THE WEB Moore, Moore, Moore! By Douglas Wolk

R. Stevie Moore: He writes the songs that make his world sing.

The cassette under- ground of the '80s–– people banging out home recordings and selling tapes of them through the mail–– was all but eradicated by the ultra-cheap dissemination of MP3s. So it's surpris- ing that most of the original heroes of the tape era have a Web presence, however limited.   Manic depressive weirdo

Daniel Johnston has his own site (hihowareyou.com), which has only one actual song (emusic.com has a lot more). The tender Baltimore singer/songwriter Linda Smith is selling CD-R transfers of her old tapes and new stuff (homemademusic.com), but the previews offered include only one new song. Even the hilarious id-gone-wild duo WCKR SPGT appeared to have fallen completely off the Inter- net map for awhile, though they've recently returned with a new site (wckrspgt.cjb.net).       Then there's R. Stevie Moore, who's posted about 30 of his greatest non-hits on MP3.com and none on his own site (rsteviemoore.com). Since the late '60s, Moore has recorded about 300 "albums" of songs at his New Jersey home and kept them "in print" by means of a tape deck (and now a CD burner). He's best known for '60s- inspired power pop in the XTC vein, but he's open to recording any music that allows him to sneak in his dry wit. (He is surely the only songwriter ever to rhyme  "contagious illness" with "Brazil nuts.")   At MP3.com, Moore clearly has had fun with the site's requirement that all songs be listed by genre. "Dates," featuring a guest appearance by XTC's Dave Gregory, is arguably "Britpop," and the cheerfully hyperkinetic stomp "U. R. True" more or less qualifies as "Glam," but "Times Have Changed" will definitely surprise anyone who downloads it expecting "Deep House." And "Dewey Decimal System" would only count as "Classic Rock" in a much better world.       Moore's cult may be small, but it's devoted. One Seattle band, the Bran Flakes, has even constructed nearly freeform MIDI instrumental versions of a batch of Moore classics (angelfire.com/ nj2/dilimo/midibran.html) They're somewhere between a piano roll threaded in backwards and Cecil Taylor operating on a full bottle of apricot brandy, and they sort of miss the point, because half the fun of Moore's songs is hearing how human his voice is. He strains for high notes, he leaves his fumbles in, and he's rarely in tune––"Goodbye Piano" was inspired by the disastrously off-key instrument it's played on. Still, the pure pleasure of singing radiates through his tunes, maybe because he doesn't have to please anyone beyond himself. "Play myself some music/Listen to Side 2 first," he sings, sounding like nothing in the world could be more comforting. |||||||||||