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<TITLE>Indie-List No. 9</TITLE>
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*************************************************************************
* * * THE INDIE-LIST DIGEST #9
* * "Quote writer on vacation"
* * *
* * * Moderated by Mark Cornick, Joshua Houk and Liz Clayton.
* * * Mailed worldwide weekly. Over 100 subscribers!
*************************************************************************
</PRE>
<P>
From: Mark Cornick, aka Mentos the Freshmaker, co-moderator
<stu_m1cornic@vax1.acs.jmu.edu>
</P>
<P>
Wow! What a difference a little complaining can make. Action packed digest
this time, and I better not babble too much or it won't all fit...
</P>
<P>
Last weekend, just after mailing the last digest, I went on the air and
ended up missing Hoover and Crackerbash. Damn! But afterwards, me, my bud
Erik, and about 20 drunk U of Va. students went to Waffle House, ate a lot
of hashbrowns, sprayed a lot of Silly String, and played "Fax Me A Beer" by
Hank Jr. on the jukebox. Last night (Friday), we ended up there again. This
time this self-admitted redneck guy named Mike started talking our ear off.
A most interesting experience (not.) If there is a Waffle House in your
locality, I highly recommend visiting them around 2.00 AM on a weekend.
(They're always open, serving good food fast. :)
</P>
<P>
Back on the musical front, new Harrisonburg legends Ice Cream Socialists
(featuring yours truly on drums and vocals, plus a new guitarist and
vocalist) played their second show ever on Friday night. Halibut (bad, but
only their first show) and Regress (pretty good) opened. As for us
Socialists, aside from a totally botched cover of Soul Asylum's "Cartoon",
we rocked. And this sorority chick started hanging all over me too. By 1.30
AM, we were kissing on the couch. (Shut up, Wan.) What do I tell this girl
the next day? I mean, come on, she was drunk as hell and I didn't have the
heart to tell her I wasn't interested... :)
</P>
<P>
Things grooving in the Mentos household: Ween _Pure Guava_ (Elektra--this
record is SOOOOOOOOOOOO FUCKED), Jacob's Mouse _No Fish Shop Parking_
(Frontier), _Teriyaki Asthma 8_ 7" (C/Z), _New Dominion_ CD sampler of 19
Virginia bands (Turn Of The Century), the new tape _The Haunted Life_ (Ain't
Records) by my semi-famous underground buddy, Jim Shelley (formerly known as
Book of Kills), the Chicago Blackhawks (NHL), and various Summershine CD
singles.
</P>
<P>
*************************************************************************
From: Liz Clayton, co-moderator <lclayton@UHURU.UCHICAGO.EDU>
</P>
<P>
Oog, last weekend I withstood two delightful Jesus Lizard shows (chicago,
and then Madison). The Chicago show wasn't loud enough, sadly. Arcwelder
(great) and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (bad) opened both shows. For
the Halloween show (Madison), Yow proudly sported a costume which he claimed
to have spent a lot of time and money assembling. A Killdozer T-shirt. Yuk
yuk...
</P>
<P>
Last night's eardrum killer was Tar and the Unsane. Jesus, my hearing hates
me now. The Unsane were good, but just too goddamn loud, and never even
paused between songs to give us a chance to realize how much our ears hurt.
Foosh. Tar played a great set, though, in fine form indeed. They also
looked real spiffy (Mark and Tom could have just stepped out of the Gap that
night), but maybe that's just because Fugazi were there, and they wanted to
dress up. ;-)
</P>
<P>
Other stuff: Tar/Jawbox split 7" in the works with each band covering the
other's "Static". Fshee! Touch and Go also have plans to rerelease the
first Slint LP, Tweez, a collector's item put out on the long-dead
Jennifer Hartman label.
</P>
<P>
I got my Neo-Metro box set this week, and boy am I happy. Jenny and Kristin
prove once again that they rule and rule all. Also got the second release
on Dark Beloved Cloud records- a 7" single featuring all covers of songs by
the Clean. I haven't played this yet but it sounds interesting, to be sure.
</P>
<P>
Not much else to add right now, I'm cutting the deadline real close as it
is! Talk to you next week, losers (and I mean that in only the most
affectionate way),
</P>
<P>
Liz
</P>
<P>
PS. What's with all you Microsoft employees? They putting something funny
in the water cooler over there? :-)
</P>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
[ Liz refers to the about 10 new subscribers from Microsoft, who get our
Site Of The Week Award. Nothing material, just this mention. By the way,
is it true that Bill Gates subscribes to GRUNGE-L? Have we been
underestimating Tweak God No. 1 all these years? :) - Mark ]
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
*************************************************************************
From: Joshua Houk, co-moderator <houk@athena.cs.uga.edu>
</P>
<P>
I'll throw in something like this every month or so...busy town again...
</P>
<P>
State of the Athens Music Scene Report:<BR>
November 1992
</P>
<P>
The biggest and saddest news is that the Downstairs - a great combo cafe and
club - is no more. They were evicted in the middle of last month after a
last ditch court appeal failed to hold the club's landlord accountable for
damaged caused by structural faults that the cafe owners had to pay for. The
Downstairs was noted for being a place where new bands could get a start, as
well as being a friendly, more intimate space for the more popular bands to
play. It'll be sorely missed.
</P>
<P>
Porn Orchard, whose 'Urges And Angers' lp was released in the spring by C/Z
Records, is calling it quits for unspecified reasons. Their last show will
be December 10th at Club Fred.
</P>
<P>
Synthetic Flying Machine is also folding. Will and Shannon are going to
Colorado to be with Shannon's mother, who broke her hip. Jeff will be moving
to Olympia WA as soon as he gets some money. He will also have a solo
cassette to be distributed by K Records in the next few months. Last public
show will be very soon, in addition to playing a farewell show on WUOG's
'Crisis Cabaret'.
</P>
<P>
The Jack'O'Nuts have an ep immediately impending release on Radial
USA/Matador Records. The Jack'O'Nuts are fronted by ex-BarBQ Killer Laura
Carter. They have a previous 7" on SOL Records.
</P>
<P>
The Hayride/Harvey Milk 7" is now out (hit stores Wednesday) on Self Rising
Records. Hayride contributes three songs, and Harvey Milk has two. I haven't
heard this yet, but Hayride promises to be worth a listen with their
Dinosaur/Meat Puppetish attack, and Harvey Milk will mess with your brain
with their loud crunch rock - even though one of their songs is entitled
"Blueberry Dooky".
</P>
<P>
Little Debbie also has a great 7" entitled 'Thank You For My Vitamin'. Six
songs, and all of them rock. Little Debbie on this slab is composed of
members of the Skinpops and the Woggles, and in the past has included David
Barbe, ex-Mercyland - now of Sugar fame. It's on Weedeater Records (who also
put out some early Porn Orchard 7"s and Skinpops records).
</P>
<P>
Magneto has a cd forthcoming as well. I can't remember if this is
self-released or if it's on Self-Rising. Loud rocky kinda stuff.
</P>
<P>
Atlanta performance artist Grady Cousins did a live thing on WUOG's 'Crisis
Cabaret' that was nothing short of great. For close to an hour he played
guitar and rambled off some improv poetry. It only took Grady five minutes
to strip down to his briefs. Believe it or not - this actually translated
well over the airwaves, for better or worse.
</P>
<P>
A Mercy Union has released a radio single to WUOG off of a demo they
recorded in July. AMU is Athens' most traveled love-rock duo, having gone as
far as Florida and North Carolina - quite good for only being around for
eight months.
</P>
<P>
Roosevelt played their last show last Wednesday at the 40 Watt. Kit-man
Ballard Lesseman (yeah - the guy who Pure named their Merge 7" for...) will
continue working with Self Rising Records. None of the guys are in any other
bands as of yet.
</P>
<P>
Wet also played their last show last week. This all-gal quartet was really
well liked around these parts. Maybe cause they sounded like Pink Floyd...
</P>
<P>
Finally - Atlanta's only Top 40 CHR station, Power 99, has gone alternative.
They are now know as 99X. It's not clear at this point if they're trying to
bank off of the success of the upcoming 'Malcolm X' movie...
</P>
<P>
That's all fer now... Later.
</P>
<P>
Joshua Houk<BR>
indie-list co-moderator who's damn proud he wrote something this long
</P>
<P>
*************************************************************************
From: Sean Murphy, your friendly New Jersey bureau chief (Exit 9, thanks.)
<skmurphy@phoenix.princeton.edu>
</P>
<P>
Well, I was a lazy person and missed every single show associated with the
CMJ seminar this year. But the overflow of bands and stuff allowed me to
catch a couple after the fact...and deal with the great increase of mail at
our radio station.
</P>
<P>
November 6th: Grifters, Th' Faith Healers, Sun City Girls, and Thinking
Fellers Union Local 282 at CBGB's
</P>
<P>
I didn't realize that the Grifters were opening this show, and they were a
pleasant surprise for me. They have 3 cool singles and a great LP (So Happy
Together, on the Sonic Noise label from Chicago), and this band from Memphis
has a great knack for producing an amazing song out of random noodling and
noise - solid show all around. Th' Faith Healers are probably one of the
most talked about bands these days, between being on Too Pure in the UK and
having their LP, Lido, re-released state-side on Elektra. The live show was
good, but not as dynamic as the LP. Where Stereolab moved from ethereal to
wall-of- noise in the live show, Faith Healers lose some of the preciseness
and range in the songs when playing live. Maybe it was a bit of an
off-night; friends who saw them during CMJ are still raving about it.
Arizona's Sun City Girls are a pure noise-improvisation band, and while I
love their double single on Majora, I just wasn't into the live stuff as
much. I'd like the chance to see them again, but hell, that's the way it
goes. I left early 'cause I had too much shit to deal with on Saturday
(big-ass meeting with WPRB's board of trustees - old alums who make sure
we're still financially viable and all that...). So I missed TFUL 282. And
I feel really bad about it, but there was nothing I could do. They
supposedly will have a new LP on Matador soon (no obligatory bitching about
Matador's timely release schedule this time, nope :) ), and all the older
stuff I've heard from them has been really cool.
</P>
<P>
November 7th: Love Child and Spectrum at Terrace Club, Princeton.
</P>
<P>
This was one of those infamous "closed shows" at the university. Terrace is
one of twelve "eating clubs" at Princeton (our rough approximation of
fraternities, but not as absolutely exclusive - I'm not a member of any
club, but I can usually hang out at any of them [and get beer easily, too]
with various friends) and the one which usually gets good bands to play
here. I've seen Love Child too many times now (something like 10 times in
the last year), but they still put on a good set, focusing on stuff from the
new LP, "Witch Craft" (which is the final release from Homestead Records
until the end of time :( ) and ending with a wild version of "A Rose Is A
Thorn." Rebecca is still bitchy, but I was really too drunk to care. And
my drunkenness fit well with Spectrum, the new band of Sonic Boom, formerly
of Spacemen Three. They started with covers of Red Crayola's "Transparent
Radiation" and Daniel Johnston's "True Love Will Find You In The End", did
some stuff from the album (notably omitting "How You Satisfy Me"), and then
launched into the most insane version of "Suicide" (from SP3's third LP,
Playing With Fire) which lasted anywhere from 10 to 40 minutes (I was so
buzzed I couldn't tell) with Sonic leaving the stage a good five minutes
before the rest of the band stopped. If you get the chance, see them. It's
the closest you'll ever come to seeing the actual Spacemen (I think
Spiritualized sticks to their own stuff much more than the old Spacemen
stuff). And even if Sonic is perpetually wasted, he's still cool. Looks
like a lost little boy, really innocent (except that you can sometimes see
the tracks on his arms or he's smoking a joint in your face). Wow.
</P>
<P>
Records I've been listening to lately:
</P>
<UL>
<LI>Dead C - Harsh 70's Reality 2xLP(and all the other stuff I can find)
<LI>Black Tambourine - Throw Aggi From The Bridge 7"
<LI>Tammy Wynette - D-I-V-O-R-C-E LP(trust me, this is really good stuff)
<LI>Stereolab - Switched On (thanks to Slumberland for making this available
domestically)
<LI>Bricks - The Getting Wet Part 7"
<LI>My New Boyfriend - Super Saw cassette
<LI>Jacob's Mouse - some super cool import CD thing (thanks, Lindsay, for
the tip on these guys)
<LI>Th' Faith Healers - Lido LP
</UL>
<P>
and I'm still anxiously awaiting new stuff from Tsunami, Grenadine, V-3,
Wimp Factor 14 (yeah, they just put out a single, but there's another
already in the works), Bratmobile, Seam, and too many that I can't remember
right now...
</P>
ONE MORE TIME: TSUNAMI.
SPENT.
Thursday, November 19th, at 9 PM.
The Arts Council Of Princeton.
Five dollars at the door, all ages.
Mail me or call WPRB at 609-258-1033 for more info.
(I'm setting up the show, but I'm not making any money off it, OK?)
My mind is blown now, so I'll save my new record reviews for another time.
See ya...
Yeah, jazz is cool, but when I turn on a college radio station I want to
hear stuff like the Chills, not John Coltrane. - Andrew Webster
<BLOCKQUOTE>
[ While Sean won't go into his 'Gerard Cosloy Sucks Eggs' mode, I will. The
Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 double lp is out, and has been out for
about three weeks, at least. However - as per usual no radio stations have
it. Instead we get fucking Tommy Keane cd5s. Two of em, in fact. If
someone who knows Gerard can pass this on to him, tell him this - anyone who
fucks over college and non-comm radio in favor of advertising in Spin
Magazine ain't got much ground to stand on when he whines about the
commercialization of "alternative" music. Thank you. Pshew. - Joshua ]
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
[ Plus, his past few CMJ dialogues have been nothing but pointless tirades
against David Lowery. I don't like Cracker either, but get a fucking clue,
man. Just sticking up for my fellow Virginia resident. - Mark ]
</BLOCKQUOTE>
*************************************************************************
From: HAVALENA THE WONDER WARTHOG <kbennett@seattleu.edu>
[ And I thought Mentos, the Freshmaker was an interesting name. - Mark ]
About 500-600 people attended a meeting held last night in Seattle by CURSE
(Censorship Undermines Radio Station Ethics), to discuss the current
situation at KCMU. This post is meant to be more of an opinionated
collection of sound bites, rather than "journalism" or a synopsis or
anything, so here goes.
Several speakers described the steady process of de-democratization that has
been going on there, the transference of decision-making from volunteers to
one autocratic paid staff person, and the gag rules and dismissals placed on
volunteers who voiced protest. A speaker from KUNM, New Mexico, described
the successful listener fight at her station several years back, in a
surprisingly similar situation. This kind of thing has been going on at
stations all over the country, where those who want to attract ratings and
appeal to a "safe," homogenized audience are using arbitrary power to take
choice out of the hands of the community. In some of those situations,
management has won, but in others, listeners have been successful in taking
back their stations.
Both DJ Riz, who spoke at the forum, and the speaker from New Mexico,
discussed the necessity not only to take back community radio but also to
expand it to become more truly responsive to the community, including a
diversity of cultural groups: Latinos, Asians, women, queers, and
disenfranchised white males. Speakers were heavily applauded by the
audience for such statements as "you are not the respectable Arbitron
listeners," and "you don't want familiarity, you want to be offended and
challenged by what you listen to." When management says that they want to
tone down the station to make it more "respectable," they claim that there
is no audience for what the "maverick" DJs are playing. The CURSE meeting
showed that there is an audience for so-called "harsh and abrasive" music
(and harsh and abrasive opinions), and it is us.
DJ Riz spoke of the moral difficulty he had soliciting for money on-air to
go into the pockets of management, and of his difficulty being a paid staff
member under those circumstances. He read a powerful and moving resignation
letter of great integrity. The audience gave him a standing ovation.
The steering committee of the newly incorporated CURSE spoke of their action
plans, including help from a volunteer lawyer (because censorship and
anti-grievance actions on the part of management are clearly illegal), and
said that anyone could become a member just by working with CURSE.
Listeners can be on the CURSE board as well; it will be a democratic
organization, as KCMU should be (and hopefully will be again).
Several speakers tried to show that we can win if we work together on this,
instead of giving into the cynicism that "it has happened everywhere, so it
will happen here, too." Several people referred to the special nature of
Seattle as a hotbed of independent music and communication to illustrate
that we can stop that from happening here. The Washington Music Industry
Coalition, which recently won its fight against the "erotic music" law, and
the owners of Sub Pop records were also there to show their support. One
speaker quoted the contention of a Republican Party official that "the
cultural war has begun" to show how important communication media are to
those of us who are culturally disenfranchised. This is about more than
just who runs a radio station. It's about whose voices are considered worth
hearing, who gets silenced, and who gets heard.
Lena
*************************************************************************
From: Lindsay Watt <lindsay@maths.ed.ac.uk>
Consolidated/Technogod, 10th November, Edinburgh Venue.
Technogod were fairly straightforward cyberbeat type stuff - the main
entertainment here was watching the guy behind the keyboards trying to act
enigmatic, and making a prat of himself in the process. After that it
seemed to take ages to get the stage ready for Consolidated, but they
eventually appeared, and started off with the last couple of singles. Not
loud enough, and not enough bass, I thought - but still pretty good.
However, after about fifteen minutes of this, they picked up their guitars
and launched into some piss-poor hard rock, complete with meandering guitar
solos. Fortunately, this only lasted about fifteen minutes, and then they
returned to a rough approximation of hip hop. The whole show lasted about
ninety minutes, with music taking up about 2/3 of that, and most of the
rest of the time being taken up by the crowd watching video footage of
people talking about the band, about sexism, etc. Another quarter of an
hour was taken up by the customary audience participation thing, where,
among other things, we learned that the band don't take part in violence
against fascists (a large section of the crowd disagreed with this). For
their part, the crowd's comments ranged from reasonably astute to
excruciatingly banal, but nothing likely to make it onto the next LP.
Lindsay.
***************************************************************************
From: Richard Kasperowski <richk@icad.COM>
Vermonstress CD:
On USENET, people have been talking about a supposed Vermonstress tape or
CD. Well, it's for real. MIT's non-profit radio station, WMBR 88.1FM, is
holding its annual fund raiser this week. The incentive for a $50 donation
is the official Vermonstress CD. The CD will contain one song from each
band that played at Vermonstress.
Talk to a DJ at WMBR for details - the phone number is 617-253-8810 (in the
US). The best time to call is Monday through Friday, between 8:00 AM and
12:00 noon; those are the hours for their rock shows ("Breakfast of
Champions" and "Late Riser's Club"). The other DJs might not know what
you're talking about.
*************************************************************************
From: Chris Sievanen, Seattle BC <csievanen@dehpost.sphcm.washington.edu>
[ Doomgirl no more? - Mark ]
Here's a few quotes from the interview I did with Kristen Hersh from the
Throwing Muses in early November:
I asked about the line-up of the band and the fact that Leslie Langston, the
bands previous bassist, was on their new album Red Heaven.
Hersh: We hired her as a session player for Red Heaven, because this
material seemed to need a real raw immediate treatment, and if yu have
towork at it, it doesn't come off like a live sound, but the three of us
have been playing together for so many years that we all start at the same
time and stop at the same time. It's very tight and very immediate. By the
time we'd finished Red Heaven, Bernard George, our bassist, was already in
the foled, so he was around to do b-sides, and he's done the whole tour.
He'll do the next record in the summer.
Chris: It's funny, because your band personnel has changed a lot, and people
get so upset, like "the throwing muses are breaking up!"...and all of these
people who are so worried about that, their lives change and people change
in their lives and they have different friends, and yet they expect you guys
to be together until the end of time. Hersh: Isn't that strange? You'd
think that they'd just want to know that the music is good. I'm the one
that should care who's in the band. It's not necessarily something to be
proud of, but it's always been something of a solo project for me. That's
why I kep the nae. It's not something anyone else would want necessarily,
but it's the name for a big batch of work, for ten years of work, that's not
necessarily bad or good, but that's the continuity.
Later....
Chris: Since you have such high expectations for yourself, it's probably why
you have them for other people...
Hersh: I've learned a lot from it. It's been very educational for me to
learn that I'm not responsible for the most beautiful things, I'm only
responsible for the mundane things. If I bring something down to my level,
it becomes mundane, and waht a light feeling that is - my whole job is just
to let go, just to take myself out of it. I have no responsibility, it's
like your children. You do everything you can for them, but their beauty is
their own, and it's the most God you'll ever see. And it's such a light
feeling! Music should be the same way...for some reason we've made it into
this crazy product that's like junk food.
There's a lot more, about ten times more than that, so if you're interested,
maybe I'll type the whole thing in one day. It was a great talk, she's just
what you'd imagine she would be....very smart and incredible sounding. I
think she's sort of a genius.
I'm off for my weekend...bye indie-listers
christine sievanen
seattle
*************************************************************************
From: Micah Malachi, Colorado BC <wilbanks@spot.Colorado.EDU>
I hope I didn't miss the deadline with this, but I felt that with the
recent events in Colorado, an article on Amendment 2 is necessary.
What's Amendment 2? Well, basically, it eliminates the rights of homo- and
bi-sexuals from any affirmative action, preference/quota, or claim of
discrimination by striking down any state or 'home-rule' (that is, any city
which governs itself without help from the state or county) law allowing
for any of the above. While no city in Colorado has passed a law allowing
gay preferences or quotas, three cities have passed laws banning
discriminaton: Denver, Boulder, and Aspen. On Jan. 1, 1993, those laws will
be null and void.
The amendment was losing significantly in Colorado, from 10-20 points, even
on election day, yet the election was 53-47 in favor of the amendment. In
fact, only three counties voted against it, Denver, Boulder, and Pitkin,
their county seats being...Denver, Boulder, and Aspen. Now that the
craziness has died down over the election, the nation is now looking at the
ramifications of Amendment 2, as is Colorado. To most here in this state,
it's just a subtle reminder that Colorado is more than just the liberal
towns of Denver and Boulder, but also the almost reactionary-right Colorado
Springs and the wasteland of eastern Colorado. But the gay communtity is up
in arms. On Thursday, a class-action lawsuit was filed by the ACLU and 7
other defendants (including tennis star - and lesbian - Martina
Navratolova) to overturn the amendment on civil rights and home-rule
grounds.
At this time, activists and entertainers have been organizing a boycoot of
Colorado and its products. Several unnamed entertainers have said they will
not go to Colorado's resorts this year, which could rob tourism dollars
from the state (many tourists come to ski and see). Talk of Denver being
removed from tours hangs over the promoter's desks.
If you believe in freedom, you must help us in overturning Amendment 2. It
doesn't matter if you believe in quotas or so-called "special rights"; if
you believe discrimination is wrong, boycott Colorado products. Do not ski
in Colorado; stay east or go to California this year. Try to avoid using a
connection through Denver (the state collects taxes from each arrival and
departure). Do not buy products made in Colorado.
I heard a rumor that some local musician may be doing a benefit for the
legal fund. If a major concert results from this, I'll be there to cover
it.
Malachi, your one-stop Colorado bureau chief. *************************************************************************
MODERATORS, MANAGERS, WONDER-BLOOFGAS, ETC.
EDITOR: Mark Cornick, stu_m1cornic@vax1.acs.jmu.edu (Harrisonburg, VA)
SUBMISSIONS: Joshua Houk, houk@athena.cs.uga.edu (Athens, GA)
MAILINGS: Liz Clayton, lclayton@uhuru.uchicago.edu (Chicago, IL)
THANKS TO THIS WEEK'S CONTRIBUTORS
Sean Murphy, skmurphy@phoenix.princeton.edu (Princeton, NJ)
Lena Bennett, kbennett@seattleu.edu (Seattle, WA)
Lindsay Watt, lindsay@maths.ed.ac.uk (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Richard Kasperowski, richk@icad.com (Boston, MA)
Chris Sievanen, csievanen@dehpost.sphcm.washington.edu (Seattle, WA)
Micah Malachi, wilbanks@spot.Colorado.EDU (Boulder, CO)
SITE OF THE WEEK
Microsoft Corporation (MICROSOFT-DOM)
3635 157th Avenue
Building 11
Redmond, WA 98052
Domain Name: MICROSOFT.COM
SPECIAL THANKS TO THE PLANETARIUM/CAN-O-CORN PRODUCTIONS CREW
That's it. The show's over. See you next time.
When's next time?
...in a while.
A while? How long is that?
About a week.
Oh joy!
--Mark, Joshua and Liz fshee!