Who needs bathrooms? ([email protected])
Sun, 04 Oct 1998 10:29:30 -0600
1) The double-live CD listed at HMV is a mistake. There is no double
live CD release on November 3rd in Canada. Again, the double-live CD
is an error in the computer on HMV's part -- they probably confused
the PopMart Video for a CD....
2) "The Sweetest Thing" '98 single will be released on October 20, 1998
in CANADA. _YES_, that is _CORRECT_. There will be a single release
for Canada!!!! In the immortal words of Homer J. Simpson, "WHOOOO!"
3) The Best-of CD will be released in both formats(with the B-sides on
the 3rd, and the "normal" version on the 10th).
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Brian Muz is attempting to launch legal proceedings against
alleged fraud Danny Best. In his own words, Brain needs, "What you
ordered, When you ordered it, How much you sent, Anything else you
think would be relevent for me to put in my complaint."
Email Brian at [email protected]
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Thanks to Kari Stoel for the following:
The Sept. 25 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education has an
article by Kevin J. H. Dettmar, associate professor of English at
Clemson University, entitled "An Introduction to Postmodernism: Just
Let Them Hear Some of That Rock 'N' Roll Music".
In the article, he discusses his use of rock 'n' roll in his
literature classes to teach the abstract and often difficult concepts
of irony and appropriation, core features of postmodernism.
The article includes the following mentions of Bono and U2:
"Rock 'n' roll, with its mongrel pedigree and its intimate
association with mass media and high-tech modes of production, has
been a highly self-conscious and often ironic art form from the
get-go -- and by no means the bastion of sincerity that many rock
critics have made it out to be. Equally, romantic notions of
'originality' are mainly foreign to rock: Musicians know that most
riffs are stolen (even if it may be convenient to disguise the fact),
and that -- as Bono sings in 'The Fly -- 'Every artist is a
cannibal, every poet is a thief.'"
and later...
"...now that earnestness has become terminally unhip, more and
more of our smartest rock artists are resorting to a relatively flat,
uninflected irony to suggest the things of which we no longer dare
speak -- the vulnerable human heart and what it feels.
"After the disastrous bombast of U2's _Rattle & Hum_ in 1988, with
its heavy-handed political preaching, members of the group went back
to their old buddy Brian Eno and got him to give an edge to their
landmark 1991 album _Achtung Baby_. All of a sudden, a band known
for its commitment to liberal social causes apparently refused to
take a stand on anything, shoosing instead to 'slide down the surface
of things,' in the words of one song. The 1993 follow-up album,
_Zooropa_, contains one of the most wonderfully, cleverly bad songs
of recent years, 'Some Days Are Better Than Others.' That most banal
of refrains is set to a comically fat bass line and a virtually
unbearable litany of dumb lyrics ('Some days are slippy, other days
sloppy/Some days you can't stand the sight of a puppy...') that
together warn of the dangers of an artistic language co-opted by the
fatuous rhetoric of advertising."
Other minimally-related-to-U2 references:
- he mentions Samuel Beckett's _Waiting for Godot_ as a harbinger of
postmodernism "if ever there was one"
- he lists Public Enemy's inclusion of at least 17 different samples
in the first 10 seconds of "Fight the Power" as an extreme example of
appropriation and the limits of the notion of "singular creative
genius"
- he refers to Gerald Marzorati's complaint in a recent New York
Times Magazine essay that "middle-class white American males in their
20s, whose experience the band Radiohead articulates so incisively on
its 1997 Grammy-winning album _OK Computer_, seem to have very little
interest in buying the record."
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>From Entertainment Weekly:
October 2, 1998
KIRK FRANKLIN The Nu Nation Project
BYLINE: Cheo Tyehimba
(Gospocentric/Interscope) Praise the Lord! Brother Franklin's first
altar call sice 1997's best-selling God's Property clearly
demonstrates R&B and hip-hop's gospel roots. Listen to R. Kelly,
Mary J. Blige, and Bono make a joyful noise on "Lean on Me."
Hear the gutbucket wails and stirring hymns of his choir, and if you
still don't think this is sho nuff sanctified, you may be a heretic.
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Thanks to Matt for the following:
Lyrics to Sweetest Thing
My love she throws me like a rubber ball
Oh, the sweetest thing
She won't catch me, or break my fall
Oh, the sweetest thing
Baby's got blue skies up ahead
but in this I'm a rain cloud
You know she wants a dry kind of love
Oh, the sweetest thing
I'm losing you,
I'm losing you,
Ain't love the sweetest thing?
I wanted to run but she made me crawl
Oh, the sweetest thing
Eternal fire, she turned me to straw
Oh, the sweetest thing
I know I got black eyes, but they burn so brightly for her
Guess it's a blind kind of love
Oh, the sweetest thing
I'm losing you
I'm losing you
Ain't love the sweetest thing?
Ain't love the sweetest thing?
Blue eyed boy and this brown-eyed girl
Oh, the sweetest thing
You can sew it up, but you still see the tear
Oh, the sweetest thing
Baby's got blue skies up ahead
But in this I'm a rain cloud
Ours is a stormy kind of love
Oh, the sweetest thing
The sweetest thing
Oh, the sweetest thing
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Condensed From CNN:
Four Years after Jenny's Murder, a Community can't Forget
AP 30-SEP-98
CASTRO VALLEY, Calif. (AP) -- Jenny Lin always headed for the
telephone when she got home from school, whiling away hours
chatting with her girlfriends from middle school.
The afternoon of May 27, 1994 was no different. The phone was
busy all afternoon -- Jenny even conducted an impromptu piano
recital over the line with one of her teen-age pals.
When John Lin got home from work that evening, he found the
body of his 14-year-old daughter on the floor of the upstairs
bathroom. She had been bound with duct tape and stabbed to
death.
The death shocked even the police, who threw all their resources
at finding Jenny's killer. The Federal Bureau of Investigation was
called in and drew up a profile of the killer. Leads were chased
down.
Nothing. Jenny's killer is nowhere to be found.
Jenny's murder has changed Castro Valley, a bedroom
community of 48,000 alongside a freeway just southwest of
Oakland.
John and Mei-Lian Lin maintain the Jenny Lin Foundation, which
seeks to honor their daughter through community programs and
keep the investigation into her murder alive.
"We had a tremendous amount of anger and grief," Mrs. Lin said.
"And we felt that we had to do something. The whole community
wanted to do something."
Her husband added: "Nobody wanted to forget about Jenny."
The Lins were successful professionals, their two daughters
pretty and bright. Jenny was a straight-A student with a dazzling
smile who liked the band U2. A musician herself, she played both
the piano and the viola.
The FBI profile suggested the killer was someone from the
community, someone who knew Jenny and her routine. Tips still
trickle in, Alameda County Sheriff's Detective Monte DeCoste
said, and the case is active.
The murder didn't appear to be the work of a serial killer because
no similar murders have been reported.
"Something could have happened to the person, they may be in
jail, they may be dead, or they may be in a hospital for an extended
period," DeCoste said.
(Prarit's note: It's obvious to state, but if anyone has any knowledge
of this crime they should contact their local police...)
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(Thanks to Gibi for this)
>From The LA Times:
Bono's Top 10 List Give Him Beatles, Bee Gees and Public Enemy
The U2 singer limits his choices to bands and warns
that his list is "far from definitive."
1. The Punk Rock Album: (The Sex Pistols had the best
singles, but I'll choose) the Ramones' "Leave Home"
"Edge and Larry were 14, Adam and myself were 16,
when, after an argument about the arrangement of our
own songs, we conned an Irish national TV producer
that we had written 'Glad to See You' and 'I Remember
You' [from that album] . . . We got the TV show,
switched the songs back to our own. . . . Fame and
good fortune soon followed . . . viva la Ramone."
2. The Hip-Hop Album: Public Enemy's "Fear of a Black
Planet"
"Hip-hop is the most important movement in music
since the Beatles. . . . PE guested with us in L.A."
3. The Only-White-Folks-Doing-This category: the
Beastie Boys' "Check Your Head"
"White rap's 'White Album.' "
4. Great Wordy Album: Patti Smith Group's "Horses" and
the Waterboys' "This Is the Sea"
"In rock, the word 'poet' gets thrown around a
lot. Not here. . . . I feel the same about
'redemption.' "
5. The Haircuts-So-Bad-They-Were-Ignored-for-Years
category: the Bee Gees' "Best of the Bee Gees"
"Tunes and more tunes. It must have hurt to know
you were that great and yet not to be taken as
seriously as say . . . progressive rock!"
6. The Seminal Album slot: The Pixies' "Doolittle"
"Could have been 'The Velvet Underground' or the
Buzzcocks' 'Another Music in a Different Kitchen.' . .
I'll chose 'Doolittle,' a big influence on Nirvana.
. . . The Pixies invented the high drama chorus-verse
gear shift that was such a hallmark of 'grunge.' Frank
Black has a scream to wake the dead . . . slashing
songs, but not his wrist . . . paranoia without the
self-pity. And humor. . . ."
7. Girls in Groups: "The Pretenders" and Hole's "Live
Through This"
"The Pretenders: tough-minded, tender-hearted.
'Brass in Pocket' was the single of the year. Hole:
advanced guitar sounds, a sense of pop to match her
man's but a better album than 'In Utero,' up there
with 'Nevermind.' Both women give a lesson in how to
hold an electric guitar."
8. The Calls-to-Mind-a-Location Album: The Beach Boys'
"Pet Sounds" and R.E.M.'s "Automatic for the People"
"Beach Boys: If I close my eyes, I can see Brian
Wilson's sand pit, the West Coast, the dad, the drugs,
the genius. Joy is the hardest thing to pull off . . .
in life, in art, in movies (Steven Spielberg), in
music (Sly & the Family Stone). The Beach Boys
overcame the obstacle of major chords sounding trite.
"R.E.M.: Normally you can see the sun shining in
their songs. I've never been to Athens, Ga., but here
it's raining. This blurred melancholia features the
greatest country crooner never to make a country
record. Here R.E.M. are a co-op, a four-legged table,
a real band in that everyone's voice is heard (this is
more difficult than you think). R.E.M. have pulled off
the impossible, a giant group that doesn't appear so.
. . . Standout tunes."
9. The
One-Person-Writes-the-Tune-but-It-Wouldn't-Be-the-
Same-Without-the-Band scenario: The Who's "Live at
Leeds," the Smashing Pumpkins' "Mellon Collie and the
Infinite Sadness" and Oasis' "(What's the Story)
Morning Glory?"
10. The Best-Pop-Group-in-the-World category: the
Beatles' "White Album."
"This category is opposed to the Best Rock Group
category, which would have to be the Clash's 'Give 'Em
Enough Rope' (it's the only band U2 would not go on
after . . .) or the Rolling Stones' masterpiece 'Exile
on Main Street.' The Stones have the songs and were
much better live, but in the studio . . . the 'White
Album' is the one. I know it's all over the shop. . .
. It's a blueprint for us at U2 HQ . . . experimental
pop, metal soul, the blues. It's all there, but it
would mean nothing if you didn't care about the group
and I guess I still do."
"(P.S: If there was a 'black' album category, I would
choose Nine Inch Nails' 'Pretty Hate Machine.' I know
drama is achieved easily when painting in black, and
gothic is the flared trousers of the '90s, but
something much more extraordinary is going on here."
Copyright 1998 Los Angeles Times. All Rights Reserved
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>From Addicted To Noise:
U2's upcoming video chronicles a 1997 show in Mexico City.
[ Mon., September 28, 3:03 AM EDT ]
U2 To Release Video Of PopMart Date
U2, Linda McCartney, Number One Cup, Terence Trent D'Arby,
R.E.M., Hootie And The Blowfish, Jimi Hendrix...
Irish rockers U2 will release their fourth live home-video Nov. 3,
entitled "U2 PopMart: Live From Mexico," coinciding with the release
of the band's first-ever greatest-hits collection. The two-hour video
chronicles the group's Dec. 3, 1997, show at the Foro Sol Autodromo
stadium in Mexico City, featuring such songs as "I Will Follow,"
"Without or Without You" and "Sunday Bloody Sunday." The show
was notable because of a backstage incident in which a bodyguard
assigned to the son of Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo pistol-
whipped U2 bassist Adam Clayton's bodyguard after a
misunderstanding in a closed-to-the-public backstage area.
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