From: owner-mobility-digest@lists.xmission.com (mobility-digest) To: mobility-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: mobility-digest V1 #329 Reply-To: mobility Sender: owner-mobility-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-mobility-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk X-No-Archive: yes mobility-digest Friday, February 5 1999 Volume 01 : Number 329 (mobility) Re:moby (mobility) Moby's Procelain! (mobility) Need "Thanks" information (mobility) Moby Lyrics? Re: (mobility) Need "Thanks" information (mobility) Question ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 15:57:29 -0800 (PST) From: BRIAN HOVEY Subject: (mobility) Re:moby - ---BRIAN HOVEY wrote: > > Moby > Well its come up so many times that people Love Moby but dont know the back round behind the man. > Well here it is ALL of it. > > enjoy > > > > Occupation: Contemporary dance music, DJ > > Personal Information Born Richard Melville Hall, September 11, 1965, in Darien, CT. > > Education > Attended University of Connecticut (one source says State University of New York at Purchase), c. 1980s. > > Career > Musician and performer, c. late 1970s--. Played in bands the Vatican Commandos and AWOL, among others, 1983-84; worked as DJ at Club Mars, > New York City, c. 1980s; remixed recordings by Michael Jackson, Brian Eno,Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode, the B-52's, and others, c. 1980s--; recorded > singles for Instinct label under a variety of names, including Voodoo Child,Barracuda, and Mindwave, 1990-92; appeared on album Bloodline by Recoil, > 1992; signed with Elektra Records and released Move EP, 1993; started Trophy Records label, c. 1990s. > > Addresses > Home--New York, NY. Record company--Elektra Records, 75 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10019; or 345 North Maple Dr., Suite 123, Beverly Hills, > CA 90210. Websites--The Ultimate Moby Page: > http://mindvox.phantom.com/hymn/moby.html. > > "The best way to communicate should be banging on a drum and screaming," said techno's best-known performer, Moby, in Rolling Stone, "but the best way > I've found to reach people is through plastic equipment. I like that irony." The soft-spoken but passionate and driven artist has won universal accolades from critics for investing the frequently anonymous electronic dance music genre with soul and spirit. "By tucking tangible emotion into the music's mechanized grandeur," observed Rolling Stone writer Lorraine Ali, "he makes techno personable, approachable and alive." An unorthodox Christian vegetarian, Moby > has also seized every opportunity to trumpet his views on the environment and other issues; the title of his widely praised album Everything Is Wrong pretty > much encapsulates his view of the modern era. > > He was born Richard Melville Hall to a professional couple in Connecticut; a great-great grandnephew of famed nineteenth-century writer Herman Melville, he > was given the nickname Moby after the novelist's most celebrated work, Moby Dick. His father died when Moby was only two--his parents were planning to > divorce--and he was shuttled between the apartment of his struggling-musician mother and his upper-crust grandparents. "I was torn between the two," he said > "and I knew they were both weird. I wasn't brought up with this paradigm of how to live. So now I'm like, 'Anything goes.'" His mother worked as a secretary by day and at night played keyboards in a band. > > Moby began making music at a young age; by his tenth year he'd discovered pot and hard rock. A few years later came the anti-authoritarian anthems of > punk, by which point Moby disdained drugs and booze and advocated a sober lifestyle as "a rejection of decadent high-school values." The confusion and pain > of his growing up fueled his development as an artist. "A lot of what drives me to create is a feeling of inadequacy," he told Spin. "Growing up a latch-key child, I spent a lot of time by myself. I wasn't good-looking. I wasn't good at sports." > > During his brief college career Moby dove into the twin pools of philosophy and alcohol; he also played in a band influenced by post-punk British rock. He > recorded indie singles with punkers the Vatican Commandos and the Pork Guys, as well as noise bands Shopwell and Peanuts. Ultimately, however, he > dropped out and underwent a new series of transformations. Paramount among them was his becoming a Christian. Though he has never identified himself with a particular church or sect and has been harshly critical of religious > conservatives, Moby has often detailed the tenets of his faith in interviews. "I'm > not a cultural Christian," he insisted in Rolling Stone, "but I love Christ. I try to > live up to his teachings but fail all the time. It's this yardstick that I hold up to my life that I can never, never live up to. It's more interesting than frustrating." His religious awakening accompanied a decision to give up not only drugs and > booze but also meat and other animal products, and his advocacy of vegetarianism seems at times even more vehement than his Christian proselytizing. > > Moby's newfound clean lifestyle coincided with his discovery of dance culture,which was in the early-to-mid-1980s still an underground phenomenon. "When I first got into it--when it was primarily a bastion of gay, black culture--it was so > foreign and viscerally satisfying," he recalled in the Rolling Stone interview. Moby was about 19 when he began working as a club DJ in Port Chester, > New York. He moved on to New York City--ground zero of the U.S. dance music scene--and began working the turntables at the popular club Mars. Even so, as > he related in Spin, he hardly felt at home: "I spun records for rap stars Run-D.M.C., Big Daddy Kane, pop legend and actress Cher; everybody went through there, but I never felt like I fit in. I didn't know how to dress. I didn't even know where to buy my records." He hid behind a variety of DJ nicknames,among them Barracuda, Mindstorm, and Voodoo Child. > > By 1990 Moby was making records for the Instinct label; his eclectic, original approach soon acquired a buzz. After a while pop luminaries like Michael Jackson and producer Brian Eno approached him to remix some of their material. But it wasn't until Move, his 1993 debut for Elektra Records, that his reputation spread outside the hippest music circles. Soon he was winning fans who otherwise disliked techno, ambient, and other new dance music forms,even though many on the dance scene regarded him as their brightest hope. > > Moby's appeal derived in part from his refusal to honor musical boundaries."Juxtaposition and hybridization is where newness comes from," he insisted in > Spin. "It's where jazz came from, it's how rock 'n' roll was invented, it's where all great culture comes from. Putting things together that haven't been together before. That's invention, that's progress." In Rolling Stone, Moby derided "this pernicious tribal mentality we all have" that separates fans of different kinds of music. "We desperately seek out a tribe with > which we can align and identify ourselves at the expense of all the other tribes.Defining yourself as a white supremacist and saying 'I hate techno' are--in very broad terms--the same thing to me. It's exclusionary, and it's wrong." > > Indeed, Moby began to feel that as far as modern life was concerned, everything was wrong. The phrase resonated so much for him as he studied the folly and > waste of human societies-- particularly the U.S.--that he decided to use it as the title of his next album. Released in 1995, Everything Is Wrong garnered > rapturous reviews. "Moby has the right idea about dance music--it's whatever moves you wherever you feel it," enthused Rolling Stone, which declared that > the album "throbs with all the kick and courage of his contradictions." Ali,reviewing the disc for the Los Angeles Times, deemed it "one of the most > gripping collections of the year." > > The album embraces a striking range of styles, from frantic jungle grooves to speedmetal to evocative, neoclassical keyboard excursions. "I think it'd be very > confusing to be a Moby fan," he mused in Rolling Stone, "though from an emotional perspective it makes sense." Moby acknowledged that his success would cause defenders of dance music's underground status to regard him as a sellout. At the same time, he expressed dissatisfaction with the "emotionless, > featureless, personalityless" quality he detected in much techno. His own > concerts saw him rocking out on guitar to classic rock covers, kicking over equipment, and leaping into the audience. > > Musician magazine gave readers a glimpse of Moby's home studio, itself a jungle of keyboards, mixers, samplers, recording equipment, and other gear. "I like working by myself," the artist reflected in the magazine spread. "Engineers make me too self-conscious." Apart from some vocalists who trill fervently on several of the album's tracks, he is wholly responsible for the recording. In his Elektra bio he remarked on the degree of expertise this requires. "People tend to be dismissive of dance acts; oh, he's some dumb DJ, anyone can do that," > he pointed out. "But an electronic musician has to know the system of 40, 50 pieces of equipment where the operating book for each is the size of a phone > book. In some ways, it's much more difficult than other kinds of music." Such breadth of knowledge, however, has not disrupted Moby's humility and sense of social responsibility. The booklet accompanying Everything Is Wrong is filled with alarming statistics about environmental degradation, quotes from esteemed > thinkers about the benefits of vegetarianism, and two short essays penned by Moby. The first explains the ecological despair that motivated the title, while the > second lashes out at right-wing Christians, whom he labels "intolerant, greedy bigots." > > But Moby's views appear to be more than mere soapbox sentiments; in interviews he expresses concern for all living creatures, from mosquitoes and roaches (which he refuses to kill) to music journalists. And though he has insisted on the viability of Christ's teachings, he has also chosen to live with the contradictions of being a mere mortal. In a chat hosted by the SonicNet online service, he was asked by one of his many devoted fans to encapsulate the meaning of life. "The meaning of life," he replied, "is to be loving and > open-minded and full of spunk." > > Selected Discography > "Mobility," Instinct, 1990. > "Voodoo Child," Instinct, 1991. > "Go," Instinct, 1991. > Instinct Dance: A Collection of Dance Music from Instinct Records, Instinct, > 1991. > Recoil, Bloodline, Sire, 1992. > Ambient (reissue), 1993. > Move, Elektra, 1993. > Everything Is Wrong, Elektra, 1995. > Also recorded with groups the Vatican Commandos, AWOL, Shopwell, > Peanuts, and the Pork Guys; did remixes for Michael Jackson, the B-52's, Brian Eno, Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode, and others. > > Sources > Los Angeles Times, January 18, 1993; June 21, 1995, p. CAL-5; July 1, 1995, > p. CAL-10. > Musician, August 1995. > Newsday, May 25, 1995, p. B-9. > Rolling Stone, November 17, 1994, p. 102; March 23, 1995; May 4, 1995, p. 58; > December 28, 1995. > Spin, June 1995, p. 54. > > Sources > Additional information for this profile was provided by Elektra Records publicity > materials dated 1995, the liner notes to Everything Is Wrong, and a SonicNet > online chat. > > Peace > Bri > > > == "How can I save you, I cant even save myself, ....so just save yourself!!!" _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 19:42:35 -0600 From: "Ruben A. Blanco" Subject: (mobility) Moby's Procelain! Thanks to Steve Giles and Shaun Rader for finding Moby's Porcelain on the Internet! :) From the Mobility-Digest V1 #317 Available on the internet in Real Audio there's a Listening Party for the Soundtrack Playing By Heart. http://www.radio.audionet.com/jukebox/listeningparty/playingbyheart/ http://www.radio.audionet.com/jukebox/listeningparty/playingbyhear t/playingbyheart.ram Porcelain is in there: At about 15 minutes 25 seconds into the real audio file is Porcelain! Give it a listen if you had not had a chance to hear Moby's new song like me. Sorry for the cheap review (maybe more of us can do a better job). Porcelain starts off with a signature Moby beginning: use of a synthesizer set on an organ sound (kind of like Hymn and Dead Sun) giving the song an inspirational, celestial, lovely feeling. Funky beats come into play next and then Moby's mixing and sequencing of musical bits, a driving bass line, then rounding off with a looping samples of some type of lyrics ("yeah! ..."), with more classical organ synthesizer and piano bridges that will be looped later in the song. The lyrics of the song are produced with some type of voice modulator for the majority of the song. I couldn't understand - comprehend any of the lyrics, but something like "In my dreams I am dying all the time... I never meant to hurt you ... so this is good bye ... this is goodbye " is mentioned in the song. At 2:02 into the song the synthesizers stop momentarily, but the voice modulated lyrics continue with the funky driving beat, bass line, and sampling in the background. Then at 2:22 a lovely change up in the song occurs, the synthesizer organs come back with a lovely and moving musical passage. I don't know if it was what I had just ingested, or maybe Valentines Day approaching, but this passage reminded me of "Love at First Sight." That feeling when you see somebody from a far that catches your attention and you are immediately attracted, that passage in the song stirs up inside of you leaving an impressionable feeling on you. Next lyrics: " In my dreams I'm jealous all the time... I'm going out of my mind, going out of my mind." The song ends with the arranged looping "Yeah!", piano, and synthesizer arrangement. It is a good song, but I was kind of set aside with the voice modulator expressing the main lyrics of the song. I guess I am frantically awaiting Moby's new full album that this song is kind of teasing me. Compared Honey (3:18 long - I only have the Permanent Midnight Soundtrack version) Porcelain (3:52 long - Playing by Heart Soundtrack version) is a more playful and softer song I guess. Porcelain is kind of a love song (lost love, or love-less song). I found Porcelain to move me more emotional than Honey. But both are great songs. What does everybody else think? WHAT ARE THE LYRICS FOR PORCELAIN? What is the song trying to express? Well I bought the Playing by Heart Soundtrack to get Moby's song after liking what I heard from the Real Audio clip from the internet. The soundtrack is ok, nice songs. I haven't listened to it completely but here are it's notable songs: 1.) Drinking in LA - Bran Van 3000 (POP Hip Hop-ish song, good slow beat and rhythm) 4.) Cigarettes will kill you - Ben Lee (POP Rock song. Nice piano, drum sequencing) 5.) Porcelain - MOBY (Best Song) 9.) Dirty Little Mouth - Fluke (Woah! "Where did this song come from?" Most different song on entire Soundtrack. It's a driving Electronica song - a definate clubbing song.) 10.) Friction - Morcheeba , 11.) Been around the World - Cracker , 12.) Angelene - PJ Harvey. Track 8 Tijuana Lady - Gomez song sounds like a slow, soft, acoustical guitar Frank Black song (Weird, kinda neat, different, slow song). Besides Porcelain the soundtrack has slow catchy POP Rock songs, slow Blues/Jazz -like songs, acoustical guitar songs, 1 driving electronica song, etc. There is the dish on whether to buy it or not - - for Porcelain. That's it for now. Have a nice weekend everybody. Ruben A. Blanco rblanco@utep.edu ************************************************ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 19:50:17 -0600 From: "Ruben A. Blanco" Subject: (mobility) Need "Thanks" information Can somebody tell us new folks on this list background information on the Thanks series? What I have read Thanks1 was a collaboration of different people that mixed Moby's songs. Can somebody write more information on this? What songs were on the CD (?), which mixes were the best and why? When is Thanks2 going to be ready. I know one guy is frantically trying to finish a webpage for it, but what will this webpage URL be? How can we get a copy of Thanks1 and Thanks2? We are awaiting patiently. "Thanks" Everybody. Ruben A. Blanco rblanco@utep.edu ************************************************ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 19:52:53 -0600 From: "Ruben A. Blanco" Subject: (mobility) Moby Lyrics? Can somebody post the Lyrics for Porcelain. It isn't posted yet at www.moby.org yet, I couldn't find it. OK, Ruben A. Blanco rblanco@utep.edu ************************************************ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 05 Feb 1999 23:10:51 -0600 (CST) From: DAVIESA@uwplatt.edu Subject: Re: (mobility) Need "Thanks" information Here is the asked for information about "Thanks 1". Thanks 1 was compiled and produced by Andrew Davies, album artwork done by xaq. The "catalog" info is as follows: THANKS [Mobility List Members, Nov 1997]US CD-R NOTE: This is a tribute album of remixes and covers of Moby songs. Approximately 56 copies were made between November 1997 and February 1998. Produced by Andrew J. Davies, art by Xaq. 1 5:15 Unloved Symphony [Ryu] 2 6:34 Move (Drums on the Move) [Ethan] 3 6:14 Emptiness [DJ Chrysalis] 4 5:40 Everytime You Touch Me (Gingerbread Mix) [Gingerbread Man] 5 5:01 Choose Your Jesus (TC Mix) [Darryl Cottier] 6 4:02 Go (Adrenalyne Mix) [Epsilon] 7 3:54 James Bond Theme (Agent-G Mix) [Gingerbread Man] 8 10:14 God Moving Over the Face of the Waters (Reborn) [Telex] 9 8:08 hymn.not.quiet.version [Xero Products] my 3 favorite tracks are 1, 2, 4, but the whole CD is excellent! Artists were from Pennsylvania, Illinois, France, Wisconsin, Arizona, Florida, and Minnesota. I think that once "Thanks 2" is ready, "Thanks 1" is going to be re-released. Hopefully the second CD will be even better than the first! If anyone has any other questions regarding "Thanks 1", mail me personally. andy gingerbread man daviesa@uwplatt.edu n64racer@ignmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 01:44:30 EST From: Filthy27@aol.com Subject: (mobility) Question Hello people....last time I wrote to this thing was quite a few months ago, but i haven't had a reason to since...anyways, I have a question for those who use/know groove machines....I am thinking about expanding my studio by adding on a groove machine....I have narrowed down my choices to two machines....one being the Quasimidi Rave-O-Lution 309 and the Roland MC-505....both are somewhat around the same price, so it don't matter....I really love the 309, but I don't know if it doubles up as a sound module like the 505 does....for those who know what I am talking about, which one do you perfer? I am looking more towards he 505 because I like the independent faders/mute/solo option with the channels, but I love the analog feel of the 309....if you gots any suggestions, please feel free to write back....thank you Fil ------------------------------ End of mobility-digest V1 #329 ****************************** ------------- To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to majordomo@xmission.com with the line "unsubscribe mobility-digest" in the body.