offhand remarks re phil's comments

[hsu%uicsrd.CSRD.UIUC.EDU@a.cs.uiuc.edu (William Tsun-Yuk Hsu)]

prs@oliveb.UUCP (Phil Stephens) writes:

>I'm only rarely actually offended by them ["superpunks", sic... Bill]; 99%
>of the time I'm simply bored with them.  They are either discussing
>east coast clubs I will never get to and groups I haven't heard and probably
>don't want to; 

Huh? Maybe I don't know any "superpunks" :-) :-), but most people I hang
out with are too busy discussing the the merits of R.K. Sloane's slasher
comix or whether Lydia Lunch is overweight to worry too much about east
coast clubs. :-) Oh, you mean TRENDIES! That's different...

>I can't really comment on 95% of whats being discussed
>since I haven't heard it and am not willing to spend dozens of dollars on
>stuff I probably won't like just to hear it.  
That's reasonable. 

>Strangeness has always 
>appealed to me, particularly psychotic wierdness, but now it is a dime a
>dozen!!!!!  I need more than weirdness to interest me now.  
Oh c'mon... there's never enough weirdness in the world :-)... maybe you
just never had that much tolerance for the outre in the first place.

>I just
>don't know how to interpret others' enthusiasm for Birdsongs, Diamanda(sp?),
>Butthole Surfers, etc etc, into a reasonable prediction of whether I 
>would enjoy subjecting myself and my wallet to such fare.

Well, let see if I can help...
You'll probably like Birdsongs of the Mesozoic if you like minimalist
keyboard music (like Glass, yuck) but done with infinitely more energy,
color and FUN. Definitely check them out if you want to learn keyboards.

You'll probably like Diamanda Galas if you like experimental opera, wild
vocal pyrotechnics and incredible high frequencies that tickle those
eardrums. 

You'll probably like the Buttholes if you like grungy gutter noise rock
with a unique drugged-out vision, and take the old '70s dinosaur gods with
a little (a lot?) irreverence.

>If you can think of a better way of distinguishing what I might find worth
>listening to, please give it a try.... perhaps poetic-mystic-storytelling
>would be the key for me.

You could write Hofmann for this little project of his mentioned a long
time ago (Nihilius Fililius or some such). I don't think he does any of
this quasi-mystical verse stuff tho. In fact, it's probably hard to find
anything approaching old Moody Blues anymore. You see, in the '80s it's
kind of hard to be that pretentious and sappy and keep a straight face.
:-) :-)

(BTW, also give Laurie Anderson a try. Gently offbeat and probably won't
rattle your sensibilities that much.)

Bill