From: Keith Worrell To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2001 2:27 PM Subject: Re: INXS: Dance version of Just Keep Walking I can't believe that you guys approve of this sort of thing! Sampling should be frowned upon! Taking things from other bands' original creative work should not be happening. This is extremely disheartening. Other people are getting credit for INXS's work. And it's not just INXS either. Other bands from the eighties and early 90's are being ripped off by these "mixers". The first time I heard that version of Original Sin I went into a fit. Why do these "mixers" continually think they can make perfection sound better? I don't know what the guys in the band (or other bands for that matter) think of this kind of thing, but personally, I'd find it insulting. If you're going to say that these "mixes" are "compliments" or "tributes" to the band, I have to say just the opposite. It's an insult for these "mixers" to think they can make other works sound better. If they think so highly of themselves...let's see them pick up an instrument and do better, instead of sitting in front of a computer with a bunch of samples. I hate to come off sounding rough and I'm sure I'll rub alot of people the wrong way but I really feel that others should learn to make their own music rather than ripping people off. Keith From: "Markus Pfeffer" To: Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2001 1:14 PM Subject: Re: INXS: Dance version of Just Keep Walking | I hate to come off sounding rough and I'm sure I'll rub alot of people the wrong way but I really feel that others should learn to make their own music rather than ripping people off. I'm not a native English speaker, but THOSE are the words I searched for :-) While implementing samples *can* be some way of being creative, I also feel like why don't these people write their own songs? Around here, there are so many Rap-"artists" using 80s-chorusses to make their songs hits, while the verses are all hip hop and rap voices, it's boring and disgusting. I really wonder when this will ever stop. Funny, 99% of these guys sell a lot of singles using other peoples melodies (mostly from the 80s), but their own stuff flops (because it IS worse). Markus From: To: Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2001 1:44 PM Subject: Re: INXS: Hutchence and Gahan In a message dated 8/23/2001 12:17:33 PM Eastern Daylight Time, InxsBeautifulGirl@hotmail.com writes: << when dave had longer hair, he looked a lot like michael i think. >> Oh My God!! The resemblance in that picture is incredible. I have been a fan of Depeche Mode almost as long as I've been an INXS fan. But I didn't know that DM's front man is so hot. Is it the angle of the shot or does he resemble Michael head on as well? Chris From: "Erica Nicole" To: Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2001 3:17 PM Subject: Re: INXS: Hutchence and Gahan similarities well, actually, dave does look a like like michael but only during a certain time period between 1992-1997. unfortunately, these were during his dark days, but this is when he had longer hair. now he doesn't really look like michael because he cut his hair shorter and doesn't have the goatee, but he sure did back then! hehe. if you want more pics of him looking like mike e-mail me. - erica ------------------------------------- Morality would frown upon Decency look down upon The scapegoat fate's made of me But I promise now, my judge and jurors My intentions couldn't have been purer My case is easy to see -Depeche Mode, "Walking In My Shoes" From: "Pedro Queirós" To: Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2001 6:46 PM Subject: INXS: Help on the japanese import of "strangest party" Hi everybody, I need some help on this one, the japanese import of strangest party includes live versions of mystify and taste it, i was wondering where are those live recordings from??? Are this rare live tracks or just compiled from LBL or any other single? If anyone have this one i would really be thankfull for the help. Thanks in advance, Pedro From: "Michael & Sherri" To: Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2001 7:28 PM Subject: Re: INXS: Precious Heart "sample" Listening to some video channel the other day and heard this song that I figured was using the same chords as Never Tear Us Apart. Then when I heard Michael's ghostly vocals I figured it had to be that "Precious Heart" song by that Tall Paul guy or similar. I must say although it had great dance merits (IE would be suitable for a boom box parlour), the only parts I liked were when Michael was singing. It made me wonder why INXS never did any recollectable remixes of the classic Never Tear Us Apart. Michael Kick Talon From: "Fists of Fury Eric Reed" To: Sent: Sunday, September 02, 2001 12:25 AM Subject: Re: INXS: I can't believe that you guys approve of this sort of thing! hiyas! INXS has been having their singles remixed for nearly 20 years now. a remix usually implies a version of the song which makes it more suitable for a dance club. I don't think anyone thinks they can improve upon the original work. I think the main purpose it to create something more suitable to dance to. with precious heart (never tear us apart) and I'm so crazy (just keep walking) they are both excellent songs, as I'm sure observed by the DJs who mixed them into dance cuts. however, neither was originally suitable for dancing. thus, they are remixed. the comment made that these "mixers" (DJs) should pick up an instrument instead of sitting behind their computer is pretty outdated. computers ARE musical instruments now. turntables, samplers, etc...are all used to create music. thus, they are musical instruments. they don't use any acoustics, and may certainly not be conventional. but they are instruments. I don't know how INXS feel about these particular cuts, but I do know that andrew farriss himself has remixed a few INXS songs in the past. a prime example is underneath the colours (chicken mix). apparently they don't feel that remixing is insulting. even tho I am defending DJs, I still personally prefer the original music to be left untouched. I can appreciate and respect what these guys do, but it's not my thing. Fists of Fury Eric Reed From: LU4INXS@aol.com To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Sunday, September 02, 2001 1:40 AM Subject: INXS: Stuck in a Moment Just saw the video!!!! It's about a football game. :( From: NJTalker@aol.com To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Sunday, September 02, 2001 1:50 AM Subject: Re: INXS: Stuck in a Moment I saw the video in Australia and Bono jumps out of a car (?) From: LU4INXS@aol.com To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Sunday, September 02, 2001 3:20 AM Subject: Re: INXS: Stuck in a Moment The one I saw was on MTV tonight. My son yelled for me to come see the video as he was waiting for Blink 182....... From: naseem akhtar To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Sunday, September 02, 2001 6:38 PM Subject: INXS: Michael's CD Hey everyone!!! Is anyone else amazed that there are INXS fans out there who don't even know that the solo CD exists?!!! We had a new girl at work who was going on about the best gig she ever went to (INXS at Wembley Stadium) and when I asked her what she thought of the solo CD, she said "what solo CD?"!!!! She's not the only INXS fan who didn't know - there are others!!! Don't worry as I sent them all to the local HMV!!!! Nas From: To: Sent: Sunday, September 02, 2001 6:57 PM Subject: Re: INXS: Michael's CD LOL yes, send them, send them!! I dont know many INXS fans beyond the list so I dont really know any that dont know about Michaels album. Shine Like it Does, ~Jennifer "Love is like a rocket"~Ross Childress From: To: Sent: Sunday, September 02, 2001 9:12 PM Subject: INXS: Top 80 of the 80's I was just watching VH1's program Top 80 of the 80's and Need You Tonight is #47. Also on MTV they are airing "Best of VMA uncencored" and they show clips of INXS preforming "What You Need", "New Sensation", and "Suicide Blonde" about half way thru the program. Shine Like it Does, ~Jennifer "Love is like a rocket"~Ross Childress From: "Danilo Meira" To: Sent: Monday, September 03, 2001 1:00 AM Subject: INXS: Easter Egg Hiya There! I found this one on THE EASTER EGG archive...I know that it is kinda old and known...but it is a good history... The addy: http://www.eeggs.com/items/29241.html ======================================================== "Better Than Oasis" Rating: 8.2 of 10 (9 votes cast) From: D. (forever_senseless@yahoo.co.uk) Requires: a copy of the INXS song, "Elegantly Wasted" and any player. Easter Egg: Back at a major music awards show, Oasis was named "Best New Band of the Year," with INXS as said award presenters. When they took the stage, one of the Gallagher brothers went spouting off on a rant about how Oasis was the best band in the world, and that they were personally offended to have their award presented by such "has-beens" as INXS. As a personal stab at the self-righteous egotists, the guys of INXS took turns altering the lyrics to the song "Elegantly Wasted". If one listens closely during the chorus, it is possible to (occasionally) hear one of the seven of them sing "better than Oasis" instead of "elegantly wasted". The other six do a pretty decent job of masking the errant vocalist, but this appears a few times throughout the song and is most certainly deliberate. ======================================================== See Ya! Danilo Meira From: "Fists of Fury Eric Reed" To: Sent: Monday, September 03, 2001 2:23 AM Subject: Re: INXS: Easter Egg whoa! I've heard the whole thing about "better than oasis" but I figured it was just something the fans came up with! I never knew it was actually (supposedly) in the song! considering that report wasn't very factual (ie, it wasn't INXS at the awards show, but just michael himself who was called a "has-been", and also since when were there 7 members in INXS? oh, and FYI: michael did ALL the backing vocals on that album) I wouldn't be surprised if this is all just rumor. but still, let's say we all give the song a close listen and see what we come up with, eh? Fists of Fury Eric Reed ===== why would anyone ever want to bring you down? you look so beautiful whenever you are way up high From: "Pedro Queirós" To: "inxs mailing list" Sent: Monday, September 03, 2001 1:44 PM Subject: RE: INXS: Easter eggs Hi, I also remember this rumour about the chorus of elegantly wasted, at the time some people said that it was clear that at some point it was "we're better than oasis" instead of "i'm elegantly wasted", i personally don't agree with it, i think it's just a rumour. But Michael did wrotte a song about that stupid liam, wich is don't lose your head. Michael would be laughing at Liam's face cause oasis have been trown of the stage by crowds in festivals, there were at least 3 or 4 times that they were trown tomatoes at by the crowds last year. Here in Portugal last year they played only half an hour at a festival and we're trown of the stage by the crowd who was sending them away the whole show, it just made my day. Regards, Pedro From: "Catherine" To: Sent: Monday, September 03, 2001 9:31 PM Subject: Re: INXS: Dance version of Just Keep Walking From: Keith Worrell >Reply-To: inxs@topica.com >To: inxs@topica.com >Subject: Re: INXS: Dance version of Just Keep Walking >Date: Sat, 01 Sep 2001 14:27:57 You are absolutely right. I couldn't agree with you more. I think if Michael heard this crap he would turn in his grave. At the same time, it's not surprising that musicians are re-making songs and using samples. It seems that musicians are getting lazier and lazier and are just looking for a way to make quick money by using something that was popular before. It's sad, really. Cat From: "INXSBABE" To: Sent: Monday, September 03, 2001 10:08 PM Subject: INXS: Happy belated birthday to Jon and Tim Boy have I had tons of trouble with my computer. After having it for 4 years, it decided not to work anymore. I tried for 3 weeks to fix it. I figured a new HP was the way to go. Jon, thanks for being an awesome drummer. You made me keep with percussion through high school. I hope you had an awesome birthday. Tim, I hope you had quite an awesome birthday too. Keep rockin. INXSBABE (Karen) From: "Fists of Fury Eric Reed" To: Sent: Monday, September 03, 2001 10:41 PM Subject: RE: INXS: michael rolling over in his grave? --- Catherine wrote: > You are absolutely right. I think if Michael heard this crap he would > turn in his grave. that's so bogus. michael LOVED club music. and again, I'll point out that INXS advocated remixing. why else were all their singles accompanied with various remixes of their songs? why did some INXS members take a hand in remixing songs themselves? if YOU don't like the mixes, that's fine. if you are going to dislike something, at least dislike it for your own reasons (ie, the music just doesn't *inspire* you, or whatever) and not because you think michael would roll over in his grave or whatever. Fists of Fury Eric Reed ===== why would anyone ever want to bring you down? you look so beautiful whenever you are way up high From: To: Sent: Monday, September 03, 2001 10:45 PM Subject: Re: INXS: michael rolling over in his grave? Ok, heres my oppinion on this. I think its an honor for someones song to be covered or sampled...look im sure there are many people my age that have no idea who INXS are, if people start covering their songs, it might bring them more attention to the next generation, I dont see it as something out of disrespect, more of somthing they thought was good, so they decided to have a swing at it. I dont see it as a bad thing Shine Like it Does, ~Jennifer "Love is like a rocket"~Ross Childress From: NJTalker@aol.com To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Monday, September 03, 2001 11:22 PM Subject: Re: INXS: Easter eggs thought LOSE YOUR HEAD was about Geldolf??? Hey, I havent heard the remixes currently debated, but would u rather listen to Britney Spears? LOL marlo! :p From: "Dagette Dillon" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2001 7:45 AM Subject: Re: INXS: Dance version of Just Keep Walking Hi All, Just thought i had to post about the remixes debate I confess that i always detested other bands/musicians remixing other ppls work but its just become the norm wether anyone thinks its right or not. I know i like seeing what bands can do with the music!!!But do angst muchly if they destroy the song!!! But Inxs have always done mixes just take the Decadance Cassingle for example!!! Thats totally unbelievably kewl!!! TOTALLY MY OWN OPINION!!!! Inxsively yours LisaMaree From: shellmichael2484@aol.com To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2001 11:08 AM Subject: Re: INXS: Dance version of Just Keep Walking hey i finally have someone who agrees with me.i cant stand people making money out of the hard work inxs have done by making crap dance music.anyone can do that just nick bits of stuff here n there an sample it.there is no talent and they get shit loads a money for fuck all .sorry thats my opinion anyway michellexx love to michaels memoryxxxxxxx From: "Michelle McFerran" To: "'Inxs@topica.com'" Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2001 11:34 AM Subject: INXS: Dance music/mixes Hi all, I wasn't really going to say anything on this topic, but this is just my opinion. I think dance music and the mixes are great. I am a big fan of techno music and a lot of that music is mixed with other artists music. I think that if there were no such music, the music scene would be so boring. It's like you would hear the same thing over and over again. It's nice to hear something different for a change. I think the band should be honoured for having some of their songs remixed. It gives great publicity for the band in someway and I don't think Michael would be ashamed at all. That's my 2 cents worth, Michelle (Dutchie) Michelle McFerran Technology Staff Assistant direct number: 609-627-2568 fax number: 609-627-2940 Factiva, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company Factiva Technology Department P.O. Box 300 Princeton, New Jersey 08543-0300 e-mail: michelle.mcferran@factiva.com www.factiva.com " ... if you're tired of Web searches that produce more chaff than wheat, you should get acquainted with Factiva, a joint venture combining Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing." -Robert Bartley, The Wall Street Journal- From: shellmichael2484@aol.com To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2001 12:10 PM Subject: Re: INXS: Dance music/mixes i respect wot u say and in some ways i agree but when i think of the the time and effort people put into their work for someone to come along and WHAM BAM hey another record made quickly pinching other artists ideas and then the money they rake in and the credit they get i get so annoyed.it doesnt help either because i cant stand dance music so maybe im a bit biased.luv shellyxxxxxxxxxxxxx From: shellmichael2484@aol.com To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2001 12:25 PM Subject: INXS: film i have heard that michael hutchence made another film before he died called'Limp'. does anyone know if its been released or wether it is going to be released or any informatoin about it at all would be greatfull luv shellyxxxxxxxxxxxxx From: "Michelle McFerran" To: "'Inxs@topica.com'" Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2001 2:52 PM Subject: INXS: music requests sorry guys, i couldn't resist after the recent topic we were talking about... :-) Arts Top tunes 09/01/2001 The Toronto Star Ontario J03 Copyright (c) 200 The Toronto Star HERE'S A SELECTION OF THE KIND OF MUSIC CLUBGOERS ARE REQUESTING: "Ladies Night," Kool And The Gang "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go," Wham "Mickey," Toni Basil "New Sensation," INXS "I Think We're Alone Now," Tiffany "Walk This Way," Run D.M.C. "Fight For Your Right," Beastie Boys "Rhythm Of The Night," Debarge "We Built This City," Starship Michelle McFerran Technology Staff Assistant direct number: 609-627-2568 fax number: 609-627-2940 Factiva, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company Factiva Technology Department P.O. Box 300 Princeton, New Jersey 08543-0300 e-mail: michelle.mcferran@factiva.com www.factiva.com " ... if you're tired of Web searches that produce more chaff than wheat, you should get acquainted with Factiva, a joint venture combining Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing." -Robert Bartley, The Wall Street Journal- From: "Michelle McFerran" To: "'Inxs@topica.com'" Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2001 2:59 PM Subject: INXS: did you know... 6 years ago today that... In 1995, singer Michael Hutchence of INXS pleaded guilty to hitting a photographer and was fined 600 dollars. The photographer was taking Hutchence's picture outside a hotel where Hutchence had spent the night with the estranged wife of singer Bob Geldof. Michelle McFerran Technology Staff Assistant direct number: 609-627-2568 fax number: 609-627-2940 Factiva, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company Factiva Technology Department P.O. Box 300 Princeton, New Jersey 08543-0300 e-mail: michelle.mcferran@factiva.com www.factiva.com " ... if you're tired of Web searches that produce more chaff than wheat, you should get acquainted with Factiva, a joint venture combining Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing." -Robert Bartley, The Wall Street Journal- From: NJTalker@aol.com To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2001 11:06 PM Subject: Re: INXS: did you know... 6 years ago today and who do you think set it up that they would get "caught" having the affair??? marlo! :p From: Catherine To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2001 5:56 AM Subject: Re: INXS: Easter Egg When they did a gig in Toronto in September of 1997 Michael actually sang, loud and clear "Better Than Oasis". Gotta love INXS for being so sneaky!!! Cat From: To: Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2001 7:21 AM Subject: Re: INXS: music requests my god, talk about a club with no music sense. Does this place actually have REAL people go to it. From: To: Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2001 7:23 AM Subject: Re: INXS: did you know... 6 years ago today that... oh no, please don't stir this "Paula was the Devil" discussion again. From: "Michelle McFerran" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2001 9:07 AM Subject: RE: INXS: did you know... 6 years ago today that... hi marlo... my thoughts exactly!! we've been thorough this conversation before about paula, but i really do think she had a big part in having them get caught in a lot of places... i do have respect for her because she is the mother of tiger, but there is still a part of me that can't understand why she did the things she did... :-( michelle (Dutchie) Michelle McFerran Technology Staff Assistant direct number: 609-627-2568 fax number: 609-627-2940 Factiva, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company Factiva Technology Department P.O. Box 300 Princeton, New Jersey 08543-0300 e-mail: michelle.mcferran@factiva.com www.factiva.com " ... if you're tired of Web searches that produce more chaff than wheat, you should get acquainted with Factiva, a joint venture combining Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing." -Robert Bartley, The Wall Street Journal- From: "Michael & Sherri" To: Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2001 5:58 AM Subject: Re: INXS: Straight Line I was walking along a street the other day and "listening without sound" to a Straight Line in my head. I was also creating a video in my head as I tend to do on a long and otherwise dreary walk. It occurred to me that the song could easily be about cocaine as the title is a literal reference to the procedure involved in using the stuff ("take the straight line, and I'm coming to the end of my losing STREAK"). I don't know if anybody had mentioned it before, and was wondering what anybody else thought? Also I'd like to ask anyone if they know anymore about the rumoured INXS gig at South Bank. Aside from Sunday, Sept 9....and after 4.15pm that's about it. By the way me and the family saw Collective Soul at the same venue on the 5th and they were really good (the venue is far from perfect and it gets worse if the crowd is large or the weather is in a tantrum). Here's hoping INXS can match it (historically you'd say they would be odds on). Michael Kick Talon From: "Danilo Meira" To: Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 1:11 AM Subject: INXS: Eco Pack Hello All!!! I was browsing through CD-NOW and one of the INXS itens sold there is the Welcome To Wherever You Are CD Eco-Pack... My question is: what exacltly is this Eco-Pack and what is the difference between this and another release of WTWYA? See Ya! Danilo Meira From: NJTalker@aol.com To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 1:15 AM Subject: Re: INXS: Eco Pack eco pac is not a case with a cd..it is cardboard and flips out....pretty much all of the wtwya are in the eco pak as far as i have seen... marlo! :p From: shellmichael2484@aol.com To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 2:10 PM Subject: INXS: limp hi everyone i am still searching for information about the film limp in which michael hutchence has a role.im wondering if anyone knows when it is coming out(if at all)or if anyone can tell me of a web address i can go to for more info.thanx luv shellyxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxps PLEASE HELP ME From: To: Sent: Sunday, September 09, 2001 10:28 AM Subject: INXS: Rock Star Hi All - Went to see "Rock Star" on Friday night. "Devil Inside" was played during a club scene. It was topical - they were trying to show how decadent the lifestyle is! Fun movie. Dana From: "Michael & Sherri" To: Sent: Sunday, September 09, 2001 3:59 PM Subject: INXS: They Rocked!!! We saw INXS in Brisbane last night. The boys were in perfect form, I have to say, and Jon Stevens was fantastic!!! They brought a tear to my eye when Andrew dedicated Need You Tonight to Michael and Jon S mentioned him again later. Kirk even got up there with Andrew and sang Shine Like It Does. It was INXS at their best and I still believe they are the best live band!!! I'm sure my husband will fill you in on all the facts later as he has a clear head and I'm still dancing in my brain. :) It was just so good to see them again and can't wait for the next time! Sherrianne From: Dennis L To: INXS List Sent: Sunday, September 09, 2001 9:41 PM Subject: INXS: Goodwill Games Hello, I'm just sitting here watching the closing ceremonies to the Goodwill Games. Just out of curiosity, is INXS's appearance supposed to be broadcast on TNT? I mean, not like I really want to see them, but since I happen to be watching the show anyway..... (Yeah, right!) Thanks in advance, Dennis From: To: Sent: Sunday, September 09, 2001 10:09 PM Subject: INXS: finally got Shaboo Shabah and I love it! that brings me up to 6, 8 with anthology, INXS CD's! I love it, I cant get enough of "Spy of Love" I also love "Old World, New World" I have a thing for songs Michael and John write, they are normally my favorites, I dont know why... Shine Like it Does, ~Jennifer "Love is like a rocket"~Ross Childress From: "Fists of Fury Eric Reed" To: Sent: Sunday, September 09, 2001 11:08 PM Subject: Re: INXS: shabooh shoobah From: NJTalker@aol.com To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Sunday, September 09, 2001 11:47 PM Subject: Re: INXS: Goodwill Games Dennis, U r watching TNT...STATESIDE????? Were they on yet? marlo! :p From: "Michael & Sherri" To: Sent: Monday, September 10, 2001 5:42 AM Subject: Re: INXS: They Rocked!!! Yes indeed, INXS were brilliant, interestingly enough there is still an obvious effort on the part of the band to make sure everybody knows that it is INXS AND Jon Stevens and vice versa even though they have been playing as a group now for an odd while. We got there early and went with the idea that we we're going to see INXS and Jon Stevens play one song atleast (hopefully not What You Need) and we'd be happy just to see Vanessa Amorosi (sp?) and the fireworks. So we went there with low expectations and hence we're surprised when we got there to find out INXS would be playing 3/4s of a full set. Vanessa Amorosi also surprised, that girl can sing, however apparently her own sound people don't believe so because they had the reverb on her voice absolutely over the dial......so much so that the stiff breeze over the river was effecting the sound from both the mic. and the speakers. She seemed suited to the rock and blues stuff and the fact that she was doing some rock songs convinced me that I was right to believe she'd be doing something with INXS and JS later. Although there were indeed 80 000+ people at this free gig, most of them we're not there to see INXS or indeed Ms Amorosi...although I saw the odd INXS t-shirt here and there. Hello to anyone else who was there. However the band was generally appreciated as you'd expect by a hefty portion of those closer to the stage. They opened with New Sensation and I must say that the band has obviously been touring recently or rehearsing because it showed. Jon Stevens has obviously sung alot of INXS songs recently because he is getting the notes right. Now contrary to the opinion of my step son (who calls him Elton John Wayne (he couldn't remember his name so he started the evening calling him John Wayne and finished it off calling him Elton John) , he does not sound like Michael...but he can sing. And instrumentally the band was as good as it ever was, I noticed something a little different that I didn't notice on the FMDH tour as well. The band is now doing alot of improvisation for their own benefit (IE stuff the audience would not notice) their playing the songs just a tad differently (method not notes). There were 20 (17/3) songs in the set and it went something like this (order or no. not particularly accurate). New Sensation Send a Message (LiveBL version) Original Sin Kiss The Dirt Taste It .... In the middle they got the audience to sing along to whatever Jon Stevens sung much like in What You Need at Wembley. Time ...... Here Andrew pulled out an acoustic guitar and played some interesting music with Jon Stevens singing some original lyrics (dont ask me to remember them now LOL) a la' Noise Works... which more or less led into the powerful song we all know and love off FMDH. To me this was one of the highlights of the gig Mystify Kick Never Tear Us Apart.. Here Andrew talked about the Good Will Games and how he took his family to the ice skating and enjoyed it much. He then dedicated the song to "our friend Michael"....which won solid crowd support. Bitter Tears....Here Jon Stevens made his own personal tribute (humbly) to MH as the guy who had fronted INXS before him for a solid twenty years. Need You Tonight Mediate Shine Like It Does....Everybody left the stage except Kirk and Andrew for this one......Andrew played electric.....with a mellow almost country like set up and Kirk played the acoustic and sung the verses more or less with Andrew and Kirk on chorus. It was very good but I can't see Kirk doing overpowering lead singing anytime soon to any rock track. Disappear Heaven Sent Devil Inside (Sherrianne reckons that they sampled Michaels voice through on the chorus but to me it was just Andrew digitalised as per usual What You Need (Yet another variation in the middle similar to Aspen though and there was the trademark sing along.) Encore Good Times (Lost Boys sound track) - This was where Vanessa Amorosi came back (as I suspected) and they did as they have done with Jimmy Barnes. I would have preferred a different track for once but........this is Australia afterall and traditions like this one are unstoppable. It's at this point where the concert, to be frank, had gotten very very loud. The fact that speakers wern't catapulting out of the cabinets towards the audience is a miracle. This said though the vocals we're undermixed during this song and to me it was the weakest of a very strong set. Doubtless they don't play it that often but it was appreciated in spades by a knowledgable and partisan audience. Suicide Blonde (the loudest song of the set) Don't Change to finish with of course. After seeing this concert, it is clear to me that the band can make more music with this guy as leadsinger (The acoustic lead in on Time was enough to sell me.) And the way the band are playing I think they need to. Especially Andrew. I also note that there were no backup singers/musicians and they didn't perform anything off of Elegantly Wasted. All in all, it was a bloody brilliant performance! Michael Kick Talon From: "Michelle McFerran" To: Sent: Monday, September 10, 2001 9:24 AM Subject: RE: INXS: Goodwill Games hi dennis... :-) i watched some of the goodwill games, but i turned it off when they had the diving. the only part i saw is that they had a five second clip of INXS playing and a brief mention on them. my one friend said she would call me if they came on later on the ceremonies, but by the time 10:30pm hit, she didn't call, i was in bed, and i don't think they came on. she was going to tape the rest of the games, so i'll let you know if they show anything. either that or does anyone else know if they showed INXS performance? that's all i know... take care... Michelle McFerran Technology Staff Assistant direct number: 609-627-2568 fax number: 609-627-2940 Factiva, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company Factiva Technology Department P.O. Box 300 Princeton, New Jersey 08543-0300 e-mail: michelle.mcferran@factiva.com www.factiva.com " ... if you're tired of Web searches that produce more chaff than wheat, you should get acquainted with Factiva, a joint venture combining Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing." -Robert Bartley, The Wall Street Journal- From: "Michelle McFerran" To: "'Inxs@topica.com'" Sent: Monday, September 10, 2001 4:32 PM Subject: INXS: chat on inxs.com anyone hi all... just got done all my work... anyone up for a quick chat... i leave here in about 10-15 minutes... :-) Michelle McFerran Technology Staff Assistant direct number: 609-627-2568 fax number: 609-627-2940 Factiva, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company Factiva Technology Department P.O. Box 300 Princeton, New Jersey 08543-0300 e-mail: michelle.mcferran@factiva.com www.factiva.com " ... if you're tired of Web searches that produce more chaff than wheat, you should get acquainted with Factiva, a joint venture combining Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing." -Robert Bartley, The Wall Street Journal- From: To: Sent: Monday, September 10, 2001 9:35 PM Subject: Re: INXS: finally got Shaboo Shabah Jennifer, this is my favorite album of all time by any band! I just can't get enough of it! Enjoy it! From: "Glenn Misztal" To: Sent: Monday, September 10, 2001 11:19 PM Subject: Re: INXS: chat on inxs.com anyone >hi all... > >just got done all my work... anyone up for a quick chat... i leave here >in >about 10-15 minutes... :-) I just want to chime in and say that I'm awake at really odd hours of the day/night, so if anyone wants to chat (about INXS related stuff or just have a good ol' yarn), my ICQ number is 14034691. - Glenn glennmisztal@hotmail.com From: Dennis L To: INXS List Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 7:03 AM Subject: Re: INXS: Goodwill Games Hi Michelle and Marlo, Thanks for your responses. I had tried watching the whole broadcast, but it was boring me to no end. I wound up just taping it and went to bed. Michelle, do you remember what time they played that very short INXS clip? It'll save me a few hours of re-watching through all the figure skating to find it!!! Thanks, Dennis From: "Michelle McFerran" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 10:04 AM Subject: RE: INXS: Goodwill Games Hi Dennis, It was about 15-20 minutes into the show. It was in the very beginning. I hope that helps you out. :-) It was very quick and a brief mention, so don't blink. You might miss them. Disappointed once again on USA coverage... :-( Michelle (Dutchie) Michelle McFerran Technology Staff Assistant direct number: 609-627-2568 fax number: 609-627-2940 Factiva, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company Factiva Technology Department P.O. Box 300 Princeton, New Jersey 08543-0300 e-mail: michelle.mcferran@factiva.com www.factiva.com " ... if you're tired of Web searches that produce more chaff than wheat, you should get acquainted with Factiva, a joint venture combining Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing." -Robert Bartley, The Wall Street Journal- From: "Graziella" To: "Liste" Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 11:21 AM Subject: INXS: USA Hi everbody, I have just watched the TV and saw what happened. I know many of you are americans and I feel terribly sorry. Don't know what to say Graziella From: "Sebastian de Sousa" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 11:19 AM Subject: RE: INXS: USA I agree with Graziella and I hope everyone is ok in North America. Sebas... From: "Michelle McFerran" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 11:22 AM Subject: RE: INXS: USA Hi Graz... All I ask of everyone is just say a prayer for all these people. A lot of our staff is based in the World Trade Centre and a lot of them are missing. It's all VERY devastating and we can only hope for the best, but it looks REALLY bad. So, everyone, please just say a prayer for the victims who are involved. It's going to be an awful long day here at work. :-( Michelle McFerran Technology Staff Assistant direct number: 609-627-2568 fax number: 609-627-2940 Factiva, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company Factiva Technology Department P.O. Box 300 Princeton, New Jersey 08543-0300 e-mail: michelle.mcferran@factiva.com www.factiva.com " ... if you're tired of Web searches that produce more chaff than wheat, you should get acquainted with Factiva, a joint venture combining Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing." -Robert Bartley, The Wall Street Journal- From: "Linda Peterson" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 11:23 AM Subject: Re: INXS: USA Pray. Love and Peace From: To: Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 11:50 AM Subject: Re: INXS: USA Michelle, You and your loved ones and associates are in my prayers!! Please everyone say a prayer for those down in Washington as well. My brother called about an hour ago and said they were evacuating his building. I'm waiting to hear back from him as all the phone circuits are busy both there and in NY. Thanks, Chris the Girl From: To: Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 12:55 PM Subject: Re: INXS: USA Here in Richmond, VA they've also evacuated all high rise buildings. It's really scary, considering that the Pentagon isn't that far from here. I feel so bad for all of the families who had loved ones traveling in those planes that hit the Towers in NY. Chris M. From: To: Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 1:33 PM Subject: INXS: I don't know what to put in the subject line because I don't know what to say. It's a while since I've posted to the list anyway but I just felt I had to say that I'm thinking of everyone in America and that I hope all of you are ok and that you and you're loved ones are all safe. I've been watching the news all day here in the UK and it doesn't matter how many times I see it I still can't believe it. Thinking of you all. Take care and lots of love Julia From: "Andrew Gaulin" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 3:10 PM Subject: Re: INXS: Hi all, I have to agree with Julia, What can you say when such inexplicable insanity occurs!! I know many of the flights were diverted up here to Montreal and other parts of Canada also, the least we could do. There's such sadness in this world its incredible. Our hearts go out to our American friends... take care, Andrew From: "Fists of Fury Eric Reed" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 3:49 PM Subject: Re: INXS: NEW YORK AND DC hello I have a part time job at the disney store in san bernardino, ca (which is an hour east of los angeles). our store closed down and we were sent home early. we are thousands of miles away from any of the attacks and I'm still scared for my life. I don't think I've ever been so scared. I suppose not so much for just my life but for any and all lives which are in danger. and worse than my fear is my sadness for the victims. I don't know what to say. dutchie (michelle), I'm glad to hear you're ok. I'm desperate to hear from roro (luvnpce99@aol.com) as I know she lives in NY as well. any other new yorkers (as well as DC people) please respond as fast as possible so I can ease my mind! Fists of Fury Eric Reed ===== why would anyone ever want to bring you down? you look so beautiful whenever you are way up high From: To: Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 3:56 PM Subject: INXS: writing from NYC Hi Everyone - I can't even begin to describe the state of mind of the people here in NYC today. We are all in such shock. I don't know what this means for the city or the country right now. Thanks for your concern - we do appreciate it. Take care, Dana From: INXSED 2 To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 6:01 PM Subject: Re: INXS: NEW YORK AND DC My prayers go out to all of you in New York and the surrounding area...and to all of us that are scared to death! I am in Indianapolis and we even had our downtown closed off...we don't have any huge skyscrapers but you never can be too safe. Take care everyone Rhonda From: To: Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 6:20 PM Subject: Re: INXS: USA Thank you, Im praticularly frightened after all, 2 planes were headed for LA and one to San Fransisco, LA is about 30 minutes away from here..... Shine Like it Does, ~Jennifer "Love is like a rocket"~Ross Childress From: "Fists of Fury Eric Reed" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 6:42 PM Subject: Re: INXS: USA hi I would just like to present some speculation here. it's my understanding that the reason why the planes headed to california were used in the attack is not because LA and SF are intended targets to be attacked. the reason has more to do with the fact that the planes were loaded up with fuel (because they were to travel a great distance from the east coast) and, to the terrorists, were ideal "bombs". to say that we're safe here in california is only speculation, but it can at least be said that the destination of those planes is irrelevant in terms of a future terrorist attack. I hope this makes sense and eases your mind somewhat. again, I'm surely not saying there's nothing to worry about, but please don't think that the intended flight destinations are relevant in any other way except for the fact that they carried large amount of fuel. I feel awful today. it's hard for me to want to look forward to tomorrow. I've been watching CNN for several hours and this disaster's end is really nowhere in sight. the aftermath is going to be so saddening (as if today wasn't bad enough). I don't want to hear how many people's lives were taken. I don't want to think about the fact that I may have known someone in those buildings, or on the flights headed to LA, or hear about someone my friend knew who lost their life. I have a dumb question, but I'm hoping someone can answer: how close in proximity is times square to the former world trade center? Fists of Fury Eric Reed --- Jjtough@aol.com wrote: > Thank you, Im praticularly frightened after all, 2 planes were headed > for LA > and one to San Fransisco, LA is about 30 minutes away from here..... ===== why would anyone ever want to bring you down? you look so beautiful whenever you are way up high From: "Erica Nicole" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 7:07 PM Subject: INXS: today i don't really have anything to add to this topic except i'd like to address all u.s. citizens when asking that you have faith and pray, among other things, for the worst to soon be over. have pride in our country and that the president and others will make the right decision. i trust them to. i know i sound awefully dumb probably, but that is the way i feel right now and i can't really add anything other than that. i am very saddened and quite concerned as well, as i'm sure most all americans are. god bless and peace, erica ------------------------------------- Morality would frown upon Decency look down upon The scapegoat fate's made of me But I promise now, my judge and jurors My intentions couldn't have been purer My case is easy to see -Depeche Mode, "Walking In My Shoes" From: To: Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 8:26 PM Subject: Re: INXS: USA - NYC info Hi Everyone - Thanks again for all of your concern. I'm sure I speak for everyone on the list who lives in NY (and DC) when I write that we really do appreciate your emails. We are just devastated and not sure how to handle all of this. To answer the question below, Times Square is a few miles from the WTC, so anyone who was in Times Square would not have been hurt, nor would the smoke and debris have even gotten close. If anyone else has any questions, please feel free to ask. Dana In a message dated 9/11/01 6:42:37 PM Eastern Daylight Time, skippythefrog@yahoo.com writes: << I have a dumb question, but I'm hoping someone can answer: how close in proximity is times square to the former world trade center? >> From: "karma" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 8:45 PM Subject: Re: INXS: USA Michelle and everyone in America, All my prayers and thoughts are with you for your families, friends, co-workers and every single citizen in America! my deepest sympathies go out to you. I was up most the night watching the tv in disbelief, like some horrific nightmare...I've never seen anything like this in my life! Every single tv stations here in Australia has taken all their regular programs of and all that is on every chanel is footage showing this incomprehensible tragedy! I just can't believe this has happened. Once again, my deepest and sincere sympathy goes out to anybody and everybody involved or affected by this monstrous tragedy which is beyong belief! Love and Peace, Judy ps, Michelle, I hope and pray that all the staff from your work are okay and safe! Words can't describe my deepest condolences to all the innocent victims! From: "Neil Kothari" To: "INXS Mailing List" Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 10:10 PM Subject: INXS: Horrific I just sent this message to friends and family, and wanted to share it with all of you as well. Take care, -neil -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Horrific Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 22:07:01 -0400 From: Neil Kothari Hey everyone, Sorry for the bulk, but as my inbox is overflowing and my cell phone is acting a little dodgy, I just wanted to send out a general message. I'm okay, and I hope to hear from all of the rest of you in New York City to let me know that you're alright as well. As you can probably imagine, I've had one of the most surreal days of my entire life. I started the day at Sloane-Kettering, but was recalled to Bellevue to help out around 11am after the towers went down. Transportation was at a stand-still, so I hitched a ride as far as I could go downtown. I made my way over to Bellevue, where a very methodical, military-like operation was underway. Thousands of normal New Yorkers were lined up to give blood, which remains one of the most heartwarming things I've ever seen before. I was put in charge of one of the special make-shift units that were constructed -- unfortunately, though we did treat smoke inhalation, burn, and some trauma patients -- we were not especially overrun as had been the expectation. That's not a good sign when you consider the more sobering realization -- most of the people are either trapped in debris or have died. As it is, police at Bellevue informed me as I was leaving just now (~9pm) that there are at the very least 3,000 dead, but that is likely just the tip of the iceberg. A horrific day -- we'll see what the days and weeks ahead bring. -neil -- Neil Kothari, M.D. Bellevue Hospital/New York University Medical Center An Excess of INXS -- http://INXSweb.com Now Playing: Björk "Vespertine" From: "karma" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 10:31 PM Subject: Re: INXS: Horrific Thanks so much Neil for letting us know that you are okay and here in Australia our deepest sympathies, thoughts and prayers go out to you and all those poor innocent victims of this horrific tragedy which is totally unbelievable, can't comprehend the depth of the tragedy and shock of what I am seeing on the tv! No words can begin to describe what has happened! much love and thoughts to everybody in America, please know that you are in my prayers and thoughts. With kindness and humanity to the world... This is the saddest day I've ever seen in my lifetime... Judy from Oz :( From: "Glenn Misztal" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 10:26 PM Subject: RE: INXS: USA Michelle, >All I ask of everyone is just say a prayer for all these people. Without delay. >A lot of our staff is based in the World Trade Centre and a lot of >them >are missing. It's all VERY devastating and we can only hope for >the best, >but it looks REALLY bad. So, everyone, please just say a >prayer for the >victims who are involved. It's going to be an awful >long day here at >work. :-( The whole incident is the first thing I heard on the radio as soon as I woke up this morning...indeed it was a literal wake up call. I turned on the news (luckily I get CNN and ABC here) and I have been watching constant updates ever since. My prayers and thoughts are with the victims and their families right now. - Glenn glennmisztal@hotmail.com From: To: Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 11:28 PM Subject: Re: INXS: Horrific Hi Friends, It truly is heartwarming to see all the messages from around the globe posted concerning the well being of all the people involved in the tragedy that occurred here in the the good old USA. Thirty -One years ago I was in a strange land (Nam) in a strange war,never quite sure who the enemy was,I had a few friends who never made it back,when I made it home I kissed the ground and said I know this will never happen again.WRONG!!! None of us are invincible,what happened today has really torn me apart,from shock to disbelief to almost denial but reality has set in. I am no longer in a strange land but I am still uncertain of the enemy, our Country has been attacked and I hope and pray to God they are found and dealt with appropriately. My daughter will deliver a beautiful son in Nov. My first Grandchild (I'm not that old just the short side of 50) and my one wish is he enter a peaceful world that we can all co-exsist in I ask all of you to take a moment and in your own design take time to thank all the people who worked throughout the day non-stop to save those who were injured and offer up your prayers for those who died and their families,Thank you for putting up with my rambling,I appreciate it. Love & Peace Joe From: "karma" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 11:50 PM Subject: Re: INXS: Horrific Dear Joe, I am in Australia and you have my deepest sympathies and my prayers and thoughts go out to all the victims and their families of this surreal and horrific tragedy! I hope in my heart that your grandchild will be born into a peaceful world! Much love and peace to a united peaceful world. Our prayers are with you, Judy from Oz :o( From: LuvNPce99@aol.com To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 11:50 PM Subject: Re: INXS: NEW YORK AND DC Hi everyone. We are all ok here. My husband, Tony, works for Merrill Lynch....which has it's buildings a block behind the World Trade Center. He was just coming out of the subway which comes out into the mall of the Trade Center....when someone yelled....there's been an explosion...get out!! He said he went outside and looked up at the building to see the huge hole in it and debris falling all around him. He ran up the street to another building to find shelter from the debris...waited awhile ...and then made his way to Penn Station. It took him awhile to get out of Manhattan...but he said all day he was just saying....thank God he was alive...it could have been worse. All those poor people...it's just devastating. Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone involved in this tragedy. Take care everyone. Reed......thanks for your concern....it's greatly appreciated....you're the best.....talk to ya soon. Love & Peace - roro From: "Dagette Dillon" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 4:41 AM Subject: Re: INXS: NEW YORK AND DC Hi Everyone, I had to email on this a very sad & tragic day!!! My thoughts & love go out to everyone involved & the US as a whole To say i'm shocked is an understatement & i'm on the other side of the world!!! the impact on ppl i would never understand. But just had to let u know I was thinking of everyone Loving wishes to all LisaMaree From: LU4INXS@aol.com To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 2:18 AM Subject: Re: INXS: Horrific Joe, I just wanted to be an American to thank you for being one of the brave who fought in Nam! I had a boyfriend who did, too. He got shot and I had to deal with his cold sweats at night and the nightmares that woke him up. The fourth of July was bad......he really was affected by the fireworks! He was "Airborne" and I salute all those men and women who fought that nasty, LONG, unappreciated war! Everyone else, Thank you for the good wishes to all of us here. I believe Eric pretty much hit the nail on the head.... I have a friend whose birthday is September 11, and now he wants to change his birthdate. 9-11 wow. who would have thought. Send prayers, light candles, and give blood if you can. take care all in the world. (hi Gras. hi Julia. thanks.) laurie From: To: Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 3:57 AM Subject: Re: INXS: Horrific Hey All, I couldn't believe it when I woke up this morning. I was lying in bed, half asleep, half awake, I could hear my parents outside talking, I picked up bits and pieces, like plane, people, how many, etc, but no full idea of what I could even begin to imagine happened. Soon as I walked out into the loungeroom and saw the pics on the screen I was in just shock. I knew it was serious when I flicked thru the channels and found that EVERY station here in OZ was covering it. I just don't get it. I'm not usually up to date on the goings on of the world, and totally didn't see this coming. I guess no one did though. What was even harder to believe was the images from Palestine I think it was, where people in the streets were rejoicing, and celebrating what had happened. Little kids and older people, it just disgusted me. It's strange, cos we had a debate in class the other week about wars and whether or not it is pointless to try and prevent them, and I came up with the points that it was useless, that only a handful of people gain any benefit from them, that they are fought by babies who have no idea what they are even fighting for. Now this happens, I still believe the same thing, who could have benefited from what happened? The hijackers of the planes, that crashed them, did they have any idea what they were doing it for? Probably not. We discussed it in my Advanced Sports Psychology class for about 45mins, trying to make sense of the actions of both the terrorists and the victims. I guess no one can ever really know why. That's all from me anyway. See ya's, >MITCH From: "Steve B" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 4:09 AM Subject: INXS: For everyone in the States - our thougths and prayers are with you Love & Peace Always Kerry B (aka kab) Western Australia kbergh@iprimus.com.au From: "Natalie Sherlock" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 4:21 AM Subject: Re: INXS: Horrific Like the rest of you, and the rest of the civilised world, words cannot express the shock and amazement I feel at this terrible moment in time. I am glad to hear that Neil and a few other people I know from NY are ok.... I'm still watching those horrific pictures on the news yet again in absolute amazement.... A friend of mine has developed a memorial site/guestbook for people to sign and express themselves. Feel free to visit http://planet2t.i8.com Love & Peace Magic & Sparkles to all Natski From: "Fists of Fury Eric Reed" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 5:37 AM Subject: INXS: think before you hate hello all! thanks to roro (and other new yorkers) who have reported in and confirmed their safety. knowing they are ok surely helps ease my mind a little, but the horrific realisation of all of this is still in fruition. at least in my mind. comprehension still ceases to exist. I'm sure all of us are sad, and probably several who are also angry, including myself. I want to encourage those who are filled with immense anger to make sure your anger is focused in the right direction. not that I know what the right direction is, but at least try not to focus it in the wrong direction. I'm sure many of us have heard and/or seen the footage of several afghans celebrating over what has happened. I've heard many people say things such as "let's bomb the hell out of those assholes" and things like that. I'll spare you my feelings on war in general, and I'm not here to try to sway people into being for or against war. I want to point out that just because the media has shown us footage of people in afghanistan celebrating, it doesn't mean that the entire country feels that way. likely that is not the case. regardless of that, we are not to assume this is the general concensus of afghan people. such assumptions border on racism. right now I am frightened for people with middle eastern background in the united states. I fear that there will be hate crimes against these people. as un-patriotic as I tend to be, I feel the need to reiterate the fact that despite their color, accent, clothing, whatever...that these people are still AMERICANS. please, please treat them as such. it's doubtful that any of them wanted this to happen. I'm not making this statement because I have any reason to believe someone from this list would commit a hate crime. but it unnerves me a bit when I hear people say we should wipe out their whole country. I fear that these same people may also have some anger/hatred brewing against people of that race. I certainly hope not. take a moment to think about what I've said, and if you agree I hope you'll be able to share these perspectives with others. thanks for reading... Fists of Fury Eric Reed ===== why would anyone ever want to bring you down? you look so beautiful whenever you are way up high From: Graziella To: Liste Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 10:54 AM Subject: Re: INXS: Horrific Hello Laurie, I was so moved when I read your mail. what can we say? Im terribly shocked and I can't help thinking of all these people who died yesterday because of monsters. That's terrible really and unbelievable. Im just wondering in what kind of world we are living in...that is becoming worse and worse. Just to let you know that French and Europeans are all together with the american people, whatever will happen in the future. Graz. From: To: Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 11:23 AM Subject: INXS: Act of War (?) Well, for those not watching the news (which is pretty hard) I wanted to give a little update. President Bush has announced (at roughly 10:50am EST) that what happened yesterday was not an act of terrorism, but an act of war. A statement that should interpreted the way each individual chooses to as far as I'm concerned, because it can be translated many different way. Also, the latest numbers I've seen, as sad, angry, and horrified as I am to say them, are as follows: An estimated 800 dead in the Pentagon alone; Close to 300 from all four planes together (possibly more). Rudy Guiliani is also saying the the skyline will be rebuilt. Personally, I don't know if I agree with this. I would never be the same. Dawn From: "Pedro Queirós" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 1:30 PM Subject: Re: INXS: USA To everyone in the USA, I just want to say that i am very sad with the tragedy that took place in NYC and DC, I hope everybody on this list and their relatives and friends are ok. I really don't know what to say at this time i just want to let you know that my heart is with all of you speccially those who lost loved ones or don't even know if they lost them. I'm from Portugal and i've been watching it since yesterday as all tv's are covering it all day, our government as already expressed against this acts of pure terrorism(insanity). This just seems unreal, it's very hard to believe that this has really happened. I wish you all the best. I hope justice will be done and we never will see anything like this again. Peace to all of you Pedro From: "Pedro Queirós" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 1:30 PM Subject: Re: INXS: USA To everyone in the USA, I just want to say that i am very sad with the tragedy that took place in NYC and DC, I hope everybody on this list and their relatives and friends are ok. I really don't know what to say at this time i just want to let you know that my heart is with all of you speccially those who lost loved ones or don't even know if they lost them. I'm from Portugal and i've been watching it since yesterday as all tv's are covering it all day, our government as already expressed against this acts of pure terrorism(insanity). This just seems unreal, it's very hard to believe that this has really happened. I wish you all the best. I hope justice will be done and we never will see anything like this again. Peace to all of you Pedro From: NJTalker@aol.com To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 4:36 PM Subject: INXS: On America Hello all, As someone who lives VERY close to the site of terror in NYC, thank you for all of your emails. I know that Michelle and I were in contact re: the situation at her place of business. Stores have been closed, Broadway shows are cancelled, even Disneyworld and land are closed (that for those of you overseas...I dont know what you are hearing). People were sent home early (even as far as CA, a la Reed (Fists of Fury).) My brother's company has a sister office in NY and though he was out of harms way, the company had to shut down due to lack of phone lines open. Attached, is a memo that I received from him. Take some time to read it if you like. It is rather interesting. That is all I will say on the subject; you can form your own opinions as I know that the people on this list are some of the brightest and perceptive people around the world. Once again, much thanks for your thoughts and prayers. I hope that you and your loved ones are safe. I know that life in the NY area is very difficult right now, emotionally, mentally...I do hope that you are finding some peace of mind wherever this message lands. Take care... And as Michael said, and it rings loudly now, more than ever, LOVE and PEACE, marlo From: "Michelle McFerran" To: "'Inxs@topica.com'" Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 9:49 AM Subject: INXS: THANK YOU Hi all, I just wanted to say THANK YOU to everyone for their thoughts and prayers for the people of NYC and DC. I am still feeling so much emotion right now that I really don't know what else to say, but THANK YOU. We haven't heard any new news yet about any of our people in the Trade Centre. It's going to be a while before we do. There is so much debris everywhere. I pray for the safety of the resucers and doctors for saving more people's lives. Hopefully we will hear word soon. Thank you again all for your thoughts & prayers, Take care, Michelle McFerran Technology Staff Assistant direct number: 609-627-2568 fax number: 609-627-2940 Factiva, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company Factiva Technology Department P.O. Box 300 Princeton, New Jersey 08543-0300 e-mail: michelle.mcferran@factiva.com www.factiva.com " ... if you're tired of Web searches that produce more chaff than wheat, you should get acquainted with Factiva, a joint venture combining Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing." -Robert Bartley, The Wall Street Journal- From: To: Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 6:35 PM Subject: Re: INXS: Horrific Yes we All know that it was/is an Horrific thing that has happened and I feel for all the families of those people who have been MURDERED by the coward/cowards who planned this.....but this is an INXS list. So lets get back on track with this INXS list. Any news about 'Limp' being released ANYWHERE in the world? From: "Silverbeachbabe !!!" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 8:00 PM Subject: Re: INXS: think before you hate I just want to express my deepest sympathy and send my best wishes for the healing that lies ahead for everyone on this list from America. Please take care KellyK From: "Sue" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 8:01 PM Subject: Re: INXS: Horrific * Yes we All know that it was/is an Horrific thing that has happened and I feel > for all the families of those people who have been MURDERED by the coward/cowards > who planned this.....but this is an INXS list. So lets get back on track with > this INXS list. Any news about 'Limp' being released ANYWHERE in the world? As you wish. This is a statement released by INXS. I snipped this from Allstar daily news. INXS: "From INXS with love. Jon, Tim, Garry, Andrew and Kirk would like to express their sadness and send out their love to those in the United States after the tragedy in New York and Washington. We still search for peace! "I know you've seen something That hurt you in your dreams Your face it tells the story The pages stained with tears Take the curtains down The sun is what you found It leads you far from here And takes you to high ground." Sue From: LU4INXS@aol.com To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 8:30 PM Subject: Re: INXS: Horrific boy, I bet you are a loving person. sorry to vent to others who have vented, but this inxslist also has to do with FRIENDS and obviously, WE AMERICANS have FRIENDS on this list! maybe is you quit asking about LIMP - and do a bit of research you will find that there is nothing out there YET........ (sorry everyone. bad day. and I don't like to be told what to do.) From: LU4INXS@aol.com To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 8:37 PM Subject: Re: INXS: Horrific Thank you Sue. geeze, it made me cry to read that. I will now keep my big mouth shut. Just know that it feels great to see people (FRIENDS) from around the world expressing their concern. Especially since they say the terrorists are not done.....and I am thankful that my son is not old enough to get drafted, which they are probably going to do. But in two years he will be. hey, mkh@cwcom.net, think about that......WE AMERICANS also have to give up our children to war! Ok, I am done. Thank you all who have expressed concern. PEACE Laurie THANK YOU INXS, too. From: To: Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 10:02 PM Subject: Re: INXS: Horrific In a message dated 9/12/01 3:35:53 PM, mkh@cwcom.net writes: << Yes we All know that it was/is an Horrific thing that has happened and I feel for all the families of those people who have been MURDERED by the coward/cowards who planned this.....but this is an INXS list. So lets get back on track with this INXS list. Any news about 'Limp' being released ANYWHERE in the world? >> Is this your very poor idea of a joke? Perhaps all of America should collectively apologize to you for these inconvenient events of the past two days getting in the way of your information about LIMP's release...but as you are aware, thousands of people just died. Some of those very people are known to members of this very INXS list. Many people obviously feel the need to reach out, connect with others and express their shock, fear and dismay. Some of those people used this forum. Your post was shameful and inappropriate. From: "karma" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 10:57 PM Subject: Re: INXS: Horrific I agree that was an insensitive post, hey if you want to know about Limp, try searching the websites! I think your comment were very unjustified and shameful.! thank goodness this forum exists for people to be able to discuss how they are feeling with this horrific tragedy...It that is all the talk on here for weeks and beyond to come and it helps just one single person with their grief, that is all that matters! Love and Peace, Judy From: "MERRY" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 11:33 PM Subject: Re: INXS: THANK YOU Hello all, I also would like to express my thanks to all for your kind words and thoughts...Friends of mine have lost children & I have lost a couple of colleges in this terrible tragedy...After a day of grief & dismay and mounting fear, it was wonderful to come home and find here on the list this out pour of kindness and support...It's such a great comfort to know we are not alone in this...Thank You with all my heart....Merry From: "Danilo Meira" To: Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 12:08 AM Subject: INXS: INXS Statement about USA Crisis Hello All! On yesterday's All_Star Daily News, statements of some artists were posted...INXS was one of those artists... http://cdnow.com/allstararticle/fid=286417 INXS: "From INXS with love. Jon, Tim, Garry, Andrew and Kirk would like to express their sadness and send out their love to those in the United States after the tragedy in New York and Washington. We still search for peace! "I know you've seen something That hurt you in your dreams Your face it tells the story The pages stained with tears Take the curtains down The sun is what you found It leads you far from here And takes you to high ground." See Ya! Danilo Meira From: LuvNPce99@aol.com To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 12:26 AM Subject: INXS: Kris with a K Hey everyone. I was just thinking....has anyone heard from Kris with a K. I believe she works in NYC and I haven't seen any posts from her. If you're out there Kris.....give us a shout to let us know you are ok. Love & Peace - roro From: karma To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 12:48 AM Subject: Re: INXS: Kris with a K I think she's fine (I hope) as she posted on the inxs.com message board yesterday about her incident! If you go to www.inxs.com you wll be able to read what she had to say about her morning, she was there but is okay! Judy From: skippythefrog@aol.com To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 6:40 AM Subject: INXS: test eh? From: skippythefrog@aol.com To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 6:44 AM Subject: Re: INXS: test my yahoo address is now unsubscribed from the list. I didn't unsubscribe. what's going on? another friend emailed me and told me the same thing happened to her. Fists of Fury Eric Reed From: skippythefrog@aol.com To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 6:59 AM Subject: INXS: a message hello all! cathy (mystify@uswest.net) sent me this message to foward to the list, as it seems she's having troubles posting. perhaps a subscription issue? here's the message: Roro, I am SO glad to hear this!! I know Tony used to work for Shearson Lehman (that's what I thought hesaid in Vegas, anyway), and I could NOT get a hold of any of my Lehman contacts to find out if they were ok!! <> I have to tell all of you what I keep thinking....I was just in the WTC on Labor Day. There were metal detectors and several security people searching everyone's bag, and hand searching all devices anyone had. I remember being impressed at how seriously they were taking their job....it impressed me more than the view from the top, and I spent the entire ride down thinking about how difficult it must be to go to work every morning assuming that you would encounter someone trying to blow up your building, and they managed to handle everyone with humor and politeness. I hope they made it out. From: "Nanci Lamb Roider" To: Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 8:23 AM Subject: INXS: Update from Neil Here's a quick update from Neil... Hey everyone, I don't have a lot of time right now -- need to get a few hours rest and head back to work -- but I wanted to quickly update everyone, especially as the thick smell of burning rubber and plastic in my apartment looks like it's going to keep me awake. Sadly, it was a very quiet day at area hospitals -- there were only a handful of injured that arrived (mostly relief workers with smoke inhalation, etc). The grim reality is pretty clear at this point from our point of view -- perhaps 10-20 more will be pulled out alive, but for the thousands more under there... I've heard such incredible first-hand tales today of heroism and serendipity, of wistfully watching people enter never to reappear... Though all of my friends and family are safe and accounted for, I've also heard of several acquaintances that are currently missing. I have also learned of a friend of a friend who was on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. Though I don't want to editorialize -- I'll leave that to others -- I will say that I am so incredibly proud of New Yorkers. I guess somewhere in the morbid side of my brain I had wondered in the past what NYC would be like in an emergency situation -- I imagined New Yorkers looting shops, store owners selling water for $10 a gallon, etc... But it's been completely the opposite -- people are trying to help in any way possible; there has been no major crime or major public disturbance. Though Philadelphia may be dubbed the "City of Brotherly Love" -- for the last two days it has definitely been New York. Alright, off to bed -- hope all of you are well, -neil -- Neil Kothari, M.D. Bellevue Hospital/New York University Medical Center From: "Nanci Lamb Roider" To: "inxslist" Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 8:34 AM Subject: INXS: Yahoo subscription probs Hi all, I've just found out that many Yahoo account people were somehow unsubbed from the list. It appears that this was because of several "hard bounces" coming from the Yahoo accounts. I just wanted to let everyone know, however, that I've resubbed all the Yahoo people (and a few more who showed up in the "hard bounce" category as well). So, if you hear from someone who's been unsubbed and they are still having problems, have them contact me and I'll get them squared away. Sorry for the inconvenience, Nanci We thought we had all the answers; it was the questions we had wrong. --Bono From: Sebastian de Sousa To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 8:50 AM Subject: RE: INXS: a message Hello all, I know this is an INXS list, but this is the only way to know all the fans and friends that I have met from here are ok, at least for me. And I´m glad to know they are safe right now, despite the pain suffered by the lost of their loved ones, relatives and partners. I think this attack have been made against all the human race and not only for USA, I have heard that even an Argentine who were working in one of the Twin Towers has died. Besides, thousands of innocent from all over the world have died beacuse, if I´m not wrong, tourists could visit the Twin Towers as entertainment. I don´t have much more to say, I think the images that I saw on TV speak by their own. I would like to let you know that I reject this terrorist attack and express my deepest condolences regarding this tragedy. Love and Peace to the whole world, Sebastián. From: "Nanci Lamb Roider" To: "inxslist" Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 11:05 AM Subject: INXS: NIC: Looking for Kylie Glynn Hi all, Sorry to use the list this way, but, if anyone has Kylie's current email address, can you please send it to me? Thanks much! Nanci PS - For those of you who don't know Kylie, don't worry, she's in Oz, not NY or DC. My looking for her has nothing to do with this weeks events. We thought we had all the answers; it was the questions we had wrong. --Bono From: Stefan To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 12:00 PM Subject: INXS: test test From: "Deirdre Jennette" To: Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 8:26 PM Subject: INXS: Subject: Americans Unite against terrorism Subject: Americans Unite against terrorism This Friday Night, September 14, 2001 at 7:00 p.m. step out of your door, stop your car, or step out of your establishment and light a candle. We will show the world that Americans are strong and united together against terrorism. Please pass this to everyone on your e-mail list. We need to reach everyone across the United States quickly. The message: WE STAND UNITED - WE WILL NOT TOLERATE TERRORISM! From: "Andrew Gaulin" To: Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 4:51 PM Subject: RE: INXS: USA Hi Michelle, Well I just heard they found 4 or 5 firemen alive underneath tons of rubble,Excellent!! How are you coping?? I know this is a little ridiculous to say ..but if there's anything I can do for you,please ask. Tomorrow is a national day of mourning here in Canada,with a moment of silence at 3:15. I'm sure the whole country will be silent. take care,my thoughts are with you. Andrew From: "Andrew Gaulin" To: Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 4:56 PM Subject: RE: INXS: USA Sorry didn't mean to send that to the entire list Andrew From: K WithaKris To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 5:09 PM Subject: INXS: Kris with a K here Hi everyone!!! Ever since the list changed to Topica, I didn't switch over. I finally have been able to sign up, and am here now. I heard a few people were asking about me because of the terrible WTC tragedy? I am fine...I posted what happened on inxs.com but someone told me now that I have signed up here, I should post it here for everyone to read. I will paste it below. I really hope everyone from this list in DC and NYC are all safe, and they didn't loose anyone as well! I am off work still today because the area I work in is still closed off. I have no idea when I will be going back...that is all up to when the city re-opens it! Tuesday was a crazy freakin day...I am still in shock and basically traumatized!!! This is what happened on my end: 8:50am 1 train stop away from the WTC on my way to work. The train stops for a minute and the conductor says there is a train ahead of us at the WTC reporting smoke and they were awaiting further instructions (making it sound like a train fire). The next stop is the WTC and they say they re NOT stopping there. The doors opened to let the last of the people on the platform onto the train...the conductor had to yell at a few people to get back on the train because they won't get out! I smelt smoke all the way down in the subway under the WTC!!! 9am I get upstairs 3 stops from the WTC and see the 1 tower on fire...I am thinking it was just on fire...then I get up to my floor at work and people are coming down from the top floor crying...that is when the 2nd hit and I found out exactly what was going on. I went up to our top floor that has an outside lounging area with the best view of the WTC in the city and watched the 2 towers melting and seeing things fall from the building (it turned out to be PEOPLE!!!) not too many blocks from me. 9:30 I went back to my desk to try and get some work done and not think about it. Called my Mom to tell her I was OK. Learnt they hit the Pentagon too 10am- my friend Lynda finally made it through to my line and I was telling her I was OK when my building shook, I heard this loud rumble and out lights flickered and I was saying "oh my God, what the hell was THAT?" and then the phone went dead (I didn't realize the phone went dead, I thought she heard me also say "I've gotta go"...I wanted to call Lynda back, but everyone ran back upstairs to look at what happened. As soon as I made it back up there to see the 1 was completely gone, we were made to evacuate the building. Thousands of people wandering around the street not knowing where to go...looking up Broadway seeing lots of soot and smoke not too far away. I as well became 1 of those people wandering around not knowing what to do since trains weren't running, and Manhattan became virtually sealed. There was no WAY I was getting back to Brooklyn. 10:30am - Wandering around trying to find a train or a bus to take me uptown away from all the mayhem. I come to Lafayette and Spring (I will never forget where I was at this moment) and saw a huge group of people watching the WTC. I go to cross to join them. At that moment, everyone gasped, I turn around and see the 2nd tower fall. Everyone starts running uptown to get far away from all of this. I see men in suits carrying brief cases COVERED in soot...a little old lady in her night gown with slippers walking covered in soot...I see a lady on the sidewalk collapsed checking her pulse having a hard time breathing and people surrounding her to help. Cars pulled over with their radios on so people on the street know what is going on. After wandering for 2 hours, I made my way to a friend's place in the East Village..she wasn't home yet (she had to walk more than 50 blocks just to get home because of this) so I just waited outside her building for 1/2 hour until her neighbor let me come in and use his phone...my friends roommate came home and I finally had a place to rest at 12:30pm...a little after 3pm, my friend can't sit around anymore, so we went to her local bar and hung out there with other people watching the news...It was pretty smoky up there eventhough she was twice as far from the WTC than I was when it happened! I was trying toc all all the people who left me phone messages from my friend's...but all the phone lines would NOT dial out of NYC at ALL! I had to call my 1 friend that lived Waaaaaayyyy up town to call Lynda and my Mom since they were the most important and most worried! After checking periodically about getting back to Brooklyn, I finally got a train at 6:30pm (it was PACKED) and got home just before 8pm! The part of NYC that my work is in is closed tomorrow because of this! I am scared to death! I don't know what is going to happen when work is re-instated since I have to take a subway that normally goes through the WTC (well, what once was the WTC)! It is amazing standing in NYC looking downtown, and where you normally see these 2 huge landmarks, there was only smoke! I REALLY hope this is the end of it, and doesn't get worse!!! ...Kris (with a K) From: "Graziella" To: "Liste" Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 5:51 PM Subject: INXS: Looking for AMY Sorry to post this on the list but Im looking for Amy Lynne. She didn't respond to my mail. I hope she's ok. Graz From: "Amy Lynne" To: Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 9:58 PM Subject: Re: INXS: Looking for AMY And I'm sorry to respond to the list, but...Graz, I've emailed you 3 times in the last day or two. Don't know why you're not getting them. I am fine though!!! Hopefully you'll get my last email. amy lynne From: "Glenn Misztal" To: Sent: Friday, September 14, 2001 5:42 AM Subject: INXS: For all Aussies... Sorry this is off topic but due to the events in the U.S. over the last couple of days Sydney Town Hall has set up condolence books that everyone can sign and leave messages. There are also books in other states (If any Aussies have any information of where then please post here). The books will be there for another week I believe and then it's being sent over to the U.S. I think it's a great idea - so much so that I went into the city on my day off especially to leave a message. It's a small token of what I *wish* I could do to help in this situation, but I just want someone all the way across the globe to know that I am *so sorry* for their loss. I also I pray that the U.S. will turn to God for comfort, take refuge in him and come out a stronger country because of this. - Glenn glennmisztal@hotmail.com From: "Michelle McFerran" To: "'Inxs@topica.com'" Sent: Friday, September 14, 2001 10:34 AM Subject: INXS: Update hi everyone... i just wanted to give you an update news report that i just got from our CEO. ALL of our factiva people have been accounted for. there are some people who are injured, but everyone has been found and is either in a local hospital or just getting home to their families. THANK GOD AND AMEN!!! as for our dow jones people, still no word on them, but i will keep you updated if i hear any new news on that front. this just goes to prove that GOD really does answers prayer... thank you everyone for all their support, love, and prayers... God Bless you all, Michelle McFerran Technology Staff Assistant direct number: 609-627-2568 fax number: 609-627-2940 Factiva, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company Factiva Technology Department P.O. Box 300 Princeton, New Jersey 08543-0300 e-mail: michelle.mcferran@factiva.com www.factiva.com " ... if you're tired of Web searches that produce more chaff than wheat, you should get acquainted with Factiva, a joint venture combining Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing." -Robert Bartley, The Wall Street Journal- From: Heidi To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Friday, September 14, 2001 2:34 PM Subject: Re:INXS: Kris with a K here Hey Kris you probably don't remember me but i was a member of this list a few years ago as streak298@excite.com and i am back as a member!! Heidi From: "INXSBABE" To: Sent: Friday, September 14, 2001 11:57 PM Subject: Re: INXS: Horrific I am so glad that all of our list people, their friends and families are OK. I am so thankful that I was in Myrtle Beach, SC when this whole attack occurred. I feel lucky because none of my friends and family were in any of the three places that were struck. I am now worried that my brother may be sent somewhere to deal with the aftermath as he is in the Army Reserves. Thanks to all on the list for the well-wishing to us here in the states. Karen From: "Markus Pfeffer" To: Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2001 11:39 AM Subject: INXS: What follows is the full text of his trenchant Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States. When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. From: "LLLLaura Lawson" To: Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2001 1:01 PM Subject: INXS: entire thing Hi all This is the entire thing Gordon Sinclair said or wrote I noticed someone posted a truncated version could not open attachments so figured others might not be able to either toodle ooo from Canada on a Wire.... LLLLaura Subject: good Neighbor This from a Canadian newspaper is worth sharing. America: The good Neighbor Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator. What follows is the full text of his trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional record: "This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appriciated people on all the earth. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extend Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave others billions in debt. None of these countries is paying today even on the intrest of its remaining debts to the United States. When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was only the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the street of Paris. I was there I saw it. When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This sprind 59 American cities were flattened by tornados. Nobody helped. The Marshall plan and the Truman policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now the newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans. I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet , Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all international airlines except Russia fly American Planes? Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon-not once, but several times-and safely home again. You talk about scandals, and Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dogers are not pursued and hounded. They are here and on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa to spend here. When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke. I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble. I don't even think there was outside help during the SanFrancisco earthquake. Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag held high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb ther noses at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those. God Bless America From: "Stewart Christie" To: Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2001 5:38 AM Subject: RE: INXS: entire thing I think you'll find that Britain almost bankrupted itself paying this off decades ago. I can't vouch for any other country, though. Stewart From: "Andrea Mueller" To: "inxs" Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 3:50 AM Subject: INXS: ... ist nicht im=?iso-8859-1?Q?B=FCro_vom_17=2E09=2E2001_bis_zum_05=2E1 Mit freundlichen Grüßen Andrea Müller Deutsche Bank AG Service-Center Private Banking/Deutschland Ratingen - 40189 Düsseldorf Team 3 - Regionen Mitte und Südwest Tel. +49 (2102) 169-907 Fax +49 (2102) 169-901 email: andrea.mueller@db.com From: "Michael & Sherri" To: Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 5:27 AM Subject: INXS: Perfect Day I was thinking the other day that the Collective Soul song "Perfect Day" featuring Elton John ...... Seemed like the sort of song Michael would have done on his solo project if he was in a better mood so to speak. Instrumentally and vocally it would attach itself to Michaels album well if it weren't for the completely foreign attitude. If anything Michael's album, for the most part, was about an imperfect day in Michael's life. He was able to communicate to the listener clearly that the search for ultimate happiness can be a long and seemingly forlorn task for some of us. Michael Kick Talon From: "Michelle McFerran" To: "'Inxs@topica.com'" Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 11:51 AM Subject: INXS: FW: Something To See... Hello everyone, I've been getting a lot of e-mails with websites and pictures, but no website has touched me more than this one has... I hope you all will take a look at it and I am sure I speak for a lot of the people from USA on this list, we THANK YOU for your support and prayers, and this website shows just how caring people are from all over the world. :_) America's Tragedy as seen by the World http://manson.exodus.net/thankyou/index2.html Take care & God Bless each and every one us... Love always, Michelle Michelle McFerran Technology Staff Assistant direct number: 609-627-2568 fax number: 609-627-2940 Factiva, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company Factiva Technology Department P.O. Box 300 Princeton, New Jersey 08543-0300 e-mail: michelle.mcferran@factiva.com www.factiva.com " ... if you're tired of Web searches that produce more chaff than wheat, you should get acquainted with Factiva, a joint venture combining Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing." -Robert Bartley, The Wall Street Journal- From: "INXS List administrator" To: Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 12:41 PM Subject: INXS: Possible Virus sent to list. Somebody alerted me earlier today that somebody sent a virus to the INXS-list. I have sent a private e-mail to the person I suspect the virus came from, so hopefully it won't happen again. However, it would still be a good idea for everybody here on the list to check their computer out and make sure you didn't get infected. Of course, it is always a good idea to have a virus scanner on your machine. Just to illustrate the point, the specific virus sent to the list was the PE_MAGISTR.B which has the capability of "trashing" your hard drive. "Trashing" can actually mean a couple of different things, but either way, none of them are pretty and all of them result in a loss of data. You can read more about this virus as well as download a removal program by visiting the link below. (You may have to put the link together manually if the word wrap on your browser separates the link.) http://www.antivirus.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/default5.asp?VName=PE_MAGISTR.B Davy From: "Michelle McFerran" To: Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 3:51 PM Subject: INXS: if you want to chat, meet in inxs.com now... hi all, if anyone is online and wants to chat, you can meet me in the inxs.com chat room. take care... :-) Michelle McFerran Technology Staff Assistant direct number: 609-627-2568 fax number: 609-627-2940 Factiva, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company Factiva Technology Department P.O. Box 300 Princeton, New Jersey 08543-0300 e-mail: michelle.mcferran@factiva.com www.factiva.com " ... if you're tired of Web searches that produce more chaff than wheat, you should get acquainted with Factiva, a joint venture combining Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing." -Robert Bartley, The Wall Street Journal- From: To: Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 8:20 PM Subject: INXS: A year ago today I don't know if I'm the only one who remembered or just the only one who posted, but I just wanted to acknowledge the fact that a year ago today Paula Yates was found dead. It was a day of shock and numbness for me. Dawn From: "Chris & Cathy van der Woerd" To: Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 8:36 PM Subject: RE: INXS: A year ago today She's been remembered on the message boards if you go to them. My thoughts are with her girls today. Love, Cathy From: To: Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 8:44 PM Subject: Re: INXS: A year ago today I was gonna say so, I thought about it all day long Shine Like it Does, ~Jennifer "Love is like a rocket"~Ross Childress From: "karma" To: Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 9:42 PM Subject: Re: INXS: A year ago today remembered Paula and lit a candle for her and said a prayer for her and to wish her children to be well adjusted and happy, especially little Tiger who is always in my thoughts and prayers. May Paula be resting in peace. Peace and Love, Judy x From: To: Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 8:48 AM Subject: Re: INXS: entire thing In a message dated 9/15/2001 1:03:25 PM Eastern Daylight Time, greatestflame@hotmail.com writes: << Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble. I don't even think there was outside help during the SanFrancisco earthquake. Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag held high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb ther noses at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those. God Bless America >> Thank you so much for this lovely tribute to a much deserved country!! The US does race to the aid of foreign countries when they need help. Sometimes we get involved in politics that don't concern us. Yet it is only with the intention of eventual world peace and equality in mind; Because we are a wealthy country and have the resources to defend many others against terrorism and intimidation from monsters like Bin Laden. Thank you for all your prayers and well wishes for our Great Country!! We will remain strong. Chris (the girl) From: "Michelle McFerran" To: "'Inxs@topica.com'" Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 9:56 AM Subject: INXS: NIC: all dow jones people are safe Hi All... We all just got an e-mail from the President of Dow Jones and he said that everyone is accounted for Factiva & Dow Jones and is either in a local hospital for treatment or finally home with their families. THANK GOD once again!! Michelle McFerran Technology Staff Assistant direct number: 609-627-2568 fax number: 609-627-2940 Factiva, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company Factiva Technology Department P.O. Box 300 Princeton, New Jersey 08543-0300 e-mail: michelle.mcferran@factiva.com www.factiva.com " ... if you're tired of Web searches that produce more chaff than wheat, you should get acquainted with Factiva, a joint venture combining Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing." -Robert Bartley, The Wall Street Journal- Hi All... We all just got an e-mail from the President of Dow Jones and he said that everyone is accounted for Factiva & Dow Jones and is either in a local hospital for treatment or finally home with their families. THANK GOD once again!! Michelle McFerran Technology Staff Assistant direct number: 609-627-2568 fax number: 609-627-2940 Factiva, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company Factiva Technology Department P.O. Box 300 Princeton, New Jersey 08543-0300 e-mail: michelle.mcferran@factiva.com www.factiva.com " ... if you're tired of Web searches that produce more chaff than wheat, you should get acquainted with Factiva, a joint venture combining Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing." -Robert Bartley, The Wall Street Journal- From: To: Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 4:15 PM Subject: Re: INXS: Perfect Day Your a Collective Soul fan?! yay!!! I love CS, their GH CD just came out yesterday, go check it out. Yes, I think Michael would have done an amazing job on it. Shine Like it Does, ~Jennifer "Love is like a rocket"~Ross Childress From: "Michelle McFerran" To: "'Inxs@topica.com'" Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2001 1:58 PM Subject: INXS: Please pray for our troops Hi all, It's me again... I am sorry all of my posts lately, but I feel this one should be addressed to everyone no matter where you are in this world. I was watching the news this morning and tears began to fall once again from my eyes. Local Air Force bases, Army troops, etc., were hugging and kissing their loved ones good-bye. It brought tears to my eyes to see these men and women hugging their little babies in their hands. I can't imagine how hard it must be to say good-bye to your family especially in a crisis like this. I ask all of you, no matter what religion you are, please, please pray for the safety of all the men and women who might or will be fighting for our country. No matter where the troops are from, they need our prayers and so do their families. Pray that God will watch over all of them and bring them home safe to their families. Pray that the families will remain strong while their loved ones are overseas. These people will be heroes in my mind. Thank you again for your time, Michelle McFerran Technology Staff Assistant direct number: 609-627-2568 fax number: 609-627-2940 Factiva, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company Factiva Technology Department P.O. Box 300 Princeton, New Jersey 08543-0300 e-mail: michelle.mcferran@factiva.com www.factiva.com " ... if you're tired of Web searches that produce more chaff than wheat, you should get acquainted with Factiva, a joint venture combining Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing." -Robert Bartley, The Wall Street Journal From: Angusted To: INXSlist Sent: Friday, September 21, 2001 11:51 AM Subject: INXS: shoes G'day all Got an article outta fri Daily Telegraph. Says that there's a pair of Michael's black leather shoes r go'n on auction at Wayside Chapel nxt thu tha 27th. It's in NSW sum where, it's got an 02 #, (02)93586577. His mum sent em down from Bris.....i'd guess it's in Syd?? SOULS Angusted ps had 1 attempt, could'nt find Wayside on tha net in Yahoo......stuffed if know where it is.....oh tha Daily Tele's a Syd paper, could b a clue..... From: Stefan To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Friday, September 21, 2001 8:13 AM Subject: INXS: INXS shows in OZ From INXS.COM: INXS @ the AFL! It was announced today that INXS with Jon Stevens will be a major part of the celebrations surrounding one of Australia's biggest sporting events, the Australian Football League Grand Final. On Saturday September 29, the band will perform in the pre-match entertainment to the 100,000 fans at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and to an international audience of about 40 million people. Other performances will be from Vanessa Amorosi and Men At Work, while the national anthem will be sung by Julie Anthony. As a prelude to the Grand Final, the guys will also perform on the national television show The Footy Show on Thursday September 27. This will be the band's first television performance in Australia since 1997, so the television network (Nine) is pulling out all stops to make this BIG! The Footy Show broadcasts its annual 90-minute Grand Final show from Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne before an audience of 10,000 people. All money raised from the ticket sales goes to a cancer charity called The Trevor Barker Foundation, in memory of the famous AFL footballer Trevor Barker who tragicaly died from the disease several years ago. Tickets went on sale during last Thursday's program (INXS appearing was not mentioned) and sold out in 42 minutes. The band will perform 2 songs fully live, opening and closing the show. As with other major sporting events around the world, Grand Final fever will hit Australia in the next few weeks and be the talking point of the nation. The guys are very much looking forward to taking part in the celebrations. I would like to get copies of that event if possible. please contact me here in Europe. Thanks Stefan From: To: Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2001 8:19 PM Subject: INXS: NIC:How to suscribe Hey, I have a buddy that wants to join the list, but I forgot how thats done...can anyone help? thanks! Shine Like it Does, ~Jennifer "Love is like a rocket"~Ross Childress From: "Davy Jones" To: Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2001 9:19 PM Subject: RE: INXS: NIC:How to suscribe * You can go to http://www.topica.com/lists/inxs From: "Graziella" To: "Liste" Sent: Monday, September 24, 2001 8:59 AM Subject: INXS: NIC: To AMY Sorry everybody, Im using the list but Im really looking for Amy Lynne. Amy, I sent you again other mails but no reply from you. try this: graziellat@libertysurf.fr sorry to all of you for this personal mail Graz- Sorry everybody, Im using the list but Im really looking for Amy Lynne. Amy, I sent you again other mails but no reply from you. try this: graziellat@libertysurf.fr sorry to all of you for this personal mail Graz- From: "Michelle McFerran" To: "'Inxs@topica.com'" Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 2:50 PM Subject: INXS: news articles on Bob Hi all, The list has been awfully quiet lately. I hope everyone is doing well. I know this topic is a VERY sensitive issue, so that's why I thought I would check with all of you first to see if you want me to post these articles or not. There have been a few that I have found about Bob's new album and it's release on the 1st of October. I am in no way promoting his new album, but I am letting you know that I have found articles about it. I have not found any new interesting articles on INXS, so that's why you haven't seen any of those. The only ones I've found were maybe 2 liners and that's it. So, I will wait until I hear from you about the Bob articles. Thank you, Michelle McFerran Technology Staff Assistant direct number: 609-627-2568 fax number: 609-627-2940 Factiva, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company Factiva Technology Department P.O. Box 300 Princeton, New Jersey 08543-0300 e-mail: michelle.mcferran@factiva.com www.factiva.com " ... if you're tired of Web searches that produce more chaff than wheat, you should get acquainted with Factiva, a joint venture combining Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing." -Robert Bartley, The Wall Street Journal- From: "Nanci Lamb Roider" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 3:01 PM Subject: RE: INXS: news articles on Bob *This message was transferred with a trial version of CommuniGate(tm) Pro* on 9/26/01 2:50 PM, Michelle McFerran at Michelle.McFerran@factiva.com wrote: > I know this topic is a VERY sensitive issue, so that's why I thought I would > check with all of you first to see if you want me to post these articles or > not. I, for one, would love to see them. Nanci We thought we had all the answers; it was the questions we had wrong. --Bono From: To: Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 11:12 AM Subject: Re: INXS: news articles on Bob In a message dated 9/26/01 11:52:44 AM, Michelle.McFerran@factiva.com writes: << I know this topic is a VERY sensitive issue, so that's why I thought I would check with all of you first to see if you want me to post these articles or not. There have been a few that I have found about Bob's new album and it's release on the 1st of October. >> I'd be interested in seeing what you found. If the list does not want them, and you would like to send them out privately that would be appreciated as well. Thanks. From: "Michelle McFerran" To: Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 1:22 PM Subject: INXS: Geldof article Saint Bob and his mortal turmoil. SPENCER BRIGHT. 2,239 words 25 September 2001 The Scotsman2 English(c) 2001 The hair is as dishevelled as usual. He's wearing a smart navy suit with a discreet Prince of Wales check, a grey jumper and brown suede boots with the laces impossibly gnarled and knotted. Gnarled and knotted may be a good description of Geldof himself. At least in the public imagination. Untwisting him reveals complex paradoxes. A man who is congenitally dissatisfied; who won't own up to ever being a success; who thinks he's difficult to live with and to love; who falls into melancholy and flares up in anger only for it to subside as quickly; who reckons he is emotionally balanced. "I'm not at peace with myself in the world, but I'm fairly calm," he says. He recommends we live every moment to the full as we inhabit such a brief speck of time, but when the "blessed relief" of death comes he hopes his last conscious thought would be "Mmm, that was interesting". I suggest That Was Interesting would make a good sequel to his 1986 autobiography Is That It? And he laughs, which he does more than he might want to show. There was a time five years or so ago when he did forget how to laugh. He was no longer capable of functioning as a human being. In 1995 after 19 years of marriage his wife, the TV presenter and journalist Paula Yates, deserted him and her three children - Fifi Trixibelle, now 18, Peaches, 12 and Pixie, 10. Paula Yates had become obsessed with Michael Hutchence, singer with the Australian rock band INXS, with whom she had a child, Tiger Lily, now four. Hutchence lived the archetypal rock'n'roll lifestyle until it tawdrily claimed his life. In 1999 his naked body was found dangling from a leather strap attached to a doorknob in his Sydney hotel room. Suicide under the influence of drugs was the pronounced cause of death. In a bitter legal battle Paula Yates failed to win custody of her children by Geldof. She became a heavy drinker and drug user, and in September 2000 died of a heroin overdose. In a curious twist of fate, Geldof was subsequently granted custody of Tiger Lily. They are the bald facts, but the heartache behind them is unimaginable, and Geldof variously uses the terms Shakespearian and Greek to describe the level of tragedy. He's been silent about it until now, but he has an album due for imminent release, fittingly called Sex, Age and Death. The album was born out of the tragedy of Yates's leaving and Hutchence's death, though it does not cover her death. For Geldof, nearly 49, the album is not about the specific incidents or characters, but a universal emotional landscape to do with loss in particular. Its mood is intentionally bleak, expressing the void he felt. Making it wasn't cathartic, but it was therapeutic. "In retrospect what it did was put a shape to experience, to try to encompass the enormity of it. I'm really lucky that I can do this stuff - for good or ill - because I don't know what other way I could even begin to comprehend what happened. The record is about loss, grief, pain, bewilderment, abandonment, disappointment and love. All of those very obvious things." The themes - often uncomfortable and deeply personal - and the music rose irresistibly to the surface of Geldof's creative mind. Herein lies another paradox. He doesn't want to talk about Hutchence and Yates and insists he has not written specifically about them on the album. "This isn't about the individuals whom everyone is familiar with around these events, it's not about the pornography of intrusion, it's about feeling, about a very bleak and minimal landscape of emotion. I know that sounds crap. I'm talking about me. I haven't talked about Paula. I haven't talked about the kids. It comes out of those events which swam around - horrendously - the individuals you know. I won't talk about those specifics, or who said what and to whom, or what happened. I won't do that mainly because it does not interest me in the least. But also it is unsayable, and there is a sense of honour involved." It's hard not to think of Yates on the song One For Me. "And the teenage clothes and see-through sizes/The mutton dished up on the Sunday plate/Is now the lamb in Ghostly guises." Or about Hutchence on the song Inside Your Head. "You got a life and left me for dead/What the f's going on/Inside your head/So why put a noose around your neck?" "It is direct if you view it as being about an individual. But what it's about is 'What the f is going on?' This thing is so extreme, the level of tragedy was almost Shakespearian, and that's not being grandiose. There is anger, and the anger is that it is happening at all. It's not directed at individuals, and you must accept that I would tell you. I sound very rational now, but if you imagine in the absolute nightmare of this, in the pit of despair, it's like: why this? It is utter bewilderment at these events that you completely have no control over, you are utterly powerless, which is the worst sort of impotence for a human. You get very depressed when you are powerless." It wasn't simply the powerlessness of events, but a terrifying incapacity. "I didn't get up, I didn't sleep or function. The physical effect was weird. You are doing all you can to breathe. And a lot of that time is utter breathlessness and panic. Anger doesn't enter into it. The enormity of loss is so great. To have love withdrawn is so enormous. And the emptiness. I describe it as universes of emptiness, oceans of grief, deserts of loss. It's just so vast." It wasn't just Paula's leaving, it was the resurfacing of that most traumatic experience of his young life, the death of his mother when he was six. As a child he internalised it all and it formed the character we know. "When my mum died, I don't remember the loss, I don't remember vivid pain. I don't remember her! Given my conditions I developed quite a logical pattern to my life. I do understand why I'm here now and what I am, there's no question of that. Then losing love again - I don't want to get into psychology - but probably the buried loss of before hits you, with full cognisance this time and without the survival instincts of a child." In an effort to understand why Yates left I mention some of the nasty rumours that used to circulate about the Geldof marriage, how mean he was to her, how he forced her to work to make her own money, how she was under his thumb. As soon as I have said it I see he is upset, his eyes redden and I regret repeating callous gossip. He refutes the charges. "During the period we were together we loved each other madly. Nineteen years? Three children? Married in Las Vegas then remarried, a further declaration of love?" he challenges. He will only speak well of her. "Paula was exceptionally clever, exceptionally bright. Great at her job, a great writer," and he adds, "we loved each other very, very much indeed." In the emptiness that followed her departure he was supported by the love of friends. His best friend virtually moved in for 18 months. His beautiful female friends would come round, raid his wardrobe, force him to dress up and take him out on the town, to the confusion of the paparazzi. Eventually it hit him that he was all right. "When I was passing through these long dark years of the soul, I remember getting a phone call from one of my good friends asking if I was OK. It was early in the morning, I was just about to give my usual response, just very flat. And I suddenly thought, I am OK. Money problems had been resolved. I was beginning to feel love again, I was beginning to feel again. And the minute I recognised it, this thing went off me." He gestures a weight coming off his shoulders. "It was like I had imposed it on myself." As in all good fairy tales he was saved by love, the love of his French actress girlfriend Jeanne Marine. I ask him if he is difficult to love. "I think I probably am. I'm certainly not easy to get along with. I suppose there are loveable - and this might sound off - aspects to my character. I'm not aware of them. "I really require love. Clearly a life without love is pointless, and indeed, it is ridiculous. And therefore you think you would sharpen up and temper your personality so that you were somehow more acceptable and open. I'm open to being loved, as is everyone. Certainly I want to be. "I've been lucky in that I have been very much loved. But really, I don't understand why. And indeed, over the last few years where I've largely been just this very raw, vivid wound, emotionally, when I finally encountered someone who just happened to like me and was tender and kind, totally unsuspectingly - and I think that moment is marked in the song, 10:15 - it was as if you were really touching someone who had been just flayed. And I recoiled, I didn't really understand why or how I could be loved because I felt so ugly. I mean literally physically as well as spiritually." The song 10:15 is an unbearably intimate portrait of a loving night together between him and Jeanne. "Here was this girl who just accepted and quite liked me, which was the oddest thing. She had no real idea of my past and didn't give a toss. And she is completely beautiful, and the requirement for beauty was so uppermost in my mind amidst all the ugliness. So you've gone into Keats territory, 'Truth is beauty ...' You begin to understand these things as empirical fact, as opposed to metaphor." All his life he's battled with melancholia, a consequence he reckons of his mother's death. "It's a core of emptiness. It's not that I seek to fill it, it's that I seek to avoid its consequence, which is depression. Not a Churchillian Black Dog, but boredom gets me into that melancholy." He distracts himself through relentless activity. Hence he has carved himself a career as a successful businessman, at least successful in other's eyes, and is thought to be worth 30 million pounds. He pocketed #6 million through the sale of his shares in TV production company Planet 24, makers of Channel 4's The Big Breakfast. He doesn't even see Live Aid, which raised more than #100 million for the starving peoples of Africa, as his success, though he got a knighthood out of it. He's still Saint Bob fighting for the elimination of Third World debt. Everything is a distraction from his first love, music. His moments of true happiness are never more concentrated than after a satisfying performance. Winning Ivor Novello awards for his songwriting came close to a feeling of success. His mother's death was so critical in forming this dissatisfied soul imbued with a strong sense of the world's injustice, how does he think the effect of their mother's death will affect his children? "I can't speculate on that. I think that without any question it is the fundamental happening of your life and there is just no way in which they will not be affected. You can try and ameliorate it, you can try and temper it. But it will out. And it is a totally negative aspect, but you overcome it by mechanisms." Does he not at least consider himself a successful parent? "No, because all the time you're thinking, I shouldn't have lost my temper, I should be taking them there. Like every other mother and father, you do your best and you're wracked with guilt that you can't make it home for this thing or that." Well what about the album? Is it a satisfying work of art regardless of what others might think? "It's the most total and the most complete record I've made. As a whole emotional landscape it absolutely is true and when I hear it, it works. Only by thinking about individual songs do I begin to comprehend it in its totality and then I'm surprised that I've noted the moments through this whole period. So yes, it works for me, but I can't listen to it, not because I don't like it, but because it's too much." So that means it is a success? "For me, yes. But I don't expect anybody else ..." I interrupt him, that's successful enough for me. Sex, Age and Death is released on 1 October on Eagle. Michelle McFerran Technology Staff Assistant direct number: 609-627-2568 fax number: 609-627-2940 Factiva, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company Factiva Technology Department P.O. Box 300 Princeton, New Jersey 08543-0300 e-mail: michelle.mcferran@factiva.com www.factiva.com " ... if you're tired of Web searches that produce more chaff than wheat, you should get acquainted with Factiva, a joint venture combining Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing." -Robert Bartley, The Wall Street Journal- Saint Bob and his mortal turmoil. SPENCER BRIGHT. 2,239 words 25 September 2001 The Scotsman2 English(c) 2001 The hair is as dishevelled as usual. He's wearing a smart navy suit with a discreet Prince of Wales check, a grey jumper and brown suede boots with the laces impossibly gnarled and knotted. Gnarled and knotted may be a good description of Geldof himself. At least in the public imagination. Untwisting him reveals complex paradoxes. A man who is congenitally dissatisfied; who won't own up to ever being a success; who thinks he's difficult to live with and to love; who falls into melancholy and flares up in anger only for it to subside as quickly; who reckons he is emotionally balanced. "I'm not at peace with myself in the world, but I'm fairly calm," he says. He recommends we live every moment to the full as we inhabit such a brief speck of time, but when the "blessed relief" of death comes he hopes his last conscious thought would be "Mmm, that was interesting". I suggest That Was Interesting would make a good sequel to his 1986 autobiography Is That It? And he laughs, which he does more than he might want to show. There was a time five years or so ago when he did forget how to laugh. He was no longer capable of functioning as a human being. In 1995 after 19 years of marriage his wife, the TV presenter and journalist Paula Yates, deserted him and her three children - Fifi Trixibelle, now 18, Peaches, 12 and Pixie, 10. Paula Yates had become obsessed with Michael Hutchence, singer with the Australian rock band INXS, with whom she had a child, Tiger Lily, now four. Hutchence lived the archetypal rock'n'roll lifestyle until it tawdrily claimed his life. In 1999 his naked body was found dangling from a leather strap attached to a doorknob in his Sydney hotel room. Suicide under the influence of drugs was the pronounced cause of death. In a bitter legal battle Paula Yates failed to win custody of her children by Geldof. She became a heavy drinker and drug user, and in September 2000 died of a heroin overdose. In a curious twist of fate, Geldof was subsequently granted custody of Tiger Lily. They are the bald facts, but the heartache behind them is unimaginable, and Geldof variously uses the terms Shakespearian and Greek to describe the level of tragedy. He's been silent about it until now, but he has an album due for imminent release, fittingly called Sex, Age and Death. The album was born out of the tragedy of Yates's leaving and Hutchence's death, though it does not cover her death. For Geldof, nearly 49, the album is not about the specific incidents or characters, but a universal emotional landscape to do with loss in particular. Its mood is intentionally bleak, expressing the void he felt. Making it wasn't cathartic, but it was therapeutic. "In retrospect what it did was put a shape to experience, to try to encompass the enormity of it. I'm really lucky that I can do this stuff - for good or ill - because I don't know what other way I could even begin to comprehend what happened. The record is about loss, grief, pain, bewilderment, abandonment, disappointment and love. All of those very obvious things." The themes - often uncomfortable and deeply personal - and the music rose irresistibly to the surface of Geldof's creative mind. Herein lies another paradox. He doesn't want to talk about Hutchence and Yates and insists he has not written specifically about them on the album. "This isn't about the individuals whom everyone is familiar with around these events, it's not about the pornography of intrusion, it's about feeling, about a very bleak and minimal landscape of emotion. I know that sounds crap. I'm talking about me. I haven't talked about Paula. I haven't talked about the kids. It comes out of those events which swam around - horrendously - the individuals you know. I won't talk about those specifics, or who said what and to whom, or what happened. I won't do that mainly because it does not interest me in the least. But also it is unsayable, and there is a sense of honour involved." It's hard not to think of Yates on the song One For Me. "And the teenage clothes and see-through sizes/The mutton dished up on the Sunday plate/Is now the lamb in Ghostly guises." Or about Hutchence on the song Inside Your Head. "You got a life and left me for dead/What the f's going on/Inside your head/So why put a noose around your neck?" "It is direct if you view it as being about an individual. But what it's about is 'What the f is going on?' This thing is so extreme, the level of tragedy was almost Shakespearian, and that's not being grandiose. There is anger, and the anger is that it is happening at all. It's not directed at individuals, and you must accept that I would tell you. I sound very rational now, but if you imagine in the absolute nightmare of this, in the pit of despair, it's like: why this? It is utter bewilderment at these events that you completely have no control over, you are utterly powerless, which is the worst sort of impotence for a human. You get very depressed when you are powerless." It wasn't simply the powerlessness of events, but a terrifying incapacity. "I didn't get up, I didn't sleep or function. The physical effect was weird. You are doing all you can to breathe. And a lot of that time is utter breathlessness and panic. Anger doesn't enter into it. The enormity of loss is so great. To have love withdrawn is so enormous. And the emptiness. I describe it as universes of emptiness, oceans of grief, deserts of loss. It's just so vast." It wasn't just Paula's leaving, it was the resurfacing of that most traumatic experience of his young life, the death of his mother when he was six. As a child he internalised it all and it formed the character we know. "When my mum died, I don't remember the loss, I don't remember vivid pain. I don't remember her! Given my conditions I developed quite a logical pattern to my life. I do understand why I'm here now and what I am, there's no question of that. Then losing love again - I don't want to get into psychology - but probably the buried loss of before hits you, with full cognisance this time and without the survival instincts of a child." In an effort to understand why Yates left I mention some of the nasty rumours that used to circulate about the Geldof marriage, how mean he was to her, how he forced her to work to make her own money, how she was under his thumb. As soon as I have said it I see he is upset, his eyes redden and I regret repeating callous gossip. He refutes the charges. "During the period we were together we loved each other madly. Nineteen years? Three children? Married in Las Vegas then remarried, a further declaration of love?" he challenges. He will only speak well of her. "Paula was exceptionally clever, exceptionally bright. Great at her job, a great writer," and he adds, "we loved each other very, very much indeed." In the emptiness that followed her departure he was supported by the love of friends. His best friend virtually moved in for 18 months. His beautiful female friends would come round, raid his wardrobe, force him to dress up and take him out on the town, to the confusion of the paparazzi. Eventually it hit him that he was all right. "When I was passing through these long dark years of the soul, I remember getting a phone call from one of my good friends asking if I was OK. It was early in the morning, I was just about to give my usual response, just very flat. And I suddenly thought, I am OK. Money problems had been resolved. I was beginning to feel love again, I was beginning to feel again. And the minute I recognised it, this thing went off me." He gestures a weight coming off his shoulders. "It was like I had imposed it on myself." As in all good fairy tales he was saved by love, the love of his French actress girlfriend Jeanne Marine. I ask him if he is difficult to love. "I think I probably am. I'm certainly not easy to get along with. I suppose there are loveable - and this might sound off - aspects to my character. I'm not aware of them. "I really require love. Clearly a life without love is pointless, and indeed, it is ridiculous. And therefore you think you would sharpen up and temper your personality so that you were somehow more acceptable and open. I'm open to being loved, as is everyone. Certainly I want to be. "I've been lucky in that I have been very much loved. But really, I don't understand why. And indeed, over the last few years where I've largely been just this very raw, vivid wound, emotionally, when I finally encountered someone who just happened to like me and was tender and kind, totally unsuspectingly - and I think that moment is marked in the song, 10:15 - it was as if you were really touching someone who had been just flayed. And I recoiled, I didn't really understand why or how I could be loved because I felt so ugly. I mean literally physically as well as spiritually." The song 10:15 is an unbearably intimate portrait of a loving night together between him and Jeanne. "Here was this girl who just accepted and quite liked me, which was the oddest thing. She had no real idea of my past and didn't give a toss. And she is completely beautiful, and the requirement for beauty was so uppermost in my mind amidst all the ugliness. So you've gone into Keats territory, 'Truth is beauty ...' You begin to understand these things as empirical fact, as opposed to metaphor." All his life he's battled with melancholia, a consequence he reckons of his mother's death. "It's a core of emptiness. It's not that I seek to fill it, it's that I seek to avoid its consequence, which is depression. Not a Churchillian Black Dog, but boredom gets me into that melancholy." He distracts himself through relentless activity. Hence he has carved himself a career as a successful businessman, at least successful in other's eyes, and is thought to be worth 30 million pounds. He pocketed #6 million through the sale of his shares in TV production company Planet 24, makers of Channel 4's The Big Breakfast. He doesn't even see Live Aid, which raised more than #100 million for the starving peoples of Africa, as his success, though he got a knighthood out of it. He's still Saint Bob fighting for the elimination of Third World debt. Everything is a distraction from his first love, music. His moments of true happiness are never more concentrated than after a satisfying performance. Winning Ivor Novello awards for his songwriting came close to a feeling of success. His mother's death was so critical in forming this dissatisfied soul imbued with a strong sense of the world's injustice, how does he think the effect of their mother's death will affect his children? "I can't speculate on that. I think that without any question it is the fundamental happening of your life and there is just no way in which they will not be affected. You can try and ameliorate it, you can try and temper it. But it will out. And it is a totally negative aspect, but you overcome it by mechanisms." Does he not at least consider himself a successful parent? "No, because all the time you're thinking, I shouldn't have lost my temper, I should be taking them there. Like every other mother and father, you do your best and you're wracked with guilt that you can't make it home for this thing or that." Well what about the album? Is it a satisfying work of art regardless of what others might think? "It's the most total and the most complete record I've made. As a whole emotional landscape it absolutely is true and when I hear it, it works. Only by thinking about individual songs do I begin to comprehend it in its totality and then I'm surprised that I've noted the moments through this whole period. So yes, it works for me, but I can't listen to it, not because I don't like it, but because it's too much." So that means it is a success? "For me, yes. But I don't expect anybody else ..." I interrupt him, that's successful enough for me. Sex, Age and Death is released on 1 October on Eagle. Michelle McFerran Technology Staff Assistant direct number: 609-627-2568 fax number: 609-627-2940 Factiva, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company Factiva Technology Department P.O. Box 300 Princeton, New Jersey 08543-0300 e-mail: michelle.mcferran@factiva.com www.factiva.com " ... if you're tired of Web searches that produce more chaff than wheat, you should get acquainted with Factiva, a joint venture combining Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing." -Robert Bartley, The Wall Street Journal- From: "Michelle McFerran" To: Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 1:23 PM Subject: INXS: Geldof article 2 Looking after Tiger Lily no big deal - Geldof says. 334 words 22 September 2001 01:50 am Reuters NewsEnglish (c) 2001 Reuters Limited LONDON, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Rock star Bob Geldof said there has never been any question in his mind whether to take care of Tiger Lily, daughter of his ex-wife Paula Yates and singer Michael Hutchence, after the death of her mother. Tiger Lily, 5, has been living with Geldof in London since she was orphaned in September 2000 when Yates died from a drugs overdose. Her father, lead singer with Australian rock band INXS, was found hanged in a Sydney hotel room in 1997. "Here's this little sprog, her mum and dad had died, her sisters were living with me - there was no question," Geldof told Britain's Daily Mail in an interview published on Saturday. "On the morning Paula died, she was with us within half an hour of that phone call, has been there ever since and will be until she's grown up," Geldof said. "Anyone would have done the same. It's not an issue." A judge last December turned down a request from Hutchence's half-sister Tina, who wanted to look after the girl, and ruled that Tiger Lily was to live with Geldof for the rest of her childhood. Yates, who became famous as a television presenter, left Geldof, former lead singer of the Boomtown Rats, for Hutchence in 1995 after 10 years of marriage. It took him five years to recover from the separation, which left him "exhausted, eviscerated, emasculated", Irish-born Geldof told the newspaper. "There was nothing happening - literally. I was a void," he said." "Paula had such spirit and style. Whole generations of girls took their cue from this great girl. She could do the most ridiculous and outrageous things and carry it off brilliantly with such aplomb," Geldof said. Geldof now lives with French actress Jeanne Marine, Tiger Lily, and his three daughters from his marriage to Yates. His new album, Sex, Age and Death, is due out on October 1. Michelle McFerran Technology Staff Assistant direct number: 609-627-2568 fax number: 609-627-2940 Factiva, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company Factiva Technology Department P.O. Box 300 Princeton, New Jersey 08543-0300 e-mail: michelle.mcferran@factiva.com www.factiva.com " ... if you're tired of Web searches that produce more chaff than wheat, you should get acquainted with Factiva, a joint venture combining Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing." -Robert Bartley, The Wall Street Journal- From: "Michelle McFerran" To: Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 1:25 PM Subject: INXS: geldof article 3 Geldof comes of `Age' By HUGH FIELDER Billboard 321 words 17 September 2001 BPI Entertainment News Wire English(c) 2001 BPI Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. LONDON -- "We have enough to do in the U.K. and the rest of the world without rushing into America," says Eagle Records managing director Lindsay Brown of the label's decision to hold back until January the release of Bob Geldof's new album in the U.S. It ships to the rest of the world Oct. 1. "The fascinating thing about Bob is obviously his personality; we're working with Bob on the music. And the music has to speak for itself," continues London-based Brown. The prime instigator of Band Aid and Live Aid in the '80s, Geldof's more recent exposure in the British press has been in his roles as a dotcom millionaire, a radio presenter, and a jilted husband: His wife, Paula Yates, left him for INXS vocalist Michael Hutchence, but died of a drug overdose some months after Hutchence's suicide. Geldof's solo records since Live Aid never matched sales of those of his earlier band, the Boomtown Rats. But his first album since 1993's "The Happy Club," titled "Sex, Age & Death," is bound to attract media attention because of its references to his recent domestic tragedies -- something Geldof has scrupulously avoided talking about. Eagle marketing manager Joe Munns says, "Every newspaper, magazine, TV, and radio station wants access to Bob, but we have been very selective in picking the media he talks to, so that it's solely about Bob Geldof as an artist, his music, and what influences him. "At first, people couldn't get past the other elements in his life," Munns continues. "So [we've been saying], `Listen to the record, read the lyrics, get into it, and then get back to us.' We sent out a lyric sheet with the promos because Bob wanted everyone to see the lyrics, not just a line or two out of context." Michelle McFerran Technology Staff Assistant direct number: 609-627-2568 fax number: 609-627-2940 Factiva, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company Factiva Technology Department P.O. Box 300 Princeton, New Jersey 08543-0300 e-mail: michelle.mcferran@factiva.com www.factiva.com " ... if you're tired of Web searches that produce more chaff than wheat, you should get acquainted with Factiva, a joint venture combining Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing." -Robert Bartley, The Wall Street Journal- From: "Michelle McFerran" To: Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 1:28 PM Subject: INXS: last one... With a compelling new album out next month, are things looking up for Bob Geldof, asks Robert Sandall - ... By asks Robert. 1,813 words 16 September 2001 The Sunday TimesEnglish(c) 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd Not Available for Re-dissemination. With a compelling new album out next month, are things looking up for Bob Geldof, asks Robert Sandall - Rock - Interview - Bob Geldof. In 1986, a recently knighted and even more recently married Sir Bob Geldof of Live Aid published his autobiography, Is That It? Tempting fate has seldom had such terrible consequences. The sequel (obvious title: No It Wasn't) will probably never be written, because recounting the ghastly details of his personal life over the past seven years causes Geldof palpable discomfort. In the space of a two-hour interview, he mentions the name of his dead wife, Paula Yates, once, and that of her pre-deceased lover, Michael Hutchence, not at all. "I'm loath to name names. Everybody knows the f***ing names, anyway," he grumbles at one point. But on the subject of his feelings about the two of them, and of the way that their relationship almost wrecked his life, you can, as per normal, hardly shut him up. He talks about feelings of emasculation, of pains in his chest - "I found out this stuff about a broken heart is actually true" - and of "the absolute pointlessness" of living alone. His eloquence on the subject of the break-up with Paula is, even by his standards, extraordinary. A sample: "I could not express in any way the chasms of emptiness and the oceans of loneliness and the universes of grief. There were no words adequate. I would wake up in the night crying, not weeping, just crying out. All I wanted was to find a grey corner of the world and howl into the void. But I couldn't go because of the children." As he intones these words, and many others like them, slumped in a chair in the dimly lit library of the converted medieval priory in Faversham, Kent, which serves as his country hideaway, Geldof looks and sounds approximately 200 years old. Gothic rules in this place. It is no surprise to learn he has been reading a lot of Romantic poetry recently. There is a solid promotional motive for him speaking like this. On October 1, Geldof releases his first solo album since 1993's The Happy Club, another fate-tempting item. It appeared the year before Paula booted him out of their Chelsea home and installed a younger and more successful rock star, Michael Hutchence of INXS, in his place. The new album, Sex, Age & Death, maps the years of anger, despair, confusion and loss that followed, lightened at the end by a gentle nod to the loving tranquillity he has found with his live-in French girlfriend, Jeanne Marine. As rock albums about broken marriages go, it is less polished than Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks, and less bonkers than Marvin Gaye's Here, My Dear. For all its weary and woozy edges, and improvised production values, Sex, Age & Death is undoubtedly the most vivid collection of songs Geldof has recorded for about 20 years. In terms of prurient revelations, however, it will probably be judged a disappointment. It offers a few digs at Paula's drunken antics in public, and one jibe at Hutchence's hanging himself, but there are no references to any of the four daughters. "I had a guy from Radio 2 saying: 'So, you've finally broken your silence,' and I said: 'No, I haven't. Where are the stories?' I've tried to articulate the unsayable here. And there's no other way I could have done it. No other way." All the songs, he says, were written well before Paula's fatal overdose last year. That Geldof should have chosen music as the vehicle for his first public utterance about his descent into tabloid hell may well surprise many under-35s who have grown up with the notion that his credits comprise media mogul, rent-a-gob, celebrity cuckold and widower, plus Knight of the British Empire. Yet Sex, Age & Death is his 10th album, all told; he is still a viable concert draw in Europe - "I'm big in the Hanseatic League"; and such is his love of playing live that he interrupted his family holiday on Majorca this summer to play a festival in mainland Spain. He seems fairly reconciled to the lack of recognition his music gets here. "The last thing most people think of me as is a musician. Why would an 18-year-old listen to me?" But memories that he was once the leader of an international chart band, the Boomtown Rats, are easily stirred. Hardly anybody else bothers to mention it nowadays, but Geldof himself doesn't mind pointing out that he was once a very successful pop star. "I did it. I have the awards stacked up in the attic." Indeed, displayed on a wall in the downstairs loo are a couple of awards that explain how he came by the funds to buy this beautiful, quirky and ancient pile in the first place. Rat Trap and I Don't Like Mondays, the two No1 hits he scored with the Rats at the end of the 1970s, won Ivor Novello prizes in successive years in the Best Selling UK Single category. Sooner or later, most pop stars find themselves deserted by success. In Geldof's case, at least as far as work goes, this has never happened. Interest in his music was dwindling around the time that Live Aid reinvented him as Saint Bob, since which point, success has been unable to shake him off. Perhaps life would have been easier for him if it had. In 1992, he set up an independent television-production company, Planet 24, with a couple of friends, Charlie Parsons and Waheed Alli. It prospered, thanks largely to winning a #10m contract to make a rowdy breakfast show for Channel 4, The Big Breakfast. Part of the deal involved Mrs Geldof, a feisty and glamorous former presenter of The Tube and other youth programmes, interviewing celebrities in bed. Which is how, by another appalling twist of fate, she bonded with Michael Hutchence. Geldof says that before this incendiary encounter, he and Paula had scarcely argued over the entire course of their 14-year relationship. What happened subsequently still mystifies him. "Here's a girl who was so bright, so funny, so stylish. One of the people who defined the 1980s and the style thereof. And I'm a gloomy f***er, really, you know, and I require beauty, someone to take me out of myself, to be fun. And here was this radiant person. And that all seemed to go, just like that - and, like, why? All that horrible stuff. The jokes that weren't funny, belittling all those years and all that love. They acted like they thought they were Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall, hubris dancing all over the place. It was just so naff." Having lost his wife and the custody of his three daughters, and been manoeuvred into a bizarre house swap with Hutchence, whereby the two men exchanged London addresses, Geldof insists: "I was incapable of doing anything at all." This is perfectly understandable, but turns out not to be true. Virtually bankrupted at one point by the legal wrangles with Paula and Hutchence, the distraught Sir Bob threw himself into work with the same manic energy that once powered him through the logistical jungles of Live Aid. "Business, things that are just functions and don't require emotional commitment, skittery things, I can always do. I need to be frenetically busy to stop myself going down. It's just boredom avoidance. It's nothing, basically. Anyone can do that stuff. Or I can, anyway." In the mid-1990s, while home life was reconfigured as a band of close mates dropping by, sleeping over and generally looking after him in his Battersea mansion flat ("Men make fantastically good friends"), Geldof's portfolio expanded dramatically: television stations in eastern Europe, a restaurant in Jamaica, an internet travel agency, bits and pieces all over the place. Bob was always open for business, but never in the office. He apparently still does all his deals at home or on the move, and usually on the mobile. If Planet 24 ever needed to see him, they went to him. The patron saint of hyperactivity says he often plays the guitar with a phone clamped to his ear, as well. Too upset to concentrate on music during the divorce, Geldof was steered back into it initially by his old buddy from the Boomtown Rats, Pete Briquette, who would turn up at his flat from time to time with a portable recorder. Having scribbled fugitive thoughts in notebooks throughout the split, he began to nudge the words towards songs, with Briquette's help, though Geldof maintains he only really got interested in making another album after a lucrative six-month stint as a DJ on the radio station Xfm in 1999. Listening to the tapes sent in by aspiring bands restored his urge to put something down himself. Geldof has certainly pulled no punches with the title of this album. "But that's what it feels like. I've reached that time of life when experience reaches critical mass." He then proceeds to explain that Sex, Age & Death was originally the working title of a TV series that he planned to make with the geneticist Steve Jones, whose Reith Lectures on evolution he found stimulating. "So, I phoned him up and asked him round for tea." Small revelations like this confirm that Geldof has been enjoying himself more than the new album suggests. As he chatters on about what fun it is travelling around Europe in a van with his band, of how much he loves having Jeanne and the kids around, and of how cheered he was to pocket #6m from the sale of Planet 24 to Carlton, you realise that being Bob Geldof is a role he still relishes - in his sarky fashion. "I've never done the exclusive limousine lifestyle. It doesn't suit me at all. I walk the kids to school every morning. I've been with lots of extremely famous people in public, and with them there's a sharp intake of breath, it's all reverence - and then, when anybody spots me, it's 'Bobby! Top man!' Thumbs in the air and a slap on the back. "And will they go out and buy this album on the strength of Bobby?" Geldof, not quite as gloomy these days as he thinks he is, comes up with the answer, laughing. "Absolutely f***ing not." www.bobgeldof.com A tribute to Sir Bob and his achievements Michelle McFerran Technology Staff Assistant direct number: 609-627-2568 fax number: 609-627-2940 Factiva, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company Factiva Technology Department P.O. Box 300 Princeton, New Jersey 08543-0300 e-mail: michelle.mcferran@factiva.com www.factiva.com " ... if you're tired of Web searches that produce more chaff than wheat, you should get acquainted with Factiva, a joint venture combining Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing." -Robert Bartley, The Wall Street Journal-With a compelling new album out next month, are things looking up for Bob Geldof, asks Robert Sandall - ... By asks Robert. 1,813 words 16 September 2001 The Sunday TimesEnglish(c) 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd Not Available for Re-dissemination. With a compelling new album out next month, are things looking up for Bob Geldof, asks Robert Sandall - Rock - Interview - Bob Geldof. In 1986, a recently knighted and even more recently married Sir Bob Geldof of Live Aid published his autobiography, Is That It? Tempting fate has seldom had such terrible consequences. The sequel (obvious title: No It Wasn't) will probably never be written, because recounting the ghastly details of his personal life over the past seven years causes Geldof palpable discomfort. In the space of a two-hour interview, he mentions the name of his dead wife, Paula Yates, once, and that of her pre-deceased lover, Michael Hutchence, not at all. "I'm loath to name names. Everybody knows the f***ing names, anyway," he grumbles at one point. But on the subject of his feelings about the two of them, and of the way that their relationship almost wrecked his life, you can, as per normal, hardly shut him up. He talks about feelings of emasculation, of pains in his chest - "I found out this stuff about a broken heart is actually true" - and of "the absolute pointlessness" of living alone. His eloquence on the subject of the break-up with Paula is, even by his standards, extraordinary. A sample: "I could not express in any way the chasms of emptiness and the oceans of loneliness and the universes of grief. There were no words adequate. I would wake up in the night crying, not weeping, just crying out. All I wanted was to find a grey corner of the world and howl into the void. But I couldn't go because of the children." As he intones these words, and many others like them, slumped in a chair in the dimly lit library of the converted medieval priory in Faversham, Kent, which serves as his country hideaway, Geldof looks and sounds approximately 200 years old. Gothic rules in this place. It is no surprise to learn he has been reading a lot of Romantic poetry recently. There is a solid promotional motive for him speaking like this. On October 1, Geldof releases his first solo album since 1993's The Happy Club, another fate-tempting item. It appeared the year before Paula booted him out of their Chelsea home and installed a younger and more successful rock star, Michael Hutchence of INXS, in his place. The new album, Sex, Age & Death, maps the years of anger, despair, confusion and loss that followed, lightened at the end by a gentle nod to the loving tranquillity he has found with his live-in French girlfriend, Jeanne Marine. As rock albums about broken marriages go, it is less polished than Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks, and less bonkers than Marvin Gaye's Here, My Dear. For all its weary and woozy edges, and improvised production values, Sex, Age & Death is undoubtedly the most vivid collection of songs Geldof has recorded for about 20 years. In terms of prurient revelations, however, it will probably be judged a disappointment. It offers a few digs at Paula's drunken antics in public, and one jibe at Hutchence's hanging himself, but there are no references to any of the four daughters. "I had a guy from Radio 2 saying: 'So, you've finally broken your silence,' and I said: 'No, I haven't. Where are the stories?' I've tried to articulate the unsayable here. And there's no other way I could have done it. No other way." All the songs, he says, were written well before Paula's fatal overdose last year. That Geldof should have chosen music as the vehicle for his first public utterance about his descent into tabloid hell may well surprise many under-35s who have grown up with the notion that his credits comprise media mogul, rent-a-gob, celebrity cuckold and widower, plus Knight of the British Empire. Yet Sex, Age & Death is his 10th album, all told; he is still a viable concert draw in Europe - "I'm big in the Hanseatic League"; and such is his love of playing live that he interrupted his family holiday on Majorca this summer to play a festival in mainland Spain. He seems fairly reconciled to the lack of recognition his music gets here. "The last thing most people think of me as is a musician. Why would an 18-year-old listen to me?" But memories that he was once the leader of an international chart band, the Boomtown Rats, are easily stirred. Hardly anybody else bothers to mention it nowadays, but Geldof himself doesn't mind pointing out that he was once a very successful pop star. "I did it. I have the awards stacked up in the attic." Indeed, displayed on a wall in the downstairs loo are a couple of awards that explain how he came by the funds to buy this beautiful, quirky and ancient pile in the first place. Rat Trap and I Don't Like Mondays, the two No1 hits he scored with the Rats at the end of the 1970s, won Ivor Novello prizes in successive years in the Best Selling UK Single category. Sooner or later, most pop stars find themselves deserted by success. In Geldof's case, at least as far as work goes, this has never happened. Interest in his music was dwindling around the time that Live Aid reinvented him as Saint Bob, since which point, success has been unable to shake him off. Perhaps life would have been easier for him if it had. In 1992, he set up an independent television-production company, Planet 24, with a couple of friends, Charlie Parsons and Waheed Alli. It prospered, thanks largely to winning a #10m contract to make a rowdy breakfast show for Channel 4, The Big Breakfast. Part of the deal involved Mrs Geldof, a feisty and glamorous former presenter of The Tube and other youth programmes, interviewing celebrities in bed. Which is how, by another appalling twist of fate, she bonded with Michael Hutchence. Geldof says that before this incendiary encounter, he and Paula had scarcely argued over the entire course of their 14-year relationship. What happened subsequently still mystifies him. "Here's a girl who was so bright, so funny, so stylish. One of the people who defined the 1980s and the style thereof. And I'm a gloomy f***er, really, you know, and I require beauty, someone to take me out of myself, to be fun. And here was this radiant person. And that all seemed to go, just like that - and, like, why? All that horrible stuff. The jokes that weren't funny, belittling all those years and all that love. They acted like they thought they were Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall, hubris dancing all over the place. It was just so naff." Having lost his wife and the custody of his three daughters, and been manoeuvred into a bizarre house swap with Hutchence, whereby the two men exchanged London addresses, Geldof insists: "I was incapable of doing anything at all." This is perfectly understandable, but turns out not to be true. Virtually bankrupted at one point by the legal wrangles with Paula and Hutchence, the distraught Sir Bob threw himself into work with the same manic energy that once powered him through the logistical jungles of Live Aid. "Business, things that are just functions and don't require emotional commitment, skittery things, I can always do. I need to be frenetically busy to stop myself going down. It's just boredom avoidance. It's nothing, basically. Anyone can do that stuff. Or I can, anyway." In the mid-1990s, while home life was reconfigured as a band of close mates dropping by, sleeping over and generally looking after him in his Battersea mansion flat ("Men make fantastically good friends"), Geldof's portfolio expanded dramatically: television stations in eastern Europe, a restaurant in Jamaica, an internet travel agency, bits and pieces all over the place. Bob was always open for business, but never in the office. He apparently still does all his deals at home or on the move, and usually on the mobile. If Planet 24 ever needed to see him, they went to him. The patron saint of hyperactivity says he often plays the guitar with a phone clamped to his ear, as well. Too upset to concentrate on music during the divorce, Geldof was steered back into it initially by his old buddy from the Boomtown Rats, Pete Briquette, who would turn up at his flat from time to time with a portable recorder. Having scribbled fugitive thoughts in notebooks throughout the split, he began to nudge the words towards songs, with Briquette's help, though Geldof maintains he only really got interested in making another album after a lucrative six-month stint as a DJ on the radio station Xfm in 1999. Listening to the tapes sent in by aspiring bands restored his urge to put something down himself. Geldof has certainly pulled no punches with the title of this album. "But that's what it feels like. I've reached that time of life when experience reaches critical mass." He then proceeds to explain that Sex, Age & Death was originally the working title of a TV series that he planned to make with the geneticist Steve Jones, whose Reith Lectures on evolution he found stimulating. "So, I phoned him up and asked him round for tea." Small revelations like this confirm that Geldof has been enjoying himself more than the new album suggests. As he chatters on about what fun it is travelling around Europe in a van with his band, of how much he loves having Jeanne and the kids around, and of how cheered he was to pocket #6m from the sale of Planet 24 to Carlton, you realise that being Bob Geldof is a role he still relishes - in his sarky fashion. "I've never done the exclusive limousine lifestyle. It doesn't suit me at all. I walk the kids to school every morning. I've been with lots of extremely famous people in public, and with them there's a sharp intake of breath, it's all reverence - and then, when anybody spots me, it's 'Bobby! Top man!' Thumbs in the air and a slap on the back. "And will they go out and buy this album on the strength of Bobby?" Geldof, not quite as gloomy these days as he thinks he is, comes up with the answer, laughing. "Absolutely f***ing not." www.bobgeldof.com A tribute to Sir Bob and his achievements Michelle McFerran Technology Staff Assistant direct number: 609-627-2568 fax number: 609-627-2940 Factiva, a Dow Jones & Reuters Company Factiva Technology Department P.O. Box 300 Princeton, New Jersey 08543-0300 e-mail: michelle.mcferran@factiva.com www.factiva.com " ... if you're tired of Web searches that produce more chaff than wheat, you should get acquainted with Factiva, a joint venture combining Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing." -Robert Bartley, The Wall Street Journal- From: "Donna B" To: Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 10:27 PM Subject: Re: INXS: last one... Hi Michelle & all How you going over there in America, you have all gone very quiet you ladies, not much to be happy about is there, too much uncertainty in the world, that's for sure.. :( frightful Thanks so much for the articles Michelle, I'm just printing them out now and going to read them in bed tonight.. all 12 pages, I just can't seem to get things to sink in reading from the computer, too much going on all at once.. Take care, and love to all Donna B From: Gail Warren To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2001 8:23 PM Subject: INXS: INXS Inducted into the Hall of Fame Hi all, Found this in the Sunday Telegraph:- We'll dedicate it to Michael Rock act INXS will be inducted into the Hall of Fame at the ARIA Music Awards at the Capitol Theatre on Wednesday. Band members said accepting the honour would be tinged with sadness because of the absence of their front man, Michael Hutchence. "I would have loved this to have happened while Michael was still alive, and I will be dedicating the award to him and my mother Jill, who also had so much to do with the band," guitarist Tim Farriss told the Sunday Telegraph. "It is sad this didn't happen during Michael's lifetime; it would have meant a lot to him." INXS, which formed on August 16, 1977, the day that Elvis Presley died, will celebrate 25 years in the business next year. They have been on of Australia's most successful musical exports, exploding in 1987 in the US with the multi-platinum-selling album Kick. Andrew Farriss, who was Hutchence's songwriting partner, said the induction comes at a time when the band is finding a new audience through continued live performances, assisted by guest front man Jon Stevens. "I find it amazing that a generation of people in their late teens and early 20s in the last couple of years have started to seek us out," he said. "This kind of award is probably more about commercial success than validation of the art of music but there isn't anything wrong with commercial success." Dance pop act The Avalanches, who hit the top 10 in the UK with their ground-breaking album, Since I Left You, are the leading contenders for this year's ARIAs with nine nominations. Rock act Powderfinger, who have aslo spent the past year furthering their international careers, have eight nominations, while Kylie Minogue and Something for Kate are mentioned in six categories. Gail From: naseem akhtar To: inxs@topica.com Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2001 9:29 PM Subject: INXS: Bob Geldof on Parkinson Hey all!!! I just saw Bob Geldof's interview with Michael Parkinson - I must admit that during the whole Geldof / Yates / Hutchence situation, I disliked him a lot - almost blaming him for Michael's death. However, this interview really did change my opinion of him, it's so obvious that he is still hurting very much from all that has happened to him...did anyone else see the show? Nas From: To: Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2001 9:18 PM Subject: Re: INXS: INXS Inducted into the Hall of Fame AWESOME! Thanks for sharing!!! :-D Shine Like it Does, ~Jennifer "Love is like a rocket"~Ross Childress