ELP Digest Tuesday, 7 Apr 1992 Volume 2 : Issue 8 The `Tapes have recorded their names' edition. Today's Topics: Re: Running in Stereo (snarfed from rec.music.synth) Any ELP tour info? Any Ginastera (Toccata) CD info? ELP on "In the Studio" 3/23/92 How to contact ELP? Moderator's response to `How to contact ELP?' Help please? (Person seeking copy of Rockline interview) Love Beach `Nice' Biography ELP on TV (ABC's `In Concert') <----- FRIDAY, April 11 Digest info, mailing address, and administrative stuff to: J.Arnold@bull.com ELP-related info that you want to put in the digest to: J.Arnold@bull.com (for now the 2 addresses are equal) Note: The opinions, information, etc. contained in this digest are those of the original message sender listed in each message below. They are not necessarily those of the mailing list/digest administrator or those of any institution through whose computers/networks this mail flows. ------------------------------------------------------------ [ Moderator's note: This posting was snarfed from rec.music.synth. It is included here due to its mention of ELP. - John - ] From: nsw@cbnewsm.att.com (Neil Weinstock) Subject: Re: Running in stereo Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1992 21:51:09 GMT In article <1992Mar12.210231.15006@cs.yale.edu> nathan@laplace.biology.yale.edu writes: [ ... ] >The vast majority of live sound is presented in mono, for reasons >other posters have mentioned. [ ... ] >I've heard that several famous groups have run live sound in >*quad* (!), including Stevie Wonder and ELP... I saw Emerson, Lake and Powell, and they seemed to have some sort of quad system going. I was sitting rather close to one of the rear variesspeakers, and I found myself wishing they had stuck with mono. To quote a previous poster, I'm sure it sounded great from where the sound man was sitting.... - Neil - --==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==-- Neil Weinstock @ AT&T Bell Labs // What was sliced bread att!edsel!nsw or nsw@edsel.att.com \X/ the greatest thing since? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Mar 92 13:08 PST From: Terry Carroll To: J.Arnold@bull.com Subject: Re: ELP Digest V2 #7 > The `Welcome Back My Friends to the SHow that Never Ends' edition Such an appropriate edition name! Anyone have any word on an upcoming ELP tour? Specifically, when they'll be in the SF Bay area? Also, I'm looking for a CD version of the Ginastera Piano Concerto (the basis for "Toccata"). I have an old 1963 LP version (Erich Leinsdorf and the Boston Symphony, I think) that's pretty beat up, and I'd like to acquire a CD version. Any recommendations? -tc [ Moderator's note: I don't think any tour information has been announced yet. As of their RockLine appearance, it sounded like the tour wasn't going to happen until August. That would explain why a list of venues isn't available yet. Re: `Toccata' My brother has the Ginastera Piano Concerto on vinyl. Probably the same version you have. When I asked him your question, he told me that he had seen the same version on CD but hadn't bought it. I'll look for it next time I'm at a fully stocked CD store. Don't know of any other version. Readers? ] ------------------------------ From: Burch Seymour Subject: for ELP list inclusion Date: Wed, 25 Mar 92 17:05:01 EDT ELP on "In the Studio" I happened to hear that ELP would be featured on the syndicated talk show "In the Studio" on Monday night (3/23/92), so I set up the VCR to record it (audio only, this is an FM radio show, NOT VIDEO, just so's you all don't get too excited). I listened yesterday and what a dissapointment. There was maybe 5 minutes of actual "interview" and that all seemed like outtakes from really old interviews. They talked about the first album (Lucky Man) and a bit about Pictures, and Trilogy. Tarkus was mentioned. None of the interview seemed like it took place after BSS. No information of any note that isn't pretty common knowledge. In closing they made reference to a new album, but no specifics. What a waste! -Burch Seymour- bseymour@encore.com ========================================= ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Mar 92 08:44:35 -0500 From: barrett@astro.cs.umass.edu (Daniel Barrett) Subject: How to contact ELP? I need to contact ELP. Does anybody have a current address? I'm working on a project that may require ELP's permission. (No details right now.) But if this is successful, a lot of you are going to be happy! Dan //////////////////////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ | Dan Barrett -- Dept of Computer Science, Lederle Graduate Research Center | | University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003 -- barrett@cs.umass.edu | \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\///////////////////////////////////// ------------------------------ [ Moderator's note: This is the response I sent to Dan about contacting ELP. If you know of other ways that might work, send mail to me (or Dan, if you'd prefer not to publicize it). By the way, I'm trying to contact Victory Music (the lable of the new album) to see if they'll send me any PR material so I can post it directly to this list, so if you have info on the address/names at Victory Music, pelase send them to me, too. Thanks! ] Subject: Re: How to contact ELP? Date: Thu, 26 Mar 92 09:12:53 EST From: J.Arnold@bull.com Dan: I'll put your request in the next issue of the ELP digest. To get you started, however, I decided to send along a few ideas from what I've seen/known in the past. 1. You could try to contact them via their `new' label. It appears that the new album is going to be distributed at least by Victory Music. I've heard this is the label that handles Tin Machine so you might be able to get an address of a Tin Machine CD in a local record store. 2. Try to see if a U.Mass. library has a London phone book. I haven't looked in a few years but back then (even after ELP disbanded) Manticore Music still had an address somewhere on Baker Street in London. Stew Young used to run this manage ELP. Given the thanks to Stew Young mention at the end of the recent ELP appearance on RockLine, it appears that they're still connected with him. 3. You could try contacting them through Atlantic Records in New York. Given the ELP back catalog someone there must know how to contact them. (Not that they'll tell you but it can't hurt to ask for at least their lawyer's name.) 4. Back in the 70s, ELP was affiliated somehow with Premier Talen (in New York City, I think). I read this for a number of years when I used to follow this sort of thing by reading Billboard, etc. at my college library. I think Premier Talent is the agency that handled their interaction with venue promoters for their touring activities. 5. You could try calling the people who produce RockLine. I think they give their address out at the end fo each show. Since ELP was on it just recently,, I would think they'd have a contact point. Good luck, - John - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1992 10:31 EST From: Rick Meyer Subject: Help please? Hi all, I was wondering if some kind soul out there would be willing to make me a copy of ELP's Rockline interview? I have much to offer in the form of a trade, unfortunately very little in the form of ELP though. Also, for the borrowed music list : in Karn Evil #9, Second Movement, about 1 minute in a song called St. Thomas can be heard. I don't know who wrote the piece though. Its the part with the sort of bell like sound. Later, Rick -- ____________________________________________________________________________ | Rick Meyer | | | Student Programmer | Each to his own way, I'll go mine | | 569 Benedum Computing Lab | Best of luck with what you find | | (412) 648-1246 | But for your own sake remember times | | Internet: Jtull@vms.cis.pitt.edu | We used to know. | | Bitnet: Jtull@pittvms.bitnet | - Jethro Tull - | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Pittsburgh Pirates : 1990 & 1991 N.L. Eastern Division Champs | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ From: agitlin@lynx.northeastern.edu Date: Fri, 27 Mar 92 01:35:12 EST Subject: Love Beach Hi, My question is very simple; as a person moderately familiar with E.L.P. and actually liking some of their stuff, should I check out this (in some opinions) dreadful effort from 1978; should I invest money in a Japanese CD just to prove those vicious critics wrong, or rather buy a used LP to quench my curiosity, or not buy it at all (it's so bad....)? Please tell me. Thanks, Alex (agitlin@lynx.northeastern.edu) [ Moderator's note: I think `Love Beach' is definitely worth a listen. Actually, I think the 2nd side (Memoirs of an Officer and a Gentleman) is really good though marred a bit by the lack of production. (From interviews, it seems that Lake and Palmer left the Bahamas before the album was completely finished (thus, there is no `Produced by' credit anywhere on the album). I have the import CD but I knew what the album was like before I plunked down my money. If you're not obsessed with having the complete ELP on CD, I'd start with the used LP (if it's cheap enough). ] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Mar 92 19:39:17 pst From: Jim Smith Subject: Nice Biography Hi, I just bought a used copy of the Sony reissue of the Nice album "Nice" on CD (Sony Music special products AD47347), and thought this group might find the liner notes, written by Bruce Eder, interesting. Although the tone of the notes are perhaps a bit too glowing, I think they're a pretty good summary of the Nice. Here they are: THE NICE NICE It's almost fitting that NICE - also known as EVERYTHING AS NICE AS MOTHER MAKES IT - has two official titles: It was the best of the three albums recorded by the Nice, and it was a hot enough record at the time to raten two competing U.S. releases, one on Columbia and another distributed by Capitol, a result of a contractual dispute between Immediate Records and Columbia Records. It was a charmed disc, one of the great rock keyboard albums ever made and certainly the most listenable "progressive" rock album ever. And it was a great way for the Nice to exit. The Nice - Keith Emerson (keyboards), Lee Jackson (bass, guitars, vocals), and Brian "Blinky" Davison (drums) - began 1969 at the peak of their three- year career. Once darlings of the British underground scene, they'd managed to achieve rock respectability and reach a mass audience by burning the American flag at their concerts (frequently during performances of Leonard Bernstein's "America") and transforming Emerson's on-stage torment of his organ into music, a la Jimi Hendrix burning his guitar. The tightly-knit trio were playing to sell-out audiences in England and the European continent, and in April of 1969 came over for a triumphant U.S. tour. The live tracks on EVERYTHING AS NICE AS MOTHER MAKES IT were recorded at the group's Easter 1969 gig at the Fillmore East (which also featured Ten Years After and Family), where BILLBOARD called Keith Emerson's frenzied virtuosity "darkly subversive" - high praise in those heady days. Back in England, Emerson was commissioned to compose a piece for the Nice to perform at the Newcastle Arts Festival and the group toured Ireland that summer with Yes and the Bonzo Dog Band. The group's sound evolved during this period into its most sophisticated form. Gone were the dense orchestrations and flashy psychedelics of ARS LONGA VITA BREVIS and THE THOUGHTS OF EMERLIST DAVJACK. In their place, the Nice adopted a freer approach fusing elements of jazz and blues to their rock base and classical flourishes. "Diary of an Empty Day" was one of the finest results of the new sound, a piece growing out of a performance of Lalo's "Symphonie Espagnol" that Emerson had played with violinist/composer John Mayer (who later conducted the London Symphony Orchestra on Emerson's recording of his Piano Concerto from ELP's WORKS) earlier that year in London - the free-form jam on the main riff of the symphony's first movement showed the group at its most rhythmically and melodically vibrant. "For Example" is the best of the studio sides, however, and holds a unique place in the band's history as the only one of their compositions to rate a major cover version, by the Dutch progressive band Ekseption of their Philips album EKSEPTION 5. Although the sessionmen are uncredited, on stage the Nice used to play this bracing 10-minute rave-up through Beatles and Bernstein - which started life as a 12-bar blues warm-up - with the Sinfonia of London under Joseph Eger, and Alan Skidmore on tenor sax, Joe Harriot on alto, Chris Pine on trombone, and Kenny Weider on trumpet, and one can only guess that they're the ones blowing up a storm here. "Azrael Revisited" is a more expansive version of the early Nice single "Azrael" complete with a quote from Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# minor - Emerson made the connection between Azrael (the Angel of Death) and the fact that Rachmaninoff was said to have been thinking about Edgar Allen Poe's "Premature Burial" while writing the prelude, but regardless of that it sounded really cool musically back in 1969. The studio version of "Hang On To A Dream" is more restrained and coherent than the more familiar (and twice-as-long) live version from the group's final LP release, ELEGY - Emerson holds his quotation of George Gershwin's "Summertime" in check, Lee Jackson is in better vocal form, the piano is recorded more cleanly, and the choir arranged by the Nice's fellow Immediate Records alumnus Duncan Browne (whose album GIVE ME, TAKE YOU is also being reissued along with EVERYTHING AS NICE) adds a rather haunting element to the piece. The two live numbers from the Fillmore were understandably the gems of the Nice's recorded output - "Rondo" was an early Nice tune (lifted from early Keith Emerson idol Dave Brubeck) that they never got away from, but in its final form it's considerably more powerful and concise than its studio original. It also serves as a warm-up for "She Belongs To Me," a ferocious virtuoso journey through Marlboro territory by way of Elmer Bernstein's "The Magnificent Seven," Bach's Unaccompanied Sonatas and Partitas, and Bob Dylan that had Emerson wrenching sounds out of his Hammond L 100 and A 105 organs that astonished onlookers at the Fillmore that night. Unfortunately, even as the Nice were perfecting their group sounds, they were laying the groundwork for their eventual dissolution. Once Emerson, Jackson and Davison had sharpened their performance and improvisational approach, they quickly discovered that they had nowhere else to go together. "The surprises had gone," Emerson told Chris Welch in MELODY MAKER, "because we knew what to expect from each other." Additionally, the group's attempts to integrate the Sinfonia of London into their stage act - which might've given them a new challenge in concert - were less than successful and only brought out the most awkward elements of both. At their concerts that summer, the Sinfonia frequently found itself playing the "Troika" from Prokofiev's "Lieutenant Kije Suite" (curiously enough, a piece that Greg Lake and Peter Sinfield would later turn into "I Believe In Father Christmas" with Emerson, Lake and Palmer) while the band drifted in and out of "Rondo" and "She Belongs To Me." In October of 1969, the Nice played a show at Croydon with a much newer progressive rock outfit named King Crimson. In less than nine months, Emerson would hook up with Crimson bassist/lead singer Greg Lake and ex-Atomic Rooster drummer Carl Palmer, while Lee Jackson and Brian Davison would go off to do separate projects (Jackson Heights, Every Which Way). Although their manager, Tony Stratton-Smith, denied that the group had split - and even arranged for the release of Emerson's Newcastle-commissioned piece THE FIVE BRIDGES and a collection of left-over studio sides on his own Charisma label - it was clear that the end had arrived when Emerson emerged in mid-1970 as one third of Emerson, Lake and Palmer, progressive rock's first supergroup. Jackson and Davison later hooked up with Patrick Moraz in a short-lived Nice offshoot on Charisma called Refugee, which split soon after. Moraz went off to steadier work as Rick Wakeman's replacement in Yes and Mike Pinder's stand-in with the reconstituted Moody Blues. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Apr 92 6:07:33 EST From: /amqueue Subject: ELP on TV??? A friend of mine reports that, at 2am on April 11th, the series called "In Concert", broadcast on ABC, will have Emerson, Lake, and Palmer on it. Can anyone give me any information? Is this a new concert? An old clip? Supposedly the show will also have Yes on it, if that helps... (that is 2am EDT) thanks /amq [ Moderator's note: Thanks for this hot tip of the week!!! Sure enough, I checked my TV Guide (for the Boston area) and found that ELP and Yes are 2 of the 4 artists mentioned in this Friday's installment of `In Concert'. Note, however, that the time of `In Concert' varies from station to station. For instance, in the Boston area, one ABC affiliate is showing this ~midnight. Another is showing it around ~1am. Check you local listings. I meant to tape last Friday's installment to see if there were previews but I forgot. I doubt there's new performance footage (but wouldn't complain). Since the old 70s `In Concert' was the original source for the California Jam appearance of ELP, I am secretly hoping that they'll show that (I've always wanted a copy) and provide a mention of the reunion (and, I hope, a commitment to have them on once the tour starts later this summer. Check your local listings for exact time of `In Concert' this Friday night/Saturday morning. ] ------------------------------ End of ELP Digest [Volume 2 Issue 8] ************************************