Beat Fantastic Message-ID: <4ee7f793.c120440a.30e2.ffffb690SMTPIN_ADDED@mx.google.com> Hello Chalk Sorts, From the lastest Mike Keneally newsletter, The Keneallist: "The new album Wing Beat Fantastic , featuring songs written by myself and Andy Partridge, is something in the neighborhood of 73% completed. There hasn't been time lately to be in the studio but we will pick up work on the album in the very beginning of the new year. Although I've been working on the album mostly on my own with Mike Harris, Andy is still very involved in the creative process, making suggestions on works-in-progress and, in fact, still writing for the album - he just sent a full set of new lyrics for one of the tunes. I imagine it should go without saying how monumental it is for me to be collaborating with Andy, a musical hero to me, and clearly one of my major influences. This album is very exciting to all of us here and we hope to have it in your hands reasonably soon!" Scott Nuckles
------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2011 08:00:00 -0800 From: "Michael Versaci" <notification+oi1edgiz@facebookmail.com> Subject: Jordi mentioned an interest in "Song Stories" Message-ID: <f09eb6548e1488e4c4e59e49828aec38@async.facebook.com> Jordi mentioned an interest in "Song Stories," which gives me an opportunity to remind everyone here that XTC has a MySpace page hosted by the sometimes enigmatic and always entertaining Todd Bernhardt. If you go to the MySpace page and find the blog and page down and down and down you will find many conversations between Todd and members of the band about specific songs. http://www.myspace.com/xtcfans/blog
------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2011 19:37:34 -0800 (PST) From: Ryan Anthony <hamsterranch@yahoo.com> Subject: Strange bedfellows at the NRBQ show Message-ID: <1324179454.9148.YahooMailClassic@web161202.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> "Two Digests in a month!," Andrew Notarian exclaims. "Let's go for 3!" A worthy goal. I'm in. Defending the New Rhythm & Blues Quartet as unfit to be considered a band no one has ever heard of, Danno, aka PMFPS, aka freeq27870, mentions two famous musicians who are fans of the group: Elvis Costello and Bonnie Raitt. Really? NRBQ may the only thing those two agree upon. Didn't she slug him once when he spoke coarsely of Ray Charles? Elvis called Ray, if memory serves, an "O.B.N.," where "O" stands for "Old." I've known about "The Q," as Danno styles the combo, since the '70s, when it released an album called *At Yankee Stadium* which featured a cover photo of Yankee Stadium and was not, it turned out, recorded at Yankee Stadium. Chastened by the ensuing scandal, the Quartet went on to release albums titled *Not At Big Pink*, *Not At Budokan*, and *Not After Bathing At Baxter's*, plus the smash single "Not In Candy's Room." I missed all those, and in fact the only "Q" I've got in my library is "Next Stop Brattleboro," from a Rounder Records compilation of railroad songs built by my acquaintance, Michael Hyatt, of KXCI-FM here in Tucson (kxci.org). XTC content? This is a stretch, but back when I shopped for Christmas presents in actual stores, I did once hear the Three Wise Men's "Thanks For Christmas" over the PA. Ryan Anthony - An independent Internet content provider Now playing: "Star Of Bethlehem" by Emmylou Harris and Neil Young
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2011 20:40:16 -0800 (PST)
From: Ryan Anthony <hamsterranch@yahoo.com>
Subject: Other than Mary, are there songs about any female Christmas characters?
Message-ID: <1324183216.15084.YahooMailClassic@web161205.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
And another thing, while the floor is open (as it has been for a decade) to
non-XTC-related topics ...
Relph-san, are you going to buy up the domain name "chalkhills.xxx" so it
doesn't get taken by, oh, I don't know, a terror cell of chalk fetishists or
Ghostface Killahs or someone?
Late in November, Amazon offered a compilation titled *100 Classic Christmas
Songs* for download for US$5.99, and I went for it. Granted, "Classic" in
this case is sadly overstretched, but there are enough gems among the
teeth-grindingly saccharine cuts ("Santa, make me his Christmas bride ...")
to justify the buy. One agreeable discovery was Rosemary Clooney's "Suzy
Snowflake" (Sid Tepper/Roy C. Bennett) from 1951, which may just be the only
answer to the trivia question: Other than the Virgin Mary, can you name a
Christmas song about a female character?
Go down the list. Jesus is a guy. Santa is a guy. Mean Mister Grinch and
Good Ol' Charlie Brown are guys. Ditto Rudolph and his reinmates, Frosty,
the Magi, St. Stephen, Good King Wenceslas, Jack Frost, Jack Skellington,
the Little Drummer Boy, Dear Oh Joseph Mine, Parson Brown, Scrooge, the
God-rest-ye-merry Gentlemen, Garfield the cat, Nestor the donkey, the elves,
and even Lalo Guerrero's Pancho Claus. ("I am Santa's cousin / From South of
the Border / My name Pancho Claus / And I bring you your order.") "Suzy
Snowflake" may be awful in the cloying pre-irony mid-20th century way, but
it might be worth downloading to play for your mother, wife, s.o., sister,
or daughter.
Okay, there are two other female Christmas characters: Mrs. Claus (any songs
about her, though?) and, if you're a fan of mondegreens, you can't overlook
Olive, the Other Reindeer.
Ryan Anthony - An independent Internet content provider
Now playing in the Xmas Mix: "Gaudete" by Steeleye Span
------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2011 03:02:20 -0800 From: "Rob Hill" <notification+oi1edgiz@facebookmail.com> Subject: From A.V. Club's Will Harris Message-ID: <6a17a8be399f7b0bb14be1e0c16afdea@www.facebook.com> From A.V. Club's Will Harris: "...Three Wise Men are, in actuality, XTC, and it never fails to make me chuckle that the holiday which celebrates the birth of Jesus inspired one of pop music's most notorious atheists (Andy Partridge) to write one of his catchiest ditties." (The Kinks' "Father Christmas" gets a nod too.) http://www.avclub.com/articles/best-christmas-music,66686/
------------------------------ End of Chalkhills Digest #17-12 *******************************
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