Alejandro Escovedo, Johnny D's, 5/6
Hi folks, By any chance will anyone from RI be heading up to Somerville, MA for Alejandro Escovedo at Johnny D's on 5/6? I'm hoping to go but would prefer not to go alone and everyone I know is going to the Lucinda show at Lupo's that night. You may reply off list if you prefer. Thanks, Karen Without music, life is a mistake--Friedrich Nietzsche
Fred Eaglesmith
Riley Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Subject: Fred Eaglesmith in Chicago (snip) The club quickly quieted down when they played a ballad that sounded vaguely familiar, but I can't placeÉmaybe it's titled, "As Empty As My Heart". Fredheads - help us out, do you know this one?(snip) I thought someone else would have answered this by now. The song is "Soda Machine" from Drive-in Movie. IMHO it's a beautiful song. The last verse goes (from memory, the cd's at work): I shook (?) I kicked it, the front the side I checked to make sure that my change was right. Well, I wasn't that thirsty, but I wasn't that smart 'cause the next thing I knew it was broken in parts. And the soda machine at Charlotte Queen is as empty as my heart. I think it expresses a smoldering rage boiling to the surface perfectly. I love Fred. Karen Without music, life is a mistake--Friedrich Nietzsche
P2 1316-PLEASE??
When I opened digest number 1316 there was nothing there. Would some kind soul pleae forward it to me? Much appreciated, Karen Without music, life is a mistake--Friedrich Nietzsche
DamnationsTX/murder songs/Valentines
There's a favorable review of the band and their new release Half Mad Moon in the Arts Entertainment "section" of the March issue of The Atlantic Monthly. Charles M. Young is the reviewer. I use "section" because it's really advertising space. Also, I can't remember who has the page with the list of murder songs and I don't know if this song's on the list, but The Old 97s "The Other Shoe" is a pretty good 'un. I think W-I-F-E, also by the Old 97s, could be considered for next year's Valentine's Day shows. Both are on Wreck You LIfe. I just got it, can you tell? karen
Macs
Not to beat a lame horse but: Joe Gracey said: I think it is a little bit unfair to characterize mac users as a tiny minority- if you want to be anecdotal about it, literally everybody I know in the music business world-wide uses Macs and I daresay the majority of creative people in all fields use them. It is also a fact that a highly disproportionate number of internet users and web page authors use Macs. I firmly feel that it is a grave error to ghettoize us, which happens all too often. All Right!! I knew I loved this man! My favorite sig file on one of the Mac lists is something to the effect of: "People buy Macs because they love them. They buy pcs because they're afraid not to." So true. Maybe Stacey should've gathered computer preferences on her demographic survey. Oh well, while I can't listen to Twangcast, I am now happily enjoying the Hotclub of Cowtown on Swingin' Doors. Karen Without music, life is a mistake--Friedrich Nietzsche
Thanks, Boston
I wanted to de-lurk long enough to acknowledge the fine P P2 contingent in Boston. I live in Newport, RI and going to Boston for shows can be problematic for me for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that I hate to drive, especially alone and at night. I recently met a fellow, Pete Gallant, on Postcard and we began to go to Boston shows together. So far we've seen Son Volt, Golden Smog and Fred Eaglesmith. At these shows I've met Tom Stoodley, Morgan Keating, Stacey Taylor, Rebecca Katic and Lisa (ooh, sorry Lisa, I've forgotten your last name) and a nice fellow lurker named Martin. Pete and I had planned to drive up for the Old 97s show on Thursday (1/28), but at the last minute Pete realized he had a conflict and couldn't go. I decided to take the bus up for the show and to stay overnight in my daughter's dorm room (she and some friends was going to the show, too). Tom, Rebecca, Martin Lisa were at the show (along with Tom's friend Kathy (?) and another friend, Dave). Tom suggested I stay over another night for Stacey's Hellcountry show on Friday, featuring Elena Skye and the Demolition String Band. He kindly offered to get me to and from the show (and my daughter graciously agreed to to allow her mom to hang around an extra night). I jumped at the chance both to see ESDSB and to finally get to a Hellcountry show. Both shows were fantastic. Tom may write a review of the Old 97s. I'll just say that if you get a chance to see Elena Skye don't miss it. I had a head cold that seemed to reach its peak on Friday night. My eyes burned and were watering, my nose was running and I was tired from the Old 97s show the night before, but when Elena Skye and the Demolition String Band hit the stage and Boo, the guitarist, played the opening riff I was cured. Halleluiah! So go see Elena Skye and the Demolition String Band...The Cure for What Ails Ya!! And, Thanks, Tom for being such a nice guy. Nice is definately under rated. Karen Without music, life is a mistake--Friedrich Nietzsche
Tom T. Hall (long, but worth it)
Hi, I was deleting some old e-mail and came across the following piece that I thought I'd repost in light of some renewd interest in Hall due to Real: The Tom T. Hall Project. It's pretty outrageous (the post, not the cd, the cd's fantastic). Karen Without music, life is a mistake--Friedrich Nietzsche From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Nash Scene Clip From this week's Nashville Scene.. In a recent lengthy interview with Tom T. Hall, the 62-year-old songwriting great brought up a topic he thought needed some attention. "I've got one more story I have to tell you," he said on a recent misty morning, as cocks crowed and ducks quacked on the dirt lane outside his office, situated in a converted barn in Franklin. "It's about Nashville today. I want you to tell me if you've ever heard of anything like this, 'cause it kind of surprised me, I have to tell you." Seems Hall--whose bluntly literate, one-of-a-kind songs helped raise the art of country songwriting in the '70s--recently sent a few new songs to a major music publisher on Music Row. He wanted them set in larger type, so he could read them during a recording session. When the songs returned, Hall perused one, only to discover a few typos. "I thought maybe they got entered into a computer and got kicked out wrong," Hall says. But when he went to record the songs, he noticed that the words to all of his songs had been changed. He scratched his head and wondered, "Who in the hell is tangling with my lyrics?" So the writer of such classics as "Harper Valley P.T.A." and "Ballad of Forty Bucks" contacted the publishing company. What he heard astounded him: The firm had hired an employee with a master's degree in English from Radcliffe College to edit song lyrics submitted by the company's writers. "I said, `You know, when I write a song, it's pretty much carved in stone.' " As he talked to a company executive, he grew more incensed. "I told them, and I know this sounds awfully big of me, but I told them, `I'm sorry, but I'm a poet. I don't care what this woman thinks of my songs. All I wanted was a larger font so I could read the words while I was recording. What I was looking for was a typist, and this person is monumentally overqualified for the job.' " Once he hung up, the implications of what had occurred began to obsess Hall. "I got tothinking, when a major country writer brings in a song now, do we have to get out a style book from, I don't know, The Boston Globe, and fix the song? This is terrible! Am I being naive? To me, lyrics are important. There's nothing incidental in there. I know what I'm trying to say, and I know how I'm trying to say it. To take it into somebody and say, `Would you edit this please?,' as if it were a piece of advertising copy...well, that just blows me away. I still can't believe it. Is that what songwriters do today? Do they hand their songs to a secretary and say, `Can you edit this?' What would Hank Williams say about that? What would Billy Joe Shaver say?" As Hall inquired about the situation with people he knew at the publishing company, the answers he received only offended him further. "I was told that, as for my songs, that they don't use words like that anymore, that it wasn't current," he said. "I said, `Who doesn't? I'm still alive! I'm here on the planet, and I use words like that. What would this person say if they heard `Once Upon a Midnight Clear?' Would they say it had too much alliteration, that people don't talk like that anymore?" But Hall, being the way he is, started to see the humor in the situation. "I finally just asked them, `Look, have you ever heard that classic song, "I Am Not Misbehavin'?" ' They told me no, they hadn't heard of it. I said, `That's my point.' " --Michael McCall
