Midnight Voices Web Digest, week 43 (MV1190-1218)

Midnight Voices

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

Web Digest week 43 (21.06.98, MV1190-1218) begins | index | prev | next |
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From: B & J Cotterill <email address>
Subject: MV1190: middle eight etc
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 10:57:52 +0100

To Murray:  Isn't Clive a New South Walesman rather than Welshman?
And to Gerald Smith & Ian Chippett, I always thought that a middle eight
was specifically an instrumental section, almost obligatory in popular
songs of the sixties.

To Carole, yes please half a dozen leaflets would be great - I haven't got
a swanky printer!

To S Payne (1187)  I think you mean Political Science and what about Lonely
at the Top?   I would love to hear Pete doing Randy Newman, or vice versa.

And in reply to Leslie Moss about how we all first encountered Pete's
music, the line that first caught my imagination was "I am the sleep of
which you are the dream", shortly followed by seeing him live at Weybridge
Hall in 1975.   This gig was arranged by my husband Brian, who I didn't
know at the time (but that's another story :-)) and a friend.   I have
never stopped playing his music since.

regards
Jenny

==============================================================================
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 12:59:01 +0000
From: Stephen Payne <email address>
Subject: MV1191 Re: MV 1190

Jenny,

Thanks for the correction.  How could I forget:  Political Science is such
a good title for that song.  I knew I should have looked at my Randy Newman
collection for reminders.  Then for sure I'd have suggested Lonely at the
Top too, a perfect song for Pete.

(Just realised that it must look strange to sign myself S as my
from-address is removed from these messages. Unlike Harry S. Truman,
there's a name to go with my initial.)

Stephen

==============================================================================
From: "Murray Francis McGlew" <email address>
Subject: MV1192: Middle Eights - Welshman?
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 21:19:53 +0800

Jenny,

You could be right with the "Walesman" theory, I honestly haven't a clue. I
don't even know what the slang term is for people from New South Wales (as
in Queenslanders = banana benders, South Australians = crow eaters, West
Australians = sandgropers etc.)

Thanks to you and the others who helped me out with the middle eight
question. I can't wait to drop it into conversation with my friends who
think they know about pop music -  but haven't heard of Pete Atkin and
almost certainly haven't heard of middle eights.

A quick flashback to cover versions. How could I have not seen it - the
Kinks to do "Practical Man".

Murray McGlew 

==============================================================================
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 09:00:29 +0800
From: MM <email address>
Subject: MV1193: Change to email address

Steve,

Would you please change my email address to: 

<email address>

Many thanks.

Murray McGlew.

==============================================================================
From: Ian Chippett <email address>
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 05:36:23 EDT
Subject: MV1194: Winchester review

I just re-read Stephen Payne's review of the Winchester gig where he puts
"Have you got a biro I can borrow?" into the category of songs inspired by a
French writer like "Shadow and the Widower" and "The Prince of Aquitaine".
Which French writer does he mean? Over to you, Stephen.

Any more transcriptions in the pipeline?

Ian C

==============================================================================
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 11:43:38 +0000
From: Stephen Payne <email address>
Subject: MV1195 re:  MV1194

Ian,

I got into some trouble with this review didn't I: first Nat Lofthouse and
now this.
I'm afraid in both cases I was just being very corny.  The "French writer"
I had in mind was the biro.  Didn't I have it right that the biro was
invented by Monsieur Biro?  (Perhaps a relative of Monsieur Le Pen?)

Stephen

==============================================================================
From: Dave Jones <email address>
Subject: MV1196 RE: MV1194: Winchester review
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 08:02:11 -0400

>From: Ian Chippett <email address>
>Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 05:36:23 EDT
>Subject: Winchester review
>
>I just re-read Stephen Payne's review of the Winchester gig where he puts
>"Have you got a biro I can borrow?" into the category of songs inspired by a
>French writer like "Shadow and the Widower" and "The Prince of Aquitaine".
>Which French writer does he mean? Over to you, Stephen.

Well, there's the song "Au Clair de la Lune" which contains the lines

"Prete-moi ta plume
Pour ecrire un mot"

Dave Jones
Clairly luney in Rochester NY.

==============================================================================
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 16:15:10 +0000
From: Stephen Payne <email address>
Subject: MV1197: History and Geography and Eng. Lit.

Hey, an "old style" message about lyrics:

The lyrics to H&G are in the main straightforward (and lovely, of course),
but I must confess to being somewhat mystified by the penulitmate verse,
especially its second line:

Without a home, without a name, a girl of whom to say this is my sister
For I am all the daughters of my father's house and all the brothers too
I comb the rubble of a shattered world to find the bright face of an angel
And say again and say again that I have written this - this is for you

Can anyone throw any light on this, please?

Stephen

==============================================================================
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 16:44:45 +0100
From: S J Birkill <email address>
Subject: MV1198 Re: MV1197: History and Geography and Eng. Lit.

Others amongst us will have more intuition for the meaning in the song, but
I can at least indicate the source, for those who haven't recognised it.

In Twelfth Night, Viola (in boy's clothing as Cesario -- she believes her
twin brother Sebastian lost at sea) tells the Duke Orsino (whom she would
love) of her concealed feelings:

       My father had a daughter lov'd a man,
       As it might be perhaps, were I a woman,
       I should your lordship.

Duke:  And what's her history?

Viola: A blank, my lord. She never told her love,
       But let concealment, like a worm i' th' bud,
       Feed on her damask cheek. She pin'd in thought;
       And with a green and yellow melancholy
       She sat like Patience on a monument,
       Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?
       We men may say more, swear more, but indeed
       Our shows are more than will; for still we prove
       Much in our vows, but little in our love.

Duke:  But died thy sister of her love, my boy?

Viola: I am all the daughters of my father's house,
       And all the brothers too -- and yet I know not.

-- Steve

==============================================================================
From: Dave Jones <email address>
Subject: MV1199 RE: MV1198; MV1197: History and Geography and Eng. Lit.
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 14:38:50 -0400

>Viola: I am all the daughters of my father's house,
>       And all the brothers too -- and yet I know not.

I've thought somewhat about this line in its original context,
and the nearest thing I can come up with is the way a monarch
of the time might say "I am England" (or Scotland, for all the
Jacobites out there). I suppose that would be "We are England",
actually, not to be confused with "We are the world".

Anyway, Shakespeare appears to be going for a rather refined
double-meaning here, with Viola/Cesario proclaiming, in a way
that might not raise an eyebrow, that he/she is the embodiment
of his/her family, while really meaning that she is the sister 
pretending to be the brother.

Probably had them rolling in the aisles at the Globe. 

If they had aisles, that is.

Dave Jones
Appearing in the round in Rochester NY.

==============================================================================
From: S J Birkill <email address>
Subject: MV1200: Revised Welcome Message, 25th June 1998
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998

Dear Midnight Voices member,

Welcome to the Pete Atkin e-mail discussion group. This message goes out to 
every new subscriber, and on each revision to all existing members too. 

Many MV members discard our posts after reading them, but may I suggest you 
file this one somewhere until the next update, or print it out for reference. 
This is the nearest we have to a FAQ (though the answers to many of your 
questions will be found in the depths of our Website). Failing that, post a 
message and you're guaranteed a friendly response, even if no-one knows the 
answer!

We've been going for 10 months now. MV was formed after Pete's Monyash 
Festival appearance in summer 1997 to support his continued 'revival' and 
provide an immediate channel for disseminating news of gigs and record 
releases, as well as a forum.

Membership stands at 142 -- growth has been slow since the 100 mark, but has 
always exceeded churn. It's not quite a life sentence -- some join expecting 
greater or lesser volume, different topics, or chat of a more (or less) banal 
or intellectual nature, and quit after a while -- but most stay with us. It's 
up to you, our members, to contribute interest, diversity, controversy even, 
and hold the interest of the others. There's a wobbly core of 20 or 30 
regular posters, the membership of which shifts slowly over time -- some of 
the early regulars are absent from the current debate, though they remain 
"lurking" in the wings and I hope enjoying what they see -- the rest are 
content to remain in "read-only" mode.

The group topic is defined (loosely) as "anything at all to do with Pete 
Atkin or his music, or his associates at Cambridge or subsequently on TV, 
radio, record or on tour". This includes Clive James and Julie Covington 
and their own careers, the Atkin/James songs, the musicians, lyrics, chords, 
influences, shows, club gigs, records, tapes, books, films, radio and TV 
appearances, archives, the Website -- if you've got here then the chances 
are you share more than one interest with the group. Pete is himself a 
"Voice", and posts answers and commentary every couple of weeks or so; Clive 
also regularly reads a selection of our messages and has replied on one 
occasion to date.

The mechanics of our operation are not quite the same as those automated 
listservers you may have encountered on the Internet. Here messages are 
re-mailed manually, so the mailing list is not published anywhere -- you 
need have no fear of 'spam' infecting our operation. If you have a question, 
comment, opinion or reply for the group, or relevant sale/want ad, send it 
as an e-mail to the list address:

Midnight Voices <email address>

We will add a header with an MV number and re-mail it, normally within a day, 
to the entire 'daily' group. 'Weekly' members will receive a 'digest' each 
weekend, concatenating all the previous week's posts into one long message.

My own e-mail address, for administration (add, remove, resend, suggest, 
bribe, change to daily/weekly) is Steve Birkill <email address>. If you send 
such requests to the Midnight Voices address I shall still act on them, but 
I'll assume you also wish them broadcast to the group.

We no longer re-send 'bounced' messages automatically. If your bounces appear 
to be permanent we'll delete you from the circulation list. Should you have 
somehow missed a message, mail me direct and request a re-send. If it's less 
than a week old you'll get just the message requested, but if it's older 
you'll receive the appropriate week's digest. Messages older than about four 
weeks (it varies) are accessible in our Web archive, indexed at 
http://www.rwt.co.uk/mvindex.htm -- personal e-mail addresses, postal 
addresses and phone numbers are stripped from the archive for security.

We naturally prefer concise messages, but I don't impose any arbitrary limit 
on message length -- if it's interesting it's welcome. Please try and keep 
quotations to a minimum -- if you refer to a previous message by its MV 
number, or author, it shouldn't ever be necessary to quote the entire 
message, and certainly not the header and sig. Styled or HTML text is not 
always rendered predictably in e-mail -- anything outside plain ASCII is best 
avoided. Some members' mailers can't handle binary attachments, so please 
limit your posts to text only -- if you have an interesting and relevant 
binary (document, audio, image, video, whatever) we'll be happy to publish it 
for you on the Website, if necessary with an unlinked URL known only to 
members. 

Some e-mail programs have defaults which cause them to ignore messages beyond 
a certain length. Our weekly digests can reach 70k in size, so please adjust 
your software if necessary.

If you're new here you might like to familiarise yourself with 'Smash Flops', 
our oxymoronic Website:
http://www.rwt.co.uk/pa.htm for background, news, releases and gigs.
http://www.rwt.co.uk/padiscog.htm for discography, lyrics and chords.
http://www.rwt.co.uk/disworks.htm - the same discography in one long page.
http://www.rwt.co.uk/audio.htm - full details of the sound clips.
http://www.rwt.co.uk/jc.htm - everything to do with Julie Covington.
http://www.rwt.co.uk/mvindex.htm - the archive of Midnight Voices posts.

You may have come to us via one of our Web "mirrors" at Pipex, Xoom, Demon, 
Dragonfire, Compuserve or GeoCities. I recommend you bookmark the RWT page 
instead (top of the previous paragraph) as this is often updated some days 
ahead of the others.

If you can make it we'd love to see you at Pete and Clive's one-off concert 
in Buxton, Derbyshire (the north-west corner of England's Peak District) on 
Sunday September 20th. Book through the Opera House Box Office, details at 
http://www.rwt.co.uk/buxbook.htm. Sales prior to the public launch (this week, 
June 22) -- essentially MVs only -- have exceeded 150, more than an average of 
1 per member (or 1 per song?). We expect to sell out the 900+ seat venue. And 
there's an exclusive reception and an accommodation concession for MVs -- see 
below.

We urge you also to buy the CD re-issue of Pete's first two albums on the See 
For Miles label -- see the Website for full details. Success here will ensure 
the release of the remainder of the back catalogue. The AKAN/TROS combination 
is at the rights-negotiation stage at the moment; we will advise MVs as soon 
as there's any word on its release. We'd like to have copies available for 
sale at Buxton, but there's no indication yet of whether that will be 
possible. However we will have a stall selling Clive's books and Pete's 
current reissue CD.

The next section of this message covers items available to MV members only, 
and will not appear in the Web digest -- a good reason to save this message|

                      ------------------------------ 

<omitted from Web digest>

                      ------------------------------ 

That's about it! If this has been sent out to you some time after its June 
publication date, see the PS below for any updates on availabilities.

If you're new to the group, you're hereby invited to introduce yourself!

Talk superbly,

Steve (Stephen J Birkill)

PS: Status update goes here -- message contents correct at 25.6.

==============================================================================
From: "Martin Nail" <email address>
Subject: MV1201 Re: MV1195; MV1194
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 21:00:26 +0100

Stephen Payne <email address> wrote:

> I'm afraid in both cases I was just being very corny.  The "French writer"
> I had in mind was the biro.  Didn't I have it right that the biro was
> invented by Monsieur Biro?  

No.  Laszlo Biro, inventor of the ball-point pen, was Hungarian.

Martin Nail
<email address>
English folk and traditional music on the Internet:
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/martin.nail/Folkmus.htm

==============================================================================
From: Ian Chippett <email address>
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 16:44:49 EDT
Subject: MV1202 Re : MV1195; MV1194

Stephen,

Nice try but Laszlo Biro was a Hungarian whose eponymous invention saw the
light of day back in the 40's. You were thinking of the Baron Bich who
achieved fame as a result of his commercial success in the world of disposable
goods until he proved  quite recently to be equally disposable. And I'm not
sure, now I come to think of it, that he was 100% Kosher French. Must look it
up tomorrow.

Ian

==============================================================================
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 21:53:25 +0100
From: Christine Guilfoyle <email address>
Subject: MV1203 Re: MV1189; MV1187: Covers: Pete and Randy

>I'd be interested
>to know how we each encountered Pete and Clive's music, or Pete in person. I
>know from reading MV that several of you were personal friends of Pete in
>the Cambrdieg days but what about the rest of us?
>

I must be one of the highly select group who discovered Pete's music
through 'Live Libel' (which explains why I'm slightly behind the Atkin
demographic, being [just about] under 40) and then discovered the
'proper' albums later. I heard a couple of of his sessions on the John
Peel show in those dark pre-punk days, when songwriters like Richard
Thompson, Kevin Coyne and Pete (to name a pretty disparate trio)
provided the only light relief from 24-minute Yes tracks. 

I read English at Cambridge (again putting me outside the MV stereotype)
but only ever saw Pete perform there once - acting in a Monty Python
sketch with Michael Palin and Terry Jones. My friend Andy (now a MV)
travelled all the way from Birmingham to see this, I seem to remember.
Hope he's forgiven me by now. 

Since then, mine and Pete's paths have crossed eerily (Pete, of course,
being totally unaware of my existence). He lived for a period just up
the road from me in glamorous Clapton, E5, and I regularly saw him on
the morning train into Liverpool St in the morning, both of us working
for the Beeb (where, but for an accident of timing, I might have been
Steve Birkill's Personnel Officer). When we moved out of our flat in
Clapton, the removal man told me, quite unprompted, that only the week
before he'd done a removal for this 'singer bloke who used to write
songs with that Australian bloke on the telly'. And now, a decade or so
later, I find that Pete seems to be developing an annual residency only
10 or so miles down the road in Derbyshire. If I were Pete I think I'd
be re-watching 'Play Misty for Me' and getting worried...

Well, you did ask. 
-- 
Mike Walters

==============================================================================
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 22:14:47 +0100
From: Pete Smith <email address>
Subject: MV1204 Re: MV1195; MV1194

>The "French writer"
>I had in mind was the biro.  Didn't I have it right that the biro was
>invented by Monsieur Biro?  (Perhaps a relative of Monsieur Le Pen?)
>
Biro, Laszlo 1899-1985 (Jose Ladislao Biro ) Argentinian inventor,
writer, and painter (born in Hungary); with his brother Georg, an
industrial chemist, he invented and patented the ball-point pen (first
produced commercially in 1945)

So not very French at all then. 
-- 
Pete Smith

==============================================================================
From: Cary <email address>
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 22:33:05 +0000
Subject: MV1205 Re: MV1200: Revised Welcome Message

Steve "Mr Moderator" (or was that Mr Motivator?) wrote,

> We naturally prefer concise messages, 

We'll follow your example Steve ;-)

> We urge you also to buy the CD re-issue of Pete's first
> two albums on the See For Miles label 

Is there any news of how many copies have been sold to date. It's 
good to see it in the High Street shops as well as at Magpie Records.

> and the titles listed in Pete's fair hand.
And a very fair hand it is too .... beats a plain old autograph. Is 
this new news or had I missed something before?

Cary,
Wishing I could come up with the witty one liners like Dave.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~        
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)

==============================================================================
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 17:39:49 -0400
From: Mike Welbrock <email address>
Subject: MV1206: Many passing emails

Fellow PA fans:

I've just been catching up and dwelling on some of the recent and not so
recent postings, which has whetted my apetite. As one who didn't contribute
to the top 10 (I can't even decide on my favourite album), I really liked
the idea of an album of PA cover versions. It's actually very difficult to
imagine others singing Pete Atkin songs and I think the problem lies in the
lyrics - they're just too dense.

Talk of Randy Newman got me interested. I think he's the best living
songwriter - without parallel. I only wish he'd record more often. One
posting mentioned Dusty Springfield, who covered a Randy Newman song
wonderfully on her In Memphis LP. I also recall numerous mentions of Donald
Fagen and PA doing cover versions of his songs. Anyway these two artists
are represent on my EP (for that's what it'll have to be) of PA covers.
Here goes .....

Side One:
Flowers & The Wine - Dusty Springfield. Lush strings and boomimg drums
(Val's version wouldn't touch it and would have to be elbowed here).

National Steel - Donald Fagen. Perfect for his voice, strained and trebly.
I can hear him singing "Son House or any name you care to take" superbly.

Side Two: (I'm already on to padders)
Errant Knight  - Les Dawson. Surely this song must have been written for
him but sadly, to the best of my knowledge, he never covered it.

Little Sammy Speedball - Elton John. Slam those high heels hard onto the
piano for maximum effect. I've never worked out whether this song really
belonged on Live Libel or not.

Happy listening.

Cheers
Mike Welbrock

==============================================================================
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 00:26:42 +0100
From: Leslie Moss <email address>
Subject: MV1207 Re: MV1203; MV1189; MV1187: Covers: Pete and Randy

At 22:07 25/06/98 +0100, you wrote:
> I heard a couple of of his sessions on the John
>Peel show in those dark pre-punk days, when songwriters like Richard
>Thompson, Kevin Coyne and Pete (to name a pretty disparate trio)
>provided the only light relief from 24-minute Yes tracks. 

I was rummaging through a box of stuff over the weekend and found some
ancient cassettes, one labelled (in my handwriting) Atkin and the other
labelled Atkin Live. On playing them I found that the first contains two (I
think, cos I've concatenated them) John Peel studio sessions that I taped
off the radio while I was at university and had completely forgotten about.
I seem to have skipped most of JP's inter-song chat which is a shame, but
the songs include a particularly good solo version of Uncle Seabird which
I'd love to hear Pete play again at Buxton. The quality of the tape is
excellent and I will this weekend note down the running order if anyone's
interested.

The other tape sounds like I was at a PA f**k evening with a hand-held
cassette recorder. The quality is inevitably not as good, and most of the
between-song banter is indistinct, but it's not half bad. My guess is that
this was a concert in Cambridge while I was up, which makes it 71-74. Again
I'll post the running order and would be most grateful if anyone can shed
any further light on the date and venue.  And if you've got access to some
signal processing equipment to improve the sound quality, then even better!

Steve, is any of this stuff useful for the Website or for your archives?

Leslie

PS How about Pete doing some Richard Thompson songs?

==============================================================================
From: Ian Chippett <email address>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 02:54:56 EDT
Subject: MV1208 Re : MV1203; MV1189; MV1187: Covers: Pete and Randy

Mike,

LIGHT relief from Richard Thompson and Kevin Coyne??! We'll have to update the
typical MV profile to include suffering from catatonic depression. 

Ian C 

==============================================================================
From: Ian Chippett <email address>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 02:55:05 EDT
Subject: MV1209: First encounter

My first encounter with Pete's music was hearing him on Radio One late one
evening while I was pretending to be trying to become a teacher at Crewe
College of Education in 1971 or 2. I came into the room at the end of a song
and heard whoever it was say "... by Pete Atkin." I'd read a rave review of
DTMA in Melody Maker so I hung around for the rest: later he did "Thirty year
man" and that was that. I went out and bought AKAN, then DTMA, ordered BOTBS
from Virgin Records in Bristol and then each succeeding album as they came
out. Until quite recently, every time I went into a record store I always
(even in Paris where his records have never seen the light of day)
automatically flipped through the "A" rack just in case. 
Saw him twice in Bristol just before the end in a pub gig and on the Live
Libel tour and also once on T.V. on Up Sunday. The next thing I heard was
after a programme on Radio 4 ("My Word"? "Mrs. Dale's Diary"?) when the
announcer said "... produced by Pete Atkin) though I remember his doing a
series called (was it?) "Moonshine" with Russell Davies which I missed. 

Ian C

==============================================================================
From: Ian Chippett <email address>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 03:15:23 EDT
Subject: MV1210: First encounter revisited

After sending my last message, I had a look at Pete's Radio Session Notes and
saw that the programme I heard was broadcast on the 6th of March 1972 but that
he did "Thirty Year Man" first while I seem to remember he did it last! Is my
memory playing tricks again or is someone rewriting history?

Ian C

==============================================================================
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 09:03:50 +0000
From: Stephen Payne <email address>
Subject: MV1211 Re: MV1195  M. Biro, apologia

Well, well, not only corny but ignorant.  I've no idea how I got Hungary
confused with France (but certainly Bic is one plausible theory, thanks
Ian!).  Apologies to all.  And to think, it's there in the ether for
posterity... Have you got a rubber of which I can rob you?

Stephen

==============================================================================
From: "lynn sheppard" <email address>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 14:39:44 +0000
Subject: MV1212 Re: MV1194: Winchester review

The French writer in question is a poet named Gerard de Nerval , a 
symbolist and generally odd chap. He used to take a lobster for walks 
on a leash and when asked why, he replied "It does not talk and knows 
the secrets of the sea!"  I think the relevent line is "I am the 
shadowman, the widower. The prince of Aquitaine come to the ruined 
tower" Apologies for innacuracies but this is off the top of my head. 
       Lynn 

==============================================================================
From: "lynn sheppard" <email address>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 15:05:07 +0000
Subject: MV1213 Re: MV1194: Winchester review

Okay, i got the line wrong. Here it is: "I am the darkly shaded, the 
bereaved, the inconsolate, the prince of Aquitaine, with the blasted 
tower. My only star is dead, and my star-strewn lute carries onit the 
black sun of melancholy."  Boy, i bet he was a wow at parties!        
         Lynn

==============================================================================
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 15:18:40 +0100
From: S J Birkill <email address>
Subject: MV1214 Re: MV1212; MV1194: Winchester review

>
>The French writer in question is a poet named Gerard de Nerval
>

Thanks Lynn. Anyone wanting to discover more about the references in
"Prince of Aquitaine" and "Shadow and the Widower" might like to check out
the early weeks of our dialogues, in the Web Digest -- there's quite a bit
about de Nerval. In particular weeks 7, 8, 13 and 14:

http://www.rwt.co.uk/mvdig007.htm#mv236
http://www.rwt.co.uk/mvdig008.htm#mv263
http://www.rwt.co.uk/mvdig013.htm#mv436 (with a really dodgy translation!)
http://www.rwt.co.uk/mvdig014.htm#mv466
http://www.rwt.co.uk/mvdig014.htm#mv468
http://www.rwt.co.uk/mvdig014.htm#mv471

-- Steve

==============================================================================
From: Pete Atkin
Subject: MV1215: Covers and middle eights
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 15:55:51 +0100

Dear All

I think Gerry and Ian C have pretty much got middle eights covered - apart
perhaps from the eight bit, which goes back to the days (the 20s and 30s
really) when the standard form of the popular song evolved into the classic
32-bar structure which you can hear in the majority of the songs of that
era - a tiny random list off the top of my head: Honeysuckle Rose, I Got
Rhythm, Blue Moon.  The main bit of the tune was eight bars long, that was
then repeated (with different words), there was then an eight bar section
that provided variation (often in a different key, often the subdominant -
i.e. in F if the main song was in C), and then the main bit of the tune came
back again - usually referred to with startling originality as AABA
structure.   There are lots of songs that follow that general shape and
scheme but where the sections aren't actually eight bars long, but the
middle bit is often still called the middle eight (as well as sometimes the
bridge or the release).    But, to answer Jenny C, although it may well be
applied to an instrumental section, my understanding is it originally always
referred to an integral part of the song itself.

Ian C - the session notes indicate the order in which the songs were
recorded - the broadcast order could be anything at all

And Leslie - if you really really want to know when and where your gig
recording was made, I can probably tell you from the songlist.   I do have
lists for nearly all of my gigs, kept not, I hurry to stress primarily from
a nerdish and narcissistic completism, but in case I should get booked
backed so I could maybe do some different stuff next time.

And on covers: these days the person I'd perhaps most like to hear do some
of our stuff is Diana Krall.   Check out her All For You CD if you get a
chance.  If her versions of I'm Through With Love or If I Had You don't have
at least the heterosexual males among you quivering with, well, emotion,
then I think it's time for me to re-examine my sensibilities.

Well all right

Pete

==============================================================================
From: Dave Fisher <email address>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 17:00:19 GMT
Subject: MV1216 Re: MV1215: Covers and middle eights

>
> And on covers: these days the person I'd perhaps most like to hear do some
> of our stuff is Diana Krall.   Check out her All For You CD if you get a
> chance.  If her versions of I'm Through With Love or If I Had You don't have
> at least the heterosexual males among you quivering with, well, emotion,
> then I think it's time for me to re-examine my sensibilities.
> 

Have to agree. 
The cover picture of her seated at the piano does 
nothing to dispel these thoughts either.

Must go and have a lie down.

Dave Fisher

==============================================================================
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 19:13:14 +0100
From: Carole Birkill <email address>
Subject: MV1217: Publicity & Reception

Many thanks to Richard, Dave and Jenny for requesting flyers, which you
should have by now, and apologies for just putting them in the envelope
without even a thankyou. I was busy getting Alexis sorted for his Canadian
trip and wanted you to have them as soon as possible. So, better late than
never, thank you.

If there is anyone else who would like some, just let me know.

We did not manage to turn the tickets around for the MV Reception before
Alexis went gallivanting, but fear not, they will be done on his return. He
was somewhat harassed putting the Parish Magazine to bed before his
departure. He does it every month, out of the goodness of his heart, and he
must already be on St. Peter's 'A' list. If the content doesn't induce
screaming the fact that some of it is written on the back of old wallpaper
and calendars surely will! If he wanted to be a journalist on a local rag
it would be just the right start. But he doesn't.

There are some tickets left, so roll up and get them while they're hot!

Carole

==============================================================================
Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 15:56:40 +0100
From: S J Birkill <email address>
Subject: MV1218: Web Site Addition

Hi all,

Rather than generate a new page for members' own Web sites, I decided to
add them to our main page links section. See http://www.rwt.co.uk/pa.htm.
And there's a few new links -- let me know if I've missed any of yours.

Regards

Steve

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Web Digest week 43 (21.06.98, MV1190-1218) ends   | index | prev | next |

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