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FAQ about the alt.music.alternative on the interne

Archive-name: music/alternative-faq
Last-modified: 1993/10/01

New things in this version include the "Blind Melon sucks" question, the
_Valley Girl_ question, the This Mortal Coil question, the Negativland
question, the new Pearl Jam question, a couple of fixed typos and
modifications of the netiquette section.

"There are no stupid questions, just stupid people."
-The Mr. T Experience, "Master of the Situation"

Presenting the ALT.MUSIC.ALTERNATIVE Frequently Asked Questions list!

Just LOOK at these reviews:

"I laughed, I cried, I pushed back all of my new releases."
- Gerald Cosloy

"Alt.music what? I thought this was comp.unix!"
- Eggbert "Eggy" Giekius

"You going to just throw that Spam out?"
- my roommate

Yes, it's the answer to all your questions. It's even got a table of contents!

I. Introduction to alt.music.alternative or "Just what the heck IS all
of this?"
II. Frequently asked questions or "I just discovered these two tracks
on my Nine Inch Nails CD..."
III. Basic Usenet ettiquette or "You too can waste hundreds, if not
thousands of dollars!"
IV. Mailing lists or "Does anyone have the address of my clue?"
V. FTP or "Dave Datta is your pal!"

--==|| Part I ||==--

INTRODUCTION

Sometime in early 1992, some enterprising soul decided that there was a
void in Usenet. After braving the firestorm on rec.music.misc, that
brave soul decided to create a brand new group: alt.music.alternative.

This new newsgroup was to be dedicated to discussion of
"alternative" music. The folks who read rec.music.misc correctly
predicted flamewars about the definition of alternative. Every now and
again, somebody forgets to log out of their terminal or is overwhelmed
with their own cleverness and decides to post some sort of message
declaring "That's not alternative!" Of course people invariably take
this bait and a flamewar ensues. That's not what this newsgroup is
for...it would be called alt.music.flame if it were for that.

So what is this group for? What IS alternative music? That's a
pretty good question, and it probably is the most frequently asked
question in this newsgroup. Unfortunately, neither I nor anyone else
can really answer this question. In a broad sense, alternative is music
that is an alternative to standard mainstream music. Instead of
discussing Madonna we would be ideally discussing Masonna. This
defination is very loose, however, since it excludes the many acts that
once had a very limited following and now have become very popular. The
best example of this phenomenon in my mind is R.E.M. Are they
alternative?

Many would say, "No! What are you, some sort of booger-head?"
Others might say, "Of course! Just because they are popular doesn't
mean they've necessarily changed at all!" Still yet others might say,
"Who cares? Pass the salt." My take on the matter is that such bands
as R.E.M., U2, the Cure and other groups who have become extraordinarily
popular these days should still be discussed. Any flamewars trying to
get people to stop posting about these bands would invariably waste a
hundred times more bandwidth than the original discussion would have
taken. Live and let live. Just discuss the music, and this will become
a better newsgroup.

Mark Cornick, former co-moderater of the indie list (see section IV) has
the following to say:

"Louis Armstrong was once asked 'what is jazz?' He replied 'If you
have to ask the question, you will never know the answer.' Alternative
is in your own mind. So if you think it's alternative, it probably is,
and if it isn't people will happily flame you. C'mon folks, you know
what's alternative and what's not, and if you don't, turn on your
local college radio station or (gasp) 120 Minutes and maybe you'll
find out."

I can agree with this. The upshot of this section is that this
newsgroup is for discussion of alternative MUSIC. This means that
everything from "punk" to "grunge" to "industrial" to "techno" to
"noise" to "post punk" to "whatever it is they are calling alternative
these days" is a valid topic for discussion. It is not for a discussion
of how cool you think you are. It is not for a discussion about how
obnoxious the VJ of "Alternative Nation" is. It is not for a discussion
of WHAT alternative music is. Just discuss the music you enjoy, and you
might find others out there with similar tastes. I know I have.

--==|| Part II ||==--

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: I bought Nine Inch Nails' CD _Broken_ the other day, and I
discovered that there are two bonus tracks at the end of the CD? Holy
cow! Any idea what these are called?

A: Well, you're not the first to discover this. There are indeed two
bonus tracks on _Broken_. The first is a cover of an Adam and the Ants
song entitled "Physical (You're So)" and the second is a cover of a
Pigface song, "Suck". The latter was actually co-written by Trent
Reznor and he helped perform it with Pigface on _Gub_, but it is still
originally a Pigface song. The version included on _Broken_ is actually
significantly different than the one on _Gub_.

Q: Hey, man, I can't find NIN's _Fixed_ ANYWHERE! What the heck?

A: It's limited edition. After an original run, Interscope
discontinued the single. Some reports seem to indicate that Interscope
stopped printing _Fixed_ so that it would not cut into sales of
_Broken_. These same reports state that _Fixed_ will be reissued after
sales of _Broken_ cool off. At any rate, there are still a few copies
of _Fixed_ floating around. In addition, the single is still in print
oversees and is available as an import. All is not lost.

Q: What are the official NIN releases, as long as I'm bugging you? And
what is this "Halo" business?

A: The "Halo" designation goes on every official NIN release. Halo 1
is the "Down In It" 12" (later reissued on CD), Halo 2 is _Pretty Hate
Machine_, Halo 3 is the "Head Like A Hole" single, Halo 4 is the "Sin"
single, Halo 5 is _Broken_ and Halo 6 is _Fixed_. There is a bootleg CD
containing "Supernaut" and "Suck" that is marked "Halo 00", but this is
NOT an official release. The Halo designation was added in a totally
spurious attempt to make it look official.
Incidentally, Ian Patterson ([email protected]) maintains a
FAQ list just for Nine Inch Nails. There is also a NIN discography
available on Dave Datta's musical archives (see part V for more info).

Q: Woah. After a bunch of silence there is another track on Nirvana's
_Nevermind_! What is up with this?

A: It's called "Endless Nameless" and was included on all CDs of
_Nevermind_ after the very first run. If you have one of these first
50,000 CDs, you can still get the track by purchasing the single for
"Come As You Are" which was released in England. As for other
countries, I'm not certain if the track was included or not.

Q: Is Eddie Vedder dead?

A: Nope. For that matter, Anthony Keidis does not have AIDS nor does
Flea. Dick Vaughn, however, is dead.

Q: Man, you're not alternative. I've got one of only three copies of
Flaccid Penile Implant's 7" "Fartstorm" b/w "Burning Rectal Hell" and
the other two were eaten by my neighbor's Rottweiler.

A: Are you always this obnoxious, or just when I put words in your
mouth? Anyway, check your attitude at the door, friend.
Alt.music.alternative is not the sort of place for these sorts of
infantile comments. Besides, there were four of those made...I ought to
know, I made them.

Q: Is Eddie Vedder dead yet?

A: Nope, not yet.

Q: You sure?

A: Quite.

Q: So, what's the deal with the new Pearl Jam album? What is it called?

A: Pearl Jam decided, at the last minute, to change the name of the
album from _Five Against One_ to _Vs._. They decided after the album
had started to go through the first pressing, so instead of trashing the
entire first run they decided to go ahead and release them. The album
was also issued in two forms, a digi-pak and a normal jewel box. I'm
afraid I don't know how rare any of these editions are, but I'm certain
one could say "not rare at all" and be correct.

Q: I just heard that the Pixies have broken up! Is that true?

A: Yes, it is true. Black Francis is now going under the name Frank
Black and has a solo album out on 4AD (Electra here in the US) entitled
_Frank Black_. Kim Deal is devoting her time to the Breeders, and there
should be a new album out sometime soon. Dave Lovering somehow landed
in Nitzer Ebb, go figure. In addition, he is currently touring with
Cracker, meaning that he might not be with Nitzer Ebb after all and
might have (much more sensibly) decided to play with Cracker for a
while. Anybody with more information on Lovering is encouraged to mail
me. Finally, Joey Santiago contributed some guitar on Frank Black's
album. What he is doing besides that is unknown to me, although reports
seem to indicate he will be playing with Mr. Black for a while.
Incidentally, since the demise of Rough Trade, _Come On Pilgrim_ and
_Surfer Rosa_ are now out on separate CDs, so if you find the
combination CD used, snap it up so record company weasels don't make any
money off of this bum deal.

Q: Hey, anybody have the lyrics to "Spewmatic" by Spam Enema?

A: If anybody on the net has the lyrics has the lyrics to any song,
odds are they've shown up on the FTP site at cs.uwp.edu. In addition to
tons and tons of lyrics, there are discographies and other assorted
information on this site. Read part V for more information.
Besides, what are you talking about? "Spewmatic" is an instrumental.

Q: Where did Pearl Jam get their name?

There are currently two versions of this story to my knowledge.

1) The members of Pearl Jam are avid basketball fans, and early on the
band was named "Mookie Blaylock." After Mookie and The NJ Nets
threatened to sue the band it was changed to Mookie's nicknamed
slamdunk, a "Pearl Jam". "10", the title of Pearl Jam's first album, is
Mookie's jersey number.

2) A Rolling Stone (Oct. 91?) article states that "Pearl Jam" was named
after a jelly that Eddy Vedder's grandma (Pearl) used to make for her
husband. According to the article, the jam contained hallucinagens.

Q: What is the Negativland _U2_ record?

A: The Negativland _U2_ single put out in late '91 by SST Records and
featured two tracks, both of which made fun of U2's "Still Haven't Found
What I'm Looking For". Shortly after its release, an enormous legal
document arrived at SST from Island Records/ Warner-Chappel Publishing,
the gist of which was that SST was getting its butt sued for putting the
thing out. Among the charges being levelled were that the packaging was
deceptive (this was reportedly the biggest problem that Island had with
the record), that
the use of various unauthorized samples on the single were copyright
infringement (Negativland maintained that as a piece of satire the
samples should have been allowed) and lots of other charges.
Incidentally, the "deceptive" packaging as that the single had "U2" in
huge letters on the front with "Negativland" in really small letters
across the bottom. Island apparently felt that such packaging was
intended to deceive the consumer into believing it was a U2 release.

Anyway, SST and Negativland got squashed. The settled out of court.
Total damages: $90,000. SST tried to get Negativland to pay the entire
bill while N'land offered to pay half. No agreement was reached and
N'land left SST records, whose owner (Greg Ginn, ex-Black Flag
guitarist) threatened lawsuits. Shortly thereafter Negativland put out
a CD and magazine combo entitled "The Letter U and the Numeral 2" which
documents the whole fiasco, including press releases, legal documents,
articles and everything else possibly concerned with the whole
situation. Greg Ginn then threatened to sue N'land for, among other
thing, copyright infringement (the press releases were copyrighted, he
claims). He also was suing over the fact that the magazine contained
such revelations as the fact that SST has gross sales in excess of $5
million. As a result, "The Letter U and the Numeral 2" isn't available
right now either (sort of ironic, if you think about it). That's the
current situation, I guess.

The music? Oh yeah, the music. Brilliant. "Still Haven't Found..." is
thoroughly raked over the coals, with the Weatherman demolishing the
lyrics ("Yup, you're the fat one, and I want to be with you."), the band
playing the tune in amazingly goofy ways (or just humming it) and some
really choice Casey Kasem samples (ever wonder what it would sound like
if Casey Kasem said "Oh fuck!"? Well...) Find somebody who has a copy
and dub it. Don't pay $100 (or more) for it though, as that is
collector skumism at its best. I was lucky enough to buy a copy when it
first came out
(as a matter of fact, it was the first N'land thing I bought..."Hmm,
I've heard about this band. Maybe I'll buy this single, since it is the
only thing of theirs here in the store.") and would never consider
selling it.

Q: What's the Mother Love Bone/Pearl Jam connection?

Once upon a time, there was a pioneering Seattle grunge band called
Green River. Steve Turner left the band early on, and was later joined
by Mark Arm to form Mudhoney. The rest put together Mother Love Bone,
with Andrew Wood handling vocals, and "headed off on their way to Def
Lepperdom" as Barry Hennesler so aptly put it. They band dissolved
after Andy's death from a heroin overdose. The remaining members joined
Chris Cornell and Matt Cameron from Soundgarden in a tribute band called
"Project: Temple of the Dog," and these same Love Bone alumni have since
created the aforementioned Pearl Jam.

Q: I bought Lilies, "In the Presence of Nothing" and noticed that the cd
cover listed one less song than is listed on my cd player track number
count. (I believe the track # count is correct) Can anyone explain the
discrepancy to me?

A: Tracks 1-8 are as listed in order. Track 9 is called "Threw A Day" and
is from their 45. Track 10 is "Claire Hates Me."

Q: What exactly is This Mortal Coil?

A: This Mortal Coil was (note the was) the project of the founder of
4AD Records, Ivo Watts-Russel. They produced three albums (_It'll End
In Tears_, _Filigree and Shadow_ and _Blood) along with a 12" ("Sixteen
Days"/"Gathering Dust") and a compilation track on _Lonely Is an
Eyesore_. The project had, along with Watts-Russel, members of other
4AD bands (such as the Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, The Wolfgang
Press, Colourbox, The Breeders, Modern English and others) as well as
non 4AD artists (Caroline Crawly, Cindytalk, Breathless, Alison Limerick
and others). After _Blood_, Watts-Russel said that the project had gone
on long enough. The three albums had been available only as imports in
the US up until February of 1993, when they were released in a box set
entitled _This Mortal Coil 1983-1991_. This set also included a fourth
CD which contained most of the originals that the band covered over the
course of the three albums.

Q: So, what exactly is "grunge"?

A: Like any other word which attempts to describe an entire style of
music, the word "grunge" is mostly useless. People use it in an attempt
to describe the recent flood of guitar driven acts who take riffs from
Black Sabbath and attitudes from punk. People also mistakenly use it to
categorize all music out of Seattle, which is unfair to alot of very
good Seattle acts (and just try calling Diamond Fist Werny "grunge").
There are many other terms such as "punk", "hardcore", "shoegazer",
"gothic", "industrial", "indie rock" and others which people use in an
attempt to say what it is they listen to (i.e. "I listen to mostly
gothic and industrial. How about you?"). While these terms have a
limited usefulness in broad categorization (it's pretty safe to say that
a song categorized as "gothic" is not going to start with the drummer
yelling "one-two-three-four!"), try not to rely on them in describing
bands. Saying a band relies on a pounding drum machine, various samples
from horror movies, sampled guitar and heavily distorted vocals is much
more descriptive than "industrial". Above all, don't fret the
definitions too much. Every person is going to have different
definitions of them, so don't let somebody calling a given band "grunge"
or "punk" or whatever turn you off of them (or onto them).

Q: BLIND MELON SUCKS!

A: Whatever.
One of my pet peeves (and, evidently, one of Chris $L's, who
inspired this question) is people who post "reviews", such as the above
comment, which are completely devoid of anything resembling real
information. Perhaps you do believe, in your heart of hearts, that Band
X sucks canal water or Band Y is a sell out. Declaring that in front of
thousands of people will only convince said thousands that you are an
idiot. There isn't anything wrong with disliking and album or band,
just try to state your opinions intelligently. Do a trash review, but
explain yourself. Saying "Band X resorts to overplayed cliches in the
boring, overlong songs which proliferate on _Liquid Drano_, causing them
to have all the distinction in my mind of tile group" is much more
useful than "Band X sucks!".

Q: Where can I get the _Valley Girl_ soundtrack?

A: This information comes from Goldmine, which is usually fairly
accurate (although their discographies are sometimes sort of spotty):

Epic Records stated that the album was slated for release in the US,
but an actual release never happened due to contractual difficulties. They
deny that any copies were ever pressed or issued in any way. Thus, a
full soundtrack to the album never saw the light of day.

Despite this, some copies of subsets of the soundtrack were issued. A
10-song album came out in the UK on Avatar Records, while a 6-song
mini-album later came out on Roadshow Records. Neither of these
releases contains anything remotely approaching rare, nor was anything
particularly rare used in the movie. Also provided with the article is
a list of all the songs used in the movie along with sources. It
shouldn't be too difficult to comb used bins (and friends' collections)
to assemble your own Valley Girl soundtrack:

Bananarama & Fun Boy Three: 'He Was Really Saying Something'
Deep Sea Skiving (Chrysalis)
The Clash: 'Rock the Casbah'
Combat Rock (Epic)
Josie Cotton: 'He Could Be the One' and 'Johnny are you Queer?'
Convertible Music (Elektra)
Josie Cotton: 'School is In'
From the Hip (Elektra)
Culture Club: 'Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?'
Kissing to Be Clever (Virgin/Epic)
Felony: 'The Fanatic'
The Fanatic (Rock&Roll/Scotti Brothers)
The Flirts: '(Don't Put Another Dime)'
10 Cents a Dance (O Records)
Eddy Grant: 'Electric Avenue'
Killer on the Rampage (Portrait)
Bonnie Hayes and the Wild Combo: 'Girls Like Me' and 'Shelly's Boyfriend'
Good Clean Fun (Slash)
The Jam: 'Town Called Malice'
The Gift (Polydor)
Men at Work: 'Who Can it Be Now?'
Business as Usual (Columbia)
Modern English: 'I Melt With You'
After the Snow (Sire)
Gary Myrick: 'Time to Win'
Language (Epic)
Gary Myrick and the Figures: 'She Talks in Stereo'
Gary Myrick and the Figures (Epic)
Payolas: 'Eyes of a Stranger'
No Stranger to Danger (A&M)
The Plimsouls: 'A Million Miles Away', 'Oldest Story in the World',
'Everywhere at Once'
Everywhere at Once (Geffen)
Psychadelic Furs: 'Love My Way'
Forever Now (Columbia)
Sparks: 'Angst in my Pants' and 'Eaten by the Monster of Love'
Angst in my Pants (Atlantic)
Pat Travers: 'I La La La Love You'
Black Pearl (Polygram)

Most of the above tracks are still quite easily available on CD, so look
around and make your own soundtrack before shelling out tons of money
for one of the rare released ones.

Q: Hey, anybody who watches MTV is obviously a total bozo. Plus,
Beavis and Butthead are truly moronic and anybody who enjoys them is
doubly so.

A: This isn't a question, but is instead a frequently seen comment on
alt.music.alternative. "Is MTV, in any way, alternative?" is the
question that such comments seem to be really asking. There isn't a
good answer for this. For some areas that lack an active music scene or
a good college radio station, programs such as 120 Minutes and
Alternative Nation represent one of the few outlets for hearing new
music. For people living in such areas, this music may very well be
alternative. For others lucky enough to be blessed with active scenes
or good radio stations, MTV may be completely commercial pap. It
depends mainly on one's perspective and tastes. As such, discussions on
the worth of MTV are invariably going to be inconclusive. Don't bother.
I will, however, state that if you have access to Usenet in the first
place, you've got a fairly good musical resource at hand and you should
be able to avoid relying entirely on MTV for your musical information.
Try subscribing to some mailing lists, and ask around for the addresses
of some good 'zines. You'd be surprised how much one can find out about
music in a very short period of time.
Beavis and Butthead have recently, and inexplicably, become quite a
popular topic of "conversation" on alt.music.alternative. Like 'em or
not, don't bother discussing them on a.m.a. You're not going to change
anyone's opinion on them and you're just going to incite a pointless
flamewar. Besides, last time I checked, they were a cartoon, not a
musical group.

Q: Where are some good places to find out more about music?

A: Well, Usenet is not an ideal place for real information, but
occasionally some real information leaks through. There are quite a
number of Usenet groups dedicated to music. The easiest way to find out
about them is to subscribe to and read rec.music.info. Besides stuff
like discographies, concert listings and whatnot, listings of musical
resources available on Usenet and by FTP get posted to rec.music.info.
It's very low volume and can be helpful at times.
Besides Usenet, you can try mailing lists. See part IV for more
information on that. Aside from computer resources, you can try print
media. There are magazines like Alternative Press, Option and others
that attempt to cover mainly alternative music. In addition to these
mass media sources, there are "'zines" which are put out by regular
people just like you and me. Although they are often spotty they also
tend to be alot more honest than their mass media counterparts which
have to appease their advertisers. The main thing is to keep your eyes
(and your ears) open.

Q: Thanks, you've been helpful. Anything you want to add?

A: That's mighty gracious of you, even though it was really me who
typed that. Well, gosh, I guess there isn't too much to say. If you
have anything you would like to see in this section, go ahead and email
me at [email protected].

--==|| Part III ||==--

Netiquette

What is netiquette? It's a cute term for some basic rules of
conduct on Usenet. Computers are a very quick and convenient way to
exchange information. Unfortunately, they also lend themselves toward
quick responses lacking thought behind them. People tend to treat
computer communication as more like normal conversation rather than
written correspondance. Netiquette is just a way of describing some
ways to try and increase the flow of information on Usenet.
First, and most importantly, THINK before you send that. It's a
cliche, but somebody is paying for everything that goes over the net.
Maybe you personally aren't paying, but somebody is. Ask yourself, "If
this were a letter, would I bother sending it?" Many times, you'll
answer, "No." If you say it out loud, you'll also get funny looks from
everybody around you. If the answer is no, don't send it.
What sort of things shouldn't you do? One thing you shouldn't do is
send one line responses. If a question is simple enough to be answered
in one line, just email it to the person. Another thing you shouldn't
do is quote the entirety of an article. Just quote the relevant parts.
Don't worry, it's not going to kill you to use that delete key.
What should you do if there is a question to which the answer is
commonly known? Nothing. Odds are, somebody has answered it. If you
really feel you must answer it, do it in email. Also, check ahead and
see if somebody else has already answered the question before you.
There have been countless instances of people asking something along the
lines of "Who sang xxx?" Invariably, there were tons of people who felt
obligated to answer this question. Often, people get it wrong. People
won't think you're cool, people will think you're obnoxious.
Don't post unfounded rumors. I'm sure most readers are familiar
with the rumors which flew around concerning Lollapalooza 3. I'm
equally sure people are familiar with all of the numerous, "Does xxx
have AIDS?" questions. This kind of stuff doesn't raise the level of
information on the net at all, as they tend to be completely inaccurate
and offbase. Wait until your rumor is confirmed, and then post the
information. Most of the time you'll find that your rumor was just the
result of idle speculation.
Another nice thing to do is limit the distribution of your messages,
especially if they are only of regional interest (such as asking about
concert tickets). Jens Alfke wrote the following about the distribution
line in your messages (used with permission, and slightly edited):

"[...] Too many people don't bother to think about the distribution of
their postings, so we all get deluged with questions and answers about
concerts 2,000 miles away. [...]

You need to set the "Distribution:" field of the message header. If you're
using "rn" on a Unix console, it'll ask you for the distribution after you
finish editing the message. Some other newsreaders will also prompt you, and
some make you edit the header at the top of the message while you're
composing the message.

The default distribution is "world" but you can limit it. I'm not sure about
all the standard abbreviations, but I'd be surprised if the usual two-letter
US state codes didn't work. [...] I know that "us" restricts it to the
USA. There are more local regions too; for instance, I can limit
postings to "ba" (San Francisco Bay Area) or "apple".

One thing you can look for is newsgroups at your site that don't begin with
the usual "rec", "comp", "soc", "alt", etc. The first word is usually a local
distribution. For instance, over here there is a "ba.food" for discussion of
Bay Area restaurants. If you see "nh.*" newsgroups, that's a clue that you
can limit distribution to "nh".

Ask your local system administrator or mail/news guru for more info."

If you follow these simple guidelines, alt.music.alternative would
be much nicer to read. Remember: don't quote too much, don't post one
line articles, don't answer obvious questions, use email when it is
appropriate, don't post rumors, treat computer communication like
written communication, limit distributions and THINK before you send.

--==|| Part IV ||==--

Mailing Lists

One of the best ways to acquire information about specific areas of
music or artists is to subscribe to an appropriate mailing list. There
are tons of them out there and odds are you'll find one or more that
interest you. The best way to find mailing lists that interest you is
to send a message to the following address:

>>> [email protected] <<<

and ask for a copy of the musical list of lists. You'll get a wonderful
document in turn that has subscription addresses for bunches of mailing
lists. Before you go hog wild, there are a couple of things to keep in
mind.
First of all, everything I said about netiquette applies equally to
mailing lists. This is going into people's mailboxes, and they'll get
annoyed if you're cluttering up their mailboxes with garbage. Second,
keep in mind that often (read: always as far as I know) the
administrative address is different from the address for the mailing
list. This means that your subscription requests, unsubscription
requests and other administrative stuff should get sent to the
administrative address, while stuff indended to be sent to the entire
list should go to the list address. Pretty simple to remember, that.
For many mailing lists, the mail address will be of the form
[email protected] and the administrative address will be
[email protected]. Other lists are run by "listserv"s, which
means a computer administrates them. For these lists, the mail address
will be [email protected] and the administrative address will be
[email protected]. Whatever the situation is, KEEP any information
that you get sent when you subscribe to a list. It will help you
remember how to unsubscribe. Trust me, few things annoy people on
mailing lists more than unsubscription requests sent to the main list.
It's really not that hard to remember two email addresses, is it?
Incidentally, I will recommend one list in particular that has
remained amazingly flame free as well as chock full of content. The
indie mailing list is a semi-weekly digest packed with reviews of concerts
and albums as well as other helpful information. To find out more, just
send email to the new editor of the indie list, Sean Murphy
([email protected] might know him as "Grumpy Smurph").
He also maintains a really great list of independant record labels and
distributors, so ask for that as well.

--==|| Part V ||==--

FTP

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, and is a means of
transferring files across internet. Not all systems have FTP, you'll
have to figure out if you have it on your own. There are several sites
that are useful to readers of alt.music.alternative and you can get a
complete list from rec.music.info. The most important of these sites is
the server at cs.uwp.edu maintained by Dave Datta. This site has
discographies, lyrics and tons of other information just waiting to be
read. Do some poking around and you might be surprised. Anyway, the
remainder of this section was swiped from the FAQ list for
rec.games.hack written by Yu Cao and underwent some modification.

Basic FTP instructions

If your machine is directly connected to internet, you can obtain the
source code and official binary releases for some popular computers.

Type in the command:

ftp cs.uwp.edu

You will be connected to the server, and it will prompt for a username.
Type in the username:

anonymous

Use your e-mail address for a password, such as:

boris@moose.squirrel.whatsammata.edu

Paying attention to upper and lower case, change directories to the
NetHack base directory, by typing:

cd pub/music

This directory contains a veritable plethora of musical information.
First, find out what directories are available by typing:

dir

Of particular interest are two directories, lyrics and artists. To
change to these directories, simply type one of:

cd lyrics
cd artists

Once in these directories, you're going to need to keep typing "dir" to
find out what is available in that directory as well as typing "cd" to
change to directories. Once you've finally found a file that interests
you, simple type:

get <filename>

where <filename> is the name of the file you want.

To leave your FTP session, type:

quit

That's it! Isn't that easy. For more information on FTP, don't bug me.
Bug somebody like that geeky looking guy using the terminal next to
yours.

--==|| That's it! ||==--

This is the end of the FAQ. I hope it's been helpful in some way. If
not, don't both telling me, I really don't care that much. This file
will hopefully be posted to a.m.a. fairly often in an attempt to improve
the signal to nosie ratio. It will also be sent to anybody who
flagrantly violates any netiquette rules in hopes they will not make the
same mistake again. Thanks for reading,



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