From: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org (alloy-digest) To: alloy-digest@smoe.org Subject: alloy-digest V6 #168 Reply-To: alloy@smoe.org Sender: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "alloy-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. alloy-digest Sunday, July 1 2001 Volume 06 : Number 168 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Alloy: ta, and bad taste ["Robin Thurlow" ] Alloy: Ravivar Fiore ["Mary A. Brown" ] Alloy: delightful rap ["Julie Sweeney" ] Alloy: Huzzah! Fixed it! ["Chris & Beena Cracknell" Subject: Re: Alloy: ta, and bad taste - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris & Beena Cracknell" > With the exception of "She Blinded Me With Science" he seemed to be quite > impressed with the emotional depth of the rest of TGAOW. Yes, I thought he really nailed it in his description. It's such a strange set of reviews though... in places he seems to pick up on a lot of depth, but in others he completely contradicts himself by seeming to not have thought it through really. Opinions aside, I'd simply think he'd want to be more thorough if he were going to the trouble of posting reviews on the internet which are meant to represent his observations. Andy J's reviews are brilliant, for example... well written, honest and thoughtful. But I shouldn't compare... we all can't be "Andy J"s after all :) Like I've mentioned here before, I was really thrown for a loop when I first heard AAMB myself, because it was territory I was completely unfamiliar with musically. It caught me off-guard because I was not ready for the bass being so much louder than even the horns, and the bass and vocals standing out so sharply from the rest of the mix (much of his previous stuff had been mixed more closely to traditional depths of volume so I wasn't ready!) What I wish 'Old Punk' had done was at least place the record in context with Thomas' real life and career (if the guy is so interested in emotional content I'd think he'd at least care somewhat about the reality of the person's life who made the piece..?) The album's slickness and subject matter seem to reflect what Thomas was observing at the time he wrote it, and it's the artist's job to translate what he sees and feels and express it through his work. (please excuse my constant references to the art world whenever I talk about this stuff... I know it must be boring and seem a little disconnected, but it's something that i'm trying to understand through artists such as Thomas who've worked so extensively under the scrutiny of the public eye) What the AAMB thing reminded me of was the whole situation of an artist's body of work. I know that for visual artists there are a lot of transitional stages (think of Pablo Picasso's various styles throughout his career) and for those working actively in the field & having their stuff shown regularly, any period of transition ~ which is inevitable in a healthy career ~ is seen as a definite 'danger zone' by the world of galleries and dealers. One of the things the business people want to be sure of is that there will be more pieces created in a similar style to the one they're about to back, so the fan base of the artist can be depended upon to remain interested. They need to know (or at least think they know) it's a 'sure thing'. When even an established artist is taking a new creative direction, the galleries, agents etc will inevitably back way off and won't show the person again until a solid interest has been re-established in the new direction. It sounds exactly like what goes on in the music biz & I am really interested in such parallels. Anyway I learned a lot from all the unfamiliar ground Thomas covered on AAMB, in fact some of my favorite songs ever created are from that album. xxx Robin T ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2001 15:39:03 -0400 From: "Mary A. Brown" Subject: Alloy: Ravivar Fiore Robyn, Excellent question! I've wanted to know more about this track myself. I believe though, that the language is Italian and the title, with the help of Stephen's Italian/English dictionary, translates to something like "Reviving Flower". It sounds like it is Wendy Smith from Prefab Sprout singing on it to my ear. I definitely agree it's the melody from "Blueberry Pies". It is otherworldly, isn't it? It also calls to mind some snippet from the movie "Fever Pitch" but I can't dredge it up from memory right now. Anyone else have info that's more enlightening? Europa ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2001 16:09:51 -0500 From: "Julie Sweeney" Subject: Alloy: delightful rap > > That rap was actually one of my least favorite moments of the entire CD. > > ^_^; > > Hmmm.. I actually really like that part in particular! Me too.... he has an extremely sexy voice, all breathy and up front like that.... it kind of makes me think of how some of INXS's stuff was mixed with Michael Hutchence's voice very out front, breathy and maybe even a little flanged, so it sounds like he's singing right in your ear--all to extremely good effect. Plus I would hardly call that rapping. > To me, a rap only sound odd when the person is rapping about something that > would obviously be foreign to them... experiences they wouldn't have had, > like if Thomas had been rapping about growing up on the streets of Harlem. > But hearing him go on about astronomical things sounds like poetry to me :) > ! He could go on about anything and it would sound like poetry... that's probably one of the biggest reasons I love his music so very much. Oh, now I'm feeling all dreamy and stuff... Julie ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2001 17:38:08 -0400 From: "Chris & Beena Cracknell" Subject: Alloy: Huzzah! Fixed it! Well my computer has been acting really wonky lately. At first I thought the videocard was fried because whenever I scroll a window the window graphics would become a random mess of pixels. But then I noticed that this glitch worsened the higher the mercury was in the thermometre. Hmmmm sounds like a little heat problem. Went to Canadian Tire today and bought a little 6 inch fan. Took the case off the computer and have the fan blowing directly into the machine and across all the boards. So far the machine is working flawlessly. Woohoo! Cheaper than buying a new videocard, that's for sure. The computer actually fits in much nicer with the geekroom decore with the case off. Of course now I have to worry about dust build-up or a curious cat going "I wonder what happens if I put my nose right here." Plus, all my old keyboard magazines used to be stored behind my computer but now that there's a fan there, I'll have to find a new place to put them. Damnit. I really need a bigger geekroom. I've always been impressed with people who can cram a lot of gear in a small space and have everything neat and tidy. I've seen pictures of Wendy Carlos's studio and I was impressed with how much gear she had crammed into a pretty modest sized space and at how neat and tidy it all looked. Those who have seen my geekroom first hand can attest to it's chaoticness. Of course disorganization is in the eyes of the beholder. I have a pretty good idea, more or less, where everything is in the odd stacks of CDs, books, not-so-careful notes, and gear, gear, gear (most of it quite ancient). Then there's the web of wires that criss-cross the entire geekroom running hither and fro. Wires that ferry bits from one computer into another into some odd piece of gear into a keyboard into another piece of gear and back into another computer. I sometimes wonder if I laid every cable in the geekroom out end to end how many miles in total they would all add up to. My geekroom has almost become a living organism in and of itself. It's like some sort of proto-nucleus of the Borg with me as the only carbon based element inside it (apart from the occaisional outside visitor). Or perhaps like some sort of bizarre cyber-womb with me as the jolly secure fetus floating around inside it being careful not to yank a vital umbilical cord. I just don't know how artists like Wendy Carlos manage to do it. I wonder what Thomas's personal geekroom is like. Does he have the chaotic mass of "tubes and wires" like me or is his geekroom the crisp clean almost sterile workstation like Wendy Carols's? Which reminds me... You know who I think I would most like to see a collaboration project from (I mean besides the obvious of Thomas and myself)? Thomas Dolby and Wendy Carlos. That would make my day. Eargasms gallore I am sure. Crackers (to whom do I have to sacrifice a virgin from hell!!!) CrAB - http://www.hwcn.org/~ad329/crab.html The Official Bira Bira Webpage - http://birabira.chaosmagic.com Ghastly's Ghastly Comic - http://ghastly.keenspace.com ------------------------------ End of alloy-digest V6 #168 ***************************