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Web Digest week 47 (19.07.98, MV1281-1299) begins | index | prev | next | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Graeme Aldous" <email address> Subject: MV1281: SNUK ONE IN AGAIN Date: Sun, 19 Jul 1998 15:22:35 +0100 I managed it! - when (in 1985) a certain broadcasting corporation and I agreed that we could mutually explore a new experience for us both, and learn how to make people/be made redundant, the last disc I played as I signed off my last programme was 'The Master Of The Revels'. After a 13 year gap, I've been invited back as a Cardboard Replica* for someone who's taking a few weeks' holiday. The first record I played..... yes, TMOTR! OK, so no-one, but NO-one, will have recognised the significance - which is why I'm sharing it with you lot, who may appreciate it just a little. And Dave Jones (pining for the Bent Bucket Company in Rochester, NY) may appreciate it more than most, because he used to listen. Well, there's nowt much else to do in Middlesbrough! Sending Cardboard Replicas to Buxton is a canny idea - I shall have to see what I can do, as I'm returning that night from 8 days in Holland with a 41-year-old Land Rover. Well, as I said, there's nowt much else to do in Middlesbrough! GRAEME ALDOUS Teeafit Sound & Vision, <postal address> Phone: <phone number> Fax: <fax number> *"Neddie, we're going to leave a Cardboard Replica" - Hercules Grytpype-Thynne, 'Tales Of Old Dartmoor', 7/2/56 ============================================================================== Date: Sun, 19 Jul 1998 15:56:56 +0100 From: Kenneth Hutchinson <email address> Subject: MV1282 Re: MV1270: Rogues Gallery at Buxton ? >Anyway, a collection of similarly meaningful snapshots >on display at the reception would add something to this >virtual community of ours. Steve might even feel inspired >to add the pix to the website later.... Great idea, it's always nice to put faces to names. "Man was an image before he was a name". Those with their own sites, which are now referenced on the PA website, may be able to add a picture, or even better an MV Photo - Gallery page on the PA site would be great, particularly for newcomers like myself. Photographs should be front and profile with the subject holding a board with numbers on it. Well maybe not. Regards, Ken -- Ken Hutchinson <email address> http://www.idmon.demon.co.uk/index.htm ============================================================================== From: "Andrew Love" <email address> Subject: MV1283 Re: MV1263: Suggestions please Date: Sun, 19 Jul 1998 16:23:09 +0100 Leslie I've just joined Midnight Voices, overjoyed at having found the web site. The magical combination of words and music invaded my inner being whilst I was in Cambridge in the early 70s. Since then I have never been without it, like so many MV members I guess. Example: I remember bits of a song I heard Pete do in one of his concerts back then. I've been searching for a recording of it ever since, without success. My uptight mental trolley...jumped the tracks when I found it on the web site! The song was "canoe", by the way. Doesn't it turn you into some kind of missionary? How many of us have, like you, felt forced to convert the unbeliever and have agonised over which songs to put on a tape? I tend to categorise Pete & Clive's songs into Histories, Comedies and Tradgedies (and hybrids of same). Bit Shakespearian, I know, but I'm a librarian by trade so it comes naturally! I try to choose from each category, but emphasise that which (I think) matches the existing tastes of the blissfully-unaware victim. But choosing just six is a real challenge! You say your intended victim is a literary person. I have tended to shy away from songs littered with such allusions. That's a personal thing - I've tried four times to read James Joyce's Ulysses and haven't got past page three! Anyway here are my suggestions, for what they're worth, Lookiing at them I see that they're mostly chosen to appeal to men (with your victim in mind) - but ask me next week and I may choose six entirely different ones... Top slot has to go to "Between us there is nothing". It's a beautifully-crafted song and must touch everybody who has sat across a retaurant table from the unattainable. The line about the wine glass (with condensation on its outside) learning to cry is a classic. My stomach still lurches when I hear about the miles of air towards the valley floor - it reminds me of leaning over the cliffs at Macchu Picchu. I get vertigo at the top of a step ladder! The melody of the song is strong, well-paced and immediately memorable. Next comes "Wall of death". An antidote to all men who put themselves across as all mouth and trousers - that's all of us at some point(s) in our lives! The song is full of menace and challenge lyrically and the music is perfectly matched, with distinct parts for narration and the "head man's" speech. Third on this list : "Girl on a train". Again it should ring a chord with just about everyone. Short and sweet ballad with some literary reference and one really funny line - should appeal to your victim? Fourthly, "No dice". Ask him to explain the narrative in the lyric to you in full once he's heard it a few times. Make sure you've got enough beer in the fridge, cos it'll be a long night! I still haven't worked out whether it's set in the tropics or the Arctic, or whether they're POW's or deserters. A fluent song with a powerful last couple of verses. Fifth: "Wristwatch for a drummer". Who else listened to Radio Luxembourg under the bedsheets and those endless advertisements?! Some great comedy lines and an instantly-accessible song. Lastly, "All the dead were strangers". Surely one of the best anti-Vietnam war songs? Takes you instantly back to all the news footage back then and the pointlessness of it all. Well, there's at least thirty songs I might have included in the six, as you can well imagine. I hope you manage to infect your victim with the PA virus. I don't think I'll make Eastbourne but I've applied for Buxton tickets. Perfect moments, Andy Love ============================================================================== From: "andy and lynn" <email address> Subject: MV1284 Re: MV1280: (various) Date: Sun, 19 Jul 1998 17:12:49 +0100 Would anyone like to do me a tape of The Beautiful Changes? No, that would be wrong. Would anyone with a copy of the album, a tape recorder and a generous disposition please eMail me? That's better. p.s. Julie Covington gets a big feature in the Virgin encyclopaedia of seventies music but Pete Atkin gets only one mention - as her songwriter. Do Virgin have an agenda? Andy ============================================================================== Date: Sun, 19 Jul 1998 22:32:01 +0100 From: Leslie Moss <email address> Subject: MV1285 Re: MV1283; MV1263: Suggestions please Finally got around to documenting the tapes that I referred to a couple of weeks back. The first is a live PA concert c. 1973 - I'd be very grateful if anyone (Pete?) can identify the actual date and venue (Cambridge I believe). The sound quality is okayish except that most of the inter-song witticisms are muffled. Steve, does your technical expertise extend to cleaning up the tape? I assume that some digital signal processing would enhance the sound quality no end. Songs are as follows: 1. Wristwatch for a Drummer 2. Thief in the Night 3. The Beautiful Changes 4. Ballad of the Upstairs Windows 5. Girl on aTrain 6. Screen Freak 7. The King of Rock and Roll 8. Stranger in Town 9. All the Dead were Strangers 10. Carnations on the Roof 11. Practical Man 12. The Flowers and the Wine 13. Beware of the Beautiful Stranger The second tape is of two radio sessions (John Peel) around the same time. I'm not sure where the first session ends and the second begins cos I skipped most of JP's chat unfortunately. However,there are definitely two sessions cos one song is duplicated. The other clue I have is that after song 4, John Peel introduces another band, the North Carolina Boys (who they? ... Ed). The sound quality on this tape is much better than the first. Songs are: 1. Driving Through Mythical America 2. The King of Rock and Roll (great guitar lead) 3. Wristwatch for a Drummer (JP introduces this as "the Watch Song") 4. All the Dead were Strangers 5. Thirty-year Man (magnifique!) 6. Thief in the Night 7. A King at Nightfall 8. Thirty-year Man (again!) 9. Uncle Seabird (sadly under-performed live) While I'm writing, thanks to all those, especially Andy Love, who took the trouble to make suggestions for my friend's tape. I agree that an MV greatest hits list is not necessarily the best intro to Pete's music. I will make the tape up later this week and will post the outcome! Definites at this stage are - Thirty-Year Man, Girl on a Train and The Flowers and the Rain - anyone who dislikes these songs has to be beyond any sort of musical redemption. Tonight Your Love is over is a strong contender too - and I doubt I'll be able to stick to six songs! Looking forward to seeing some of you at Eastbourne - I'll be the guy with the yellow tee-shirt with "Norwood Ravenswood" all over it (unless it's tipping it down!). Leslie ============================================================================== Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 10:08:24 +0100 From: Carole Birkill <email address> Subject: MV1286: Buxton Never mind all this talk about cardboard cut-outs and waxwork dummies. Get your damned asses over here! No excuses. :-)) Carole ============================================================================== From: Richard Corfield <email address> Subject: MV1287 Re: MV1286: Buxton Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 10:27:25 +0100 (BST) > Never mind all this talk about cardboard cut-outs and waxwork dummies. Get > your damned asses over here! No excuses. :-)) > I'll second that: Be there or be square ;-) Richard C ============================================================================== Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 12:03:31 +0100 From: Roy Brown <email address> Subject: MV1288 Re: MV1283; MV1263: Same thing, but different protagonists > >Fourthly, "No dice". Ask him to explain the narrative in the lyric to you in >full once he's heard it a few times. Make sure you've got enough beer in the >fridge, cos it'll be a long night! I still haven't worked out whether it's >set in the tropics or the Arctic, or whether they're POW's or deserters. A >fluent song with a powerful last couple of verses. > You'll be there a *long* time if you try to interpret this as about the same group of people... It's about a single subject (the way men die), but they are quite disparate groups. An old Eskimo, put out to die, as is (or was) the custom... GIs in the Pacific theatre in WWII... Aztecs protecting their treasure from the conquistadors... Victims (concentration camp inmates?) of a wartime atrocity in the European theatre... Clive, struggling with a lyric.... The latter being a little more bathetic that he perhaps intended. For the playlist, BTW, please consider Faded Mansion, Tonight Your Love is Over, Sunrise, Rider to the World's End..... -- Roy Brown Phone : <phone number> Fax : <fax number> Affirm Ltd Email : <email address> <postal address> 'Have nothing on your systems that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.' ============================================================================== Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 13:03:07 +0100 From: Gerald Smith <email address> Subject: MV1289 Re: MV1285; MV1283; MV1263: Suggestions please >While I'm writing, thanks to all those, especially Andy Love, who took the >trouble to make suggestions for my friend's tape. Definites at >this stage are - Thirty-Year Man, Girl on a Train and The Flowers and the >Rain - anyone who dislikes these songs has to be beyond any sort of musical >redemption. 'The Flowers And The Rain' ? Which album was that one on Leslie? I thought I had the full complement!! regards Gerry Smith Gerald Smith's Homepage : http://web.ukonline.co.uk/gerald.smith/index.htm ============================================================================== Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 09:15:12 -0400 From: Frances Kemmish <email address> Subject: MV1290 Re: MV1288; MV1283; MV1263: Same thing, but different protagonists > > You'll be there a *long* time if you try to interpret this as about the > same group of people... It's about a single subject (the way men die), > but they are quite disparate groups. > > An old Eskimo, put out to die, as is (or was) the custom... > GIs in the Pacific theatre in WWII... > Aztecs protecting their treasure from the conquistadors... I thought probably Inca rather than Aztec I saw this as a reference to the Andes. > Victims (concentration camp inmates?) of a wartime atrocity in the > European theatre... I had assumed that this was a reference to some incident from a Japanese POW camp, since we know that his father was imprisoned by the Japanese, but, alas, it could refer to any number of places in this century. > Clive, struggling with a lyric.... > > The latter being a little more bathetic that he perhaps intended. > I read it as a lyric about struggling with the problem of integrating the meanings of both life and death (and, in particular, of finding some meaning in his father's death, a traumatic event with which he seems never to have been able to come to terms) rather than merely about struggling with the lyric, per se. So I didn't find it bathetic, at all. Fran ============================================================================== From: Ian Chippett <email address> Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 10:14:17 EDT Subject: MV1291: Sleeve notes and another bright idea Unless somebody else wants to start, I'll kick off the sleeve note project with "Have You Got A biro?" which is the first track after all. God knows when though! On another list I belong to, the readers have a Song Of The Week chosen more or less at random by the Moderator of the List which is put forward for discussion, comment, questions, reminiscence etc. What do you think Steve? It might get the lurkers to throw off their dirty raincoats and come out of the closet. Cheers Ian C ============================================================================== From: "Ross, John, J, ROSSJJ" <email address> Subject: MV1292 RE: MV1278: Camping at Eastbourne? Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 15:47:38 +0100 Dear Richard, My mate Lee lives in Eastbourne. He reckons that there is nowhere to camp nearby. The only option is at Pevensey Bay, about 5 miles away. But he says there's a Youth Hostel up the road. Hope this helps. John. ============================================================================== From: Dave Jones <email address> Subject: MV1293 RE: MV1281: SNUK ONE IN AGAIN Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 15:51:35 -0400 Well done Graeme! I hope you snuk in a mention of Pete's live appearances while you were playing his music. To all other MV's, you are listening in on one of life's little coincidences. In a nutshell, back in 1970 and '71 I was somewhat indolently employed by (then) Radio Teesside as a Saturday afternoon office boy. This is the same BBC local radio station which Graeme co-founded a year or two before that, and from which, although its name had changed by then, he 'retired' in 1985. Not to say we ever said two words to each other, except maybe "Excuse me" as we passed through those cramped quarters. Which I did a lot, as my function was mainly to rip off the rip'n'read and transport it upstairs from the teletype to the studio. Once the football results started coming in I would be running up and down stairs every couple of minutes. This made up for the first hour or so of my stay, which involved drinking coffee, fiddling with a newfangled gadget called a "Xerox", and reading whatever copies of Melody Maker, NME and Playboy were left lying around the deserted newsroom. Despite working this little sinecure for almost a year I don't recall ever being introduced to Graeme, though his voice was a fixture on the local airwaves and I recognize it even now. Thus our two ships passed in the night, to be reconnected later by our mutual regard for Pete's works. Dave Jones Synchronicitized in Rochester NY. ============================================================================== From: Ian Chippett <email address> Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 16:29:34 EDT Subject: MV1294: Sleeve note Volume One Have You Got A Biro I Can Borrow? Pete has always had the habit of starting his shows with one of his less intense songs. In recent concerts he's begun proceedings with "Luck of the Draw" or "The Pearl Driller" and Monyash was no exception. As usual he wasn't content with playing it exactly as it is on the first album (albeit without a backing group). No, he slowed it down and used a more relaxed tempo, bringing out the beauty of the first line with its descending harmonic structure. A simple and musically unpretentious little song but even here Pete has to add a few surprises like the chord change from F through A to B when he sings "a box of rubber bands". Lyrics are well up to the usual Jamesian standard though perhaps someone should have pointed out that references to the Aeneid aren't guaranteed to get you airplay on Radio One. Ian Who wants to do the next one? Richard? Dave? ============================================================================== Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 18:22:58 +0100 From: Roy Brown <email address> Subject: MV1295 Re: MV1290; MV1288; MV1283; MV1263: Same thing, but different protagonists >> Aztecs protecting their treasure from the conquistadors... > >I thought probably Inca rather than Aztec I saw this as a reference to >the Andes. Yes, Incas. I really must learn to tell them and Aztecs apart. >> Victims (concentration camp inmates?) of a wartime atrocity in the >> European theatre... > >I had assumed that this was a reference to some incident from a Japanese >POW camp, since we know that his father was imprisoned by the Japanese, >but, alas, it could refer to any number of places in this century. > ISTR that this was German practice rather than Japanese. But I am thankfully not an expert, and will bow to superior knowledge. Anybody? >> Clive, struggling with a lyric.... >> >> The latter being a little more bathetic that he perhaps intended. > >I read it as a lyric about struggling with the problem of integrating >the meanings of both life and death (and, in particular, of finding some >meaning in his father's death, a traumatic event with which he seems >never to have been able to come to terms) rather than merely about >struggling with the lyric, per se. So I didn't find it bathetic, at all. This about his father I did not know, and you may well be right about the thrust behind the song. So I shall take what you say on board. Up until now, without this context, I have seen it as every other poor bugger in the song *dying*, while the writer 'only' has a sleepless night...... In a way, I think the last verse is self-referential - 'No Dice' is as close as he can get to the 'love-song that refuses to be born', strive as he might. Certainly, I have never heard anything quite like 'No Dice' from any other songwriter. Plenty of songs about death, but nothing quite so stark and universal. Spooky, as the Australians say... -- Roy Brown ============================================================================== From: B & J Cotterill <email address> Subject: MV1296: No Dice MV1283 Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 07:53:08 +0100 Hi All, and Andrew Love in particular Back in the archives, there's a post from me (MV392) quoting a poem by Anthony Hecht called More light, More Light. This describes a chilling scene very reminiscent of the verse about the ditch, and is clearly a German atrocity. And the Eskimo left on the ice - well, I saw this in a film in the early sixties - the aged grandmother was left outside to die following the birth of a new child, the implication being that she had outlived her usefulness. There was no sense of cruelty though; it seemed to be the custom. However I can't remember the title of the film or who acted in it. When I first heard No Dice both these connections sprang to mind immediately. The idea of an"instant appeal" list interests me considerably - it can be very embarrassing to say to a friend "You must listen to this; it's great" only to be met with total indifference. You can lend them a CD to play in the privacy of their own home, but I suspect they don't even bother to play it. I suspect BOTBS might be a good one. It seemed to receive a good reception at Islington last year; some of the laughter suggested people who didn't already know it liked the wit. Catchy tune, lyrics not too difficult to understand on first hearing, but with those little unexpected twists. And Sessionman's Blues, classic blues, witty words. And if they like that they'll probably like Thirty year man...... best wishes Jenny ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 11:13:27 +0100 From: S J Birkill <email address> Subject: MV1297: Brent Mason: update and corrections Brent has sent me updated UK tour details, with an extra London date: http://www.rwt.co.uk/brent98.htm Steve ============================================================================== Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 11:17:48 +0100 From: S J Birkill <email address> Subject: MV1298: Retail presence Found myself in London's Oxford Street yesterday, and idly checked the racks at the 2 biggies, Virgin and HMV, the branches east of Oxford Circus in each case. Virgin had one copy of the SFM CD in the racks, under misc 'A' in Rock and Pop (1st Floor). HMV had 2 copies, with a 'Pete Atkin' spacer, in Folk (Basement). That's more exposure than I ever saw for 'Touch Has A Memory'. Just for interest -- Steve ============================================================================== Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1998 13:18:22 +0100 From: S J Birkill <email address> Subject: MV1299: Remembering to be Expected I'm pleased to announce that the chords for the first of the three songs recently requested by Stephen Payne (MV1269: chordless) are now available on the Web Site, thanks to Pete: http://www.rwt.co.uk/a11c.htm -- Steve ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Web Digest week 47 (19.07.98, MV1281-1299) ends | index | prev | next |Pete Atkin Home | Discography | Julie Covington | Audio Clips | Visitors' Comments | Join Midnight VoicesThe discussion forum for fans of Pete Atkin and Clive James, their works and collaborators on stage, TV, disc and in print.Midnight VoicesMidnight Voices, the Pete Atkin and Julie Covington Websites are operated and maintained by Steve Birkill
