From: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org (alloy-digest) To: alloy-digest@smoe.org Subject: alloy-digest V7 #190 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 Tuesday, September 17 2002 Volume 07 : Number 190 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Alloy: (Radio) Silent but still Stem-ish... [Brian Clayton Subject: Re: Alloy: (Radio) Silent but still Stem-ish... I don't remember commenting on this the first time around, but I'm little confused by the sequence of events listed here. Thomas' explanation indicates that there is a UK version of TGAoW that is track-by-track identical to the Harvest release in the US, but I've never seen such a LP. If the guitar Radio Silence preceded the synth version by some time (a few months perhaps), it would explain the release order of those versions in the US. However, if the Venice-In-Peril LP with "The Wreck of the Fairchild" and the synth version is considered the premiere release of the album, things become confused....it almost suggests that the Harvest LP was released in the US *before* the first Venice-In-Peril LP was released in the UK, which seems unlikely. So, has anyone seen a UK LP with the "magazine" cover AND the same track listing as the Harvest EP--complete with "Leipzig" and "Urges"? It would be odd that has none of us has ever stumbled across such a pressing! BC > Jon: > The 'Golden Age Of Wireless' has got so many different versions... What > happened? > > Thomas: > Oh God... I completely lost track...other people are much more familiar > than I am, Lazlo Nibble for example. Here's a sort of potted history of it. > All of that album I recorded in a basement studio in South London. We went > somewhere else to mix it, to a different studio in North London, and by > then I had written a couple of new songs including 'Windpower' but all of > the things with the band on, like 'Commercial Breakup', the guitar version > of 'Radio Silence' and so on, that were played live with a three piece band > were originally done in this South London studio. The more sequenced ones > like 'Flying North' and 'Windpower' were done at the time of mixing so I > kept adding new songs in; I finished the album with 'Urges' and 'Leipzig' > on it and released it in the UK where there were a couple of singles off > it; 'Europa' and 'Radio Silence' then 'Airwaves', which were the three > singles that came out and they each had a video. > The US company, Capitol, picked it up and released it over here as well and > it got some fairly good reviews; it had the same running order etc. but had > a different cover which was the 'Europa' cover from the Galileo set, but > aside from that the running order was the same. So they released it over > here and it sold about ten copies but got a couple of quite good reviews in > important places. While this was going on the record company in the UK, > after three singles didn't want to release any more singles from the album > so they said they I should start to do some more stuff; so I went into the > studio and recorded 'Science' and 'Submarines' and in the UK they released > ['She Blinded Me With Science'] as a single. > The American company heard those two songs and saw the video for 'Science' > and felt that this was a lot more commercial than anything on the album so > they put together a mini-LP, 'Blinded By Science' which had 12" versions > instead of the other versions of five songs. At the time a mini-LP was > eligible for the Billboard Charts but it was a promotional thing with > rock-bottom prices. They paid me a royalty and basically gave it away to > get a chart position and more radio-play. It was actually the most > successful mini-LP of all time because shortly after it this format was > deemed not eligible for the album charts anymore and they stopped making > them. The mini-LP had done very well and by this time the video ['She > Blinded Me With Science'] was getting played a lot on MTV and it was > getting a lot of dance-club play and radio-play... they didn't want to just > give away this mini-LP and not make any money on it so what they did was > take 'Science' and 'Submarines' and repackage 'Golden Age Of Wireless' > taking off 'Urges' and 'Leipzig', which were the oldest and replacing then > with the new songs. Meanwhile, back in the UK, after 'Science' did really > well decided to go back to the album and release 'Radio Silence' by which > time I was getting into programming and sampling stuff and I felt that the > guitar version was way too "rockist" as we say... > > Jon: > There are many people who love it! > > Thomas: > ...it didn't seem right for me to be releasing something like that at this > stage in my career because I was so much more into programming and I just > couldn't relate to it. So I decided to go back into the studio and do a > sequenced version of 'Radio Silence'. I think between that it accounts for > most of the mish-mash but frankly I lost track of what version were > released where. A global record company like EMI don't always ask your > permission or even fill you in; they have their own agenda. One of their > regional companies will say, "we could sell this album if we... changed > the order around or if we used a different version" and so on and so I > completely lost track. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 07:44:55 -0400 From: "Robin Thurlow" Subject: RE: Alloy: She Blinded Me With Science US MIX Yes, very useful!! I had always thought magpies were strictly UK birds. Now you have made me all happy :) xxx ~R - -----Original Message----- From: Beth Meyer Au contraire -- here in the Boulder area, we have tons of black-billed magpies. So many that I just called them "Boulder birds" until I found out what they were. Beautiful black and white birds with long tails, but with a loud squawk that could throw you off your stride as you're jogging by... Now wasn't that useful information? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 20:56:27 -0700 From: "Dennis Alexander" Subject: RE: Alloy: Re: alloy-digest V7 #186 Lissu wrote >P.S. >This is my first day of unemployment, the same as very many of my friends >working in and around Sophia Antipolis (or 'Telecom valley') here in France. >The economic crisis has us hit hard - local branches here of Lucent, Nortel, >Cisco, Amadeus, Andersen, Hewlett-Packard etc. are all shedding people >(including my other half) faster than lighting even though they say the >worst of it is over,...hope things are getting better where you guys are. So >I'll raise my cuppa tea in your direction, and wish for better things,..... I got laid off July 26th. Actually, I was forced to leave. Seems they got sued in the past by a contractor that was working for them for a number of years. He sued for missed benefits pleading that he had worked for them so long he should have been an employee. So they set a limit of 2 years for all contractors; they either had to leave or get hired. Well, I made it through 2 layoffs and when my 2 years were up there was no budget to hire me so I had to leave. My last day, they laid another 10% of their work force off, so there was no hope for me. I can go back after 6 months, that is, if the company is still around. They should be - the company is Avaya, a spin-off from Lucent who manufactures all the Definity phone systems, now with Voice over IP! At least, they were hoping VoIP could save them. My boss was thinking of every scheme possible to keep me there and now he's suffering under a tremendous work load, him and the rest of the team. ...hmmm, maybe its better I'm not there! ------------------------------ End of alloy-digest V7 #190 ***************************