Indie-List V2 N1
Indie-List Digest Tue, 1 Jun 93 Volume 2 : Issue 1
Today's Topics:
Administrivia
I:Fear And Loathing In Richmond
I:road trip to Irvine and etc.
I: Three articles
INDIE SUB
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Date: Fri, 28 May 1993 19:39:49 -0400 (EDT)
From: Mark Cornick <cornick>
Subject: Administrivia
To: indie-l
Oh, hi. You will notice some things that are different about this
issue.
1) New schedule. The digests now mail early on Tuesday mornings
(between midnight and 6 AM.) Please get your articles to Joshua by
5.00 PM EST on Monday. Thanks.
2) New format. The digests are now compiled automatically. Yes, I
know, this is the first nail in the coffin, but I have less and less
time to compile the digests, so I figured why not let Unix do it for
me. So shoot me. :-) One of the good things about this system is that
it compiles a "table of contents" for each issue. In order to make
this work, please format your subject lines this way:
I: subject of your article (i.e. I: New Kathie Lee Gifford LP)
(The I: is the flag to Joshua that this is an indie-list article.
You'll see an I: before every subject in the Table of Contents, but
you can live with it, right? :-)
This issue looks a bit funky because we got some articles before the
digest collector was installed.
I do need to ask a favor of you article writers. Please wrap your
lines to 80 characters or less. Lines over 80 characters cause
problems for the Gopher system, and with the new digest compiler it's
less convenient for me to wrap all the lines. So please do it
yourself. (If you use Emacs, pressing M-q will wrap a paragraph for
you. Type "M-x auto-fill- mode" without the quotes, and Emacs will
wrap automatically. Neat huh?)
3) New volume number. Because of all the changes, and because it made
my life a little easier while I was trying to get the damn digest
program to compile, I skipped issues 33-99 of Volume 1 and went
straight to Volume 2, Issue 1. Cool? Cool.
Anyway, enough administrative bullshit. You might like to know that
I'm moving to Richmond as soon as I have the money. Basically,
whatever life Charlottesville might have had is dying, and there is a
lot happening in Richmond right now that I'm interested in. (All that
may be gone in a year or three, but Richmond has this habit of rising
like the phoenix, so who knows.) I have a few options for places to
stay, at least one job prospect, and an offer to play in a band, so
all should be well for me. The move probably won't happen for a few
weeks yet, but when it does I'll let you know. (If you read
indie-list, live in Richmond, and didn't know about this until now,
I'm sorry. I thought I told everyone, but I might've not. :-)
Reviews:
TWITCH HAZEL/THE TECHNICAL JED, _Kramer's Beach_ dbl 45: Split double
45s always seemed a little strange to me -- why not just release two
separate singles? And the choice of bands on this one strikes me as
weird, too, but enough about that. Twitch Hazel is a Richmond band
that recorded a 4-track demo back in 1989 before splitting -- they
went on to the Waking Hours, Coral and Engine No. 9, which became
Fudge. The four songs on Twitch Hazel's 45 are re-recordings of songs
from that demo. Basically, the songs sound pretty much like what
you'd expect, given the work the individual members have done since.
The result is more like Fudge than any of the other bands, but with a
somewhat heavier hand. Nice pop stuff, and a much better recording
than the original demo. **. The Technical Jed, on the other 45, are
a more recent Richmond quartet, with sort of a 70s rock sound. It
doesn't grab you right at first, but improves with repeated listens.
Don't be surprised if you don't like 'em right away, but get into 'em
as you go along. *1/2. (Brilliant, PO Box 17116, Richmond VA
23226-7116)
MUSICAL CHAIRS, "Bottled Up" 45: A one-sided, two-songed seven inch
from a guy named Ian who used to live in Richmond and is a good friend
of several people I know, although I don't know him personally.
Non-confrontational wimp-pop, much in the Harriet mode of things,
kinda reminded me of the Honeybunch. Some people go for it, some
don't. If you do, this is worth the effort. Great band name, too.
*1/2. (Pillarbox Red, 1 The Spinneys, Malling St, Lewes, East Sussex
BN7 2RN, UNITED KINGDOM)
That's all for now and remember, if it's GOYA it has to be good...
--mark, master of Spanish foods at Kroger and Grenadine fan
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1993 06:13:10 -0400 (EDT)
From: Mark Cornick <cornick>
Subject: I:Fear And Loathing In Richmond
To: indie-l
Notes from my trip to Retchmond...
o I am now the drummer for Friendly (aka Friendly Indian Ethnic Death
Shit.) Friendly features Mike Kasenter and Cyndy Chan, soon-to-be-
formerly of Hassan Chop!, plus Mike's brother Tim and some people yet
to be recruited. More on this as it develops.
o I have a job offer and a few housing options. My friend Scott has
offered me a job where he works, and a room in a house he's renting on
Oregon Hill. So hopefully I can make my move soon.
o Aurora Paralysis, one of Richmond's better bands of the past year
IMO, have apparently called it a day. Mike tells me they played their
last show Sunday night. Shame.
o Coming soon from those, well, eerie folks ar Eerie Materials is a
split 45 between two variable-name bands, Caroliner Rainbow [...] and
Eeyore Power Tool [...]. How soon? Dunno.
Etc etc etc... maybe some more record reviews next time, I dunno. --
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1993 01:43:05 -0400 (EDT)
From: Mark Cornick <cornick>
Subject: I:road trip to Irvine and etc.
To: indie-l
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 14:56:40 -0400 (EDT)
From: Socks <houk@athena.cs.uga.edu>
Subject: I: Three articles
To: cornick@access.digex.net (Mark Cornick)
From: mlim@sdcc13.UCSD.EDU (Michael Lim)
Hi, here's an article for the next Indie List...
Seam and Kill Sybil at Jabberjaw, LA (May 22, 1993)
Last night, me and a couple friends made the trip up from San Diego to
check out Seam at Jabberjaw. Jabberjaw is a small coffeehouse place
that attracts the "alternative" types. About 150 or so people can
crap their sweaty bodies into the joint. Anyways, for lack of time,
I'll skip straight to the show...
Kill Sybil were pretty good...didn't know anything about them, but I
had heard them described as "sorta punky, sorta poppy," and this
description is pretty accurate.
Seam casually took the stage, and spent a couple minutes adjusting
their gear, as they didn't do a soundcheck. Sooyoung Park straps on
his Telecaster and strums a few chords and adjusts his pedals (for the
gear nuts out there, he went into a Digitech delay, a Boss Bass
Equalizer (a remnant from his Bitch Magnet days, no doubt!), and a Rat
distortion, into a Fender Bassman reissue). Also, their lineup has
changed recently. They now have a new guitarist, named Craig and a
new drummer, Bob (from Poster Children.). Lexi Mitchell remains on
bass.
So, they break into Decatur, the first song off their excellent album,
Headsparks. Excellent! Sooyoung is really calm and mildmannered off
stage, but on stage, he really unleashes a torrent of angst and
subdued fury! They played a couple more songs off Headsparks, and
also Kernel, off the recent EP of the same name. Then, they played
about 4 or 5 new tracks, probably off their new LP, to be released in
September on Touch and Go. The new songs were great! They are more
similar to the songs off the Kernel EP, with a lot of drone and clean
guitars, intersperced with distorted bits and angstful singing. Some
of the singing on the new songs were more reminiscent of Bitch Magnet
than Seam, but musically, they are droney and modal sounding. They
played Granny 9X, but didn't play New Year's, despite the yells from
the crowd. For the encore, they played another new song, which
Sooyoung said was his mom's favorite song, and then closed with
Feather. It was a great show, and it was really nice to hear that
their new songs were really great, and also to hear some favorites off
of Headsparks. They will be playing at Off the Record, a record store
in San Diego tomorrow, so that should be another great show...now,
back to studying for this damn midterm...
From: dh131@city.ac.uk
Hello again, from number dh131 (Chris for short) in the 'good','ole'
GB. Got some US bands coming over soon, such as Tsunami and Polvo,
I'll review them in due course, but meanwhile......
(live): Shadowy men on a shadowy planet/Motorcyclone (Camden Falcon)
I get there late, because I hate being early on my own and standing
around like a lemon, staring at everyone like an overinquisitive
lobotomy job. Fortunately, there's a band on when I get there, so I
don't feel too awkward. Unfortunately I'd missed half of them and
they seemed pretty good in a support band kinda way. The singer was
sat astride a tall amp box, singing in a sneery John Lennon type
whine. They get extra points for sounding like little known Aussie
bunch the Moles, with all the brash piano dynamics and jazzy
progressions. A group of 7 or 8 people walk out and the singer pauses
mid song to tell them 'see ya later'. They veer off through White
Album, Beatles territory and even pause in Eagles-ville (bleeurgh) for
a thankfully short few seconds. Scowling to the end, the last song
addresses everyone in the music business from the bands to the
critics, in witty but slightly forced rhyme. Bit contrived but miles
from the average Falcon copycat support band. The Shadowy men take the
stage immediately, I'm most impressed by the gleaming white
Rickenbacher with gold pick-ups, I don't normally go for guitars,
equating guitar love with car/football/male bonding, but this one is a
beaut. I don't know any songs, but do you need to ? The twangiest
guitar sound this side of Duane Eddy. They don't say much, apart from
pausing for the occasional 'yeah' and don't even break between songs.
If Husker Du had been brought up on the Shadows, they might have
sounded a bit like this. The one that really gets me starts with
synchronised whistling, cheesier than truckload of Stilton, before
getting down to some serious twanging. The audience remained straight
faced, arms crossed throughout,although some rogue feet were
tapping.Great stuff.
Records: TSUNAMI : Deep End (Simple machines)
I'm disappointed. Loadhog/Goldigger confirmed me stubbornly in the
faith, but the lp takes a bit more getting used to. I love their
sound, the harmonies are really great and both Jenny and Kristen have
really good strong voices, but the songs are steadfastly earthbound.
'Slugger' starts like Olla's awesomely demented 'Septic Hagfish'
without the squiggly bit on the organ, but doesn't go anywhere. Ok, I
have favourites 'Genius of Crack' is really moody and intense, 'Stupid
Like a Fox' is a great 'epic' ending to an lp that builds layers upon
layers, but there's too many mediocre tracks, which I can`t even
remember the names to. The songs seem to follow a pre-worked formula
and blend into each other too seamlessly without hooks to stand them
apart. Like most bands who do loads of singles first, the suspicion is
that they've already used up their best songs. Perhaps I'm wrong, I
like the lp, but this is one I expected to love. *
THE RENDERERS : A million lights (Merge)
"It's about time someone bought that record", remarks the shop
assistant at Rough Trade,"I've been on about them for ages....'. I was
hoping that the paltry pound might claw back against the dollar, and
then the exorbitant 3.75 might come down to something more reasonable,
but enough of that. Another 'oldie', from New Zealands premiere
'country' band, who should have another single out now according to
Flying Nun's last newsletter. Well this one will do just fine for me.
'Between me and nothing, there's only you', Mary-Rose Crook pleads at
one point, and it's enough to have any grown man in tears. A slide
guitar yaws drunkenly away in the background, over a wibbly organ
giving a sea-sick feeling to the whole proceedings. It's only
marginally marred by an over-excited guitar solo at the end.The flip
'Primitive country' is a similarly excellent spectral sway, with
droning cello and electric guitar to match. **1/2
See ya in a couple of weeks (exams allowing!)
*
Forwarded courtesy of Lena...
- Joshua
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 27 May 93 11:22:37 PDT
From: Julie Carter <a-julic@microsoft.com>
Subject: CURSE/KCMU News!
I'm forwarding the good news below. Please bear in mind that much of
this info. is from inside the station but has not yet been confirmed
by
management....
Julie
_________________________________
From: Kathy Fennessy
To: "Steve Farneman" <netmail!STEVEF@sub1.subnet.uidaho.edu>
Subject: Re: Musica Y Otros Veces (como se dice en ingles?)
Date: Thursday, May 27, 1993 9:36AM
Word has it that the last KCMU membership drive only got about $8,000
in pledges. As far as I can tell, this is an all-time low. I've also
heard (from some pretty reliable sources) that Chris, Don, & Tom were
given "pink slips." Effective when, I don't know. I also know that
they haven't been taking calls lately; sounds like they're trying to
keep as low a profile as possible right now. I don't know if that
means
that the part-time DJs have been given notice as well, or not (I
assume
so). In fact, those are all the details I know about this right now.
Supposedly, Chris is also going on sick leave soon. Quick, before he
loses his job, or what?
There's more. We got a call from Mark Kemp of "Option" this week.
They're going to do an "Issue by Issue" feature on this trend that
KCMU
is a part of, i.e., they'll feature stations other than ours that
have
undergone or are undergoing similar streamlining/
"commercialization,"
etc. He interviewed Susan Ward from CURSE yesterday (who says he's
very
much "on our side"), & he's supposed to be trying to interview Don
today. Wonder if Don'll consent seeing as how he's supposedly out the
door soon...?
Even more...we recently got a call from Jim Collier, Wayne Roth's
superior (Wayne being the Director of Broadcast Services at the UW).
He
is willing to meet w/ a CURSE representative, our attorney, & his
attorney soon--let the negotiations begin! I think the lawsuit has
really got 'em spooked, 'cause depositions are supposed to start
soon.
Plus, this past fundraiser has probably really driven the point home
that the individuals currently in charge of KCMU do not have the
support they need (financially or otherwise) to keep the station
going.
It's either negotiate or pull the plug.
K.
------------------------------
From: Oboe de A. BROWN <ukevc@mcl.mcl.ucsb.edu> Subject: road trip to
Irvine and etc!
Hi people I haven't posted, I haven't read.. I've been too busy to
read email very much, it's been all nasty backlogs and stuff. But I
have a bit of time now so I should make a big post because over the
last several weeks I got one batch of 7"es from AJAX, went on a trip
to Irvine (hi Brian and co) that led to more 7"es and live bands, and
because my eternal need for more GO-BETWEENS is being semisatisfied!
So here's what I got from AJAX early in the quarter, like early April:
Courtney Love Hey! antoinette and Uncrushworthey 7"es, and the Pat
Maley "THROW" compilation..... I am a complete Lois Maffeo addict now,
and I bought the THROW solely for the track by Lumihoops (I like the
rest too..) .. basically so that I could be a completist and get
everything Lois has ever sung on. Can people tell me if the following
"songography" is complete?: Uncrushworthy, Sunny Day, Motorcycle Boy,
The 2nd Most Beautiful Girl in the World, Hey Antoinette, Stripmine,
My Last Night, Lumihoops "Roman Holiday", Shaniko, Goofus and Gallant,
and the third one on the Highlights 7", that's 11.. then Motorcycle
Boy live, Don't Mix the Colors, Long Time Gone, and Baseball Bat on
One Last Kiss... that's 15... plus Butterfly Kiss: Davey, Narcissus,
Press Play and Record, Staring at the Sun, Valentine, Stroll Always,
Spray, Neverlast, Bonds in Seconds, Sorora, Look Who's Sorry. That's
26 songs... is there more?
Magnetic Fields "Long Vermont Roads" 7".. I like this.. it seems more
like Wayward Bus than anything before that, but they are really
developing well. Stephin singing is not that bad of a thing.
Dentists "See No Evil" (Homestead.) It's great.. it hasn't grabbed me
like "Outside Your Inside" on the Bus Stop 7" did, but I haven't
listened to it that many times. Dentists are so good, IMO, it's a
shame they're so relatively unknown.
Mountain Goats "Songs for Petronius"... the nice thing about the AJAX
catalog is that the low prices allow you to experiment without that
much of a risk.. actually I guess that's true of 7" purchasing in
general. And I read their description and bought this, and it's
pretty neat. One side is singing along with a silly casio-type
keyboard, or some device like that, small and tinny sounding, but the
first of that side, "Pure Intentions", is an awesome song. Folky,
lo-fi band, acousticy, minimal.. (Do you still need Shrimper's
address? This will prob. be duplicated but oh well: PO BOx 1837,
Upland, CA, 91785-1837)
Ghost of a Rollercoaster 7" comp on Shrimper: another case of taking a
chance, and I don't like too much on this 7"..I'm just not into
Shoeface or Sentridoh-type noise (you might be), but this thing was
still worth it for the Franklin Bruno track, "Lifetime Seance", which
is a really catchy tune and method of singing. I'm still glad I
acquainted myself with Shrimper..
Hood 7"... cool fuzzy pop from the UK
Terminals Witchdoctors/Psycho Lives 7".. Flying Nun and its children
have made my ears happy so much, I don't think I've heard a single
thing by a FN band or one that used to be on FN (is that the case with
the Terminals? This 7" is on Feel Good All Over in US, from
Xpressway, NZ.) This is no exception.. it's not as catchy as the
Terminals track that made me like them, "Batwing" which I heard on the
Getting Older compilation.
Sugar Boom 7".. cool, pleasant, lighthearted pop
OK... a couple weeks after that, me and other people set off for a
trip to Irvine CA, for a conference at the U of California, Irvine,
radio station KUCI. First we were driving into the area Friday
afternoon, and I knew the station was cool when the Friday afternoon
guy who was on played the entire first side of the new Bats album on
the air. Wow! Once I got a look at their program guide, I was soo
impressed.. people telling their "top fives" or tendencies to play on
their shows, there are a massive number of eclectic or somewhat indie
-based shows , all of which had at least one thing listed by either K,
or Flying Nun, or Shimmy Disc.. way more than KCSB in Santa Barbara,
or at least it seemed that way.
So we met people and got shown around, and we were looking
around the nearby record store Peer Music, where I found: Kitchens of
Distinction "Death of Cool" used , for a good price, and:
Action Painting! 7".. I was just about ecstatic over this.. a Sarah 7"
for just 3 or 4 $, just sitting there. Amazing.. Wimp Factory 14
7"... a nice cheerful band, even when they're singing about the, uh,
angst of screwing up on the job. Dambuilders 7" on Pop Narcotic (Hi
Bill).. I'd heard a lot about this, and finding it saved me the
trouble of mailordering it someday. I thought it was kind of noisy at
first but it grows on you.
Right, so then we hung out with K!z!K and Ned , back at the studio,
while they did their shows, Brian playing the Gerogegigegege or
however you say that, and Ned playing Sisters of Mercy, among a lot
else. And my my current-and-former-production-manager friends got
excited by KUCI's amazing effects boxes, digital carts, etc. But to
keep my verbosity down, I'll just say that I got to tape 3 Go-Betweens
b-sides I'd never heard before, which makes the day go down in history
right there.
SATURDAY: The interesting stuff happened at night at their Pietro's
pub, where we saw some live bands:
Feast of All: Noisy, fun band, covering the cure and singing a William
Shatner trilogy.
Lumbergarden: "Louder than Huggy Bear." Fronted by a seemingly
pissed-