lifeblood: listlogs: 2000v03n114-news

ig-news-digest thursday, june 29 2000 volume 03 : number 114

today's subjects:
-----------------
  [ig-news] ig and mtv                       [ashley coats <accoats@aol.com>]
  [ig-news] new interview with amy   [phillip soloweszyk <psolowes@home.com>]
  [ig-news] summerfest--live cybercast        [denise <jingles31@excite.com>]
  [ig-news] more on the summerfest webcast  [amy l clements <amyloretta@juno]
  [ig-news] cedar rapids show   ["lisa m. schreihart" <lschreihart@juno.com>]

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date: wed, 28 jun 2000 17:54:16 edt
from: ashley coats <accoats@aol.com>
subject: [ig-news] ig and mtv

[sherlyn's note: this is an excerpt of a message which was
originally sent to the indigo girls mailing list at
netspace.org.]

hey guys! my friend called me last night to inform me that indigo girls were
talked about on mtv news. it was about emily's recent appearence on sister
hazel's new cd "fortress." she sings the back up on the song champain high--
i got it and it sounds good [...]
take care!!-- ashley

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date: wed, 28 jun 2000 03:33:00 -0400
from: phillip soloweszyk <psolowes@home.com>
subject: [ig-news] new interview with amy

[sherlyn's note: this message was originally sent to the indigo
girls mailing list at netspace.org.]

hello everybody,

i just got a link to a new interview with amy off of my bruce springsteen
newsgroup, believe it or not!!:-)  the interviewer actually asks amy
about springsteen fan reactions to the new controversial springsteen
song, 41 shots which is about the diallo case.  i think her answer is
really good and interesting.  the rest of the interview is also cool.
check it out here
http://news.excite.com/news/uw/000627/entertainment-arts-5

i have also included the text at the bottom of this for those of you who
don't have web access.

phillip

"..here is my secret, a very simple secret:  it is only with the heart
that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
the fox, the little prince - antoine de saint exupery

begin article:

interview: amy ray of the indigo girls

updated 12:00 pm et june 27, 2000

by greg jerrett
iowa state daily
iowa state u.

(u-wire) ames, iowa -- the indigo girls have been blending their folk
sensibilities with activism since 1987 when college radio was a haven for
underground musicians, men and women.

as amy ray and bandmate emily saliers move into the next millennium,
"cock rock" and corporations dominate.

how do two female folk rockers hell bent on social issues keep their
heads above water? the daily caught up with indigo girl amy ray, by cell
phone, on the road in the great white north.

iowa state daily: your new album is a lot more electric than some past
efforts; it's even been compared to bob dylan's move to electric by folk
purists. is this a new direction for indigo girls or an experimental
phase?

amy ray: it's funny that everybody's noticing because we really had a lot
of electric stuff on our last four records, but i think that people look
at this one differently because the electric stuff on this record is
pretty loud and maybe produced slightly differently, which is good.

what i thought is that we've been trying to get the sound right, and we
finally got it is as far as that goes. the acoustic stuff on this record
is pretty organic, pretty acoustic like "gone again" and "ozilline," and
the stuff we recorded with mandolins and banjoes i felt like the
components of this record are stylistically similar to what we've done.
it's just the way it's engineered and produced make it stand out a little
more, so i don't feel like it's a huge break like we've been acoustic all
this time and we finally went electric, because we've been using electric
guitars for like five years now.

isd: it does seem like folk music fans and people who pay attention to
folk music are real sensitive about changes like that ...

ar: not with us. we have some die-hard fans that are real supportive of
us but they wish we'd go back and do some of the more acoustic stuff, and
we will eventually because we love that stuff, too. our audience has been
pretty supportive.

isd: so you don't feel like your audience is trying to keep you in the
late '80s?

ar: we wouldn't let anybody hold us back; we're pretty adamant about
being honest to ourselves, that's really our only obligation and our
audience knows that. and i think they appreciate that they know what we
do is what we mean to do. so we have a good relationship, i'd say.

isd: when you say that being honest is what you do, in terms of activism,
you guys have a lot of causes you support. has that ever been a hindrance
to your careers at all? not a lot of other people do it. pop music is
pretty light these days for the masses.

ar: i'd say it's definitely a hindrance, but not so much to our audience
as to the media, the press and radio especially. mainstream rock press
like rolling stone and spin magazines, they don't like the image.

isd: that's a bit odd considering rolling stone's origins.

ar: as a woman it's probably harder to be political, for some reason you
get a worse rap. a lot of our friends, zack [de la rocha] from rage
against the machine, tom morello, they're so political and it's almost
like the reason they're hip is because they're political and the reason
we're not hip is because we're political.

isd: it's an unfair dichotomy.

ar: we just do it because we're activists and that's what we do.

isd: right now, bruce springsteen's doing a series of concerts in new
york and he's been getting booed by his own fans when he plays "american
skin" [a song about the shooting death of amadou diallo by new york city
police]. why would somebody pay to see bruce and then boo him?

ar: his fans have a right to boo him, i don't think they're booing him in
general. i think they're saying this is one song we personally don't
agree with. you take a stand when you're on stage, and we're gonna take a
stand from the audience. i think that's fair. i think he's brave for
doing that. i'm all the way for him doing that song as often as possible.
but i also believe that your fans have a right to say when they disagree
with you and express that and it just shows that his relationship is
honest with his audience that they're willing to do that. he's got so
many fans in that population, the police and the fraternal order of
police, and of course they're gonna be pissed about that.

isd: do you think activism has killed quite a few promising careers?

ar: i haven't seen activism kill a career. i think when you're an
activist and a musician you do your thing and have a following. you may
not be huge. we definitely have suffered from it; we're constantly
struggling against image problems with the record company and the media.
i wouldn't say it killed our career, and i don't know anybody else that
it really killed their career either.

isd: so what kind of issues are you focusing on these days?

ar: we've been doing a lot of work around this thing called the low power
fm radio coalition which has really killed us with radio. there's a
ruling by the [federal communications commission] that just went through
where they are willing to license a certain number of new low-power,
community radio stations to help bring back diversity in music and
diversity in programming and more local programming.

now the congress keeps coming up with legislation to try to block it
because the national association of broadcasting is huge and even
[national public radio] is against it because everybody's trying to
protect their territory. and we're currently planning a three-week tour
for october called "honor the earth," where we go out and raise awareness
around native american environmental issues. it's about environmentalism
and cultural sustainability.

isd: in the past, musicians were leaders in youth activism. today people
talk about apathy in college students and that goes hand in hand with pop
music. even alternative musicians just talk about love and sex as much as
'n sync or the backstreet boys, and it doesn't get much more in depth.
will something like this just go on or does the pendulum swing both ways?

ar: it's hard to say because now advertisers are so central to radio
stations that they really gear their programming to the more mindless. it
is the better as far as the advertisers are concerned, they say it fits
their demographic better.

i think it's gonna get worse before it gets better. the way it's gonna
get better is a few people are gonna hafta say this isn't cool and we
have to break the mold and play some music. because there are a lot of
people who are willing to make political music. a lot of the more
underground hip-hop, alternative and folk is pretty political, that's why
it's underground.

i'm constantly recruiting bands to play benefits and it is hard as hell
to get bands to play benefits now. i have to keep going back to the same
people, bonnie raitt, jackson browne, people from the '60s and '70s.

isd: do you think those guys who won't play don't care about issues or
are they afraid it might hurt their careers a bit?

ar: i don't think it's gonna hurt their career, honestly. i think they're
so busy playing a gig they're gonna make money at they don't want to take
time to go out and do something.

some people are scared to take a stand, but i don't think it extends as
far as "it will hurt my career," it's more like "what are people gonna
say about me." they're just thinking about that and their image.

but even a band like rage against the machine, they're so political
lyrically, but to get those guys to play a benefit, i mean, forget about
it. it's hard.

isd: they do have the image that they would do a lot of benefits. they
talk about issues a lot and they're pretty openly socialist.

ar: they're socialist, but they're within a complete capitalist
structure.

isd: yeah, i get the irony. they do seem to make a lot of money out of
being socialists. how do you guys pick and choose from all the issues out
there, which ones you're gonna give your time to?

ar: we work with groups that are grass roots and the money usually goes
directly to what they're working on rather than administrative stuff,
that's our first litmus test. then it's issues that are relevant and
timely, it's basically your liberal combo platter.

isd: how do you think the industry has changed for women since the late
'80s?

ar: the late '80s with college radio was such a fertile sort of
environment for getting airplay, anybody who was slightly underground had
it easier, women or men as far as radio goes.

and then women had a great spurt during that whole lilith span when radio
was really friendly to women. there's definitely a backlash right now.
women in rock, it's just really hard and that used to be the salt of the
earth for us, basically. it probably goes in waves back and forth, but it
shouldn't be either way, it should just be that people have equal access
to the airwaves -- period.

for us, if we had a good underground movement going in radio, it didn't
matter whether you were a woman or a man; it was really accessible to us
and as soon as radio got more commercial the fact that we were women has
just held us back.

------------------------------

date: wed, 28 jun 2000 06:37:55 -0700
from: denise <jingles31@excite.com>
subject: [ig-news] summerfest--live cybercast

[sherlyn's note: this message was originally sent to the indigo
girls mailing list at netspace.org. there's another related
message i will forward along in a minute...]

on june 30 hob.com is planing to do a live cybercast of summerfest. they
have the time as tba, but that's the day the girls are playing. (as well as:
mrs. fun, nash kato, sugarfoot, eieio, susan tedeschi, 2 skinnee j's, cowboy
mouth, citizen king.) info at link below:

http://www.hob.com/live/events/livedrive2000/000630summerfest/index.asp

praying that the a+e get the net time.
denise

"the apathy of time laughs in my face, you say 'each life has its
place'"--vw--es
"rock is cool, but the struggle is better"--go--ar
a+e=ig ;)

------------------------------

date: wed, 28 jun 2000 10:01:47 -0500
from: amy l clements <amyloretta@juno.com>
subject: [ig-news] more on the summerfest webcast

[sherlyn's note: this message was originally sent to the indigo
girls mailing list at netspace.org.]

i just was at summerfest's website
http://www.summerfest.com/promotions/hob

they said that the performance is taped on 6/29

jun 30, 2000
time stage production artist
tba briggs & stratton big backyard taped on 6/29 indigo girls
12:00 pm briggs & stratton big backyard taped on 6/29 mrs. fun

hope this helps to clear up the confusion

------------------------------

date: thu, 29 jun 2000 00:06:28 -0500
from: "lisa m. schreihart" <lschreihart@juno.com>
subject: [ig-news] cedar rapids show

[sherlyn's note: this is an excerpt of a message which was
originally sent to the indigo girls mailing list at
netspace.org.]

hello fellow listees,

here's a brief synopsis of tonight's ig concert
at the paramount theater in cedar rapids, ia (6/28/00).
[...]

here's the setlist:

three hits
trouble
tried to be true
least complicated
ozilline
everything in its own time
romeo and juliet
get out the map
faye tucker
closer to fine
shame on you
philosophy of loss
gone again
power of two
go
ghost
bury my heart at wounded knee
galileo

no big fashion report tonight.....it's pretty much the same as
always...amy with the tank under the shirt, and emily with
her cool wnba shirt.  but, i tell ya, amy looked better than i've seen
her
in a long time.  she looks really happy and healthy.
emily looks about the same, but amy especially shined tonight.
both of them were very enthusiastic and very "on" with their
music and harmonies.  the crowd was really into the entire
concert and sang and cheered very loudly throughout.
it was quite apparent that amy and emily were having a great
time and liked the crowd a lot.  it was great to be a part of it.

michelle malone opened the evening with a great set, as always,
and then that 14-year-old wonder, shannon curfman, followed
with an equally great set.  that was the first time i've seen
shannon live, and i was intensely impressed. [...] of course, we got
a glimpse of emily, as background vocals and guitar accompaniment,
during michelle's set, and then both amy and emily on background
and harmony vocals during shannon's set.  that's one of the things
i really love about a&e....their active support and involvement in their
openers' sets, as well as their inclusion of their openers in the final
group sing-a-long (this time bmhawk, with shannon on electric
guitar, and michelle on acoustic, and then all the rest of shannon's
band playing what they play.  they all sounded great together, and
shannon seemed to have quite a natural feel for the emotion of bmhawk.)

all in all, this was one of the best ig concerts i've seen in the last
two years.
[...]

'night, y'all!

lisa s. (not d.)

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end of ig-news-digest v3 #114
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