Errors-To: admin at elephant-talk dot com Reply-To: newsletter at elephant-talk dot com Sender: newsletter at elephant-talk dot com Precedence: bulk From: newsletter at elephant-talk dot com To: newsletter at elephant-talk dot com Subject: Elephant Talk Digest #513 E L E P H A N T T A L K The Internet newsletter for Robert Fripp and King Crimson enthusiasts Number 513 Thursday, 25 June 1998 Today's Topics: NEWS: The DGM Collectors' Club (special issue of ET #2) Re: DGM Club Special Issue Robert Wyatt on DGM? DGM club DGM club volunteers? DGM CLUB DGM club, a commercial detail DGM Club (!!) DGM Club DGM Club A Fi$tful of Fripp DGM Club ... DGM Club Re: DGM Collector's Club The Club dgm club DGM Collector's Club: DANGER WILL ROBINSON! ColleKCtor's Club DGM: Yes! RE: DGM Collectors Club DGM Collectors' Club DGM collectors club DGM collectors Club choice ------------------ A D M I N I S T R I V I A --------------------- POSTS: Please send all posts to newsletter at elephant-talk dot com To UNSUBSCRIBE, or to CHANGE ADDRESS: Send a message with a body of HELP to admin at elephant-talk dot com, or use the DIY list machine at http://www.elephant-talk.com/list/ to ASK FOR HELP about your ET subscription: Send a message to: help at elephant-talk dot com ETWeb: http://www.elephant-talk.com/ You can read the most recent seven editions of ET at http://www.elephant-talk.com/cgi-bin/newslet.pl IRC: Regular get-togethers at #ElephantTalk on Undernet Sundays at Noon PST / 3pm EST / 8pm GMT Mondays at 6pm PST / 9pm EST / 2am GMT THE ET TEAM: Toby Howard (Moderator), Dan Kirkdorffer (Webmeister) Mike Dickson (List Admin), and a cast of thousands. The views expressed herein are those of the individual authors. ET is produced using John Relph's Digest system v3.5b (relph at sgi dot com). ------------------ A I V I R T S I N I M D A --------------------- Date: Thursday 16 June 2007 BST From: Toby Howard (ET Moderator) Subject: NEWS: The DGM Collectors' Club (special issue of ET #2) Hi everyone. As promised, here's another special ET, with posts all about the DGM Collectors' Club idea (no other topics in this ET). A reminder that there is now a special survey on this topic at ET Web. Please check in there with your thoughts. Back to "normal" business in the next ET. Cheers Toby ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 17:05:41 -0500 (CDT) From: flaherty michael w Subject: Re: DGM Club Special Issue Well, the misreadings and rumours have started pouring in: every single concert will be available! CDs will be half price! CDs will be $175 each! Robert wants to know which concerts we want! etc., All of this is either untrue or unknown. (Want to bet a couple people read the above lists as "facts" about the club?) If you're reading this Robert, all I can say is "I told you so". But then, maybe this is what Mr Fripp wanted? There is certainly no lack of enthusiasm, which is good (I want this club to work just as much as anyone else does), but there are plenty unrealistic expectations, which is not so good. If you would like some cool-headed facts and thoughts about the club (and I do realise that this is the last thing many of you want: the fantasy versions are certainly more fun), read my two recent posts (the first of which is a report of the original announcement, the second of which unsuccessfully attempted to head-off over-the-top expectations) on the subject. In the meantime, I'm waiting for Robert .... Michael Flaherty ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 19:32:02 -0700 From: fripples Subject: Robert Wyatt on DGM? I'm reading the latest issue regarding the DGM Club, and see it seems pretty much all-all approving. I have no worries about the cost of the discs; Robert Fripp never struck me as a thief, only someone who insists on what he knows is right. I am sure the idea is for the club to be successful and grow. Now, on another subject, I was listening to Rock Bottom earlier, and thought about Robert Wyatt; what about him on something in the future with some DGM artist or another. His voice would just FIT with some of the things I listen to by Fripp - even some Soundscapes-like material. Just a thought, friends. Mike ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 22:43:21 -0400 From: David Steimling Subject: DGM club Hey all, (Dave bows to Toby) I especially dig the line in a recent post from spike at starrstuff dot com noting the "ColleKCtors Club" title. That sounds pretty cool to me. The diera of the club sounds pretty awesome as well. You can definitely count me into that. My collection isnt as big as Id like, and where better to start the expansion?!??!? I also liked the idea of the DGM new release club. I collect stamps that way. They send you the latest release of your choice of stamp types (I personally get any Beatles/Lennon stamps released anywhere world wide, some are better than others). I have yet to hear anything from DGM that I havent absolutely LOVED something on the album. I only have about 15-20 total DGM releases to this point, but its definitely better than signing up semi-blind to, say BMG (just the thought that someone may get them confused makes me cringe just a little). Keep me posted as to the wheres, whens & hows. Again, Im in. Dave ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 15:55:38 +1000 From: Jamie Lack Subject: DGM club volunteers? I am pondering if there could be any room for volunteer contributors in this DGM club? There may be some tasks that can be handled by some club members, to keep costs down etc. If I lived in a convenient location I would definitely offer help for free. Comments anyone? This sig is presented to you by a container of varnish Jamie Lack jlack at auran dot com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 23:17:17 -0700 From: "DOUG EHR" Subject: DGM CLUB My first post after a few months of lurkabout. I think the club is a good idea if the cost can be kept low or have a two price system.($100 & $175 US?). And if the liner notes, photos & such for all discs in a series were All printed in One catalog or downloadable, packages for the disc could be as cheap as a cardboard sleeve. CHEEPSKATES UNITED ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 09:25:49 +0200 From: Christian Skina Subject: DGM club, a commercial detail In the latest ET, one of the reactions to the DGM open vault idea was going that far with reccomendations as indicating what sort of cover art the CDs should have. My morning & cold coffee thought is: if you want to involve Crimheads in the process, why not ask them to produce the covers themselves? I think now at what Mr. Zappa did when he bought boots from the public and resold them: He used those trashy covers as well and they worked fine with the quality of the sound (also trashy). Maybe some ET subscribers would produce something better than that, as I expect to hear better sound from the possible future DGM vault releases (they DO record digital these day, don't they?) Chris ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 09:22:29 +0200 From: arampini at www dot bias-net dot com (Antonio Rampini) Subject: DGM Club (!!) Hello all, Rich Malitz (thank you, Rich) says, reporting an idea from Robert "hot fingers" Fripp: >DGM would start a >Collector's Club which would allows members of the club to purchase some >of the rarest performances we could imagine. What an idea! I was really excited in reading it should be possible to have (really *soon* I hope) some special crimson/crimson related releases. So, let me say "fantastic", and bring at least two votes pro the DGM club creation (mine, and of a friend who does not have an access), from Pavia, Italy. About the Club "OK, we are in the Club: but where are the CDs?" The most important thing to be esamined, IMHO, it will be the way to arrive to a CDs Club-catalogue. I think it could help to have a list of "possible CDs" from Robert/DGM (for example the P1 second gig at the Jazz Cafe in London '97 better than the KC gig at Lignano in '96... etc). This preliminary list could be mailed to all club members by DGM. Thanks to this "ipothesis" of list, clubmembers actually could be able to choose the number of works they want to be published, the number of CDs they are interested in, or (at least) the order in which publish them. In this way, we could help DGM to schedule a "priority list" of CD to be published, too. It could be also of help to let club members have, after they have made their choose from the list, the printing/projection of printing of any CDs (1.000? 5.000? more?). I mean, I can personally be more interested in that particulary Fripp's soundscapes gig, at first, but if I know that the first printing of 1.000 CD of another crimson gig it is going to be the... last & only printing, I can also change my idea and book it before it is too late. This could also mean a new model of interaction between the artist and his club... ahem, his audience... "Hey Gringos, here you got the two quickest credit cards in northern Italy..." (ah,ah) ciao antonio ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 13:56:24 +0100 (BST) From: Richard Beck Subject: DGM Club Dear all, I caught up with posts too late to make the last digest, but my thoughts on the 'DGM Club' are wholly positive. Count me in (I assume we can pay in GBPounds or by credit card debit?). All I have to do now is persuade my wife of the worth of these great works..... Richard ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 08:08:53 -0500 From: wviland at thin-film dot com Subject: DGM Club I'm in, though I'm still pissed they didn't stop in Minnesota on there way from Chicago to Canada. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 10:07:58 -0700 (PDT) From: George Hall Subject: A Fi$tful of Fripp I've seen a number of posts referring to the proposed DGM club's proposed $175 fee. A thought; split the cost with friends. In this manner, 2 may pay $87.50; 5 may pay $35, etc. (likely not so easily broken down, but you get my point). gh ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 09:13:20 CDT From: Andy Dean Subject: DGM Club ... Count me in too! This sounds like a great idea. One thing I'm not clear on -- will each release be sent to members automatically, or will this work the same way as your average CD club (i.e., you send back a card indicating whether you do or don't want the selection of the month)? If this hasn't been decided yet, I would prefer the latter. I am much more interested in KC shows than Fripp/Eno, Soundscapes, etc. -- though I'm sure I'll end up joining regardless. (It's not like I'm getting bad music for my money.) The $175 sounds reasonable -- hopefully this won't actually get off the ground too soon, so as to give me time to come up with the money. :) One last thought -- I think it would be better for Mr. Fripp (or whoever will be making these decisions) to decide what will be released. My rationale is that if he were to give us a list of shows and have us rank them, the responses wouldn't be very useful -- ETers would undoubtedly provide diverse responses & there would be no clear favorite. (For the record, I would cast my vote for shows from the '80s, the end of the Thrak tour, P2 shows, and Jamie Muir-era '70s -- I think the '69 and '73-74 shows have been done to death.) This is such a great idea ... can't wait to see how it turns out. --Andy Dean ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 11:04:00 -0400 From: "Gull, H. (Hector)" Subject: DGM Club Ideas on how the CLUB should work to allow access to all level of income to the vaults: 1- Work on one to three projekcs at a time: i.e. Projekcs: a- "KC live with Jaime Muir" b- "Fripp & Eno Live" and/or c- "Projekc II live in Mars" DGM Total cost + DGM Profit = Membership Cost 2- Work on one projekc at a time: i.e. Survey Projekc on DGM and/or Elephant-Talk Web-page: a-"Projekc II live in Saturn" DGM projekc cost + DGM profit / number of prospect buyers = membership cost for projekc "Saturn" 3- Levels of membership: Platinum A = $200.00 - A number of releases signature series Platinum B = $180.00 - A number of releases Gold = $150.00 - B number of releases Silver = $100.00 - C number of releases You can Count me in for the Club in any shape or form. Hector Gull Toronto, Canada. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 08:42:19 +0100 From: "Brian Thomson, London UK" Subject: Re: DGM Collector's Club Not that I would want to claim any credit, but I can't help wondering if this whole thing has anything to do with my post in ET #487 (22 April) - "a few crazy business ideas for DGM"... " - Subscriptions: I would be happy to pay, say, ?100 (c. $170) to DGM in advance, if it meant that the next 10 new DGM releases would be sent to me immediately. It would be an expression of my confidence in DGM's artists to release great music in the future, as well as an incentive for them to do so, so that I might renew my subscription. " Ah, well, it's a great idea regardless... Brian Thomson bnt at ibm dot net "Before you play two notes learn how to play one note - and don't play one note unless you've got a reason to play it." - Mark Hollis (1998) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 18:45:50 -0800 From: rtc at sirius dot com (Robert Cambra) Subject: The Club Hellow ETers, Wow, ET #510 must be a first--a whole issue of unanimous opinion. Count everybody in, count me too, Robert. I'd join DGM Club. It's a swell idea! There's easily fifteen to twenty shows I'd love to hear right off. (I'm a little disappointed that even our resident contrarian, Eb, hasn't done his job and spared us the embarrassment of this singularity of opinion.) Folks who find the membership fee too steep could always go in on a membership with others. On the other end of the spectrum, obsessive completists will have to meet the challenge of having a chance to get what they want--some of them may have to get second jobs! Best to all, Robert Cambra San Francisco P.S. Oh, of course, the KC 30th anniversary festivities should be held in San Francisco. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 15:56:54 -0700 From: Jonah Stein Subject: dgm club While I, like most of you, suggested a particular show which was a favorite, I am intrigued by the question of "what is really in that vault" Has RF really got tapes of a majority of his live performances. Say it's true...'' I have occasionally littered these pages with a defense of bootlegging, even a few trade request. Having seen that DGM is committed to recording every show, with better gear than any one could sneak in, I can whole heartedly endorse a no taping policy......If somehow the material can find its way out. I realize the technical challenges are daunting and the idea is relatively new to this circle, but technology has made it possible to distribute this material in a number of innovative ways, from the Web to custom burned CD's with a specific song list assembled from a database of all of the songs which have been digitized. In fact, the "easiest" way to do such a thing would be to digitze the collection, or portions of it, and build a website which would let us actually customize our 74 minutes of content, burn the CD and print it with a custom label. jonah ps Toby, Please tell DGM I'm available, and ready to move to the UK for a while, if they need help. -- Jonah Stein http://www.bcg.net 800.354.7574 Senior Account Representative Barron Communications 510.521.7144 (v) 2329 Eagle Avenue Alameda, California 94501 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 10:38:50 -0400 From: ganderso at notes dot cc dot bellcore dot com Subject: DGM Collector's Club: DANGER WILL ROBINSON! Just in case anyone misunderstands the intention of this post: I love the idea of the DGM music club, IN THEORY. In particular, having more live stuff available is not only something i desire, I would dare say it is important as well. I bought the Coltrane Live at the Village Vanguard recently, containing every tune played by Trane and the boys. And in light of the impact Trane ultimately had on music and Jazz, these are not only enjoyable, they're important historical documents that Jazz artists even today must be aware of if they're to do anything truly innovative. Likewise with Fripp, KC, and Co. It's going to take a number of years before rock catches up to the like of "Thrak" (the tune in particular), so the more that is "left to posterity" the better. HOWEVER-- the realities of putting together an organization capable of RELIABLY cranking out and distributing releases is another thing entirely. Even "low quality" archived recordings will require that much more care to make them listenable. So first of all, I would not want to see Fripp get bogged down in the heavy production schedule required to produce such goodies. Moreover, remember that little problem with DGM in CA last year? Fripp himself needed to fly out there and set things straight. A project of this size could generate a huge avalanche of problems, particularly if successful! Fripp should be spending the majority of his time playing guitar, not acting like an accountant. And let's face it, if some of you get your CDs even a few days late, you'll quickly decry Fripp and DGM as a pack of fly-by-night thugs, only in it for the money. And who needs that kind of PR headache? So I say do it, DGM, but only if you have a very secure and trustworthy infrastructure. Tread very carefully and put everything in place properly, so that the artists can spend most of their time being artists! -Emory ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 17:33:41 EDT From: Bolinhed at aol dot com Subject: ColleKCtor's Club Add another name to the list - with 2 thoughts: 1. I would hope that review copies would sneak out (to ET?) so that we could get some opinions/details on 'em before we order 'em, but that's obvious. 2. In the event that some shows are only partially recorded, or only some songs sound good, I would hope Fripp & Co. would be amenable to Compilation/collection discs - not ALWAYS, but once in a while, to collect some rarely played or odd numbers, without repeating a lot of songs, not unlike "Thrakkattak." The idea being that a lot of the set lists for a given tour might be similar, and the sopngs themselves staying pretty intact, with only a few songs really changing or only a few select parts that are improv'd (improved?). Jim ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 07:09:13 PDT From: "Douglas Robillard" Subject: DGM: Yes! Dear Elephant Talkers, In honor of Bloomsday (June 16), my initial response to the prospect of joining a DGM Collector's Club is to quote Molly Bloom: "yes I said yes I will Yes"! Now, having voiced my unbridled enthusiasm, I would add that much careful planning is necessary to ensure a workable system. Like JFK proposing a moon landing by the end of the 60s, Mr. Fripp has provided the initial vision; but there are lots of details to be worked out. I suggest that ET could serve as a forum for audients, artists, and DGM staff to brainstorm ideas and procedures. I was glad to see the post from Amy of DGM in ET #510; perhaps ET can host some constructive dialogue. Best, Doug ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 15:24:15 -0400 From: Chuck Philbrick Subject: RE: DGM Collectors Club a I would pay $175 for rare live KC cd's, if thethey came with an accurate transcription of the entire C.D. (ha!). Seriously, though, if we are talking about paying $175 for performances, how about includinga any studio scores, or transcriptions of the themes which are improvised over? From what I see about 90% of KC fans are musicians, and most of us have come into experimental music from other genres. I think we would all agree that KC transcriptions are rare, and usually tabbed in ASCII. It shouldn't be much of a bother to Mr. Fripp, provided that these transcriptions are actually kept. What do ya think? Chuck ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 11:37:10 +0100 From: Francis Trezing Subject: DGM Collectors' Club Hi ! The idea is great ! My question is : I live in Hungary, if I pay that 175$ (which is very high for me but it could be worth - I"m listening KC from 1972 and they were in Hungary only once at a rainy night and last week Bill was great here in Budapest) how will work for me that projeKct ? Will DGM sell the CDs to Hungary, too ? thx - Francis ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 23:20:57 +1000 From: "Alan Todhunter" Subject: DGM collectors club Hi, Just another Aussie putting my few cents in. Definitely interested in any DGM club. Alan Todhunter ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 20:39:58 -0700 From: einklang at t-online dot de (EINKLANG) Subject: DGM collectors Club choice 1) Please count me in 2) If! the selection of the possible releases should be make by the club members, I insist on, that the members choice will be counted in a proportion to the popularity of the music. For example: Soundscapes are not so popular than King Crimson gigs. But! soundscapes also want to find willing ears which listen to them. If a hundred people like to see released a (early) King Crimson gig and only ten people want a soundscape recording, than there is the same necessity to release the soundscape recording (also), because transformed to the popularity of the King Crimson acts, the choice of the ten people, who like to listen to soundscapings, is the same power as the hundred, which like to see released only King Crimson gigs. ..."music speaks through one language, but in many dialects"... Greetings from Stuttgart, Germany. Martin Gebhard. ------------------------------ End of Elephant-Talk Digest #513 ********************************