New England Music Scrapbook Newsletter
Alan Lewis, Editor

Our Corner of the Rock 'n' Roll Life

December 7, 2008
Issue 2008:304
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We've got Thrills, chills, Dirty Water
: : : What more do you need?
When the big beat hits ya
Comin' from your transistor
: : : Like the T at full speed
When the big beat hits ya...

"Boston Lullaby," Dudick/Naihersey.
: : : Copyright c. 1980 by Camaraderie Music, BMI.
: : : All rights reserved. Used with permission.

:

:

BRATTLEBORO, VT, December 7 - Just as I got started working on this
newsletter issue, I got bumped offline; and this little operation has
been offline and down for the count ever since. In fact, it is now
just past 4:30 a.m. Sunday, and I am very surprised and pleased to be
connected to the 'Net even now. Getting disconnected again later this
morning seems quite possible and even likely.

I connect to the Internet without an Internet Service Provider. But
there is still a series or system of servers between me and the
Internet, and evidently one or more of those servers went down for
maintenance last week. If there was any way of proving this with
certainty, I would bet just about anything that the maintenance did
not go at all well.

Normally maintenance happens Thursday evenings, taking an hour or two,
or Sunday mornings, taking something more like three hours but
happening lots less often.

This Web outage took me by surprise, both as to its timing and its
duration.

Only about 45 minutes are available until I have to leave here, so
there is no way I can pull together a newsletter. What I have done,
though, is taken the time to look through the inbox for the e-mail
account attached to this Yahoo Groups, uh, group; and when my Internet
connection was severed, ironically, I had just barely worked my way
from beginning to end of the new subject line headings in our news
account's inbox. What I observed from these two things is that this
past week, once again, was phenomenally busy.

In our nearing-six-years of existence, this newsletter has never
received the volume of news e-mails that has come our way the past
month or so. This is easily our busiest time ever.

Normally our greatest SLOWDOWN of the year gets started right after
Thanksgiving. So for the activity level to pick up like never before
is particularly puzzling, given that it happened in this usually
sluggish time of year.

Clearly a lot of people in the world of popular music are trying to
make something happen.

A panel of economic experts, if there can be such a thing, has
declared that not only is the United States economy in recession, this
recession started way back in December 2007. To the best of my
knowledge, these experts have not explained why it is they did not
notice this development at the time. I don't say this to fault them,
but an exploration of why we are getting the news so many months after
the fact could be instructive.

Much of the numerical data in business news is only "news" in the
sense that it is just now being reported. But it may come from last
month, last quarter, last year, or sometimes even further back; and
the forces and events behind those numbers are often much older still.
This information is only new in the sense that it is new to us. Yet
in television, radio, and any form of headline news, it is easy to get
a sense that what is being presented now reflects what is going on
RIGHT NOW.

It most certainly does not.

We will probably get official word that the economy is in a recovery a
year after the recovery actually gets under way.

On a related matter, it is my observation that radio news networks are
heavily biased, not to either the left or the right but to the dismal.
We get CBS and CNN radio news in this town; and to me, CBS is the
better of the two. Both these news networks seem to go far out of
their way to find every dark cloud anywhere, while making fast work or
even making light of circumstances and events that are hopeful.
.


RECORD RELEASES
Listed by Newbury Comics

We have time for this feature - and only this feature - in the no
minutes remaining, because this week's list of record releases is so
short we are simply including the whole thing. No time has been taken
up by excerpting what we think may be highlights for many of our
readers. Just put the entire list right out there, why don't we.

Any week with record releases by Howlin' Wolf, Britney Spears, and
Neil Young is bound to be a success. I have enjoyed the week already
and haven't yet actually heard any of these discs. Just seeing these
three artists' names together made my day.

Short as this week's list may be, it seems likely most of our readers
will find at least one gem.

If you know why the HALO soundtrack is included for the second
consecutive time, you're one up on me.

CD New Releases Available Tuesday, December 2nd

AKON-Freedom-$9.99
FAKE BOYS-Pop Punk Is Dead-$9.99
HOWLIN' WOLF-Rocking The Blues: 1964-$13.99
<> Well, Howlin' Wolf certainly did rock the blues, so this album
starts right off with an apt title. There is nothing quite like truth
in advertising.
NORTH MISSISSIPPI ALL-STARS-Live At The Fox-$13.99
PANIC AT THE DISCO-Live In Chicago-$9.99
<> Panic at the Disco is yet another outfit that has benefited
tremendously from having tracks placed with the Rock Band game.
SCARFACE-Emeritus-$16.99
SOUNDTRACK-CADILLAC RECORDS-$9.99
SOUNDTRACK-CADILLAC RECORDS (Deluxe Edition)-$17.99
SOUNDTRACK-HALO TRILOGY (5 CD)-$29.99
SOUNDTRACK-WICKED-Ministry/Al Jourgensen-$11.88
<> As far as we know, this "Wicked Lake" soundtrack is not a Ministry
product. Possibly the band's name was invoked to orient people who
have some degree of interest in the soundtrack but who may not be
especially familiar with Al Jourgensen. It may have been better,
though, to leave out the Ministry name.
SPEARS,BRITNEY-Circus-$12.88
SPEARS,BRITNEY-Circus (Deluxe Edition CD/DVD)-$17.99
YOUNG,NEIL-Sugar Mountain: Live At Canterbury House 1968-$16.99

SOURCE: Newbury Comics, "December 1 Newbury Comics: Holiday Music and
DVD Coupons, New Releases, and More!" December 1, 2008.

We received a heart-felt plug for a new Jason Mraz release. The
person praising the record (Lewis kin) did not give its title, but
chances seem about one hundred percent what he had in mind was

MRAZ, JASON-We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things. (CD/DVD)-$19.99

as listed by Newbury Comics among the new releases in November 2008.
Here is what he said:

<> " ... I picked up the new Jason Mraz disc through Amazon MP3
because they cut the price to five dollars for the download. I can't
overstate how polished this guy has become in a couple of years. His
songwriting has matured while still retaining that quirky sort of
outlook from songs like 'Curbside Prophet' and 'The Remedy (I Won't
Worry).' The arrangements are tight, if sometimes a bit much. The
production is admirable (while not the best I've heard, it does what
good production does - enhance the listening experience). It's softer
than both of his prior studio records ('Waiting for My Rocket To Come'
and 'Mr. A to the Z'), but it also shows off his voice better than in
the prior records as well."

SOURCE: Stephen Lewis, E-Mail Message, December 1, 2008.

The Amazon.com website, we are told, is listing the Bruce Springsteen
single, "My Lucky Day," as an exclusive Amazon.com download.

= = =
= = =

One thing Howlin' Wolf, Britney Spears, and Neil Young have in common
is that they all play or played guitar and harmonica at the same time.

Well, two out of three ain't bad...

If any of you know the origins of commercial availability of the
harmonica holders that were popularized by Woody Guthrie, Jack
Elliott, and Bob Dylan, please drop us a note at

: : : FredRemainsLost At Yahoo Dot Com

of course, converting this into a conventional, all-lowercase e-mail
address. About when did these harmonica holders first start showing
up in music stores? How much did they resemble present-day harmonica
holders?

We know that before these things were manufactured and mass marketed,
harmonica holders were fashioned from heavy wire. But who typically
did this? Musicians themselves? Instrument makers and repair people?
Musicians' friends who are clever at these sorts of things?

We really don't know, but we received a query and would like to help.

As fate would have it, the Alleghanians, the nineteenth-century music
group I have been researching in recent years, for a time included a
member, L. Percy Williams, who played guitar and harmonica
simultaneously in the 1870s and who also played harmonica with
symphonic ensembles, back at a time when the instrument was considered
to be mostly a toy. A May 1873 advertisement in the New York Clipper,
which I found on Saturday, billed Percy Williams as the "Acknowledged
King of the Concert Harmonica."

This was half a century before harmonica pioneer Larry Adler. Even
three quarters of a century after Percy Williams, most of us probably
would have thought a blues harp was something played by Groucho's brother.

Heh heh.

So anyway, L. Percy Williams is a long-forgotten and neglected figure
of harmonica history.

Meanwhile, if you know anything about commercial availability of
harmonica holders, that you are willing to share, please drop us an
e-mail at the address I have posted above.
.


Sorry there is practically nothing to this newsletter issue. But I do
all my work for it online, and when you are cut off from the 'Net,
these days you're really cut off.

Next week is bound to be better.


:

:

NEMSnews

New England Music Scrapbook
Brattleboro, Vermont

E-MAIL us via:
http://www.geocities.com/nemsbook/fred.htm

Please do NOT click the Reply button. Clicking Reply sends your
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It's Yahoo Groups' system, not ours.

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<> If you have friends who would be interested in any of the items in
this issue, please forward this newsletter to them. Thanks! We
believe this is one of the main ways we pick up readers.
.


<> As a rule, we do not post SHOW LISTINGS. The reason is quite
simple. Though our name is the NEW ENGLAND Music Scrapbook, probably
an easy majority of our readers are based outside the six New England
states. The great majority of show listings would be of no interest
at all to the great majority of our readers.

We make exceptions when show listings are part of an item of more
general interest. CD-release events are great examples. For us, the
main point of an item of this sort is that an act has a new record.
The show being announced is of secondary interest to us - if that - as
far as the contents of our newsletter goes.

In the very few, truly exceptional instances where we post show
listings...
.

... Shows can be canceled, sold out, or even moved to another date or
location. We recommend checking the Web, calling ahead or otherwise
confirming details.
.


To SUBSCRIBE to this newsletter:
http://www.geocities.com/nemsnewz/subscribe.htm

E-MAIL us via:
http://www.geocities.com/nemsbook/fred.htm
(Please do NOT click the Reply button.)

NEWSLETTER's Yahoo Groups Home Page:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/uridfm/

General CONTACT Information:
http://www.geocities.com/uridfm/contact.htm

:

:

Issue 2008:304

Published no less often than monthly.
We're guessing eventually we'll settle
into an every-other-week schedule.

Copyright © 2008 by the New England Music Scrapbook. All rights reserved.

: : :