On Tue, 16 Jun 1998, Ned Davis wrote:
> Jeffrey with 2 f's, I looked around your site after
> reading your harsh pan of the PopCanon CD, and
> I felt I had to comment after
> sticking around and reading your page some more.
First, thanks for reading it, and thanks for reading more of the website.
> Your PopCanon review was a bit harsh, but when I
> read this on your site, I became exercised:
>
> >Have you ever wondered what John Donne, who opened a
> >poem with the line "Batter my heart, three-personed God"
> >would do if he were a film producer in the '70s? (Well, he
> >probably wouldn't. But I needed an excuse to link to this
> >page for one of my favorite poets.)
>
> So YOU--who would conflate John Donne with the brilliant
> Fists of God page--YOU are going to bust PopCanon for
> going overboard on the literary references? YOU, who make
> allusions to the Bretonist game Exquisite Corpse? YOU,
> who claim to be "interested in nonsense - in particular,
> the fuzzy boundary between sense and nonsense,
> where things almost-but-not-quite make sense"--YOU are
> busting on us for beating others about the head with
> our studies? J'ACCUSE, sir!!
Hmmm...perhaps. I guess I see a difference between an admittedly
self-indulgent website - which anyone can take or leave - and a CD,
which
people are expected to buy. That is, as a critic I feel the need to
discuss which aspects of the recording make it worth buying and which
may
not - always in a very subjective frame of reference, since everyone's
got
their own ears and ideas.
I don't recall that that remark was all that central to the review,
but
yeah, it was there, so fair calling me on it.
> Bytheby, the song Rene' Rene' is about Descartes, not
> Magritte, so if you revise your review, please insert
> a snotty jape about our overly mathematical bent...
Damn! Missed it!
Seriously, I understand that a negative review (or at least partially
negative) would be upsetting to someone who worked hard to put out
music -
but hey, by my reviewing it, people here in the distant wilderness
of
Milwaukee at least know your CD exists. I, at least, have often read
reviews that were negative - but the critic's particular descriptions
have
sometimes intrigued me enough to check out the CD anyway. I mean, there's
probably people who like their literary/artistic/mathematical references
right up front.
Me, I just happen to prefer such things to be a bit more submerged -
you
may have run into (numerous) references to Scott Miller (of The Loud
Family, ex-Game Theory) on my site. There's a guy who's clearly very
well-read, etc. - but usually it's a bit below the surface. Anyway,
a
matter of taste.
And the CD *was* interesting enough that I kept it - and your letter
caused me to listen to it again. (It *is* Bloomsday, after all...)
So I hope you'll agree the review and its ramifications aren't a total
dead loss for your band.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Jeff
Ceci n'est pas une .sig
Then, on Wed, 17 Jun 1998, Ned Davis wrote:
> Well, i was half funnin' with you in the last rant,
> but of course, we all prefer praise rather than
> censure. And I guess I was especially disappointed
> since--after surfing through your site--you plainly
> seem to have the background and erudition to appreciate
> lots of aspects to the PopCanon CD that most other
> reviewers would never even begin to get. e.g., your
> knowledge of the Wanda Tinasky episode is really quite
> obscure, and the webpage title was damn funny.
> As you know, most reviewers are just idiots--one
> of the funniest, positive-yet-utterly-wrong reviews
> we received from an online zine said that we were the
> greatest ska band of the 90's, and that our songs
> couldn't have been better 'if they were written by
> Madness and performed by the Skatalites!'
> Very nice, but very, very wrong.
Uh..."ska"? Sheesh!
> Anyroad, it just seemed that you in the land of
> Indentured Servitude that is Graduate School might
> well have appreciated the songs a little more,
> and perhaps, if you listen a few more times, something
> may strike you anew. We thought we were making a
> fairly accessible pop record with some overly involved
> references that only a few people would get, though could
> still enjoy musically, but it turns out that apparently
> several listens is really needed to hear past the blustery
> noise--who knew?
Rereading the review in light of relistening to the CD, it may have
been
harsher than it needed to have been - although the music still refuses
to
lodge itself in my head. Weirdly enough, given my background, lyrics
are
very much a secondary thing w/music - probably because I played piano
before I could read, I guess (not all that well, mind you...).
> And the Zappa reference really hurt, since the guy who
> mastered the CD, Mark Pinske, who lives here in Gainesville,
> was one of Zappa's engineers for years and years and made
> us all gasp for breath when he decreed, 'yeah, Frank would've
> liked this..'
Funny - I just noticed Mark Pinske's name the other day (before reading
this correspondence) and finally made the connection - yes, I'm one
of
those geeks who read the teensy little notes on CDs). And though FZ's
a
genius, there's also a lot of *his* material that, for me, falls short
in
ways similar to the criticisms I made of you guys. (You'll notice I
said
something like "Zappa at his best" - not Zappa all the time...)
> Again, thanks for listening, and i'll be sure to send you
> our next project.
> I always appreciate good writing, even if it's ALL WRONG!
> Ned
fair enough.
--Jeff
J e f f r e y N o r m a n
Department of English
http://www.uwm.edu/~jenor/
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
::As long as I don't sleep, he decided, I won't shave.
::
::That must mean...as soon as I fall asleep, I'll start shaving!
::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::Thomas Pynchon, _Vineland_::