Squirrel Nut Zippers

[mramailman]

This is targeted at magnus and anyone who is a fan of this band


Let me start by saying I think they lost alot on June 30th of 99 with Tom Maxwell resigning from SNZ. He brought a bit of balance to the "power" over the band that Jimbo Mathus and Katherine Whalen held. Also he helped in the zippering of the music..... if you're a fan you'll know what I mean.

mVm, how do you feel about Je Widenhouse compared to the late Stacy Guess?
I feel that Guess brought more to the band with his playing style and ability and musical writing. It seems to me, a non-musician, that Guess could hit higher notes, whether live or not, and had better rythm with the band. He played with not much credit on Hot and their earlier work. Je, a talented musician, can play the horn rather well just not as good as Stacy. If you listen to Hot and then listen Perennial Favorites you can hear a drastic change in the effectivness and range of the horn IMO.

Listen to Bedalm Ballroom off of the Sold Out release to hear some of Stacy's best work. I haven't heard Je play that well or write that good of a song. It seems that Mathus and Whalen write most of their music now and hell(like the pun) I don't know if they even zipper the music now. Also get La Grippe off that same release is played with Bio Ritmo the salsa band I mentioned in an e-mail a few weeks ago.

Hot is IMHO their best album followed by Perennial Favorites, Sold Out, The Inevitable and finally Bedlam Ballroom. I've heard and seen great reviews of Ballroom but it lacked some of Maxwell's qualities. I have all of them except for Bedlam Ballroom, which I have downloaded, and I like it but I don't love as much as the earlier stuff.

I could type alot more but I think that's enough :)

I was hoping to get a musicians take on this....... anyone musically inclined or a fan of the band please reply.... thanks

[magnus]

I don't think I've heard any of their new work, not enough to know it was new anyway. I have some random mp3s but I don't know what album they're off. All I know is their bari player kicks butt. I'll give it some study and let you know.

Sounds like you're saying they're taking swing from a verb to a noun.

[mramailman]

You would be talking of Tom Maxwell.... from Perennial Favorites back... newer stuff is .... damn I can't remember his name..... i suck

[mramailman]

Hot

1. Got My Own Thing Now
2. Put a Lid on It
3. Memphis Exorcism
4. Twilight
5. It Ain't You
6. Prince Nez
7. Hell
8. Meant to Be
9. Bad Businessman
10. Flight of the Passing Fancy
11. Blue Angel
12. The Interlocutor

Perennial Favorites

1. Suits Are Picking Up The Bill
2. Low Down Man
3. Ghost Of Stephen Foster
4. Pallin' With Al
5. Fat Cat Keeps Getting Fatter
6. Trou Macacq
7. My Drag
8. Soon
9. Evening At Lafitte's
10. The Kraken
11. That Fascinating Thing
12. It's Over

The Inevitable

1. Lover's Lane
2. Danny Diamond
3. I've Found a New Baby
4. Anything But Love
5. Good Enough for Granddad
6. Wished for You
7. La Grippe
8. Lugubrious Whing Whang
9. Club Limbo
10. Wash Jones
11. You're Drivin' Me Crazy
12. Plenty More

Sold Out

St. Louis Cemetary Blues -- One of the tracks originally intended for "Perrenial Favorites" but pulled at the last minute. It's a really nice track with special guests Hawkeye on the mandolin and Andrew Bird on violin.

2. Bedlam Ballroom -- This, as most of you now, is the title track to the "Bedlam Ballroom" LP. Well, this exclusive live version recorded at Spaceland in Hollywood features the late Stacy Guess, who wrote the song, on trumpet.

3. Pallin' with Al -- This live version of the "Perrenial Favorites" track showcases the Zippers' talent of improvising and changing lyrics around at the spur-of-the-moment. Listen and you can hear Tom Maxwell sing some scat about halfway through.

4. La Grippe -- This is an awesome live version of "The Inevitable" track. In this 1997 recording, the Zippers' special guest, the salsa band Bio Ritmo, takes center stage with their vocalist, Rene Herrera, adding some Spanish lyrics of his own.

5. I Raise Hell -- Katherine Whalen takes the helm with this interesting track written by Boston songwriter Milo Jones.

6. Fell to Pieces -- Here is the real exclusive on this EP: "Fell to Pieces" was recorded at the Zippers' second practice session back in 1993! The recording quality is really poor, but the music is a wonder.

Oh, wait! There's more. If you wait a minute or two after "Fell to Pieces" there are three hidden tracks:

*1. Carousel -- I'm guessing on the title, but this instrumental sounds like it belongs right next to those horses attached to poles going 'round and 'round.

*2. Santa Claus is Smoking Reefer -- Cut from "Christmas Caravan" for obvious reasons, if you can get past the utterly silly lyrics, the melody is really fun to listen to.

*3. If You Were Mine -- Another live track featuring Katherine Whalen makes the perfect ending to a smashing EP.

(P.S. Listen after "Bedlam Ballroom" and "I Raise Hell" for jingles from the Squirrel Brand Company, the company that makes the Squirrel Nut Zipper candy!)

Bedlam Ballroom

1. Bedbugs
2. Baby Wants A Diamond Ring
3. Do What?
4. Bent Out Of Shape
5. Stop Drop And Roll
6. Hush
7. It All Depends
8. Bedlam Ballroom
9. Just This Side Of Blue
10. Don't Fix It
11. Missing Link
12. Bedlam Reprise
13. Do It This A Way

Ones I don't own :)

Christmas Caravan

1. Winter Weather
2. Indian Giver
3. A Johnny Ace Christmas
4. My Evergreen
5. Sleigh Ride
6. I'm Coming Home for Christmas
7. Carolina Christmas
8. Gift of the Magi
9. Hot Christmas
10. Hanging up My Stockings

Roasted Right CD single

1. Little Mother-In-Law
2. Radio, (You Are My)
3. Anything But Love
4. Wash Jones

Katherine Whalen has a solo album floating around of which I haven't listened. :(

Katherine Whalen's Jazz Squad

1. 'Deed I Do
2. There Is No Greater Love
3. Sugar - Whalen, Katharine
4. Yesterdays
5. Just You, Just Me
6. Now or Never
7. My Old Flame
8. That Old Feeling
9. Badisma
10. All My Life
11. After You've Gone
12. My Baby Just Cares for Me

And your boy Tom Maxwell after he left SNZ

Samsara

1. Indicatif
2. Sixes and Sevens to Me
3. The Uptown Stomp
4. Can't Sleep
5. The Mooche
6. If I Had You
7. Caveat Emptor
8. Some Born Singing
9. Don't Give Me the Runaround
10. Flame in My Heart
11. Nobody Likes You
12. Three Fires Blues
13. Roll Them Bones
14. You Always Get What's Coming
15. Samsara

[mramailman]

I've seen this band 12 times anywhere from a free show in Carrboro to The Attic in Greenville.

First time I saw them was at G105's Christmas Ball...... and they opened for...... Bare Naked Ladies.... that was in 1995. Neither band was "well-known" at that time.... great fucking show.... been hooked on both bands since then.

[magnus]

Originally posted by mramailman
You would be talking of Tom Maxwell.... from Perennial Favorites back... newer stuff is .... damn I can't remember his name..... i suck

Oh, so Maxwell is the bari player. Shit. So what happened there exactly? And with Guess, Je?

[magnus]

oh, yeah I can get into some BNL. When I Fall, If I Had a Million Dollars, Brian Wilson

[mramailman]

Maxwell and Mathus had some conflict of interests with the way the band was heading. Mathus and Whalen, who are married, were leading the Zippers off the "original" course. Maxwell wasn't happy going in that direction so he resigned and went solo. his work on Samsara is good and goes in his words "a bit deeper" than the Zippers were willing to go.
Check out Trou Macacq on Perennial Favorites. IMO is Maxwells foretelling of the breakup in his words.

Guess was an original Zipper that played on the first CD (The Inevitable) and played on some of the songs on Hot. He was kicked out before Hot was put out for his heroin addiction. He wouldn't get off the smack so the gave him the boot. He died in 1998 from a heroin OD. :(

Je was brought in after the Hot release and has done a good job but Stacy was better.

Just MO.

[magnus]

I tried to find some Maxwell. Only got one song on search, Can't Sleep, it didn't download. Try again later. I'm all about some bari.

Sucks how they have to screw with the chemistry.

If you remember the Floyd quote I had, it was because I saw a band I'm in go from funk to wanting to fucking cover Craig David songs. That'll just piss you off there.

That's what was so maddening about that new Dave Matthews. It was just Dave Matthews...the rest of the band were just studio musicians. Completely different sound. It's a good sound but I wanted to hear the band, not Dave.

Sucks about the heroin. All too familiar to the business.

[mramailman]

I've heard this before and never researched it at all.. figure I'll ask you......


I heard Dave Matthews doesn't write his own shit?
It's written for him he just plays it... rather well too.

Is it true?

[magnus]

Dave wrote everything before Everyday. I imagine that the arrangement was like with Alanis Morisette and No Doubt and that type thing when they worked with Glen Ballard (who produced Everyday, after Steve Lillywhite produced all others, including the untitled, "unreleased" and not completely mastered Lillywhite Sessions), where Dave and Ballard cowrote. Before, what would happen apparently is that Dave would write lyrics and the band would evolve the song, and therefore two or three of the bandmembers would get credit for the song including Dave. A number of the songs, I think, are credited to the rest of the band and not Dave at all - some of the jam songs like 41 and Lie in our Graves from Crash, I'm reading, are credited to the rest of the band and not Dave. Most of the first major album was collaboration within the band. I don't own Beyond These Crowded Streets or Everyday so I don't know what the arrangement there but I'm certain a lot of the songs are Dave's, a number of them deal with his bad breakup in the late 90's.

[lex]

as far as i know he does...when it's not his, it actually states on the album. he did most of the old ones. i have to check his everyday album. i bet he didnt some there. that album is not that good! well, except for the space between...IMO.

[magnus]

When the World Ends is ok, the title track isn't too bad.

[mramailman]

I own Under the Table and Dreeaming and Crash but have never taken the time to look :)

[lex]

dave matthews is a poet...they can say what they want. dave is a poet and an extraordinary artiste. gawd...i am starting to sound like some teenybopper! :lips:

ugh! i call it as i see it... :mushy:

did you guys notice the new smileys? i am having fun with them...lookie, M! :tool:

[lex]

:lol2: m, is that you when you had the beard, or is that steven segal? my inquiring mind wants to know.:lol2:

[magnus]

Originally posted by lex
[B]dave matthews is a poet...they can say what they want. dave is a poet and an extraordinary artiste. gawd...i am starting to sound like some teenybopper!


yeah, funny how two of my favorite bands' songs had such huge hits on songs that don't really sound much like them...Dave's was about a peeping Tom and Ben Folds' about abortion. So that drew a lot of teenage fans to the music, which is good. Just different. Luckily, at least I can say I followed each of them before they knocked one out of the park, even though in Dave's case there was a lot of popularity there long before Crash.
Anyway, yeah, he has a way with words that is rare...he puts a lot of raw thought into what he's saying, doesn't try to polish it up too much. I like it, very slice of a person at a differential time type stuff.

[mramailman]

Just thought of something magnus..... this is only the 2nd subject that I know more about than you :) (the first is carrying mail)

Even though what you told me at Dixie's doesn't hurt you intelligence either? Do you remember what that was?

[wossa]

yeah but any body can carry mail.

How hard can it be to stick the mail in the wrong box?

[magnus]

Originally posted by mramailman
Even though what you told me at Dixie's doesn't hurt you intelligence either? Do you remember what that was?

Oh shit. Not a clue. drop the other shoe so I can stop worrying.

[mramailman]

Originally posted by Wossamotta U
yeah but any body can carry mail.

How hard can it be to stick the mail in the wrong box?


:bird8:

[magnus]

no really what is it?

[mramailman]

Check PM's

[magnus]

Oh, I see. :D So that works doesn't it

Slow Like Honey (Fiona Apple)

[wossa]

sorry mr mailman but the truth hurts.

today I got two pieces of mail that belong to my neighbor across the street.

Saturday it was a letter for some people I know with the same number but different street. this happpens at least once a week.

I mailed two checks to my orthodontist 3 weeks ago. I put the letters in the mail slot in the post office. the ortho is in the same postal zone. They finally got them in the mail today.

I'm sure you do a fine job. My grand pappy carried the mail for 30 years and was the best - but somewhere along the way the standards slipped a whole bunch.

[lex]

both of you forgot to post a song title earlier...booo!

"astrud" basia

before that...larry carlton, "smiles and smiles to go" :cool:

[magnus]

that's the spirit lexy

Waltz In A Flat Major, Op. 39, No.15 (Brahms)

[lex]

mags, i got confused! this is the "snz" thread, not "at the moment. hahaha...you messed me up with that fiona apple reply! :lol2:

[magnus]

Oops. Looks like I fooled myself too.
Oh well.

Down to the River (Alison Krauss)

[lex]

yeah...i'm with you. here: :banana:

"bridge of sighs" robin trower

[mramailman]

Marketeer... oh I mean Wossa ......

The most common mistake made while carrying mail is similar #'s coupled with Human Error. On my route I have three 308's, 4 110's, 6 304's etc etc you get the picture. Mail carriers don't actually read every piece of mail the get. We glance at it. After yrs of doing this shit you pick up on the #'s, letters of a name etc. You get to a point where you see the adresses and names so much you just "scan" the letter. In that same split second you can tell if that letter goes to your route or not. Think about it. I handle about 3-4k letters a day and 1500-2000 flats(magazines) a day for my route of 651 boxes. You get used to seeing the same stuff but then add in Human Error and bam you have the wrong piece of mail or the wrong street with the right #.


I'm not giving excuses but just telling it straight. If you have never made a mistake at work I applaud you and apologize for errors made by others but if you have made mistakes at work please understand that mail carriers are human and they make mistakes.

Best solution: If you see your mail carrier coming up the street go meet that person. Don't talk his/her head off but go up introduce yourself and be nice. Mention to them that the mail is being delivered wrong and felt it better to talk to them instead of calling the PO.... forgot to mention learn their name and call them that when you see them again. Don't be scared.... we don't all carry guns :)

From then on wave if/when you see them and if you can remember their name say hello.
It sounds stupid but that's what works best IMO.

Please, please, please -James Brown

[wossa]

Michael - I mean mailman -

if I do all those things will he/she start accidentally on purpose start leaving the wrong mail with cash and/or Playboys in the box?

:D

sorry to give you grief. We have the worst post office in the world up here. My business uses the same one and the mail problems are too numerous to document. We have complained and complained to no avail.

[SilverSurfer]

Originally posted by mramailman
Marketeer... oh I mean Wossa ......

I'm not giving excuses but just telling it straight. If you have never made a mistake at work


Wossa don't work. He just posts on the board. Hard to make a mistake when you don't do anything. :D :D

[mramailman]

Sorry Silver I made an ASSumption..... my bad.

[lex]

silver, your avatar kicks. :cool:

stay on topic, willya? you saying you dont have anything on your cd right now? well, that sucks.

"rollercoaster", everything but the girl, amplified heart album.

[Savio]

You guys/gals should trying watching some cartoons and SNZ at the same time. It will blow your mind away. It was like they were meant to be in unison:xyzthumbs

[lex]

http://www.chaoskitty.com/t_chaos/bandstand/grfx/snzhot.jpg

[lex]

http://www.well-rounded.com/music/graphics/zippers.jpg

[lex]

http://www.haro-online.com/music/sqninevi.jpg

[lex]

snz fans, check this one out: "the very thought of you," billie holiday . katherine whalen sounds like her on this track.