Midnight Voices Web Digest, week 40 (MV1104-1117)

Midnight Voices

The discussion forum for fans of Pete Atkin and Clive James,
their works and collaborators on stage, TV, disc and in print.

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Date: Mon, 01 Jun 1998 09:08:23 +0100
From: S J Birkill <email address>
Subject: MV1104: Web site additions

Dave Jones' annotation of "You Can't Expect To Be Remembered" is now on line:
http://www.rwt.co.uk/a11a.htm

I've brought the MV Web index momentarily up to date (well, it was until I
sent this) at
http://www.rwt.co.uk/mvindex.htm

I'm planning a separate page listing  MV members' personal, business or
academic  home pages or Web sites. I have a few in hand, lifted from your
sigs, but there must be more around, from MVs who don't reference their
URLs or who've never posted. If you'd like to be included drop me a line at
 with a brief description of the page, and I'll put you in there.

Thank you all for your continued support and interest -- Steve

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Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 21:39:08 +0100
From: Christine Guilfoyle <email address>
Subject: MV1105 Re: MV1087: Cover Versions

>If you can't think of a suitable singer to cover Pete's songs, how about
>thinking of suitable songs for Pete to cover? I'd love to hear him doing 
>stuff from the works of  Jimmy Van Heusen, Harry Warren, Rodgers and Hart, 
>etc. when they knew how to write a tune, etc, etc. 
>
I'd second that. I've seen Pete a good number of times over the years,
but I can't remember him ever doing a cover version (apart from the
Sherman/Lewis number on 'Live Libel' and a jokey compilation song I seem
to remember he used to do). I'd love to hear Pete sing Rodgers and Hart
('To Keep My Love Alive'?). Failing that, he could always do a selection
of songs by the artists he sent up on 'Live Libel', with appropriate
vocal imitation...
-- 
Mike Walters

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From: cjb<email address>
Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 22:32:32 +0000
Subject: MV1106: Potential Problems

Just to see the funny side of some ISP's over zealous efforts at
'censorship'. One of my colleagues is with Zetnet (one of the ISP's 
Steve mentioned). He tried to access my Rock Follies site but access 
was blocked by Zetnet's censorship programme. Bob was therefore 
determined to see what they was that was dodgy on my site so asked 
for the 'censorship' to be removed from his account. All went well 
until he decided to do some research for his job as a chiropodist. 
Instead of getting the expected links to podiatry pages most of what 
he came up with was 'foot fetishes' - he didn't tell me if he visited 
the sites!

PS - I promise you my Rock Follies site is not a dodgy one ;-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~        
ROCK FOLLIES - The Classic 1970's TV Drama starring 
Julie Covington, Charlotte Cornwell and Rula Lenska. 
Online at:-  http://members.xoom.com/Follies
Pictures,sounds and much more (unofficial site)
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Regards - Cary (like Mary with a 'C' for cat)

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From: IChippett<email address>
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 04:40:51 EDT
Subject: MV1107: Lost song?

I remember reading an interview with Pete way back in the 70's in a guitar
magazine which referred to and quoted extensively from a song he'd written
dealing with the difficulties of Life on the Road. Can anyone remember what
the song was called? I don't seem to have come across it on the Site. 
I also remember Pete saying in the interview that he'd started out playing
Adam Faith songs on the piano. Surely not a major influence?

There are still a couple of  songs from the first 3 albums waiting to be
transcribed. Would someone like to put me out of my misery by doing at least
You Can't Expect To Be Remembered or Carnations On The Roof? 

Thanks in advance

Ian 

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From: IChippett<email address>
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 07:45:01 EDT
Subject: MV1108: Sax Solos

Is it an accident or were the lyrics of "Wristwatch For A Drummer" (tenor),
"Perfect Moments" (alto) and "Sessionman's Blues" (baritone) written
deliberately so as to incorporate a solo/break on the instrument mentioned in
the song? If so (or even if not), we need a new song which includes a
reference to, maybe, John Coltrane or another soprano sax player to complete
the quartet. (Before anyone suggests it, "Girl On A 'Trane" is excluded for
various reasons).

Ian C

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Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 20:00:43 +0100
From: S J Birkill <email address>
Subject: MV1109: Solved: Potential problem: MAPS/RBL

I hear today that Pipex has resolved the MAPS "blackholing" affecting their
domain 158.43.128.69, the "monsoon" mail server.

So I shall resend the one affected message - fortunately MV traffic has
been low.

Thank you to MVs John Morrison (for complaining to his ISP and confirming
from his end that Pipex had made the necessary changes) and David Sinfield
(who'd most generously offered to use his own resources to effectively
bypass the problem). Let's hope our operation remains unmolested for a while.

Copy (for the MV record) of my direct-mailed "problem" message below.

- Steve

======================================
Quote.....

Dear MVs

I'm taking the unusual step of writing to you direct because of a new
threat to our mailing list which has just begun to affect us. An outfit
calling itself the Mail Abuse Protection System has apparently sold its
services to a number of our members' ISPs. MAPS provides its customers with
a database called the Realtime Blackhole List, a list of machine
(mailserver) IPs which have allegedly been used at some time for
unsolicited bulk e-mail advertising ("spam").

If this worked as advertised, all would be well, but the RBS now seems to
include the mail servers of Pipex, one of the UK's leading ISPs and of
course the one which distributes Midnight Voices. Direct approaches do
nothing, as MAPS insists it is not the e-mail sender's address (e.g.
) that is blacklisted, but the machine which
serves its mail to the Internet (in this case Pipex's 158.43.128.69). What
it means is that your ISP will block all mails originating at Pipex. Is it
surprising that one of Pipex's tens of thousands of customers has at some
time generated spam?

ISPs so far known to be affected (the 'sucker' list - you'll recognise your
own) are

win-uk.net (192.68.174.71)
iconn.net (207.171.128.7)
mcinerny.com (204.145.147.77)
axionet.com (209.17.150.44) and
zetnet.co.uk (194.247.46.1)

I have made representations to Pipex, but without response, and at this
stage I can only ask MVs whose supply of messages unaccountably dries up,
to contact their ISP and complain bitterly about MAPS. The latest post is
MV1104.

MAPS' Web presence is at http://maps.vix.com and a typical bounce caused by
their product reads something like:

192.68.174.71 does not like recipient.
Remote host said: 550-Blackholed - see
<URL:http://maps.vix.com/cgi-bin/lookup?158.43.128.69>
550 rejected: administrative prohibition
Giving up.

or:

Connected to 194.247.46.1 but sender was rejected.
Remote host said: 553 <email address>...  Mail from
158.43.128.69 refused, see http://maps.vix.com/rbl/

I'm sure this is only a temporary problem and that we shall overcome it in
time, when the ISPs realise they've been duped and junk MAPS, or when Pipex
negotiates its way off the blacklist, but if things at MV seem to go more
quiet than usual please be aware it may be due to the action of yet another
half-baked "guardian" of our sensibilities. 

Regards to all

Steve

........ Unquote

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From: IChippett<email address>
Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 16:40:01 EDT
Subject: MV1110: The seventh album

I had a look today at the session notes for the demos of the songs which would
have made the seventh album. In the absence of the real thing would it be
possible, Steve, to cobble together a CD of these songs for a sort of official
bootleg from the stuff on the site? This would be preferable to not seeing
anything at all. "Canoe", "Search and Destroy", "Eye Of The Universe" and the
rest (why not "History and Geography" even if it comes from 1969? One of the
all-time greats, in my book.) must not be allowed to disappear for ever! We
have a duty to posterity. Plus, just think how much the CD's will be worth in
twenty years from now...

What was the title of the album going to be, incidentally? For some obscure
reason, apart from BOTBS, none of the title tracks from the other albums did
at all well in the Top Ten voting. Who decided back then on the titles of the
albums? Pete has referred to his perversity in the past when writing songs
which do what we don't expect? Is this another example of it? 

Ian C

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From: IChippett<email address>
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 16:51:37 EDT
Subject: MV1111: Anagrams

From the Beach Boys discussion group, someone found an anagram from Mike Love,
Vile? Me? O.K! which seems to sum him up. I can't be much good at it as all I
can find from "The Road Of Silk" is Dark is the Fool and "Secret Drinker"
gives Cretins reek, Dr. "Live Libel" gives Bileville which is slightly better
but not much. Over to you.

Ian C

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Date: Sat, 06 Jun 1998 01:32:24 +0100
From: Gerald Smith <email address>
Subject: MV1112 Re: MV1111: Anagrams

>Subject: Anagrams
>
>From the Beach Boys discussion group, someone found an anagram from Mike Love,
>Vile? Me? O.K! which seems to sum him up. I can't be much good at it as all I
>can find from "The Road Of Silk" is Dark is the Fool and "Secret Drinker"
>gives Cretins reek, Dr. "Live Libel" gives Bileville which is slightly better
>but not much. Over to you.
>

Never really one for anagrams myself, and I haven't yet probed the
possibilities of PA material, but I just thought I might share one of the
few anagrams which has made me laugh in recent times;

a correspondent to Private Eye noted, ominously and with increasing
veracity, that the legend 'Tony Blair MP', when re-arranged, becomes 'I'm
Tory Plan B'.

Hmmm..

Gerry Smith

Gerald Smith's Homepage :
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/gerald.smith/index.htm

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From: Richard Corfield <email address>
Subject: MV1113 Re: MV1110: The seventh album
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 07:45:10 +0100 (BST)

Re Ian's idea for releasing a CD of the 7th album demo tapes; I for one
enthusiastically support the idea. It could be like the Monyash CD i.e. a
limited edition (50-100 depending on the interest level) and would keep us
going while the studio version of the 7th album gets organised.

Is this logistically possible Steve (and of course Pete?!)

If it is, then perhaps a show of cyberspatial 'Ayes' would help gauge the
number that should be produced?

Best regards,

Richard C.

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Date: Sat, 06 Jun 1998 15:43:32 +0100
From: S J Birkill <email address>
Subject: MV1114 Re: MV1113; MV1110: The seventh album

Dear Ian and Richard,

It's good to hear such enthusiasm for Ian's notion of an interim private
7th album issue, based on the Pathway demos. Logistically there's nothing
against it -- it could be handled the same as the Monyash 'live' album. But
I think to do this would be conceding defeat, when what we'd all like to
hear is Pete back in the studio making fully-produced versions of all those
songs, and others (H&G, for instance, which would make a good title). I
certainly wouldn't want to distribute the demo recordings, excellent though
they are, if that could be seen as detrimental to the success of a
subsequent official release.

I've spoken to Pete about this, and his motivation is very strong to
organise a real 7th album, which will be released somehow -- if we can't
get the right deal with a major label we'll do it privately. He's thrilled
by the Voices' desire and enthusiasm for the new material, and although he
approves of our .RA clips of selected songs he's not happy (musically) with
everything in the collection, and wouldn't like to see any wider distribution 
of these versions. He's already trying out new arrangements of some of the 
songs, with the album in mind. We might hear one or two at Buxton.

So, before there's too much clamour I must regrettably state we will not be
releasing even a limited edition of this material, but for the very best
reason, that instead we'll be getting (in due course) the album we've
waited 20 years for.

Bst Rgds - S

==============================================================================
From: Richard Corfield <email address>
Subject: MV1115 Re: MV1114; MV1113; MV1110: The seventh album
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 19:24:26 +0100 (BST)

Steve,

Thanks for the update. Of course I understand.

Let me just say this - whatever it takes to get Pete back into a studio I
will support, even if it's just bringing a van and helping lug amplifiers.
Say the word and I'm there.

I've waited twenty years - I can wait longer.

All the best,

Richard C.

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Date: Sun, 7 Jun 1998 03:01:57 -0400
From: Tony Currie <email address>
Subject: MV1116 Re: MV1115; MV1114; MV1113; MV1110: The seventh album

Hey, now that's a thought. Could we all get jobs for the day as gaffer's
assistants (or whatever the studio equivalent is)? Speaking as someone who
has never really appreciated the difference between studio and live
recordings (the essence of the experience for me is the melody and lyrics,
with only limited appreciation for the vocal and instrumental nuances), I'd
love to participate.

Of  course, I'm in to buy the 7th album, however funded and issued, but I'd
love to have a greater involvement!

regards,

Tony

==============================================================================
Date: Sun, 07 Jun 1998 10:52:08 +0100
From: Leslie Moss <email address>
Subject: MV1117 Re: MV1116; MV1115; MV1114; MV1113; MV1110: The seventh
  album

Luckily I read Steve's comment before submitting my cyber-Aye otherwise I
too would have been champing at the bit.

The idea of Voices assisting with the creation of a seventh album is a
brilliant one. Speaking as someone whose last appearance in a recording
studio was as percussionist (tubular bells and glockenspiel) for a BBC
schools broadcast in 1967, I would love the opportunity to shake the maracas
or something like that - or even being a gofer for the coffee. However, if
Musicians Union rules preclude any of this, well I'd just be grateful for
the opportunity to attend a recording session and buy the album.

BTW I thought that the anagram for Tony Blair MP was "smarmy hypocrite" but
then my spelling was never that good.

Leslie

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their works and collaborators on stage, TV, disc and in print.

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