response 53 of 131:

Nov 8 23:15 UTC 1999

  Slashdot ( http://slashdot.org ) had an item on "The Lifehouse" claiming
  that a special edition of the set would be available as an "adaptive"
  music project -- the idea is that the purchaser can enter information
  about themselves into a program that will adjust the music in certain
  ways according to the parameters entered, providing a customized listening
  experience for each user.

response 55 of 131:

Nov 20 06:52 UTC 1999

Would anyone care to write anything about New Model Army?

response 57 of 131:

Nov 23 02:41 UTC 1999

Maybe Ken would like to elucidate what New Model Army means in a musical
context?

response 59 of 131:

Nov 23 17:01 UTC 1999

  I've got a track or two by New Model Army on various collections I own,
  but not enough to express much of an opinion on them.  Don't think I've
  ever noticed any particular folk influence but maybe I'll go back and check.

response 61 of 131:

Nov 24 03:55 UTC 1999

re:56...if you're gonna bring it up, then you need to bring up the fine
historical dissertation on Oliver Cromwell by Monty Python's Flying Circus.

response 63 of 131:

Feb 10 17:58 UTC 2000

Well, sometime in late January the hate-everything stage went away.
I have a big pile of entertaining new discs here and I should try to 
crank out some reviews.
 
It's discouraging to me, though, that retail shopping is becoming
less and less relevant to my folk music interests.  Essentially I'm
looking at buying the promo items which wash up in the used market
-- thus depriving the artist of a sale, guilt guilt -- or mail 
order.  

response 65 of 131:

Mar 9 06:02 UTC 2000

There's some stuff you should hear: I've mostly been thinking of 
Tannas and Fernhill, and maybe Lais.

response 67 of 131:

Mar 9 21:57 UTC 2000

Yes they are, why do you ask?

response 69 of 131:

Mar 13 18:34 UTC 2000

I've jotted down those names in #65, Ken, and will keep an eye out the 
next time I get to Down Home, whenever that is.  I'm still hopeful for 
good new music, though it's been close to ten years since I was blown 
away by anything new to me ...

But don't take my comments of alienation too seriously.  I've been 
steadily growing alienated from science fiction since 1977, which is the 
year of the advent of Orson Scott Card, an author whose appeal utterly 
eludes me.  And that was only three years after I started reading the 
stuff.

response 71 of 131:

Mar 20 17:21 UTC 2000

        Last week on Lay Jeno, I saw Tom Waites sing one of his new 
songs.  It sounded like he was chopping brocolli:
        "There's this house no one lives in...
         we call it the house no one lives in....  etc.

response 73 of 131:

Apr 28 04:05 UTC 2000

Department of Recycled Prose:  I wrote this for Usenet today and figured
I would dump it in here as well.  A reader from xs4all.nl was looking 
for information about an Australian band named Mara; he was under the 
impression that Pentangle bass player Danny Thompson had been a 
member of the band.  So I rambled on...
 
---

I don't think he was formally a member, though he did play bass on
two of their early albums.  1986's "Images" was a classic and it should
appeal to most people who liked Pentangle; it crossed Pentangle's
acoustic-jazz-influenced folk sound with Eastern European songs which
the band had learned from immigrants to Australia.  Unfortunately it was
a UK LP-only release on the defunct Plant Life label and I am skeptical that
it will ever be reprinted.   It would make a nice two-fer CD with
the band's initial incarnation under the name Tansey's Fancy, with
a self-titled album also on the Plant Life label.

I think "On The Edge" was the other album on which Danny Thompson
appeared.  This one, on the Australian label Sandstock Music, appeared
on CD -- I got a copy in trade from an Australian acquaintance.
(Does anyone have any good Internet order sources for Australian folk
CDs?)

There are a couple of other albums:  "Don't Even Think," was OK,
"Ruino Vino" I found disappointing.  The most recent album, billed
as Mara with the Martenitza Choir, was titled "Sezoni."  It was
released on Peter Gabriel's Real World label and so it should be
available just about everywhere.  My complaint about the album:
too much choir, too little Mara Kiek.

I guess if I ever get around to putting up some web pages I will have
to add in a Mara discography.  Cruising around on the web I just found
an album with Mara Kiek which I never heard of before:
"Songs with Mara" by the Meryl Tankard Australian Dance Theatre.
Mara Kiek also sang on two early music albums released on the
Hyperion label, one of which I have.

A google.com search on "mara kiek" will turn up quite a bit, but I don't
find a full discography.

response 75 of 131:

May 19 19:02 UTC 2000

resp:65 , further comment to David Bratman:  the new (third) Tannas 
album is a big disappointment; avoid it.

News item:  Patti Smith is departing Arista.  The BMG conglomerate,
which owns Arista, recently forced the label's founder Clive Davis
into retirement.  Patti Smith said that she felt that Davis had
sheltered her on the label, even though her commercial potential 
had always been marginal, and she did not want to stay after 
Davis left.   She said that she appreciated that Davis had never
pressured her to change her work.

Patti Smith's new album, GUNG HO, has only sold 27,000 copies so 
far despite enthusiastic reviews.