--- Sez Kenneth Newman to David Marheine ---
 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. 
 KN> If you have a fresh US LP copy of the album it should
 KN> sound great. Mine did. I can't vouch for 25 year old 
 KN> scratchy Record Club of America copies. 
Yikes, you're good.  "Manufactured under license from Atlantic
Records by Record Club Of America Inc.  (p)1972."  But it's not
very scratchy, and it's hard to blame RCOA for the bass-less
mixing/mastering...
 DM> _Relayer_, on the other hand, *sounds* better, 
 DM> but I've never warmed up to the material. 
 KN> That's a fair choice of words in that the material is 
 KN> not warm. There is a certain glacial quality to it, not 
 KN> least of which is coming from Moraz. This is something I 
 KN> like, especially his screeching synths. 
 
The Rolling Stone Record (CD-whatever) Guide calls _Relayer_
dabbling in jazz-fusion.  Must be true, man.
 DM> Howe in particular 
 DM> seems out in left field proudly noodling anti-guitar riffs whilst 
 DM> ignoring the bass and drums.
 KN> But that's what Howe does best! You're missing the point. 
 KN> He sometimes plays in a different time signature than the 
 KN> rest of the band. Look at his brilliant solo on the live 
 KN> "Siberian Khatru" on _Yessongs_ for perhaps his most 
 KN> perfect example of this. 
Okay, I'll try to listen to it when I remember.
Isn't his slide playing embarrassingly awful, though?  Get that
thing away from him!  Or is he managing to make those horrid
sounds with just a volume pedal and an echoplex?  I guess the
single edit of "Soon" on _Yesstory_ isn't THAT bad...  I wonder
who thought it should be a single?
 KN> You mean they're not playing "Louie, Louie" ? 
 
More or less.  More unison passages!!!
 DM> Too few of the "themes" seem to coalesce into 
 DM> melodies or statements by the band as a whole. 
 KN> Why melodies? Why statements?  If 
 KN> you notice, the lyrics rarely make statements
No, I mean a musical theme or motif or statement, like in "Peter And
The Wolf" or "Beethoven's Fifth".  Da da da Dum.  DA DA DA DUMMM.
Pass it around the orchestra.  Stomp on it with both feet.  Etc.
I assume most of Anderson's lyrics are translated from the Italian
by a dyslexic Swede.
 KN> As if the music has been refracted through a pyramid and 
 KN> then shattered into translucent musical particles to 
 KN> dance about your brain? 
I haven't tried that with _Relayer_ yet...
 KN> I'm sorry, Dave, but the Cowsills are OFF-TOPIC!!! 
Who did Susan Cowsill end up marrying?  Can't remember...
Next you'll declare the Andy and the Partidge Family off-topic...
 KN> Hey, that was fun. I think I'll declare something else 
 KN> off-topic. Smashing Pumpkins. Hey, this feels good. 
 KN> Mantovani. Hamilton, Joe Frank, and Reynolds. Lobo. Lulu. 
 KN> Malo. Los Lobos. Alberto y los Tros Paranoias. 
 KN> Lindisfarne. 
 KN> Ok, I went too far there. You may talk about Lindisfarne,
 KN> though why on earth you might want to is beyond me. 
I think "Lady Elenore" is a very cool song, but I have way too
much fun listening to the library's Mantovani CD's, too.
But why not Alberto Los Trios Paranoias?  (I expect Pedro to chime in
on this one!)  They're not serious enough?
"Comedy music..."  "Jeff, your soul!"
And what is a "Suavecito", anyway?  A dog named Boo?
 DM> Anyway, I guess there's good cheese and bad cheese 
 KN> No no, in a Nietschian way, cheese is beyond good and 
 KN> bad. There is only "cheese which we like" and "cheese 
 KN> which we cannot tolerate." 
Is Jack Nietzsche on topic?
 
 DM> I drove by London, Ontario last summer 
 KN> 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... 
 KN> Be careful who you make the butt of your jokes, you 
 KN> cheeky devil, you. Don't assume, and don't subject it to 
 KN> analysis. 
It took me half a week to get that "Londonderry Air" reference
in the previous message.  Had to sit and think about it for a while.
DMM
NP: Assembled Multitude: "Overture To Tommy"
... There's never time to do it right, but always time to do it over!
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