On 07-11-97 DAVID MARHEINE wrote to KENNETH NEWMAN... 
 
 DM> _Close To The Edge_ last week.  I've decided my main beef with 
 DM> _CTTE_ is the sonics.  Otherwise it's a pretty good album. 
 
        If you have a fresh US LP copy of the album it should
        sound great. Mine did. I can't vouch for 25 year old 
        scratchy Record Club of America copies. 
 
        The first CD release was awful, but the remastered 
        re-released CD is just dandy. (My 8 track sounds pretty 
        good, too) 
 
 DM> _Relayer_, on the other hand, *sounds* better, 
 DM> but I've never warmed up to the material. 
 
        That's a fair choice of words in that the material is 
        not warm. There is a certain glacial quality to it, not 
        least of which is coming from Moraz. This is something I 
        like, especially his screeching synths. 
 
 DM> I mean, nobody seems to be listening 
 DM> to what anybody else is playing. 
 
        Hey, that's what my parents said about Dave Brubeck when 
        he came out with his experiments with time signatures. 
 
 DM> In lotsa sections it seems that 
 DM> any given part could be time-shifted anywhere from a quarter note 
 DM> to 8 bars and you couldn't tell the difference.  Howe in particular 
 DM> seems out in left field proudly noodling anti-guitar riffs whilst 
 DM> ignoring the bass and drums. 
 
        But that's what Howe does best! You're missing the point. 
        He sometimes plays in a different time signature than the 
        rest of the band. Look at his brilliant solo on the live 
        "Siberian Khatru" on _Yessongs_ for perhaps his most 
        perfect example of this. 
 
 DM> This is also my impression of parts of _CTTE_, BTW. 
 
        You mean they're not playing "Louie, Louie" ? 
 
 DM> Too few of the "themes" seem to coalesce into 
 DM> melodies or statements by the band as a whole. 
 
        As if the music has been refracted through a pyramid and 
        then shattered into translucent musical particles to 
        dance about your brain? Why melodies? Why statements? If 
        you notice, the lyrics rarely make statements (if you 
        think the cheeseline "Ceasar's Palace, morning glory, 
        silly human race" means anything then you have personal 
        problems), they make sounds. The music itself has 
        something to say, yet there is no specific "statement" as 
        such to be decoded. Not all aesthetics require 
        statements. We don't need no statements. We don't heff to 
        show you any steenking statements! 
 
 DM> Oh man, the cheesy organ on the Cowsills' "The Rain The Park And 
 DM> Other Things" is absolutely fabulous.  Then the backup vocals take 
 DM> you to fromage heaven... 
 
        I'm sorry, Dave, but the Cowsills are OFF-TOPIC!!! 
 
        Hey, that was fun. I think I'll declare something else 
        off-topic. Smashing Pumpkins. Hey, this feels good. 
        Mantovani. Hamilton, Joe Frank, and Reynolds. Lobo. Lulu. 
        Malo. Los Lobos. Alberto y los Tros Paranoias. 
        Lindisfarne. 
 
        Ok, I went too far there. You may talk about Lindisfarne, 
        though why on earth you might want to is beyond me. 
 
 DM> For some reason I'm picturing Kraft singles tacked to the walls 
 DM> of audiophile listening salons as acoustical treatments... 
 
        And maybe some plasticene porters with looking glass 
        eyes? Check your bread, perhaps it's gone moldy. 
 
 DM> Anyway, I guess there's good cheese and bad cheese 
 
        No no, in a Nietschian way, cheese is beyond good and 
        bad. There is only "cheese which we like" and "cheese 
        which we cannot tolerate." 
 
 DM> and no taste, tacky and wacky terbacky...  Now I'm getting 
 DM> confused again. 
 
        Could be the bread. Check the sell-by date.
 
 DM> I drove by London, Ontario last summer 
 
        I spent a month there one weekend. 
 
 DM> but the closest I've been 
 DM> to England is Provincetown, MA, which apparently has a large, um, 
 DM> derrierphile community of its own... 
 
        Be careful who you make the butt of your jokes, you 
        cheeky devil, you. Don't assume, and don't subject it to 
        analysis. 
 
        The end. 
 
                                Cheers, 
                                Kenneth 
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