From: Level42-request @ worldmachine.com (Level42 Digest) Subject: Level42 Digest V99 #107 _ ____ _ ____ _ _ ___ // //__ // / //__ // /__// __// //__ //__ \\_/ //__ //__ // /__ D I G E S T Level42 Digest Volume 99 : Issue 107 1060 subscribers Today's topics: OOOOOPPPPSSS!!! ElSavannah Gone forever now? Bill Burnett Re: Level42 Digest V99 #106 Bill Burnett Re: Level42 Digest V99 #106 Ronald Kuipers Level 42 to reform?? Ronald Kuipers Right & Wrong - Do you know the difference? Gaetan Duperron Slap Bass Technique EMIKATIE Yes is the answer Ben Surely You Jest!! The Madacious Meg-Mix Winman42 Reunion, L42 bad songs, Jazz is Dead! Brian More FN talk! Pashman, Rob ------------------------------ Subject: OOOOOPPPPSSS!!! From: ElSavannah @ aol.com Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 06:34:50 EDT It just dawned on me that I forget to put the URL up for my page! Here you are and enjoy. For all those that don't know it you will find exclusive shots from the one man tour and new ones from Ryde Theatre! http://members.xoom.com/Mrspink42/Mrspinkspage.html Anyone who has any feedback or is interested in anything they see on the site, follow the links and mail me! Lisa 'Mrs Pink' ------------------------------ Subject: Gone forever now? From: Bill Burnett Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 12:38:05 +0100 Morning folks. Well done that fellow who rid us of AG, now I'll have to go to the effort of mailing him personally in order to keep my vocabulary expansion programme on course. I utterly concur with Gaetan, how dare you take it upon yourself to speak for all of us. Imagine the digest as a levelfest, a host of level42 fans all in a big room. Obviously much of the talk will be of level42, but with so many people communicating collectively, there will be many parallel conversations on many disparate topics, If you don't like it you may leave, if you & AG don't get on you may walk to a different group & join another conversation (this is of course an anthropomorphisation of the scroll bar). But what you have done is more akin to asking him to "step outside" for a right good kicking, while the rest of us are blissfully unaware of the attack, preoccupied as we are by those delightful little sausage on stick configurations. I'm only glad that Loz is made of sterner stuff or by now the digest would be such a wizened and shrivelled entity that David Loundy and his team of hot shot lawyers would buy us all out in a thrice (at the quoted price naturellement). P.S. here's a bit of quote/reply nonsense crap. >>....can anyone take bands that have had various and multiple line up >changes >over the years seriously? I offer King Crimson, although whether that defeats or confirms your argument is entirely subjective. ======================================================================== Bill Burnett http://www.sphere3.demon.co.uk/ ======================================================================== ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Level42 Digest V99 #106 From: Bill Burnett Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 12:56:44 +0100 >...& let's not forget Yes... Wise words to anyone starting a band! ======================================================================== Bill Burnett http://www.sphere3.demon.co.uk/ ======================================================================== ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Level42 Digest V99 #106 From: "Ronald Kuipers" Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 14:05:02 +0200 Yesterday Hans wrote >Now the only album missing is "Guaranteed". What does the digest think, >should I get it? YES you should defenitly get it. It's not their best album, I don't think it's thier worst ither. The song Guaranteed alone is worth getting the album for. I think My farther's shoes, Lasso the moon, Overtime and Her big day are also good to very good. However the best track besides Guaranteed from this era is on the CDsingle of Guaranteed and on the Digest CD As years go by, that song is All she wants. Maybe the lyrics aren't all that I like them however The music is absolutly GREAT. My 2 duppies. . . . . . .Ronald ------------------------------ Subject: Level 42 to reform?? From: "Ronald Kuipers" Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 14:17:02 +0200 My opinion about this subject is actually very simple and a lot of you will agree (I think). If level 42 is ever to reform it MUST be with both Mark and Mike. Altough I would prefer Boon and Phil, I don't feel that thats likely. But I can be wrong ofcourse. That's basicly it. Mark can play L42 songs with a band but without Mike it will NEVER be Level 42. My 2 knaken . . . . . .Ronald ------------------------------ Subject: Right & Wrong - Do you know the difference? From: "Gaetan Duperron" Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 05:48:35 PDT I'll take the lack of a direct response to my little "rant and rave" as a sign that the perpetrator probably feels quite embarassed about driving the Nightfly away to other airwaves. Short of a bunch of us quitting the digest out of solidarity, I think that we've done a good job showing that indeed many of us DID want to read AG's posts. Vive la difference, I say. Vive Le Digest libre!!! It was nice to have somebody pick up on the Joe Jackson references. (SEE?! That's what some of us want more of here - talk beyond the repetitive and mundane stuff about a dead band!) Hans my man, you are sooooo right. I've seen JJ in concert five or six times, and as you said, perfect everything every time. A perfect moment from that Laughter and Lust tour: Sue Hadjopoulos (perc.) and Dan Hickey (dr.) wailing away in stereo after the break in "Look Sharp". Like Level 42, JJ was an artist that I discovered rather late. Fortunately for me, he still had/has enough of an audience in North America to warrant a tour now and then. According to some artists, Montreal audiences seem to be very passionate about what they like, so Joe has never missed making us a stop on tour, even for the pre-Laughter & Lust recording sessions "warm-up" tour, for which he demo-ed his new songs to audiences in his favourite cities. Every JJ concert is a musical epiphany. Can anybody name a Level 42-Joe Jackson connection? He was mentioned in the last digest. Am I boring some of you? See that scroll-bar on the right? On a more "relevant" note I've finished watching the tape of the Wolverhampton gig. To the author of the tape, whoever you are, thank you very much. I'll get over the iffy sound, the occasional shot of somebody's butt, the missed cues and off-key voices, Lyndon not being Mike Lindup, that horrible "My fly's wide open..." thing. So f#%&ing what?! I'm beginning to think that I'll never get to see Level 42 or any by-product in concert. So it's a great consolation to at least be able to watch the result of an unselfish somebody's work. Thank you also, and again, Cliff Barua! I love it! G ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Subject: Slap Bass Technique From: EMIKATIE @ aol.com Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 11:04:10 EDT Any bass players care to comment on the slap bass technique (RJ, DonZipf, Nightfly83, et. al.)? I'm curious as to why there is not more of it in popular music. Is it a difficult style to play, compared to just "plucking" the string? With the zillions of songs out there, I've not heard any with the same style. Which leads me to think it's either too difficult to perfect, musical stylings don't lend themselves to that "sound", or it is such a unique style that to copy it would be....well....... copying. So.... is it easy to play like Mark King, or tough. I play guitar so I do know that certain guitar techniques are very difficult. So, what about the slap bass? The machine stops, John ------------------------------ Subject: Yes is the answer From: Ben Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 18:53:25 +0100 >Now the only album missing is "Guaranteed". What does the digest think, should I >get it? YES, definately, I personaly think it is better than Forever Now, and Staring At The Sun ( though, don't get me wrong peoples they are both excellent albums ) there are some awesome tracks on there , my favorites being, Guaranteed, Overtime, She can't Help Herself, A Kinder Eye, though most of the other tracks are good aswell. Ben. ------------------------------ Subject: Surely You Jest!! The Madacious Meg-Mix From: Winman42 @ aol.com Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 19:30:55 EDT Don, what in the hell were you smoking when you said Level 42's weakness was lyrics? Personally I always thought of their lyrics as one of their strong points. I bet if we did a poll of the 1,000 plus digest members, most would agree that the lyrical content of the songs was above average. My opinion, anyway. :-) Man, I think we get a bit carried away when folks slag off an album or 2. Remember folks, don't take it personal, it's just an opinion. Why should anyone be suprised that someone doesn't like song 'X' . With over a million level 42 fans, some songs are bound to be less liked by some. I was just about to say 'I've never been surprised by a fan opinion', but them I rememebred Don's quote about the lyrics. Doh!! (sorry Don, you know I'm kidding, right) :-) So, today i go out and check the post box, and see a nice new package from the UK. Big thanks to Chris Dickman for forwarding a copy of the Mega-Mix done by Tony Sharp (madacious). What Can I say? This thing is sooooo freaking awesome, it's unbelievable. I thought my mega-mix was cool, but this thing blows it out of the water!! I've got to go back to the lab and try and come up with something better. Tony, my man, you are THE KING! And the selection of tracks is brilliant!! Tcoy, Win ------------------------------ Subject: Reunion, L42 bad songs, Jazz is Dead! From: Brian Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 23:44:06 -0500 So I'm a little behind on my email... Doesn't Mark usually say there's a good chance L42 will reform? He always is quick to mention there is no bad blood between the members and they just needed a *break*. From: "Dan Nesselroth" > desparately need Phil to trim the edges. I can listen to ALL of > Forever Now except for Time Will Heal...not a bad average. Forever now TWL is a great song! Very RITF sounding to me. I'm w/ Loz. There are no bad L42 songs really. I love 'em all. Ok I wasn't saying that jazz is dead. Since there are a few on here into Billy Cobham - I had to recommend to get the CD called Blue Light Rain by Jazz is Dead. It's mostly jazzy funked up versions of Grateful Dead songs, plus a cool funky version of Cobham's Red Baron. Brian ------------------------------ Subject: More FN talk! From: "Pashman, Rob" Date: Sun, 18 Apr 1999 04:41:38 -0400 Hey gang, I've got more to react to with some of the more "original/thought provoking" comments regarding this debate: 1. For a start, L42's sound doesn't appeal to youngsters (they prefer the teeny-boppy tunes of 'The Spice Girls', and so on). That rules out a large chunk of the buying public for a start. Of course. I won't generalize...well ok, I will. I will bet my left foot that the vast majority of us -or at least the Americans- on this digest are at least 28 years old. If you're like me, you don't listen to the radio much. The radio in New York is god-awful-about as groundbreaking as a Brittany Spears record. You like what friends tell you about and maybe what you read, etc. The "kids" are too worried about "what is cool". While MTV is telling them what they have to buy, they have no chance to figure it out for themselves. In the US, MTV is only worthwhile on Sunday nights in the middle of the night. It's all ratings! My sister is 23 and I could tell her about some new band I'm into until I'm blue in the face and then somehow she hears it on the radio and only then does she want to borrow my CD. 2. I hold RCA fully to blame for their CRUCIAL mistakes with this album, which, had it been handled correctly, could have catapulted Level 42 back to prominence. Now I just hope that Mark, Mike and Boon can see sense and get together to write another storming album. If FN was released by...oh I don't know...a cool young band like....Jamiroquai, it would have been a smash. They gave it a great last shot but they sort of had their day and totally gave up on the US altogether. Forget about what songs were released as singles. It's a moot argument. They are all great songs IMO. I hold the torch for FN big time but can you really hear those tracks playing on hit radio where you live? I can't. I'd be into a new L42 album if those involved did it for the right reasons. I don't care about how old they are. Their music ages pretty well, unlike a band like...Poison. A bunch of 50 year olds singing "I Want Action" lacks sincerity although they may indeed want action. 3. Re: FN: The drums sound like loops, and drums machines, even though Phil played some of the stuff. Hey Win-Totally. But the loops are L42's loops and they are so fat and groove amazingly. A little bit of "live" atmosphere is lost but hey-everybody's doing it...at least it's not Puff Daddy! 4. I can listen to ALL of Forever Now except for Time Will Heal...not a bad average. That's why it was the very last b-side to see the light of day. It's a clunker compared to others but I feel that if they put enough time into a track to get it to that point-I find it of interest to see what they cut from an album and why. Did it not fit in with the rest of the tracks? Was it just not as good? Was it unfinished? I'd rather hear it than not. Tears For Fears' "Tears Roll Down" was a bad b-side. A few years later Roland added an amazing verse section and then it became "Laid So Low". Obviously he needed some b-side filler and wanted to give the die hard fans a sneak peek. 5. No promotion stuff in shops, no commercials on radio or TV nothing. RCA screwed up with the last 2 records but they probably figured that even though they were handed a strongly written record in FN, regardless, they figured the "record buying public" were already set in their ways and spending $$ on L42 would only be preaching to the converted. 6. It goes back to my theory of the Pop Rockers and the Jazzfunksters on the digest - each group will never be able to convince the other that their era is better, and will never truly understand each other. I'll take a well written pop song with an amazing melody and chord structure (and odd times-love those odd times!) over a jazzfunk-fusion exercise (a la early L42 instrumentals) any day-but when the 2 can be fused together...that's the best! "Man" comes to mind (closest L42 got to Prog rock). 7. People can tell me the virtues of Guaranteed until they are blue in the face, it won't change the fact that I feel it was simply a collection of random songs and not a complete album G definitely lacks a "cohesiveness" but sometimes bands find themselves moving in different directions at the same time and decide to pursue them all at once giving us an album that's more of a collection than an album. SATS is also like that, maybe moreso. As a person who records over a year or two and then makes the fruits of those labors into a CD whenever 10-15 songs gather, I can understand this. When a band gets in the studio for a month or so and do not stretch the process over a year or two, you usually get that more cohesive sound where you can tell the songs all "came from one place". RITF has that sound, no? See ya, rOb.