From: Level42-request @ worldmachine.com (Level42 Digest) Subject: Level42 Digest V97 #185 _ ____ _ ____ _ _ ___ // //__ // / //__ // /__// __// //__ //__ \\_/ //__ //__ // /__ D I G E S T Level42 Digest Volume 97 : Issue 185 501 subscribers Today's topics: 80's Music Colin Campbell AYGB - feet now back on ground Steve Robson My Vote Dave Brown da numba! dirk.vael DB on VH1 BobC971 Know what I mean, nudge, nudge? Randall Collins Re: Level42 Digest V97 #184 JazPhreek Off for a week dirk.vael Re: Level42 Digest V97 #184 JodyBob Clarke on Mark N Collier ------------------------------ Subject: 80's Music From: Colin Campbell Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 03:20:00 -0700 Lots of general '80's music chatter on the Digest the last couple of days. For those in Southern California, both Star 98.7, and its more "alternative" cousin, KROQ 106.7 are doing 80's things all Fourth of July weekend. I haven't heard Level 42 yet, but I predict I will! I have heard, however, on both stations, Boingo's "Just Another Day," Zappa's "Valley Girl," and different mixes on each station of Falco's epic "Rock Me Amadeus." (Admit it: You like "Rock Me Amadeus." You probably have a favorite version, too -- either the version with Falco scat-singing in German, or the version with an announcer reciting a Mozart biography.) Other than that, Star tends more Cars, Berlin, Billy Idol, etc. KROQ is more Love and Rockets, Smiths, Cure, etc. Happy Fourth of July ... and to our British friends: Sorry, sometimes, you just have to breakaway. You know how it goes. Colin jenolen @ earthlink.net http://home.earthlink.net/~jenolen/ ------------------------------ Subject: AYGB - feet now back on ground From: steve @ redac.co.uk (Steve Robson) Date: Fri, 4 Jul 97 11:22:48 -0100 What ho! I have just come back down to (this flat) earth after having worn out all available CD read heads with the 'As Years Go By' CD. I can't begin to thank enough, all you lovely, lovely people who put the thing together. It arrived with the packaging in better condition than some UK->UK ordinary letters I've received. Wonderful colour liner and sexy gold coloured disc. Completely marvellous and I for one can't wait for the live discs. (Level) best regards, Steve e-mail: steve_robson @ redac.co.uk Zuken-Redac (UK) Ltd. Tel: 0118 966 9955 (or) 0836 580066 66 Suttons Park Avenue Fax: 0118 935 2899 Reading BERKSHIRE Web: http://www.redac.co.uk RG6 1AZ UK ------------------------------ Subject: My Vote From: Dave Brown Date: Fri, 04 Jul 1997 07:06:34 -0500 I think that Forever Now (Resurgence version) is one of the best pieces of work I've ever heard. I would rank it easily up there with Abbey Road and some other great albums. I also think that Learn to Say No is one of the kickinest songs ever done!!!! Now that I've heard all the L42 regular releases, there's only one CD that I don't like very much and that is Pursuit of Accidents (they found one!) -- but I do keep trying to get in sink with it. All of L42's stuff has the same listening and loving pattern for me as other material that I eventually never get tired of hearing. At first, it doesn't sound so monumental, but after you get familiar with it - it gets better, and better, and better until you could listen to it continually and never get tired of it. Level 42 is about all I've been listening to this entire year and it's been great! (I had 14 years of stuff to get caught up on the rest of you fans who knew about these guys in the 80's) David A. Brown dBr Engineering for Lucent Technologies brown @ ias.inh.lucent.com USA 317-862-4888 voice and fax USA 317-862-1000 residence ------------------------------ Subject: da numba! From: "dirk.vael" Date: 4 Jul 97 14:33:45 This number 42 seems to be inspiring many people for names & titles, it seems: I know a local group over here in Luxembourg called T42, there was back in 1992 a house producer who called himself SA42, saw a poster of a movie which had to do something with '42nd street'... Why always 42 ? Dirk ps: let us all respect any L42 member his privacy, so I would advise not to ask questions like 'where is Mark's address?', 'How can i write a letter to Mark or Mike?', 'Why does MK sell his house?' I don't want to stir things up or so, but I think any L42 member wouldn't like it to get annoying questions about something which is 100% history. And those who know addresses or phonenumbers, keep 'em confidential. ------------------------------ Subject: DB on VH1 From: BobC971 @ aol.com Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 10:12:39 -0400 (EDT) I almost forgot to tell you guys. Danny Blume, guitarist on Forever Now, was on VH1 last weekend playing for Jill Sobule on that Hard Rock Live Show. He was great. You really get to hear his distinctive sound. Keep your eyes peeled if they replay it. He's the guy no hair :) TCOY, BobC ------------------------------ Subject: Know what I mean, nudge, nudge? From: "Randall Collins" Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 10:08:25 -0500 Will writes: > Speakers are very important, no doubt. Overall, I agree that the speakers > are the most important component of a stereo rig (I have Magnepan MG-10s > with one Phase Tech PC-50 sub for each). But, when you are strictly > talking about the quality of reproduction from a cassette tape source, the > biggest limiting factor is not noise reduction and not speaker quality. > It's the quality of the tape head I agree too. Just like in the good old days when LP's rule. The most important elements in reproduction were the speakers and the phono cartridge. > Most tape heads in mass-produced tape decks are aluminum or something, > just not high quality at all. If you go into a Circuit City or Best Buy > and look at the specs for most of the tape decks they sell, you'll see > that that tape head ususally is not capable of reproducing anything > above 15,000 Hz, and has a signal-to-noise ratio of 85 or below (good > tape decks can do low 90s on SNR, and good CD players go well above >100 - Hi-Fi VCRs, incidentally, usually get up into the high 90s). It's hard to expect high quality out of mass-produced cassette decks. I have to take a little exception to some of your numbers on signal/noise ratio for the various NR's. If there was actually a mass-produced deck that had a S/N ratio of 85dB, I would love to know what the NR system was because there isn't anything that can create that high of a number, at least with my years of recording. The best you could get from, say, Dolby C is 78dB, and Dolby S, 82 to 84 dB, maybe a fraction higher if you've got a high quality recording head, especially if you have, like you said, a Nakamichi. I know there were some Nakamichi models that actually allowed you to adjust the azimuth of the head, which I thought was pretty radical. It still is. Does your deck do that? Otherwise, you're spot on about the other things. Maybe there is a tape deck that has a S/N ratio in the low 90's, but the only one I can think of like that is a new deck by Pioneer (CT-W606DR) which has digital processing. It takes the analog signal, converts it into digital, and expands or processes the signal to have a higher S/N and virtually no tape hiss. It claims to have a S/N ratio of 90dB. I can see something like that if one wants to clean up old tapes to transfer to DAT, CDR, or MD. Anyway, from your description of the speakers you own, it sounds like you have a really good set up. Perhaps you can email me about this. Thanks for your info..... Jason: Welcome back from your honeymoon! Did you have a good time, know what I mean, nudge, nudge? Were you wicked? Aye? Your wife. Is she a sport? A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat! Were you into photography? Snap snap wink wink nudge nudge say no more? Could have been on holiday!......candid...Candid photography! Did she go? DID SHE GO?!? .....What's it like? :) [All right!! Stop this! This letter's gotten silly! It started out as a nice response to a letter by Will and now it's silly. Right! On with the rest of the digest!] Right, then! Randall "Are you Mary Queen of Scots?" "Yes." ACCCKKK!!! OOOHHHH!!! NOOOO!!! GGGAAAH!! UUUMMPHT!! AAHH!! {Python mode: OFF} ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Level42 Digest V97 #184 From: JazPhreek @ aol.com Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 11:15:16 -0400 (EDT) Hey friends, I was wondering, how many of my fellow 42ers are musicians? As I stated in my digest intro (at least I think I did), I am a saxophonist. I've been playing for roughly 16 yrs now, and I'm pretty good, though I'm still learning a few things. Wouldn't it be cool if we musicians, during one of these levelfests could all get together and have a jam session attempting to cover some of our favorite songs by L42? That would be cool. Anyway, just a thought... I listen to Incognito a lot and when I hear a song like "Inversions" from Positivity it reminds me so much of the old L42 only a more updated version: smooth bass lines, great drum licks, keyboards reminiscent of Mike's playing, etc...I think they would fair extremely well and rival if not surpass most groups today that play jazz-funk. Whadaya think? I wanted to share an article I clipped out of Graffiti magazine many years ago concercning our beloved band. The title read: Editor Called a Dick! "To Alastair Sutherland: Concerning you review of "It's Over" by Level 42, your remarks are way off base (Vol. 3, No. 12). Level 42 are THE most talented group around, as far as I'm concerned. Even if you don't like their style of music, you have to acknowlegde their talent. But a 1 out of 10? And worse yet, you gave a 7 to "Brilliant Disguise" by Bruce Springsteen, a man who would be better off having his vocal chords removed. As long as you are writing for Graffiti , I will never consider buying another issue of your magazine. Given your obvious lack of knowledge of musical talent, the only thing I can conclude about you is this: You are a dick." That was from Stephanie McLeod of Langley, B.C. Now if that isn't a levelhead, I don't know what is. I'd like to give her a big kiss for that one! I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, but since you are all 42ers and I'm sure you would understand. I have this photo album with pic of Carl Mueller, myself, and two other levelheads at the concert here in San Diego in Dec. of '87. In it contains clippings of articles, bios, and an old fanclub memership form, along with some other knick-knacks. It just seems so teeny-bopperish, now that I'm older. By the way, whatever happened to Tracie Pender? Anyway, I'll bring it to one of the levelfest in the future and let you all take a gander at it... Well, I hope everone has a brillant 4th! One small town boy, whose dreams were higher, thought of a plan-to be city man..... Paul W. ------------------------------ Subject: Off for a week From: "dirk.vael" Date: 4 Jul 97 17:52:45 I'm one week on vacation, so to those who wanna mail me, have patience ;-) ps: anyone heard about a rare L42 bootleg called "The Gold Funky". I got my hands on one, thanks to Pete Johnson, TX. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Level42 Digest V97 #184 From: JodyBob @ aol.com Date: Fri, 4 Jul 1997 16:56:16 -0400 (EDT) Hey Doug-- don't forget how tiring Batman and Robin has been for you...better perscribe some pain killers for yourself and get some sleep.... :o) Jody Bob "Sarcasm is my thing....." ------------------------------ Subject: Clarke on Mark From: N Collier Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 00:15:51 +0100 Following the recent Stanley Clarke thread I've been listening to my Return to my Forever/Stanley Clarke records again. The influences of Clarke on Mark are there for all to hear, the most obvious being the Dune Tune riff in Jamaican Boy - this has been discussed at length in the past on the Digest (check the search engine). There is a trace of Stanley's patented superfast fingering in the middle of Foundation & Empire too. I find a lot of Stanley/RTF to be pretty poor however: Romantic Warrior has been referred to as somewhat of a seminal piece by some Digest subscribers but I find a lot of RTF stuff is awful - like a really tacky 'rock opera' soundtrack (with more than a hint of Lalo Schifrin) which tries to be powerful but totally fails ("raging like rock symphonies", My Hero). As for Stanley's solo projects, has anyone heard is stuff with George Duke? It is absolutely attrocious (he murders Springsteen's "Born in the USA")!!!! Nevertheless, 'I Wanna Play For You' is a classic live album and a lesson for any bassist. Happy 4th of July to Americans. Regards, Nigel "Breathe deep and think of Jesus" - Holyfield's corner after the biting incident BTW, Anybody a fan of Muscles Shoals Horns? They are pretty funky, very much like Average White Band/The Meters?