From: owner-sycophant-digest@smoe.org (sycophant-digest) To: sycophant-digest@smoe.org Subject: sycophant-digest V5 #42 Reply-To: sycophant@smoe.org Sender: owner-sycophant-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-sycophant-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk sycophant-digest Thursday, March 23 2000 Volume 05 : Number 042 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: sycophant Pronunciation of "Lisa" ["Christian Boyon" ] Re: sycophant Depression [bilbo hicks ] Re: sycophant Depression [LD ] Re: sycophant Depression ["Gerard J. Jendras" ] Re: sycophant Depression [LD ] Re: sycophant Depression [kleinemans ] Re: sycophant Depression ["Gerard J. Jendras" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 12:37:13 GMT From: "Christian Boyon" Subject: Re: sycophant Pronunciation of "Lisa" You wrote: >Isn't there a bad pun there somewhere? Something along the lines of "If you >don't want to Lisa Germano, maybe you can buy one"... > I don't understand what you mean by bad pun or simply by pun. And I can't find the link between what you are quoting about. Where did you find it and why? This is no investigation or a kind of aggressiveness, it's simply that your sentence is too short to understand it well. And I want to understand you, be sure of that. Thank You Christian > > >------- >The Ectophile's Guide to Good Music: http://www.smoe.org/ectoguide/ >------- >To unsub, mail majordomo@smoe.org with the message: >unsubscribe sycophant > >If you gave an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of computers, >they would all get AOL accounts and send unsub messages to the list >address. AOL users please read the instructions six lines up before >unsubbing. > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com - ------- The Ectophile's Guide to Good Music: http://www.smoe.org/ectoguide/ - ------- To unsub, mail majordomo@smoe.org with the message: unsubscribe sycophant If you gave an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of computers, they would all get AOL accounts and send unsub messages to the list address. AOL users please read the instructions six lines up before unsubbing. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 13:07:39 GMT From: "Christian Boyon" Subject: Re: sycophant The Queen Elisabeth Hall Right! Except "Geek The Girl", every albums contained real good singles, in a commercial way of thinking of course and also. And even with "Love Circus", two singles "Small Heads" and "I Love a Snot" (the last one I never found here in Belgium), that's pretty few. In a way I was not unhappy not to see her in continuous rotation on MTV, for selfish reason in a way ("the less she is known, the more she is mine", that kind of fantasy), but also 'cause her music is too fine (like in French the same word "fine") or delicate to be consummate like a hamburger (I'm making it short). On the other side, I hoped for her she got enough success to make a living with her music. But if she was a kind of a very small hype five years ago, in Europe especially (I think), time is passing and now she is a kind of a cult artist. Cult artists doesn't sell very well. And people like Will Oldham, Bill Callahan from Smog, for example, are following the same way. You have to be exceptionally polyvalent or incredibly productive to "make a living" (I hope it's clear enough, my accent is...)with music and only as the leader of your own music. Jim O'Rourke is maybe the best example of this kind of artist 'cause he is adding up both polyvalence and big productivity. For lisa, I think that's good for her to be a kind of "guest musician", but she has to be careful. For one Eels or one Latin Playboys, how many Smashin' Pumpkins there are. She has to choose bands which are big enough to pay her and small enough to not treat her like a piece of shit. She has to be careful. I hope she is. Christian >From: Stian Sandberg >Reply-To: sycophant@smoe.org >To: sycophant@smoe.org >Subject: Re: sycophant The Queen Elisabeth Hall >Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2000 16:43:26 +0100 > >Wow . wish i was there :o) You put it so nicely, Christian; "Lisa >doesn't just make music, she IS music!" I think this 'Lisa leaving >the industry'-thing is very mysterious. She obviously wants to make >her own music without any record-company restrains, but when she was >signed to 4AD around 1993, she said that 4AD never told her to do >anything, they just adviced her, but made perfectly clear that every >artistic thing was totally up to her. That's my vision of 4AD as >well, they're very keen on the music, as opposed to big labels, who >only worry about money. Very strange, cos if they wanted to, I'm sure >they could find a way to sell Lisa's records, stuff like "I Love a >Snot", "Turning Into Betty" etc. must have a commercial value... >right? > >i'll always wonder.. > >s > > > >------- >The Ectophile's Guide to Good Music: http://www.smoe.org/ectoguide/ >------- >To unsub, mail majordomo@smoe.org with the message: >unsubscribe sycophant > >If you gave an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of computers, >they would all get AOL accounts and send unsub messages to the list >address. AOL users please read the instructions six lines up before >unsubbing. > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com - ------- The Ectophile's Guide to Good Music: http://www.smoe.org/ectoguide/ - ------- To unsub, mail majordomo@smoe.org with the message: unsubscribe sycophant If you gave an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of computers, they would all get AOL accounts and send unsub messages to the list address. AOL users please read the instructions six lines up before unsubbing. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 11:12:39 EST From: TRman2323@aol.com Subject: Re: sycophant Depression I remember once I was feeling pretty down--I don't know if I was clinically depressed or anything, but I was unemployed at the time, and my marriage had just fallen apart, so I wasn't the happiest guy around. Anyway, for some reason I went to see the movie "Glen Gary Glen Ross" which is a very depressing movie, and even though I could recognize it was a good movie, it was really the wrong thing for me to be watching at the time. So it's quite possible the same thing could be true of listening to Lisa when depressed, though to me even her most depressing songs have a silver lining to them... - ------- The Ectophile's Guide to Good Music: http://www.smoe.org/ectoguide/ - ------- To unsub, mail majordomo@smoe.org with the message: unsubscribe sycophant If you gave an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of computers, they would all get AOL accounts and send unsub messages to the list address. AOL users please read the instructions six lines up before unsubbing. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 17:45:45 +0100 From: kleinemans Subject: Re: sycophant Depression i listen to lisa germano 'cause i'm a depressed nutcase. i rather use the word sad though. there's sadness in my heart. i don't feel the desire for treatment though. all my favourite artists are kinda sad. i've found that listening to them is a good thing for me. for me it seems to be an outlet for my emotions. i don't know that much about depression though, and i think there's loads of different kinds of it. i couldn't see why listening to sad music is bad for anyone though. i don't think you should shove your shit away. sometimes you just need to let it all get out. i beg all the pple like tim out here to give mellon collie and the infinite sadness by the smashing pumpkins a listen. i ignored the pumpkins for years, thinking that they were just a boring pretentious alternative rock thing but i met someone on the eels list who forced me to give it a listen and i have to tell you that as far as lyrics are concerned, mellon collie is the most stunning thing i have ever heard. you haven't heard anything yet if you heaven't heard that one. it's a bleedin' shame i have to defend my love for the pumpkins over and over again (even though their new album is a bit crap). some pple will never understand. kleinemans - ------- The Ectophile's Guide to Good Music: http://www.smoe.org/ectoguide/ - ------- To unsub, mail majordomo@smoe.org with the message: unsubscribe sycophant If you gave an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of computers, they would all get AOL accounts and send unsub messages to the list address. AOL users please read the instructions six lines up before unsubbing. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 09:04:13 -0800 (PST) From: bilbo hicks Subject: Re: sycophant Depression - --- kleinemans wrote: > i listen to lisa germano 'cause i'm a depressed > nutcase. i rather use the > word sad though. there's sadness in my heart. I feel the same way sometimes and i believe that listening to music that you can relate too really helps. >i beg all the > people like tim out here to give mellon collie and the > infinite sadness by > the smashing pumpkins a listen. It's funny that the Smashing Pumpkins were mentioned, because when i was really down the only two artists that i listened to were Lisa Germano and The Smashing Pumpkins. Lots of dark nights were spent with them. And i can't sleep at night if i don't listen to a few Lisa songs before i go to bed. It's the best way to forget all the crap of the day. 'Woodfloors'has everything. > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com - ------- The Ectophile's Guide to Good Music: http://www.smoe.org/ectoguide/ - ------- To unsub, mail majordomo@smoe.org with the message: unsubscribe sycophant If you gave an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of computers, they would all get AOL accounts and send unsub messages to the list address. AOL users please read the instructions six lines up before unsubbing. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 12:19:49 -0500 From: LD Subject: Re: sycophant Depression hmmmm... depression. i'm pretty down most of the time, inside at least, but since i think it's usually unutterably boring and a bit rude to inflict it on the general populace - and especially one's friends! - i don't generally share it in detail. and i'm usually pretty energetic, so it doesn;t look like i'm depressed, even when i am really really down. i tend to think of myself - and my doctor agrees! - as a borderline manic type with a calssical melancholic temperament. long ago my doctor said he could medicate me, but that i'd probably hate it. it would cure my inosmnia, but the fun and productivity of being manic would disappear -and probably only make me more depressed.... so, no medication for me. anyone interested in creative personality types (and art histiry) should read the excellent book BORN UNDER THE SIGN OF SATURN, which is all about the correlation between depresison/mental disorders and creative.... i was interviewed recently about my own music - which, on the first flare record, is pretty relentlessly sad. the guy interviewing me was funny, though: he kept wanting to know who'd hurt me so bad, and was whether making the album was therapeutic or a way of achieving closure or whatever... of course, i was appalled, since the songs on the "bottom" aren't mostly autobiographical or diaristic. certainly there's elements of me and my life in all of it, but it's not the story of my life... whihc the interviewer just didn't want to believe! i kept saying that yes, the emotions are real, and i believe in them and in the "plots" (such as they are) of the songs, but that they didn't all happen to me, or happen in the way i wrote/sing about them.... i mean, that's wehere he art part comes in, right!?!?!? as to the therapeutic part - and perhaps the other musicians on this list will agree - staying busy is the best way for me to keep sane and focused. i don't generally use my songs as a form of therapy, per se, but i do find recording and performing to be cathartic, fulfilling, a way of achieving a sense of self-worth (though that's problematic!) etc. but songs as therapy? - - nope, not for me. re: listening to other people's sad music. i love some stuff, like low and lisa g. and joy division and red house painters because they don't sentimentalize or romanticise depression or sad subjects or pain. but i hate stuff that's whiny or pathetic or begging for sympathy or just sort of done by rote - seems false and disingenuous to me. i could make a list of these artists, but i bet it would offend some folks on this list. i don't generally find lisa or joy division depressing - if anything, listening to or looking at or reading intense and honest stuff like that (or certain works of art or movies or books) serves to take me away from my own problems and has occasionally suggested new ways of looking at my own mess in a constructive way. so while i don't find making art of any sort therapeutic in that it solves my problems or whatever -it does release tension and focuses things a bit and keeps me occupied so i don't brood so much. but other people's work can be therapeutic for me - at least as a sort of stimulus, in that i might think about or feel something otherwise outside my realm.... xoxoxo / ld beghtol - ------- The Ectophile's Guide to Good Music: http://www.smoe.org/ectoguide/ - ------- To unsub, mail majordomo@smoe.org with the message: unsubscribe sycophant If you gave an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of computers, they would all get AOL accounts and send unsub messages to the list address. AOL users please read the instructions six lines up before unsubbing. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 12:39:14 -0500 From: "Gerard J. Jendras" Subject: Re: sycophant Depression I *still* can't listen to The Smashing Pumpkins, since their inexplicably stupid dismissal of Lisa some time ago...I'm that angry about what they did. Haven't smashed their CDs yet, though. Gerard bilbo hicks wrote: > --- kleinemans wrote: > > i listen to lisa germano 'cause i'm a depressed > > nutcase. i rather use the > > word sad though. there's sadness in my heart. > > I feel the same way sometimes and i believe that > listening to music that you can relate too really > helps. > > >i beg all the > > people like tim out here to give mellon collie and > the > > infinite sadness by > > the smashing pumpkins a listen. > > It's funny that the Smashing Pumpkins were mentioned, > because when i was really down the only two artists > that i listened to were Lisa Germano and The Smashing > Pumpkins. Lots of dark nights were spent with them. > And i can't sleep at night if i don't listen to a few > Lisa songs before i go to bed. It's the best way to > forget all the crap of the day. 'Woodfloors'has > everything. > > > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. > http://im.yahoo.com > > ------- > The Ectophile's Guide to Good Music: http://www.smoe.org/ectoguide/ > ------- > To unsub, mail majordomo@smoe.org with the message: > unsubscribe sycophant > > If you gave an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of computers, > they would all get AOL accounts and send unsub messages to the list > address. AOL users please read the instructions six lines up before > unsubbing. - ------- The Ectophile's Guide to Good Music: http://www.smoe.org/ectoguide/ - ------- To unsub, mail majordomo@smoe.org with the message: unsubscribe sycophant If you gave an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of computers, they would all get AOL accounts and send unsub messages to the list address. AOL users please read the instructions six lines up before unsubbing. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 12:57:17 -0500 From: LD Subject: Re: sycophant Depression on 3/22/00 12:39 PM, Gerard J. Jendras at jendras@attglobal.net wrote: > I *still* can't listen to The Smashing Pumpkins, since > their inexplicably stupid dismissal of Lisa some time > ago...I'm that angry about what they did. Haven't > smashed their CDs yet, though. what did i miss? was she working with them?!?!?!? yuck! she;s better off alone. or with john cougar whasshisname... - ------- The Ectophile's Guide to Good Music: http://www.smoe.org/ectoguide/ - ------- To unsub, mail majordomo@smoe.org with the message: unsubscribe sycophant If you gave an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of computers, they would all get AOL accounts and send unsub messages to the list address. AOL users please read the instructions six lines up before unsubbing. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 00:29:30 +0100 From: kleinemans Subject: Re: sycophant Depression >so while i don't find making art of any sort therapeutic in that it solves >my problems or whatever -it does release tension and focuses things a bit >and keeps me occupied so i don't brood so much. but other people's work can >be therapeutic for me - at least as a sort of stimulus, in that i might >think about or feel something otherwise outside my realm.... you said it man. i join you here. now could someone tell me the detaisl of lisa and the sp? i know she was supposed to play with them on the adore tour but that it got canceled somehow.. did she had an argument with billy? klm - ------- The Ectophile's Guide to Good Music: http://www.smoe.org/ectoguide/ - ------- To unsub, mail majordomo@smoe.org with the message: unsubscribe sycophant If you gave an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of computers, they would all get AOL accounts and send unsub messages to the list address. AOL users please read the instructions six lines up before unsubbing. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 19:42:27 -0500 From: "Gerard J. Jendras" Subject: Re: sycophant Depression kleinemans wrote: > now could someone tell me the detaisl of > lisa and the sp? i know she was supposed to play with them on the adore > tour but that it got canceled somehow.. did she had an argument with billy? > > klm > Here's an article from late1998 discussing that sorry situation (among other things). I posted this article back then. Maybe it's due for a re-run now: Pop: Happy to be centre stage, at long last Big stars? Glum rockers? Don't let the buggers grind you down. Lisa Germano didn't. The Independent; London Oct 16, 1998; [FINAL Edition] Copyright Newspaper Publishing Plc Oct 16, 1998 "WAY BELOW The Radio", the first song on Lisa Germano's lovely new album Slide (4AD), hums and pulses into life like some magical transmitter. It's the perfect beginning for a record whose mesmeric wash of eerie guitars, twinkling glockenspiels and asthmatic harmonium is punctuated with sudden, uplifting rushes of energy - like guerilla broadcasts on a previously undiscovered frequency. This is captivating music; music that wraps itself around your heart as inexorably as a climbing plant invades a trellis. Its depth of subtlety and nuance are the last thing you would expect from someone who started out playing the fiddle for that shameless Bruce Springsteen- wannabe, John Cougar Mellencamp. On meeting Germano, the mystery deepens. The elliptical and melancholic character of her recordings is belied by a sunny and bewilderingly straightforward presence. As she recounts an unhappy recent return to jobbing musicianhood with The Smashing Pumpkins, her good humour seems even more surprising. Having been assiduously courted by chief Pumpkin Billy Corgan, she rehearsed with the Chicago glum rockers for a month in London earlier this year, only to be fired for no reason the day before the first gig of the tour. "They're just really miserable people", Lisa says cheerfully. "My friend Kenny Aronoff was playing the drums with them, too, and I guess the two of us were so positive it was just too much for them". An excess of positivity has not always been Germano's problem. Having spent years training as a violinist, she quit music to "wait tables at a coffee shop in Indiana, being miserable for six or seven years". Then she started playing fiddle in a country band. And after the aforementioned Kenny - then drumming for John Cougar Mellencamp - dropped by to sit in with them, it was only a matter of time before Lisa was touring with the man who gave the world "Jack and Diane". The music she's making now is a world away from such ponderous beginnings, but she credits the stadium-size egos of the rock aristocracy (Germano can also count Simple Minds and U2 among her former employers) with an inspirational impact. "They think the whole world revolves around them, but I think they have to think that way to be that big. These people are not invulnerable - they get crushed sometimes like everyone else, but they have to have this persona that can't be crushed. You can feel insecure by yourself, but when you're in the public eye you have to do ... confident things". "I didn't want to be a star," she remembers, "I just knew I was denying myself what I was supposed to be doing". So Lisa finally got around to finishing off 1991's ear-catching solo debut On The Way Down From The Moon Palace. Subsequent releases Happiness, Geek The Girl and 1996's mercurial Excerpts From A Love Circus expanded her palette(the latter featuring contributions from her cats Dorothy and Miamo-Tutti), but Slide attains a new balance of the confessional and the universal. Lyrical snippets like this from "No Colour Here": "All my mistakes woven in a rug" are as vivid as dog-eared snapshots falling out of a photo album. OP8, her recent collaboration with veteran desert rockers Giant Sand, produced the courtly and elegiac Slush (V2) one of 1997's finest albums. Watching OP8 play live a couple of times, the battle of wills between Germano and Giant Sand's notoriously disruptive frontman Howie GeIb was a joy to behold. "Howie had to go home in the middle of the tour because a friend of his was dying. Me and the other two guys carried on and we got a dynamic that was really working, and then Howie came back..." Her voice tails off. How was the impasse resolved? "He had to give a lot and I had to give a lot". "I can fit in with anybody if I'm playing with them, but if it's my thing, it doesn't fit in with anybody... If someone asks me what kind of music I make, I don't even know what to tell them". Surely that's how it should be? Germano laughs. "It doesn't sell records, but I feel very creatively satisfied". `Slide' (4AD) is out on Monday. Lisa Germano plays upstairs at The Garage on 16 October Caption: Lisa Germano: from Mellencamp via Pumpkins to creative freedom - ------------------------------------------------------------ Authors: Ben Thompson Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission. ...so shoot me :) =========== End of Document ============ - ------- The Ectophile's Guide to Good Music: http://www.smoe.org/ectoguide/ - ------- To unsub, mail majordomo@smoe.org with the message: unsubscribe sycophant If you gave an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of computers, they would all get AOL accounts and send unsub messages to the list address. AOL users please read the instructions six lines up before unsubbing. ------------------------------ End of sycophant-digest V5 #42 ****************************** ======================================================================== Please send any questions or comments about the list to sycophant-owner@smoe.org