June 2002 - zorn-list - mailman.xmission.com

overdue DVD reissues
by josephneff 09 Jul '02

09 Jul '02

Hello, ...in the spirit of the current thread, what would folks like to see make it to DVD? Here's some of mine.... "The Phenix City Story" (Phil Karlson) "Contempt", "One Plus One", "Band of Outsiders", + early shorts (J L Godard) "Dog Star Man" (Stan Brakhage) "Who's That Knocking at My Door?", "Italian American", & "The King of Comedy" (Scorsese) "The Blues According To Lightnin' Hopkins", "Hot Pepper", "Burden of Dreams", "Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe" (Les Blank) "The Mother & the Whore" (Jean Eustache) "Solaris" & "Stalker" (Tarkovsky) "Paris, Texas" (Wenders) "Why Does Herr R. Runn Amok?", "Ali: Fear Eats the Soul", "In the Year of 13 Moons" (Fassbinder) "The Killers" (Siegel) "Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!" & "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" (Russ Meyer) "Zabriskie Point" (Antonioni) "Point Blank" John Boorman) "Le Samourai", "Les Enfants Terribles", Bob le Flambeur" (Melville) "Love Affair", "WR: Mysteries of the Organism", "Sweet Movie" (Makavejev) I remain... Joseph NP: Nino Rota- "Original Soundtrack Recording- La Dolce Vita" LP NR: William H. Gass- "The Tunnel'

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Re: Steve Reich
by Dgasque＠aol.com 01 Jul '02

01 Jul '02

In a message dated 6/30/02 2:45:49 PM Eastern Daylight Time, TagYrIt(a)aol.com writes: << In a message dated 6/30/2002 2:40:16 PM Eastern Standard Time, maurice(a)mac.com writes: > Oh, yeah--here's another disappointment: Steve Reich's _The Cave_, > which starts strong and then very quickly reveals itself as an > experiment that just doesn't work, but which he doggedly keeps > hammering into the ground. Couldn't this describe ANY Steve Reich album? Although I do have to admit, I like Different Trains a lot. >> I too admit this- Reich is downright tedious after the first few minutes to these ears too. -- np: VA-Interiors (a Sentrex Corporation comp of dark ambient stuff) =dg=

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Worst by admired, best by loathed
by William Crump 01 Jul '02

01 Jul '02

For part one, I'm tempted to mention Sgt. Pepper, but I won't. Instead I'll mention... ZAPPA/MOTHERS: JUST ANOTHER BAND FROM L.A. I've been a Flo & Eddie hater for decades now, and despite an interesting take on "Call Any Vegetable," when I listen to this I think I must know how Dustin Hoffman's character felt after a couple of days of dental care from Laurence Olivier in "Marathon Man." Part two-- UB40: SIGNING OFF. Is it cheating to cite a group's first album? All this material was recorded before they ever gave me a reason to hate them. Yet hate them I do, except for these rawly played, emotional songs, esp. the cover of Randy Newman's "I Think It's Going To Rain Today." William Crump --

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Fwd: Re: Worst Record ever Made (by someone you normally admire)
by Efrén del Valle 01 Jul '02

01 Jul '02

Hi, There goes a list of heroes doing awful things (for me). Remco hits the nail in several of his choices! Maybe those records are better than the average, but you expect more from these guys. Just looking at one of my Cd towers I get all of these: -Marc Ribot & Los Cubanos Postizos: "Muy divertido" Pathetic, simply pathetic. An abyss opens between their first and their second release. - Satlah: Any of their two Tzadik releases. I might try to save their live but their music doesn't seem to work. Pretty amateurish attempt to join Coltrane and Jewish tradition. Clumsy. - Fred Frith "Cheap at Half the Price". remco said it all. - Derek Bailey & Susie Ibarra "Daedal". And now they've released a follow-up. Does anyone manage to listen it in one sitting without falling asleep? - Again, Remco... You know I have a tendency to sell Frisell records! - Norman Yamada "Being and Time". What the hell is this? Maybe a musical rendition of boredom in big capitals. Shame on Tzadik for publishing this. - Susie Ibarra "Songbird Suite". I can't understand so much appraisal for this record. Ibarra's drumming is amazing, as was her "Flower after Flower" but there's nothing here! Best, EfrÃ©n del Valle n.p: Tom Waits "Alice" (Certainly not the worst recording ever made!) > > John Zorn: My First Recordings/ wank, wank, can't > believe I even bought this > Ornette Coleman: Virgin Beauty/ don't know what to > say, lame fusion? > Chris Potter: Gratitude/ just so conservatory, > derivative and over-clever > Dave Douglas: Magic Triangle/ just lame jazz > Ginger Baker: all of his African Airforce material/ > untight ramblings going > on and on and on (oops, already sold this stuff!) > Lol Coxhill & Pat Thomas: Halim/ yuk jazzdance with > a lame beat, and > entirely non-swinging. No idea what they intended to > do here. > Mahavishnu Orchestra: this eighties or early > nineties album with the word > RADIO in it/ lame fusion with a flat synth drum beat > (again: already sold > it!) > Fred Frith: Cheap at half the price/ trying to be > pop, the results sound > like a sad wannabe's demo, with a tiny twist > > > > or, coming closer to 'all time worst records ever': > The Damned: the album called 'Anything' > Ian Anderson: this eighties synthi solo album, > preceeding the countless > mediocre Jethro Tull Albums. > > Regards, Remco Takken > > > > _______________________________________________ > zorn-list mailing list > zorn-list(a)mailman.xmission.com > To UNSUBSCRIBE or Change Your Subscription Options, > go to the webpage below > http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/zorn-list _______________________________________________________________ Copa del Mundo de la FIFA 2002 El Ãºnico lugar de Internet con vÃdeos de los 64 partidos. Â¡ApÃºntante ya! en http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/fc/es/

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Fwd: Re: Worst Record ever Made (by someone you normally admire)
by Efrén del Valle 01 Jul '02

01 Jul '02

Hi, > > next installment -- GREAT ALBUMS FROM PEOPLE YOU > NEVER SUSPECTED COULD MAKE > GREAT ALBUMS! > > sh Although I know it may be dangerous to say this here, i'll have to refer again to Mr. Bill Frisell. I was nicely surprised by his "Quartets" album on Elektra. Probably the only Frisell record I admire, although vaguely. Let's add BjÃ¶rk's soundtrack to "Dancing in the Dark" and her single with the Spanish flamenco guitarist Raimundo Amador ("So Broken"). The rest could be blown up as far as I'm concerned!! And I must agree with the "Mule VAriations" opponents too. Best, EfrÃ©n del Valle n.p: Tim Berne "We're only in it for the money"- Unwound Box. (Screwgun) _______________________________________________________________ Copa del Mundo de la FIFA 2002 El Ãºnico lugar de Internet con vÃdeos de los 64 partidos. Â¡ApÃºntante ya! en http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/fc/es/

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when good artists make bad albums...
by Steve Smith 30 Jun '02

30 Jun '02

This is a harder exercise than it might appear at first, since few of the real howlers end up remaining on our shelves except in cases of completism (Shannon Jackson and to a lesser degree Braxton for me) or when things are just SOOOOO bad that they're worth keeping. Still, here are a few thoughts off the top of my head: James "Blood" Ulmer: 'Music Speaks Louder Than Words' (DIW or Koch) Easy to pick on someone as inconsistent as Blood, but given what this purported to be - Ulmer revisiting the tunes of his mentor with some really fine musicians along for the ride - and how far short of the pole Ulmer fell, this really has to top my list. Shannon Jackson: 'Shannon's House' (DIW or Koch) Easy listening noodling from someone once known for innovative charts and fiery performances (and still capable of both, judging from last night's meandering but occasionally brilliant set with Reid and Gibbs in NYC). Arthur Blythe: 'Put Sunshine in It' (Columbia) Mercifully out of print, this is what happens when Arthur finally succumbed to record label pressure for a contemporary jazz hit. Somewhat redeemed by the following two albums, the spotty 'Da Da' and the gorgeous-for-what-it-is strings album 'Basic Blythe,' but on the whole he's never recovered his stride. Anthony Braxton: 'Four Compositions (Duets) 2000' (CIMP) Already mentioned elsewhere, the execrable duets with a "comedian" offer proof postive that some folks really do need an executive producer, maybe. This got an inexplicably positive review in Cadence, which supposedly doesn't single out Bob Rusch's own recordings for special favor. Ornette Coleman: 'Tone Dialing' (Harmolodic) Someone else mentioned 'Virgin Beauty,' but even if that album's edges were all sanded off, it was still more consistent and listenable than this muddled mess, Bach suite and all... Kiss: 'Music from "The Elder"' (Mercury) Kiss has made plenty of records of marginal value over the years, sure. Almost anything later than 1978 is dismissable, sure. But this... this was such a fundamental mis-step for the band, it's hard to imagine them actually releasing it, much less believing in it. Truth be told, there are a couple of good songs and one of Ace Frehley's best solos on "Dark Light," but still.... This was supposedly a corrective to the (in some ways more offensive) bland adult pop of 'Unmasked,' but didn't really serve the purpose. Thankfully, both of these damp squibs led to the relative return to form of 'Creatures of the Night.' Yes: 'Open Your Eyes' (Beyond) I'm not the biggest Yes fan, and pound per pound 'Tormato' is probably the far suckier record. But the live recordings from San Luis Obispo and new studio recordings with Rick Wakeman that made up the two volumes of 'Keys to Ascension' showed enough promise to get me interested again, and instead, they go the quick and easy route of offering some tepid, barely dressed-up demos by Chris Squire and his little friend Billy Sherwood. It was time to tune out once again... Butthole Surfers: Everything after 'Hairway to Steven' (Rough Trade, Capitol, Hollywood) This particular stretch of work has the overall effect of watching a slow, excruciating terminal illness unfold. The stretch of albums the band made for Touch and Go are just so twisted, so brilliant, so inviolably right, that to hear the guitarist begin to disavow them as the product of people who "couldn't play their instruments" while the singer crawls further into a druggy Hollywood-glam stupor and the drummer decides to jettison the tribal drums for simplistic loops, well, it is to weep. Reading apologist reviews of 'Weird Revolution' as being a return to form beggared belief, while 'Humpty Dumpty LSD,' a new disc of outtakes, B-sides and anthology cuts from Touch & Go days and before, just reaffirms the brilliance of the original discs (though it's great to hear the Roky Erickson cover again... too bad they didn't include the compilation-only "Flame Grape," though). Public Image Ltd.: 'Album' (Virgin) Here's the one where I get flamed at last, I suppose. There's no denying the pedigree of the musicians involved, and approached as a Laswell/Material album, it's not so bad. But as a PiL disc, coming on the heels of the magnificent 'Metal Box,' the titanic and terrifying 'Flowers of Romance' and the slightly lesser 'This Is What You Want...' this is about the most monumental let-down I can remember from anybody, ever. Your mileage may vary. At the end of the Sex Pistols' final gig, Lydon asks the crowd, "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" Here is where I finally did. Those are all pretty easy targets... I'm sure I'm unconsicously blocking others. Steve Smith ssmith36(a)sprynet.com

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Fwd: Re: Worst Record ever Made (by someone you normally admire)
by Efrén del Valle 30 Jun '02

30 Jun '02

> > > n.p: Tim Berne "We're only in it for the money"- > > There goes the title of my next album... > > sh Oh! What was I thinking? Berne's "only in it for the food"!!! Too much Zappa lately. Best, EfrÃ©n del Valle n.p: Cecil Taylor: "It is in the Brewing Luminous" (hathut9 _______________________________________________________________ Copa del Mundo de la FIFA 2002 El Ãºnico lugar de Internet con vÃdeos de los 64 partidos. Â¡ApÃºntante ya! en http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/fc/es/

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Re: Steve Reich
by TagYrIt＠aol.com 30 Jun '02

30 Jun '02

In a message dated 6/30/2002 2:40:16 PM Eastern Standard Time, maurice(a)mac.com writes: > Oh, yeah--here's another disappointment: Steve Reich's _The Cave_, > which starts strong and then very quickly reveals itself as an > experiment that just doesn't work, but which he doggedly keeps > hammering into the ground. Couldn't this describe ANY Steve Reich album? Although I do have to admit, I like Different Trains a lot. Dale.

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Re: great albums
by TagYrIt＠aol.com 30 Jun '02

30 Jun '02

In a message dated 6/30/2002 2:28:10 PM Eastern Standard Time, bvergara(a)sfsu.edu writes: > > next installment -- GREAT ALBUMS FROM PEOPLE YOU NEVER SUSPECTED > > COULD MAKE > > GREAT ALBUMS! > > My favorite example comes to mind: > > David Sanborn: Another Hand > > Later, > Ben > OK, my submission, and my heat shields are up for the inevitible flames - best album by someone I never thought could (or did, otherwise) make a great album - David Crosby - If I Could Only Remember My Name. Dale.

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Re: Worst Record ever Made (by someone you normally admire)
by TagYrIt＠aol.com 30 Jun '02

30 Jun '02

In a message dated 6/30/2002 11:15:16 AM Eastern Standard Time, velaires(a)earthlink.net writes: > Herbie Hancock -- FUTURE2FUTURE > How much phoned-in noodling can herbie reel off? A whole album's worth. > > This was the first one that occurred to me too! Dale.

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