THE MAGICAL ARMCHAIR
The Ben Folds Five Digest
Issue #1492 - April 29, 1999
Magical Armchair Digest Thursday, April 29 1999 Volume 01 : Number 1492
THE MAGICAL ARMCHAIR
The Ben Folds Five Mailing List
TO REMOVE YOURSELF FROM THIS MAILING LIST
Send an e-mail message to:
armchair-request@maillist.il.fontys.nl
with the word
unsubscribe
in the message body. Please DO NOT POST UNSUBSCRIBE REQUESTS TO THE LIST
ITSELF, OR BY REPLYING TO THIS MESSAGE! If you are having trouble, send
mail to
owner-armchair@maillist.il.fontys.nl
and I will try to help you. To change your address, first unsub yourself from
your old address, then subscribe using your new account.
Whenever there is a problem with the list, please check the list archive
address on the web (http://oeonline.com/bff/list) for updates.
TOPICS IN THIS DIGEST:
The Magic That Holds The Sky Up From The Ground
Irving Plaza, Night One
9x interview and review
Iriving Plaza 27 April 1999
US Summer Tour
Vote for your fav off TUBORM
Vote for your fav off TUBORM
Re: Magical Armchair Digest V1 #1490
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 23:20:38 +1000
From: "Daniel Hirning" <dhirning@iname.com>
Subject: The Magic That Holds The Sky Up From The Ground
Is there a MP3 of that version of magic on The Garden Place: Songs By Our
Friends cd floating around somewhere? There was a 30second one, but
there must be a full length one somewhere? mustn't there?
If there is, can someone post back to the list, or get in contact with me,
thanks..
Also, frank, whats with the new pic at the top of the page!! Come on, that
other pic has been there so long now it almost *is* the site ;-)
Daniel
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 10:14:20 -0500
From: crv1@is2.nyu.edu (Chris Van Valen)
Subject: Irving Plaza, Night One
Hi kiddies
Night bean well with Fleming and John's well received 8 song, 37 minute set
(on at 8:58, off at 9:35).BFF hit the stage at 10:12. The setlist:
Don't Change Your Plans
Battle of WCCL
Philosophy
Mess
Steven's LNIT
Magic
Hospital Song
Army
Underground(during which Robert laid across the piano ala Micelle
Pfeiffer in "Baker Boys")
Jane
Alice Childress
Fair
Narcolepsy
Lullabye
One Angry Dwarf
ENCORES:
Your Rdeneck Past
Song for the Dumped
Great Show. Great Crowd. Great Night. I can hardly wait until tonight.
CV
P.S. If Dan Lynch is still on this list, would you please e-mail me? Thanks!
If you have an unpleasant nature and dislike people
this is no obstacle to work. -- J.G. Bennett
And it's potato, potato, potato. -- Mike Keneally
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 10:52:13 +0000
From: Mark & Mikell Brown <brownmm@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: 9x interview and review
Well, someone else beat me to the interview with Ben this time around,
but there will be one in the May issue of 9x Magazine (Plan9 Music, in
central Virginia). I did write a review of TUBORM which I'll post here.
(LONG.....) Neither the interview nor the review will be posted on the
9x webpage so if you're interested in hard copies, let me know. I'll
post about the interview when I get a chance to read it - in May.
Oh, and THANKS TO LEIGH for the lyrics! (Promos don't usually have
artwork, lyrics & such.)
BEN FOLDS FIVE (review in May, 1999 issue of 9x Magazine)
The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner
In "Best Imitation of Myself" on Ben Folds Five's eponymous first album,
Folds asks whether he should take a class to lose his southern accent.
The Chapel Hill band's newly released THE UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY OF
REINHOLD MESSNER is clear evidence that he chose not to do so. To the
contrary, on the disc's most upbeat track, "Your Redneck Past," he
sings, "Roots - the funny limbs that grow underground/ That keep you
from falling down/ Don't you think that you need 'em now." He concludes
that, "It's good to be back home." Personally, I think that MESSNER has
all the hallmarks of classic Southern Lit., including strong connections
to family, place, and tradition, and a narrative structure that overlaps
fiction and autobiography to create that genre's key ingredient - the
idiosyncratic voice. That voice begins gently enough on the first track,
"Narcolepsy," with a lovely waltz-like melody on piano. Within the first
few bars it explodes into a sonic assault complete with gong and
strings, aggressively anchored by Robert Sledge's fuzz bass and Darren
Jessee doing a Keith Moon on the drums. And then back again, and so on
throughout the five-minute song. All in all, it's a pretty daring way to
begin an album. The range of playing in that one song establishes an
orchestral approach that characterizes the work as a whole. This is no
predigested radio pap, that's for sure!
Folds seems no longer compelled to limit himself to the acoustic piano.
On MESSNER he also plays synthesizers and electric keyboards and uses
samples and overdubs, possibly a result of his recent experimental
diversion, FEAR OF POP. The band's previous recordings established them
as smart-assed commentators on the "whatever" generation. REINHOLD
MESSNER will disappoint those expecting the sort of geeky quips that
characterize earlier songs like "Underground" and "Battle of Who Could
Care Less." The first single, "Army," and "Redneck Past" are the only
tracks that come close. "Well I thought about the Army/ Dad said, 'Son,
you're fucking high.'" For the most part, MESSNER's tone is pretty
serious. Jessee's "Magic" is a tender elegy on the death of a loved one.
(He penned "Give me my money back, you bitch" on the last outing.) In
"Mess" Ben sings, "And I don't believe in God/ So I can't be saved/ All
alone as I've learned to be/ In this mess I have made." The song itself
is hauntingly beautiful. Ben's upright piano sounds like a harpsichord
and when voices and strings swell together during the bridge, I'm
reminded of an Ennio Morricone spaghetti-western soundtrack. Other
musical references abound, as is to be expected with this band. The
horns in "Don't Change Your Plans" (another absolutely beautiful song)
are straight out of Bacharach, who seems to be a pretty consistent
influence at this point. "Regrets," a jazzy number that just seems to
amble along rather aimlessly, culminates with an over-the-top take on
the finale from Pink Floyd's "Shine On You Crazy Diamond." (Hey, if
you're going to finish with a climax...) These guys know popular music
inside and out and, as musicians, they possess the technique to really
work with it. Even more to the point, they've learned as a band how to
quote the past in order to serve the present.
Though the album forms a fairly cohesive whole, there are a couple of
weak points. "Hospital Song" is more segue than song. And "Jane," the
next-to-last track, while a nice enough song on its own, is a bit out of
place in its rather conventional structure and its abrupt shift from the
first person narrative that we've come to expect at that point. I
personally love "Your Most Valuable Possession," though I'm not so sure
everyone will. In an answering machine message, Ben's dad
philosophically ponders the relationship between mind and matter in
outer space. He begins, "Good morning Mr. Ben. It's about 6:30,
Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Just laying here in the bed, half awake,
half asleep, thinking about you. I was - uh - wondering if you were
looking after your most valuable possession - your mind." Pretty cool.
The final track, "Lullabye," is a gospel number in which the narrator, a
small child, leaves family members behind "in a shack" and boards a
plane with Uncle Richard and James Earl Jones. "And the tall dark man
sang to me in deep rich tones/ Good night, good night, sweet baby/
...Let the moonlight take the lid off your dreams." Southern Lit.
I'm sure the piano-pop trinity of Jackson, Joel & John will continue to
be invoked when it comes to Ben Folds. However, perhaps a more
interesting comparison, in spirit if not in actual sound, might be Randy
Newman (who had his own song about rednecks), or Van Dyke Parks (himself
no stranger to the idiosyncratic orchestral voice). Parks has recently
resurfaced as mentor and arranger for Rufus Wainwright, the new
generation piano-guy. Connections and pedigree. Just the sort of thing
we really like 'round here.
Mikell Brown
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 11:42:38 -0400
From: "Jenny Harrison" <jh593@columbia.edu>
Subject: Iriving Plaza 27 April 1999
hey guys!
the show last night was fucking amazing. i was in the front row right below
robert and had an awesome time. here is the setlist as per the one handed
me by the roadie after the show:
plans
battle
philosophy
mess
steven
magic
hospital
army
underground
missing
fair
redneck
lullaby
dumped
(narcolepsy)
that was pretty much what they played. except there was a slightly different
order, and they also played jane, alice childress, and one angry dwarf.
it was an awesome show. ben, robert, and darren were in top form. (anyone
else surprised to see robert putting his bass down and playing the synths on
the new songs?)
another thing, weren't there supposed to be horns from squirrel nut zippers
there? not that they were needed. no disco diva in underground, but robert
did slither onto the piano and ask ben "to play something sweet" no big
rock ending either but ben did finish with something that resembled a cross
btw an epileptic seizure and a slapstick comedy routine. and darren beat the
shit out of his gong (and the timpani were awesome on magic). anyway, have
to get to class.
jenny
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 09:57:05 -0500 (CDT)
From: Joe Kreidel <z_kreidelrj@TITAN.SFASU.EDU>
Subject: US Summer Tour
>
> Is it just me, or should the summer US tour dates be up by now?
> What's up with this? Do the dates exist?
I too am anxiously awaiting the rest of the US tour, but if I'm not
mistaken the dates missing from the tour during June and July coincides
with the birth of the Folds twins, so I had assumed that maybe they were
taking the months off so Ben could be a dad. As badly as I want to see
them, you gotta respect him for that. So if I'm right, they won't be
getting to the rest of the country til Septmember/October...terrible.
And for the non-University shows, are the venues they are playing
comparable in size to the ones they were playing last year, maybe during
the Brick leg of the tour, or did they take a step up in size?
JoeyK
"In the name of the Lloyd!"
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 14:43:43 -0500
From: "Matty Jacobs" <mbjacobs@students.wisc.edu>
Subject: Vote for your fav off TUBORM
I set up a site at Tuborm to vote for your favorite TUBORM song.
Here it is...
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
matty j.
mbjacobs@students.wisc.edu
AIM- Lifeisski
ICQ# 25174853
If you want to be happy, be.
Leo Tolstoy
Who's your daddy, I'm your daddy now.
Guster
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 14:45:36 -0500
From: "Matty Jacobs" <mbjacobs@students.wisc.edu>
Subject: Vote for your fav off TUBORM
Sorry, it left me before I wanted it to.
Here is the site to vote for your favorite song...
http://www.freevote.com/booth/tuborm
happy voting!
Matty J
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
matty j.
mbjacobs@students.wisc.edu
AIM- Lifeisski
ICQ# 25174853
If you want to be happy, be.
Leo Tolstoy
Who's your daddy, I'm your daddy now.
Guster
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 16:39:47 -0400
From: Peter Romanov <romanopa@wfu.edu>
Subject: Re: Magical Armchair Digest V1 #1490
I am new to this Magical Armchair outfit so I just wanted to comment on something
I saw a few months back. I was at a friend of a friend's house and Ben Folds
Five video "BRICK" came on VH1. His friend mentioned that he went to high school
with him here in Winston-Salem, NC. So of course I challenged him to prove it and
I'll be darned if he didn't pull out his Reynolds High School yearbook and
pointed out ol' Ben himself. It was a hoot. Poor fellow had a zit on his nose and
everything. Just thought I'd mention that.
"For those of ya'll who wear fanny packs..........."
PEter ROmanov
Romanopa@wfu.edu
------------------------------
End of Magical Armchair Digest V1 #1492
***************************************
THE MAGICAL ARMCHAIR - The Ben Folds Five Mailing List
Submit articles to: armchair@maillist.il.fontys.nl
Send administrative requests to: armchair-request@maillist.il.fontys.nl
WWW homepage: http://oeonline.com/bff
List archive: http://oeonline.com/bff/list/