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 6 (04.10.97, MV204 - 230) begins | index | prev | next |
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Date: Sat, 04 Oct 1997 18:30:36 +0100
From: Leslie Moss <email address>
Subject: MV204 Re: MV202 Re: MV201: PA Poster

Steve wrote:

>Yes, you're quite right. The photo did feature Pete with his National 
>Steel, although the poster advertised the Road of Silk album. We auctioned
>a copy at the Monyash Festival -- don't know whether it was bought by a Voice.

Yep, I bought it, and Pete was kind enough to sign it for me. And would you
believe I'm  missing mine too - hunted around this evening after reading
MV201 and I can't remember where it's got put. The damn things must have a
burrowing instinct.

Leslie

==============================================================================
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1997 13:45:05 -0400 (EDT)
From: Richard Gibson <email address>
Subject: MV205 Re: MV192: The CD

Steve,

I believe you can rely on the Brits in the colonies to do their part in
spreading the good news of PA re-released albums.  Perhaps some overseas
orders will convince See-for-miles that there is a broader audience.

I was surfing the other day and came across the Bob Harris homepage.  Now
there's someone who could be persuaded to put the PA re-release on his
playlist.  Especially if he receieves more than a few Emails.

Regards
Richard

==============================================================================
Date: Sat, 04 Oct 1997 20:23:37 +0100
From: gerald smith <email address>
Subject: MV206: New PA CD

Can anyone tell me how I can order a copy of the new CD in advance ? And
come on, Pete - what about a second folio?   My pencil's blunt and cannot
afford another.

Thanks

Gerry Smith

==============================================================================
Date: Sat, 04 Oct 1997 22:20:33 +0100
From: S J Birkill <email address>
Subject: MV207 Re: MV205 Re: MV192: The CD

Thanks Richard -

That's Whispering Bob "Bomber" Harris, at 

http://www.giantstep.co.uk
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bobharris/
http://bob.networks.co.uk/index2.nclk
http://bob.networks.co.uk/mail/index.nclk -- response form
Bob Harris <email address> -- direct e-mail

Remind him of Pete's "Sounds of the 70s" John Walters and Bernie Andrews
sessions -- didn't Jeff Griffin do one too?
-- and the "Old Grey Whistle Test" appearance with Bob as MC ...

-- Steve

==============================================================================
Date: Sun, 05 Oct 1997 13:07:10 GMT
From: email address (Michael J. Cross)
Subject: MV208 Re: MV206: New PA CD

In message <email address> Midnight Voices writes:
} Date: Sat, 04 Oct 1997 20:23:37 +0100
} To: email address
} From: gerald smith <email address>
} Subject: New PA CD
} 
} Can anyone tell me how I can order a copy of the new CD in advance ? 


From 	Magpie Direct Music Ltd.

	Freepost,
	P.O. Box 25,
	Ashford,
	Middlesex,
	TW15 1XL

	Tel.	01784 242224
	Fax.	01784 241168

	Email: 	magpie@dial.pipex.com
	WWW:	www.magpiedirect.com	(not much there yet, though)

all the best,

PS	Colin - hope you like the revised .sig :)
-- 
 Michael J. Cross    BSFA Magazine Index at http://www.mjckeh.demon.co.uk
    "Beware of the Beautiful Stranger/Driving Through Mythical America"
       by Pete Atkin & Clive James, CD reissue 10/97 on See For Miles
   For more info on all PA/CJ releases, see http://www.rwt.co.uk/pa.htm

==============================================================================
From:	"Maurice J. Lovelock" <email address>
Date:	Sun, 5 Oct 1997 12:17:05 -5
Subject: MV209 Re: MV85: First we take Manhatten

I am pleased to announce that the winner of the "Touch has a Memory "
CD offered to the group back in mid September is Richard Gibson of 
New Hamshire,  who gave the most heart rendering reasons of why the 
CD should be his.  Let me assure all doubters that this is the 
genuine BRITISH version of this CD and not some cheap bootleg copy!!  
Richard, I will be in touch with you by personal Email in the near 
future for shipping arrangements.  Thankyou to all who expressed 
interest.  I wish I had more than one.   M.

==============================================================================
Date: Sun, 05 Oct 1997 18:03:47
From: Cliff Smith <email address>
Subject: MV210 Re: MV190: Laughing Boy

Martin Nail (MV190) wrote:
"So the joy he finds in the little events of life which others might not
notice is
a defence against his general feeling of alienation. Very sixties. Another
possible reference point: the archetypal comic who's a tortured man
inside?"

Perhaps there's something in what Martin said. But I think CJ was always
much too sophisticated and self-deprecating to fall into the old
alienated-artist-that-nobody-understands cliche, still less the
tears-of-a-clown cliche. I think its more subtle than that. There's a sense
in which the worse life gets the better it gets. Dylan wrote "When you
ain't got nothin' you got nothin' to lose". Anyone who lives on the raw
edge of life feels its joys and sorrows more keenly. (Remember that Tom
Lehrer line BTW? - "Soon we'll be out amidst the cold world's strife, Soon
we'll be sliding down the razor-blade of life"). The last stanza gets more
personal: the heartbreak of being dumped is part of the joy of loving. This
song reminds me of my student days, the dowdy rooms, the fascination with
the maniac clutter of girls' cosmetics, the sudden shock of desire as a
match lights up a girl's face in the corner of the student bar. Oh those
heady student days. Where did you leave your hearts, you guys? You can't
dissect these words to find the meaning, but if you want to sum it up you
could say that crying and laughing are two sides of the same coin: you
can't have one without the other.

While I'm sounding off, I'd like to comment on David Gritten's remarks
about Paul Simon. To me, Simon without Garfunkel is like McCartney without
Lennon - all glib throwaway stuff with no soul in it. What lines from his
more recent songs can compare with "Cathy I'm lost, I said, though I knew
she was sleeping / I'm empty and aching and I don't know why"? What songs
can equal the casual wistfulness of So Long Frank Lloyd Wright or The Only
Little Boy in New York? Whenever I watch the Disney film The Lion King, and
the song "Acuna Matata", I think of Paul Simon. Maybe he's emotionally
burned out after Carrie Fisher, who knows? Any comments?

As for cliche-ridden music, how about Janice Ian? Both words and music are
written in cliches.

Finally, brethren, any fans of Jacques Brel or Charles Trenet here?

Cliff Smith
===========
"If Christ were coming again tomorrow, I would plant a tree today." Martin
Luther

==============================================================================
Date: Sun, 05 Oct 1997 21:35:21 +0100
From: S J Birkill <email address>
Subject: MV211: More Answers Than Questions

Pete has sent me his latest batch of musings on our chit-chat here in MV.
He asks me to select and edit his notes for publication, but I find myself
passing them on uncut. Don't we all hate the sub-editor who for purely
cosmetic reasons alters our text and loses some of what we needed to say?
-- Steve

Pete writes:

Stephen Payne asked about references in Shadow And The Widower (I typed
Windower first) - there are certainly lots, and I can't begin to be certain
I've picked them all up myself.   The title itself is from something French
(like chorus of the Prince of Aquitaine), but I can't remember what.   I've
never thought it was important to know what everything referred to, and
there may well be quotations all over the place in the lyrics which I'm
unaware are quotations, so all I can say is if it doesn't matter to me
singing them, I certainly don't think it can matter crucially to a
listener.    All that matters is how the words work and sound in context. 
In S&W I've always thought that one of the things the song is actually
about is the contrast between the high-flown, poetic language and feeling
with the opposite polar extreme suggested by the physical circumstance, and
how you can sometimes feel both things at once, as the song tries to.

Martin Nail wondered about the changes to Tongue-Tied/I Need New Words.  
The lyric changes were just to avoid what with hindsight seemed like one or
two unwanted internal rhymes or something, and the title change was just
Clive being perhaps over-anxious not offering a hostage to critical
fortune.

In Laughing Boy, I have always assumed - but who am I to say?  (Really) -
that it was one particular girl ighting one particular cigarette at one
particular moment.

Jeremy W makes a very good point which I'd never thought of, pointing out
how many songs do have a single repeated verse structure, with perhaps only
a minor twist or an extra line in the last verse, and that this is
basically a very folkie structure.   Mostly it's the result of nothing more
than laziness.  In other words, having come up with a musical idea that
works for verse one, and having quickly found that it also works for verses
2 to n, why work any harder?  One exception I can think of (I think there
must be others) is Payday Evening, where the verses are all in the same
shape but where I decided to go off somewhere else at various points.  As I
remember, that was one song where there was quite a lot of pulling into
final shape.  There were whole sections of lyric we didn't use at all in
the end.  And rather strangely the instrumental was based on the middle bit
rather than the main verse.    I always thought that Perfect Moments could
have used a middle eight musically, but not lyrically.  I didn't even feel
I wanted to put in an instrumental verse.   I may have found the solution
now, twenty mumble years later, as I now usually put in a key change before
the last verse.

To answer Rob, it's not so much that the lyrics ever had to be 'changed to
fit', more this kind of re-shaping the whole song.   I think there were
times when a musical line really needed to end with a single syllable
rather than a double (to end the phrase on a strong syllable rather than a
weak one, in other words - ham instead of hammer, for instance (or the
other way around)) which sometimes meant rethinking the whole line, but I
really don't recall the details of that process.  Once the song was
considered done, that whole process obliterated itself from the mind like
some kind of defence mechanism.

Cary asked several questions broadly about my own identification with the
lyrics.   It's not so much a matter of my ever being asked to sing
something I disagreed with, more a matter of sometimes perhaps being less
able easily to find an emotional way into the song.  Sometimes that could
be one of the possible reasons why  I may never have got to grips with a
particular lyric and turned it into a singable song, sometimes it could be
the reason why, having written it, I never have felt I've been able to do
it much justice - and there are a few of those.   But mainly singing a song
is acting.  Even when you wrote the words and the music yourself, you are
not actually feeling the original emotions as you sing - you are using what
the words and the music provide you with as a way of recreating that
emotion, in just the same way, I think, as an actor does with the words of
Shakespeare or whoever.  The best you can hope for is that you get
sufficiently well inside it each time you sing it in order to give yourself
the means of creating the best possible impression, which, I'm afraid, is
all it ever is.   When an actor weeps, it's not an act of cynicism, but
it's also not the real thing, however real the tears may be.  (see Hamlet -
"What's Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba that he should weep for her?" - says
it all, really.  Clever old bastard, Bill.)    The really great thing about
music is that it offers you entirely another level of meaning to work with,
one that's beyond explainable words.   So the simple answer to Cary's
question is No, I never have felt I needed to explain that I didn't write
the words.  I don't often even make a point of pointing out whether the
words are Clive's or (as they occasionally are) mine, because there's just
as much acting involved in singing one of Clive's lyrics as in singing one
of my own.   So (to answer Benjamin Peterson) the narrator in any given
song is Clive, not-Clive, me, not-me, both of us, and neither, all at the
same time.  Does that help?

I can only guess at how my life might have been different if I'd had any
level at all of greater commercial success.  I suspect that even quite a
modest success - a lowish top fifty entry, say, or even a reasonably high
profile cover version - early on would have been enough to spread the word
a bit further, and would have probably have brought about a reissue before
now.  But then again, success is at the same time undoubtedly limiting.  It
creates particular expectations which may not be helpful.   But I can't say
that I wouldn't have chosen it, given the choice - not that anyone ever is
given the choice, not really.   We did have enough success to enable me to
go on and make six commercial albums, and I don't count that bad at all,
but it would have been nice to have had a bit more clout in the business,
not to have to record always quite as cheaply and quickly as humanly
possible.    It was always galling to see the kind of people there were in
the same studios spending budgets literally a hundred times bigger than
mine, sometimes on LPs that would end up selling no more than mine.  
Still, that may be sour grapes.  (What am I saying?  No it's not.   Some of
those albums were complete crap by anyone's standards.)

I think Cary answered her own question about whether words or music are
more important in setting the mood of a song.  In any case, as I've often
said before, as far as we were concerned, what we always wanted to try to
do was make the way the two work together so inevitable that they sound as
if they have arrived simultaneously by divine intervention, to make it so
you can't hear the tune without thinking of the words and you can't read
the lyric without thinking of the tune.   It's mostly an unachievable
ideal, but that's not a reason for not trying for it.

The most notable example I can think of where Clive did say that what I'd
done musically was seriously different from the musical mood he's had in
his head, was on Last Hill That Shows You All The Valley, which he'd
initially thought of as strongly elegaic in mood.  But then sometimes the
music can do a better job by not simply underlining or repeating the mood
of what the lyric is saying, and I think it's true to say that Clive was
instantly won over.   In that case it's more than just the basic underlying
beat - the whole lyric (I see now) is broken up.  Each verse on the page is
five lines, each line with five even stresses, but that isn't tha way it
turned out.   If it's a case of working from a pre-written lyric, I tend to
need to live with it a long time - sometimes a very long time indeed -  to
get right inside it.   

:end quote

==============================================================================
From: Cary <email address>
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 1997 23:47:57 +0000
Subject: MV212 Re: MV211: More Answers Than Questions

Thanks Pete ..... :-)

(for the answers that is)
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~        
                _/\     /\_
    Cary       a    a
 Like Mary    @ 
    With  a     'C'    for cat
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(should show a cat - if not ... 
picasso eat your heart out!!)

==============================================================================
Date: Sun, 05 Oct 1997 21:35:56 -0400
From: Frances Kemmish <email address>
Subject: MV213 Re: MV210; MV190: Laughing Boy; ordering the CD

Midnight Voices wrote:

(well, Cliff Smith, really)
> 
> Finally, brethren, any fans of Jacques Brel or Charles Trenet here?
> 

Jacques Brel...oh yes. I remember many long evenings in university,
listening to his songs.  "Chanson des Vieux Amants".. "Amsterdam"... I
haven't listened to them in a long time. 

I wish Jacques Brel really were "alive and well, and living in Paris".

I agree that Simon without Garfunkle is just candy floss. Maybe he
needed to be writing for Art Garfunkle's voice. I know that many people
like his music better, now, but I am not one of them. I am trying to
maintain these high standards in my children, though. I just bought a
cassette of "Bridge Over Troubled Water", and have to wrestle it away
from my twelve-year-old in order to listen to it in the car. She loves
early Beatles, too.

> "Cathy I'm lost, I said, though I knew
> she was sleeping / I'm empty and aching and I don't know why"

I think this song was the real reason that I wanted to live in the USA.
Unfortunately , now I also understand what he meant by "counting the
cars on the New Jersey Turnpike".

I enjoy reading everyone's questions and comments on allusions in Pete
Atkin's songs. I love finding meanings that I didn't notice the first
time through; and I can come back to songs I didn't care for at first,
and find they speak to me now. 

But the most potent ones, still, are the ones which are reminders of
times in the past when I spent a long time listening to the records. For
me, "Payday Evening" will always be about the path not taken, and
"Hypertension Kid" can carry me back instantly to Birmingham in the
early 70s, and parties at the house next door to Mr Gnome.

Cover versions and updated arrangements of the songs would be
interesting, but they wouldn't hold the magic of the originals. Some of
that is pure nostalgia - an increasing occupational hazard of my
generation, I'm afraid.

And on a different note, has anyone tried ordering from Magpie Direct by
email? 

 I have tried to get up early enough to telephone them during the
off-peak calling period, but I am just not a morning person. I sent two
emails, and got no replies. I suppose I will have to bite the bullet,
and call during the morning. I can't wait to get the new CD.

Fran

==============================================================================
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 05:11:09 -0400 (EDT)
From: Rob King <email address>
Subject: MV214 Re: MV213; MV210; MV190: Laughing Boy; ordering the CD

Dear Fran,
I find phoning Magpie no problem, they just take about two to three weeks to
deliver in contrast to most record shops who take a few days.
On the subject of our formative music, I took my 13 year old daughter to
Manchester to see Juventus play last week and the orders for Wednesday
morning were: 'To Liverpool, take me round The Beatles Story'. She has just
completed her collection of Beatles videos and adores them...S & G is my next
ambition for her.
Rob

==============================================================================
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 05:13:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: Rob King <email address>
Subject: MV215 Re: MV211: More Answers Than Questions

Can I register my deep gratitude and appreciation for Pete for taking the
time to answer our questions with such depth and candour. It would be so easy
to be pseudo about some of the songs, but Pete's answers give tremendous
illumination to the process. Just to hear the Great Man's mind cogitating
after all these years is tremendous.

==============================================================================
From: Stephen Payne <email address>
Date:          Mon, 6 Oct 1997 10:53:44 +0000
Subject:       MV216: lyrics

To add my thanks to Pete for his interesting responses....

Regarding my question about literary references in Shadow and the 
Widower:  I certainly agree that it doesn't matter at all for my 
appreciation of the song-as-a-whole to know what they are.  (In fact, 
just the hint that it might makes me feel chastened as a bit of a sad 
case.)  

But  at the same time I must confess that I have enjoyed coming across 
the references, and thus being reminded of the song at unexpected times.  
So, for example,  I remember being kind of excited when I heard Art 
Garfunkel reading "all those lineaments of gratified desire" to his 
girlfriend (or maybe it was the other way around) in Nicolas Roeg's  
"Bad Timing".  There's no way I could read that poem now without hearing 
the fragment of Shadow and the Widower.  Hope that's a nice thought for 
Pete?

Thanks too to everyone for the interesting discussion of Laughing Boy.  
Again, I agree its the mood of the whole that matters, but I still find 
it fun to wonder what on earth is going on in particular lines.

Stephen Payne

==============================================================================
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 10:35:15 GMT
From: email address (Dr Jeremy Walton. Tel: <phone number>)
Subject: MV217 Re: MV192: The CD

Following Steve's musings (MV192) about how to bring The CD to the
attention of those unenlightened souls who don't know they need it yet,
I was reminded of the efforts of another (vaguely) fringe outfit - Show
of Hands.  This is an acoustic duo, playing their own material in a
traditional style.  They've been around since the late eighties, and
have long given up on the attempts to sell their CDs through the
mainstream; instead, (I think) they get most of their sales from gigs. 
They tour - it seems - almost incessantly - in fact, (PA connection
coming up) they played Charlbury two days before the man himself.  

Their latest attempt to break through to a wider audience involves
releasing a single (through record stores, so that sales will be
registered, giving them a chance to appear on "Top of the Pops").  They
also have a website (of course), and a physical mailing list - in fact,
they more or less guaranteed that everybody on the list would buy the
single by incorporating a poster with everybody's name on it.  Other
ways in which they appear more fashionable include giving themselves a
snappy description: "World music from the West Country", which is
probably more uptodate than "Trad folk", or whatever.

Is their anything here to be learnt for PA?  Their secret, if there is
one, appears to be their exhaustive live schedule, which is possibly
antithetical to Pete's plans.  However, like Pete, they take time to
talk with their fans in a pleasant and approachable fashion.  Perhaps
the message is that, even when working in an relatively unfashionable
musical area, it's still possible to reach a sizable crowd, and may be
easier than ever now.

Cheers,

Jeremy

==============================================================================
From: Cary <email address>
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 19:50:24 +0000
Subject: MV218 Re: MV192: The CD

Hello Voices

Whilst 'browsing' in Andy's records I spotted a CD released by 'See 
For Miles Record' a Petula Clarke album. Ok - I admit it, I _was_ 
looking at a Pet Clarke album. Obviously 'See For Miles' releases do 
get into the shops - I wonder if Pete's will.

On the vexed question of promoting the CD - how about taking a leaf 
out of J R Hartley's book (fly fishing). I can see it now, Pete 
flicking through Yellow Pages - ringing up all the record shops - "Do 
you have 'The Beautiful Stranger by Pete Atkin' .......... you do  
etc "
You never know - lets face it fewer people had heard of J R Hartley 
 than Pete before that advert ..... in fact he didn't even exist did 
he ? Maybe 'The Pearl Drillers' could be rereleased as 'The Fly 
Fishers'
Sorry to all, especially to Pete who I know deserves more splendid 
talk than this - especially after his interesting answers. Please be 
gentle with me - "softer than a Dove"


 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~        
                _/\     /\_
    Cary       a    a
 Like Mary    @ 
    With  a     'C'    for cat
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(should show a cat - if not ... 
picasso eat your heart out!!)

==============================================================================
From: email address (Simon Reap)
Subject: MV219 Re: MV211: More Answers Than Questions
Date: Tue, 07 Oct 1997 21:08:56 GMT

Pete Atkin wrote :

>In Laughing Boy, I have always assumed - but who am I to say?  (Really) -
>that it was one particular girl ighting one particular cigarette at one
>particular moment.

I'd always assumed that it was the way a particular girl sometimes (or
usually) lit a cigarette.  All the singer has to do is to see someone
(anyone) move their hair in a particular way, and memories come
flooding back about the particular girl.  It seems the same as the
litany of events in the song 'These Foolish Things' that 'remind me of
you' - for example 'a cigarette that bears a lipstick's traces' and
'gardenia perfume lingering on a pillow'.  These things don't
necessarily transfer perfectly to the listener - none of the women
I've been attached to have smoked, and the perfume (or aftershave) on
a pillow merely reminds me of the man who replaced me in the
affections of my (only) ex-fiancee.  Still, it's a song I enjoy (OK,
apart from the gardenia bit!) since the *feeling* of the events brings
back fond memories.

Simon
-- 
Simon Reap           - <email address>
                     - http://www.pipemedia.net/~sar

==============================================================================
From: Colin Boag <email address>
Date: Tue, 07 Oct 97 22:34:40 +0000
Subject: MV220: Show of Hands... Winchester...etc

Jeremy had better be very careful. Daring to mention the 'F' word 
(Folk, that is) in this company is taking a major risk. Offended 
subscribers will indignantly insist that Pete's music isn't 'folk'.

There have been several mentions of the 'F' word and I'd like to add 
my ten penceworth.

Back in the late sixties and ealry seventies there was a very worthy 
folk revival. However, the laudable desire not to allow these 
traditional tunes to disappear was hi-jacked by bores in Aran 
sweaters with the result that most people now run a mile at the 
mention of the 'F' word.

In Winchester (a dead and alive, one-horse town if there ever is 
one) I tried to set up a Club and foolishly used the 'F' word. It 
took me no time at all to realise my mistake.

Now,'Contemporary and Traditional Music' (rather than Folk) seems 
much more acceptable to your average punter and the Club's fortunes 
have picked up dramatically since we changed the name! Yes, and Show 
of Hands are on our list of acts to be booked but no way will we bill 
them as Folk (although that is what they are).  

By the way. Pete is at the Club three weeks tomorrow (29/10) and, of 
the 25 tickets I reserved for 'Voices', about 15 are still available. 
Please let me know by 15/10 if you want one (œ4 each) otherwise I'll 
let them go to locals. Either e-mail me or 'phone on 01962 883253.

(If the NZ subscriber sends me the address to which he referred I'll 
get a mailer sent off to his ex-)   


Best wishes
Colin 
Boag------------------------------------------------------------

==============================================================================
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 10:18:03 GMT
From: email address (Dr Jeremy Walton. Tel: <phone number>)
Subject: MV221 Re: MV220 - Folk 'n' categories

Hi Colin,

>> Jeremy had better be very careful. Daring to mention the 'F' word
>> (Folk, that is) in this company is taking a major risk. Offended
>> subscribers will indignantly insist that Pete's music isn't 'folk'.

True... but then again, what is it?  How many other contemporary
lyricists have expressed a goal of wanting to use all the words normally
used in every other medium, down to and including the scholarly
footnote?  Flanders and Swann and Tom Lehrer come to mind, but not many
others.  If f*** music is music played in f*** clubs, then Pete's music
is (mind you, by this definition, so is "Wonderwall", "Daisy, Daisy" and
"Take Five").

On the other hand, we could spend a lot of time agonising over what bin
to put this music in that might be better spent talking about other
things.  I'm reminded of attempts to set up an alt.music.celtic
newsgroup a few years ago, which degenerated into a flame war (mainly,
as far as I could see, between Californians) over who was the best
qualified to define what Celtic music actually was.  Not that this could
happen in here, of course, since we're *all agreed* that, for example,
"Secret Drinker" is the finest song Pete and Clive ever wrote
together... ;-)

Cheers,

Jeremy

PS - What sort of thing might we "better spend" our time on?  Well, a
fun, if somewhat pointless, exercise they used to do on the Richard
Thompson mailing list (and doubtless elsewhere as well) is to vote for
your top five songs by <the subject of the mailing list> in order.  The
votes are then compiled into a chart indicating the overall preferences
of the group.  Maybe it could be automated via a CGI script on the
website.  Anyone else interested in this?

==============================================================================
From: "Martin Nail" <email address>
Subject: MV222: PA at Islington Folk Club
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 18:42:19 +0100

Some time ago a member of the list asked to be reminded of Pete's gigs a
week or so beforehand. 
So, even though this is old news for most of you, ...

.... Pete is performing at Islington Folk Club on Thursday 16th October. 
You can find full details of how to get there etc on our Web
page at:
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/martin.nail/IFCintro.htm

The venue is not all that large (50/60 people, but seats for fewer).  So it
would probably be a good idea to be there on time (8pm).  It would be
useful if you could let me know if you are intending to come, if you
haven't done so already.


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

==============================================================================
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 16:40:55 -0400 (EDT)
From: Don Bowen <email address>
Subject: MV223 Re: MV218; MV192: The CD

Hi everyone
Blimey, this is all going a bit fast for me: there I was, fan since the
seventies, proud owner of all Pete's vinyl albums, played them every now and
then, occasionally wondered what the great man was up to, never met anyone
else who'd heard of him - then one day I wake up to find that Pete's got a
web site, has heaps of devotees, and has been playing - no, headlining  -
folk festivals, and is playing concerts all over the place...
When did Pete start playing live again? How many of us will it take to get a
record company interested in getting him back into a recording studio? Would
Pete do it?
And could I just thank him for having (co)written 'Perfect Moments'?
Yours still in a bit of daze

Don Bowen

==============================================================================
From: Benjamin Peterson <email address>
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 97 21:19:27 +0100
Subject: MV224 Re: MV221; MV220 - Folk 'n' categories

     
> ...we're *all agreed* that, for example, "Secret Drinker" is the 
>finest song Pete and Clive ever wrote together... ;-)

Sorry, mate, but although many of CJ&PA's songs speak to me deeply of 
experiences which I feel have been central to my life, I have *never*, *ever* 
had a day when I only know I'm real by the feel of my elbows :)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<email address>
I try and take each day as it comes, but lately they've been attacking in 
groups.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

==============================================================================
From: "Powell, Mike             [MIS]" <email address>
Subject: MV225: The CD
Date: Thu, 09 Oct 97 10:39:00 PDT


A very quick email - this is my first but I will send a longer one later 
with some musings about promoting the CD.

I checked the Virgin Megastore in Leeds at lunchtime on Wednesday 8 October. 
 Their computerised catalogue, which I assume is distributed nationally, 
lists the CD as 'not released'.  Various questions spring to mind:

a)  has anybody actually got the CD?

b)  if the answer to (a) is yes, then why is it not released in normal 
record shops?

c)  regardless of the answers to a and b, when will it be released in normal 
record shops?

I think we should be told!  I hope it is not going to be mail order only 
since if so I fear for its success and therefore the rest of the 
re-releases.

Mike Powell
<email address>

==============================================================================
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 13:49:49 +0100 (BST)
Subject: MV226 Re: MV225: The CD
From: email address (Stephen R Bennett)

Mike Powell wrote earlier about the 'NEW' CD. 
I spoke to SEE FOR MILES earlier today and the CD will be available from
MAGPIE in approx 2 weeks, However other Stores should still be able to get
hold of it, although direct from MAGPIE would probably be cheaper. 
Stevebee.... 
Steve Bennett 
<postal address>
<email address> 
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..COME FRIENDLY BOMBS AND FALL ON-------------------. 
                                 Sir J.B. 
<phone and fax numbers>

==============================================================================
Date: Thu, 09 Oct 1997 11:38:49 -0400
From: Frances Kemmish <email address>
Subject: MV227 Re: MV226; MV225: The CD

Midnight Voices wrote:
> 
> Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 13:49:49 +0100 (BST)
> To: Midnight Voices <email address>
> Subject: Re: MV225: The CD
> From: email address (Stephen R Bennett)
> 
> Mike Powell wrote earlier about the 'NEW' CD.
> I spoke to SEE FOR MILES earlier today and the CD will be available from
> MAGPIE in approx 2 weeks, However other Stores should still be able to get
> hold of it, although direct from MAGPIE would probably be cheaper.
> Stevebee....

For those of us in  North America: I spoke to Magpie earlier this week
(at 7am EST, no less!) They quoted me UK£12.99 plus UK£2.00 airmail
postage, and promised it would be shipped next week some time. 

They accept major credit cards.

Fran

==============================================================================
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 12:33:10 -0400
From: Mike Welbrock <email address>
Subject: MV228 Re: MV224; MV221; MV220 - Folk 'n' categories

Can I just say thankyou to Pete Atkin for writing all those wonderful songs
(with the exception of the one about the wristwatch, the Man Who Walked
Towards the Music and most of Live Libel). But mostly thankyou to Benjamin
who has just made me laugh after a very long day.

Rgds
Mike Welbrock

==============================================================================
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 16:10:48 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ian Chippett <email address>
Subject: MV229: Touch has a memory

Ramsey Margolis writes in the last Midnight Voices that he once requested the
above song as an encore which surprised Our Hero at one of his concerts.
Curiously enough, I heard Pete do this song as an encore (the third) at a gig
in Bristol way back at the time of Live Libel. I wondered at the time why he
chose to do a song which he left off the re-release (on cassette) of "The
Beautiful Stranger" album as it isn't really a typical encore song. Maybe he
wanted to catch his train! Now I find he has named a whole album after it. It
seems to be one of those songs that people can't make up their minds about as
I notice that several Voices have expressed mixed feelings about it. Does
Pete share these mixed feelings, I wonder?

Do we really need recognition symbols for Pete's gigs? Don't we all have
ankles that fold over our shoes?

                                                        Ian Chippett 

==============================================================================
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 10:00:40 GMT
From: email address (Dr Jeremy Walton. Tel: <phone number>)
Subject: MV230 Re: MV229: Touch has a memory

Re: Ian's comments on "Touch has a memory" in MV229: this is one of my
favourite songs - easy to sing and play, nice tune, densely packed with
meaning, doesn't go on too long...  If I have mixed feelings, they
concern the two versions: I much prefer the demo on the album of the same 
name (which I heard first); the drizzling strings on the original
version sound somewhat dated, and I think that the more plodding tempo
leaves too many spaces between the words.

Cheers,

Jeremy

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