-
(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
That's Sexy Back, a song from this week's top-selling album in America, Justin Timberlake's Future Sex/ Love Sounds. But our contributor Jennifer Sharpe says there is new interest and a new market for music that’s all but forgotten. Here is Jennifer.
Back in 1980,when 16-year-old Spike1 Priggen played guitar for the band TV Neats, he sent out copies of his demo tape, hoping to get signed. Little did he know he would be 42 years old by the time their album would finally get released.
25 years after the band's breakup, they've come out on a Japanese label that sells their album for 2300 yen2. When Priggen explained that there is actually a hot little market for old demo tapes like his, I suddenly felt a twinge of jealousy3, what about my old band's demo tape?
In 1983, when I was a freshman4 at Berkeley High, I replaced the bass5 player of a fiercely vegetarian6 peace punk band called Atrocity7.Opening for the Dead Kennedys, Atrocity's two singers 15-year-old Katherine Harris and 13-year-old Sarah Borruso must have looked freakishly precocious8 singing songs like "I Pronounce You Dead", an anarchist9 commentary on the institution of marriage.
Looking for evidence of the so-called hot market Priggen had mentioned, I started emailing with small reissue labels, secretly hoping to set the stage for an Atrocity pitch. I learned that in fact there are a number of old cassette demos making it into circulation and while some bands have barely sold 500 copies, others are enjoying a posthumous10 renaissance11。
Like The Speedies whose unreleased material just got put up on iTunes and whose nearly forgotten single "Let Me Take your Photo" recently showed up(out) in a Hewlett-Packard commercial.
Excited by the possibilities, I put up a MySpace page for Atrocity and began pushing it on the labels I've been talking to. I sent them copies of our demo and as I waited for their responses, an unexpected flood of emails came pouring in from old Atrocity fans. One recounted listening to our tape at the reptile12 store she'd worked at where she played our song Animal Fate for the mice before feeding them to the snakes.
My poverty is my own, this is my flesh and bone, you're killing13....
Within a week, all but one of my former band mates had appeared on Atrocity's list of MySpace friends. In some ways, they seem strangely the same, and in other ways, they'd totally changed. Our anti-corporate guitar player Paul Moraga now works at IBM, and our pale red-haired drummer has changed his name from Greg Penn to Aleph Kali, on his profile, he ethnically14 identifies as East Indian.
When I asked our singer Sara if she's still a vegetarian, she told me she occasionally eats meat now, but only because her doctors keep telling her to eat steaks for her anemia15. What about you? She asked. I had to tell her that just a year after the band broke up,I went to a McDonald's drive-through, and wolfed down a box of Chicken McNuggets.
The only possible vegetarian left is Katherine, our other singer. But no one has heard from her in years, so Katherine if you're out there listening, get yourself onto MySpace I've got a contract for you to sign, when the labels got back to me, all of them were interested in our demo even the ones I'd hoped would reject it, for the sake of the story.
When I checked back in with Spike Priggen to see how the TV Neats album was doing, he told me he had already sold one copy. I'm hoping Atrocity will do a little better than that. But I don't think we'll be getting any calls from Hewlett-Packard. For NPR News, I'm Jennifer Sharpe.
----------------------------
twinge
1
a sudden feeling of slight pain
I felt a twinge of pain in my back.
2
a twinge of guilt16/envy/sadness/jealousy etc
a sudden slight feeling of guilt etc
He felt a sharp twinge of guilt for not taking the trouble to visit her.
punk
1
[uncountable] also punk rock
a type of loud music popular in the late 1970s and 1980s
2
[countable] also punk rocker
someone who likes punk music and wears things that are typical of it, such as torn clothes, metal chains, and coloured hair
punk hairstyles
precocious
a precocious child shows intelligence or skill at a very young age, or behaves in an adult way - sometimes used to show disapproval in British English
a precocious child who walked and talked early
anarchist
someone who believes that governments, laws etc are not necessary
wolf
also wolf down [transitive]
informal to eat something very quickly, swallowing it in big pieces
synonym gobble
nugget
a small, round piece of food
chicken nuggets
Back in 1980,when 16-year-old Spike1 Priggen played guitar for the band TV Neats, he sent out copies of his demo tape, hoping to get signed. Little did he know he would be 42 years old by the time their album would finally get released.
25 years after the band's breakup, they've come out on a Japanese label that sells their album for 2300 yen2. When Priggen explained that there is actually a hot little market for old demo tapes like his, I suddenly felt a twinge of jealousy3, what about my old band's demo tape?
In 1983, when I was a freshman4 at Berkeley High, I replaced the bass5 player of a fiercely vegetarian6 peace punk band called Atrocity7.Opening for the Dead Kennedys, Atrocity's two singers 15-year-old Katherine Harris and 13-year-old Sarah Borruso must have looked freakishly precocious8 singing songs like "I Pronounce You Dead", an anarchist9 commentary on the institution of marriage.
Looking for evidence of the so-called hot market Priggen had mentioned, I started emailing with small reissue labels, secretly hoping to set the stage for an Atrocity pitch. I learned that in fact there are a number of old cassette demos making it into circulation and while some bands have barely sold 500 copies, others are enjoying a posthumous10 renaissance11。
Like The Speedies whose unreleased material just got put up on iTunes and whose nearly forgotten single "Let Me Take your Photo" recently showed up(out) in a Hewlett-Packard commercial.
Excited by the possibilities, I put up a MySpace page for Atrocity and began pushing it on the labels I've been talking to. I sent them copies of our demo and as I waited for their responses, an unexpected flood of emails came pouring in from old Atrocity fans. One recounted listening to our tape at the reptile12 store she'd worked at where she played our song Animal Fate for the mice before feeding them to the snakes.
My poverty is my own, this is my flesh and bone, you're killing13....
Within a week, all but one of my former band mates had appeared on Atrocity's list of MySpace friends. In some ways, they seem strangely the same, and in other ways, they'd totally changed. Our anti-corporate guitar player Paul Moraga now works at IBM, and our pale red-haired drummer has changed his name from Greg Penn to Aleph Kali, on his profile, he ethnically14 identifies as East Indian.
When I asked our singer Sara if she's still a vegetarian, she told me she occasionally eats meat now, but only because her doctors keep telling her to eat steaks for her anemia15. What about you? She asked. I had to tell her that just a year after the band broke up,I went to a McDonald's drive-through, and wolfed down a box of Chicken McNuggets.
The only possible vegetarian left is Katherine, our other singer. But no one has heard from her in years, so Katherine if you're out there listening, get yourself onto MySpace I've got a contract for you to sign, when the labels got back to me, all of them were interested in our demo even the ones I'd hoped would reject it, for the sake of the story.
When I checked back in with Spike Priggen to see how the TV Neats album was doing, he told me he had already sold one copy. I'm hoping Atrocity will do a little better than that. But I don't think we'll be getting any calls from Hewlett-Packard. For NPR News, I'm Jennifer Sharpe.
----------------------------
twinge
1
a sudden feeling of slight pain
I felt a twinge of pain in my back.
2
a twinge of guilt16/envy/sadness/jealousy etc
a sudden slight feeling of guilt etc
He felt a sharp twinge of guilt for not taking the trouble to visit her.
punk
1
[uncountable] also punk rock
a type of loud music popular in the late 1970s and 1980s
2
[countable] also punk rocker
someone who likes punk music and wears things that are typical of it, such as torn clothes, metal chains, and coloured hair
punk hairstyles
precocious
a precocious child shows intelligence or skill at a very young age, or behaves in an adult way - sometimes used to show disapproval in British English
a precocious child who walked and talked early
anarchist
someone who believes that governments, laws etc are not necessary
wolf
also wolf down [transitive]
informal to eat something very quickly, swallowing it in big pieces
synonym gobble
nugget
a small, round piece of food
chicken nuggets
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
spike
|
|
| n.长钉，钉鞋；v.以大钉钉牢，使...失效 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
yen
|
|
| n. 日元；热望 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
jealousy
|
|
| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
freshman
|
|
| n.大学一年级学生(可兼指男女) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
bass
|
|
| n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
vegetarian
|
|
| n.素食者；adj.素食的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
atrocity
|
|
| n.残暴，暴行 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
precocious
|
|
| adj.早熟的；较早显出的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
anarchist
|
|
| n.无政府主义者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
posthumous
|
|
| adj.遗腹的；父亡后出生的；死后的，身后的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
renaissance
|
|
| n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
reptile
|
|
| n.爬行动物；两栖动物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
killing
|
|
| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
ethnically
|
|
| adv.人种上，民族上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
anemia
|
|
| n.贫血，贫血症 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
guilt
|
|
| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
购买
在百度中搜索