Paul Tanenbaum <pjt@BRL-VOC.ARPA> (01/07/85)
I heard a story last night on 'All Things Considered' about Penguin Cafe. It's creator/leader, a Mr. Jeffs (sp?) says they try to create very pleasant, very simple, very natural music. I own their first recording, 'Music from the Penguin Cafe,' and have to say that they succeeded tremendously. The ATC story quoted a critic from 'Time,' I think, who said the music was too nice and pleasant, boring. Jeffs' reply was that "there are people who say they are bored with nature, too. The sound of a waterfall and things like that." Most of the time people complain that today's music is just strident noise. Now this is too pretty! Unfortunately, their recent American tour consisted of several shows at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. I could have provided at least a dozen listeners in an instant if they had ventured as far into the provinces as Baltimore or DC. Even more so for Laurie Anderson. Oh well. +++paul
gtaylor@lasspvax.UUCP (Greg Taylor) (01/09/85)
I sat in the first row of the balcony at BAM for the Penguin Cafe, and they were *marvelous*. It was especially interesting to see Steve Nye (whose production for Japan and XTC I personally like very much) performing with them. When it was over, we hooked up with my Vietnamese pals and went to Chinatown. When I got back to the place we were staying, someone told me that the 9:00 PM performance for the 7 Dec was broadcast live over the radio. Perhaps someone here on the USENET taped it and would be willing to share a copy. The performance itself was a nice mix of all three of their studio recordings, with predictable emphasis on Broadcasting From Home, their last (on EG). If you are lucky, you can pick up the first two penguin Cafe's in the cutout bin. EG has been dumping a major part of their catalog of late (time to get a fresher copy of Discrete Music to replace the scratched up one), and the PC is no exception. Greg