Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (04/16/87)
Really-From: IED0DXM%UCLAMVS.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu OK, we need mailing addresses from Walter Henry and Peter Alfke, if they want to get the KompilaTion tape (eventually, if everyone does his part). >Some fellow with the unlikely userid of IED0DXM appears for the first >time, calling in from the Left Coast, finally demonstrating that yes, >Virginia, there really is a use for BITNET. >I was going to say something about my successive bouts of despite, envy, >and ultimately appreciation of IED's ability to balance elements of >clinical evaluation and emotional outbursts of KaTeian fervor, and about What is this with the compliments? IED's gonna get a swelled head soon. (As opposed to a Swelling Itching Brain, which he already has.) >my ongoing battle to keep third-person self-references out of my writing, >but every couple lines, another of the latter sneaks in; Dave will >instead leave these phenomena unmentioned. Dang, I blew it... Ha-Hah! IED's secret plan is finally coming to fruition! Soon, ALL the L-Hs will refer to themselves in the third person, and NO-ONE will read or write in this forum -- only their new, infinitely more obnoxious ALTER-EGOS, who will vote to re-name this forum "Max Headhounds". It's kind of spooky, huh? >A practical, if not particularly elegant solution. The record store threw >in a jewel box with my Big Time CD-EP, and I'm trying to work out a useful >mod to accommodate the sleeve, of which I'm sure we'll see many more. Well, let us know if you have any new ideas. Meanwhile, here's IED's proposal for two new hypothetical KT CDs, to be released in '88 and '89 by EMI in order to fill the gap between HoL and KBVI. I. Kate Bush: The Re-Mixes (approx. time: 43 mins., suitable EMI rip-off time) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 1. Running Up That Hill (instrumental mix) 2. Running Up That Hill (extended re-mix) 3. Cloudbusting (video re-mix) 4. Cloudbusting (Organon Re-Mix) 5. Hounds of Love (Alternative Hounds re-mix) 6. The Big Sky (Special Single Mix) 7. The Big Sky (Meteorological Mix) 8. Experiment IV (extended re-mix) II. Kate Bush: The B-Sides (approx. time: 48 minutes, almost too long by ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ EMI standards) 1. Passing Through Air 2. Maybe (previously unreleased); 3. The Empty Bullring 4. Ran Tan Waltz 5. December Will Be Magic Again 6. Warm and Soothing 7. Lord of the Reedy River 8. Dreamtime 9. Ne T'enfuis pas 10. Under the Ivy 11. My Lagan Love 12. Burning Bridge 13. The Handsome Cabin Boy 14. Not This Time >I think that yes, this is the notion I was trying to convey. A frontal >assault of pure genius, thinly veiled with periodic markings of early >Kate. The appropriateness of this idea is wide open for discussion; >I'm still toying with it myself. Same here. The "periodic markings of early Kate Bush" -- could you be more specific? Where do you hear those markings? >Odd, that's the reaction I had from the strings' first exposition. >But when the recap goes into a repeat, you feel almost cheated, left >on tenterhooks, hungry and deflated. Certainly as the piece is now >constructed, it's indispensible; the hypothetical question is, would >an additional verse and perhaps a different ending have ruined the song, >or would it have raised the level of intensity beyond the average L-Her's >threshold of pain? (Warning: this is a silly, romanticized notion of >mine that just happens to fit all too well into my mental mythology) >I'd like to believe the latter; although Kate admits that of the songs >on _TD_, "Houdini" was the most emotionally demanding to write, she also >claims that singing it was a fairly simple matter of recalling an image, >a sensation of `almost pining for Houdini' (source: KBC Newsletter dated >1983, as quoted in this forum last winter). > >Am I beating a dead phantom horse? No. In fact, IED, upon thinking it over, more or less agrees with you. You're right! It IS a little dull (by Katian standards) hearing the same eight-bar passage played twice through at the end, with the only real change coming in Eberhard Weber's phrasing on the bass and a bit more poignancy overall. It's not really like Kate (esp. in TD) to say something twice in virtually the same way. Good point, mildly deflating, but actually good fuel for IED's (now more or less abandoned) campaign to compare HoL favourably to TD. >While GOoMH (a terrible acronym, >it makes me shudder) does not possess nearly the intensity of Houdini, >at least in the humble opinion of THIS L-H, the picture that it >paints appears to have been conceived in fair detail at a very early >stage. Its evolution, therefore, produced a song for which further >refinement would have been a waste of effort; it is extremely good as >it was left. Houdini, in some ways like "The Big Sky", seems to represent >the culmination of a large number of shots at a moving target and with >this in mind, I believe it still has room to grow, even considering the >already great investment of time and energy and the obvious brilliance >of the work that it is. Is Kate not the great craftsman we know she is? >What if... Ach, go to the previous paragraph. Whew. IED is a bit lost. This paragraph is fraught with challenging ideas. Unfortunately, they're all a little hard to pin down. The interpretation of Houdini as more "intense" than GOoMH (great!) is very sophisticated and interesting. IED's not sure he agrees, but not because GOoMH is faster, louder, etc. Rather, it's because there are several details in GOoMH that are so queer, so deeply personal to Kate and therefore uninterpretable to us, that they give the whole track a cloak of darkness, so to speak, which is genuinely overwhelming (to IED). Houdini, on the other hand, communicates its emotional intensity more openly, more interpretably, so to speak, and while that doesn't militate against your claim, it reduces the track's impact on this particular listener just a little. In other words, while the emotion is possibly a bit more distilled and purely expressed in Houdini than in GOoMH, the relative mystery surrounding some moments in GOoMH arguably creates a stronger emotional effect for the listener. (Christ, this is effete!) >...and the rhythm tracks and simplified progressions dominate _HoL_ just >as the complex melodies dominate _TD_. This is a very interesting way of looking at the two albums. IED is inclined to accept this view, but reminds the L-Hs that before HoL came out, TD was almost always described as being based almost obsessively around its rhythm elements. Now, of course, we have the benefit of hindsight, which gives us a better awareness of the importance of the non-rhythmical components of TD, in comparison with side one of HoL. >Sure, HoL is much more >refined than _TD_ as _TD_ was of its predecessor (particularly as The >Ninth Wave was conceived as a progression of interlocked images/episodes) >but are the images cast into such sharp relief? I don't think so. >_HoL_ is a vastly more subtle work, but sometimes to the point where it >falls short. After dozens of listenings, I find that the pseudo- >crescendo at the end of RUTH (a popular scapegoat) does not work properly >for me. >I still find _The Dreaming_ to be the most ambitious of her albums, >possessed of more energy and creativity (roughness, if you must) than any >before or since, particularly when you consider that it was the first one >in which she assumed total artistic control. As a contemporary musical >prodigy, Kate ha(s,d) few, if any, peers, but while the level of >refinement has increased, _HoL_ represents a visit to a different >tangent, one which I find less engaging than _TD_, if only marginally. >`Holy writ is holy writ', I believe you once pointed out. Your preference is understandable, as is your objection to the RUTH climax. In general, despite his liking for the first four tracks on side one of HoL, IED thinks of The Ninth Wave and Cloudbusting as the meat of the album, its main achievements. The difference is, IED believes, that in a track like Cloudbusting, for example, the refinement -- which is admittedly extreme, even (to a lover of TD) possibly excessive -- is nonetheless put directly in the service of a completely original musical/poetic idea. Despite its polish, which superficially tends to ally the track with commercial aesthetics with which most of the L-Hs rightly want little to do with, Cloudbusting is so completely unprecedented in terms of integration of musical styles and genres, and of sheer originality of melody and harmony in the field of popular music, that it attains a level of intensity or "roughness" (in the c 177.1tive context used here) as high as or higher than some parts of The Dreaming. The result is that when this listener hears Cloudbusting's technical perfection -- in Porsche terms, an almost predictable and thus nearly boring perfection -- he is disposed to accept it, and even to ascribe to it a high artistic value, because the musical information which it communicates is so patently sincere -- with the stamp of authentic Katian feeling: true bizarreness -- that no less a degree of technical perfection would be acceptable, and that Kate's decision to perfect it in that way must have come out of her original inspiration -- must have been part of the music in her head in the first place -- as well. Is that sentence at all clear? >I meant "passive" in a respectful sense, as much as one could imagine >the Porsche being "passive". When I first heard _HoL_ slightly less >than a year ago, it immediately struck me as being the most intensely >performed piece of modern work I'd ever listened to. _TD_ just seems >to be that much _more_ involving, although the exact mechanism remains >a mystery to me. For some reason, "Suspended in Gaffa" still evokes >more of my emotions than anything on The Ninth Wave. Maybe I've blown >a fuse somewhere? Not at all. It's very understandable. How can we have an argument on this subject, anyway? Every time you give an example of why you like The Dreaming more than Hounds of Love, IED's faculties are flooded with the same ardor for that example that you have, and he can't help but see your position. Suspended in Gaffa is indescribably great...indescribable. >It seems all too easy to create a |>oug Alanism here, an image of how >a tentative current runs deep in the execution of _The Dreaming_, >supporting a leafy raft of the thematic material itself; that microcosmic >Kate-viewed world with its wildly strewn scenery, from the baked earth >of aboriginal homelands to the lush curtain of an Asian jungle, from >the warm wisps of smoke issued by a medium's candles to the damp night >air of a London bank, from the empty, echoing promises of sorrowing friends >to the futility of hollow aspirations; adrift in a sea of musical brine, >borne high above the other flotsam by a swelling tide of genius, driven >relentlessly skyward by the pull of the Bush. That is GREAT. Jesus, that's really good writing. And the image (the leafy raft) is terrific. If we get more stuff in L-Hs this good, we really ought to make up a little anthology of L-Hs writings and send it off to Kate. She ought to get a chance to read the above. >From Neil Calton: >Thought that particular gentleman came from your side of the pond. As >for the Mayfair pseudonym, the chinless wonders who constitute the >denizens of that region of the Smoke are noted for having an >IQ inversely proportional to their wealth. Here?! On our turf?! The slime! Coward! Show yer face, galley-slop! Faith! IED'll hoist you by the tops'ls, he will! Ptarmigan! Pteridactyl! Bashi-bazouk! Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles in a thundering typhoon! >and under one of those names she will live in New York with a Japanese >musician/artist and a maniacal 'fan' will one day approach her .... >Oh, oh, better stop the analogy here. Yikes! That's frightening! But wait! There'd still be three of her left, so maybe twenty years from now she'll get the three survivors together again, and then hire the dead Kate's one-tenth-as-talented-but-nearly-sound-alike offspring to take over her part and participate in an unannounced one-off reunion; but it will be something of a disappointment. -- Andrew Marvick
Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU.UUCP (04/18/87)
Really-From: IED0DXM%UCLAMVS.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu KT News: ^^^^^^^^ All 6 KT albums are finally available as EMI-America CDs. There was a long delay with some of them, but they've all shown up in Tower now, wrapped in U.S.-style card-paper outer sleeves. Ernest Heramia has begun a new KT-related apazine called Watching Storms. Each contributor is asked to pay $10.00 a year, and to send in 40 copies of one 250 - 2500-word piece of writing (or artwork) each quarter to a central address. Anyone interested, write to him at: 167 Central Avenue East Providence, RI 02914 Now, the mail-bag: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ To Jon Drukman: You're welcome, don't mention it, etc. To Julian Gomez: IED has been unable to deliver mail to you because apparently the host "riacs.edu" is "unknown". If you can help IED with your address, he'll send the interviews. Speaking of which, did you have a particular interview in mind? Several have been posted in L-Hs. Also, he might be able to help you out with the Night Flight video, if no-one else offers. >Date: Thu, 16 Apr 87 07:28:08 EST >From: hofmann@nrl-css.arpa (James B. Hofmann) >P.S. To IED. You're not fooling anybody, IED. Your discography is >incomplete but I'm not going to be the one to tell you WHERE it's wrong. Could you give a clue? Like for instance, which discography are you talking about? >The new Kate Bush song from "She's Having A Baby" is entitled >"Make It Go Away". O.K., Sue, your mysterious KT-fan friend told you this, right? So, what did the song sound like? Is there any info on the film yet? Any mention of Kate's involvement in print yet? Is the song about the movie, or completely independent? And why doesn't the KBC ever tell us about these things first??? Sue and Phil, you're both now on the list, re-printed below. >I would be willing to start a second tape around, to speed the >process up a bit (besides, I've got more cassette mailers than >I know what to do with :-) If you'd like to be on the receiving >end, please send your address to... You're welcome to start another tape, Sue, esp. since the first one will probably take a million years to make the circle now, there're so many L-Hs requesting it. But, of course, it won't have any of the same stuff on it. IED will update the master list occasionally, but he cannot be responsible for people getting overlooked by the people doing the actual mailing. If you do get another tape started, maybe you should just assume that everyone on the first list wants to get your tape, too -- but start from the bottom of the list for your tape, and work your way up. That way everyone will get SOMETHING sooner rather than later. >Subject: IED's demise? >But the film isn't even going to be released until mid-June! >I am afraid that this ensures your death! Unless the soundtrack >is released in advance of the film, of course. Gee, we'll >miss your interview transcriptions! :-) God has spoken to IED again, and gave him a postponement till the end of June. But boy! This better be legit, Sue -- the Lord is getting steamed. >Glad you finally found one -- so did I! It will doubtless >be added to future "100 Most Collectable Kate Items" lists... >IED, perhaps you could post *your* list of, say, the 10 or >15 rarest artifaKTs (I think 100 is a bit excessive). IED agrees totally that 100 is excessive; actually so is 10. The only truly "rare" Kate Bush collectable record is the (possibly non-existent) East German Demos LP called The Early Years. All other KT "rarities" are actually just "hard-to-find", a decidedly inferior status. After all, according to the Record Collector's price list, a new collector could acquire every item on the entire Top 100 list by making a total investment of 1,588 Pounds (approx. $2,223.00): you can't even buy a Yugo for that! Furthermore, the collectors who can get you what you want (provided you have the money) are pretty well known and reasonably reliable. So none of these are Christie's or Sotheby's material. The excessive length of the list was the root of almost all of Record Collector's mistakes: the compiler had so many spaces to fill up that some arbitrary insertions and omissions were inevitable. On the other hand, there are a lot more than 100 "collectable" records that can go for 5 Pounds or so, so the only way to make an effective list is either to include every item, no matter how long the list, or to make a cut-off at something like 20 Pounds. Even so, such a list is next to meaningless, because there will always be some new Kate fan with a poor knowledge of the market, some extra cash and a fervor to buy, buy, buy. So what items are probably the hardest to find? Again, hard to say, since even those items were easy for SOMEONE to find. In other words, these lists are not very helpful. So instead, IED will list ten items which he feels are probably the most INHERENTLY worthwhile, even at inflated prices. That's about the best he can do. Notice that no ordinary promotional copies are included, and only one white-label makes the list. In general, the premium on such items is artificial, and annoying to this fan. Top 10 ColleKTable Records 1. The Early Years (East German Demos LP). If it exists at all, then its value is immeasurable. An album of Kate's earliest performances -- pre-falsetto-era -- from the period of (and possibly including) "Passing Through Air" and "Maybe". Like going back in time to witness the birth of God. 2. Let It Be (ca. 1981; Kate Bush Club of Japan flexidisc). With brief spoken messages from Kate and John Carder Bush. This is quite rare; but more importantly, it is extremely interesting. It gives a very strong and atmospheric impression of the ethos of the Bush family, plus a recording of Kate's most ingenuous and (arguably) least artistic performance. For Kate fans it has to be a remarkable icon. 3. The Bristol concert bootleg cassette (with a photo of silent film star Louise Brooks on the cover.) IED has never heard of anyone else having a copy of this tape, but it is almost certainly not rare. In IED's opinion, this unedited two-hour bootleg of one of Kate's Tour of Life shows is invaluable. It includes not only nearly all of the songs from the concert -- including the alternate early version of Egypt -- but most of the incidental music, chants and readings, as well. By contrast, all of the U.S.-made bootleg LPs feature radically edited excerpts from the live performances. 4. An Interview with Kate Bush (Canadian promo LP, EMI America SPRO 282). This is the more recent of the two official interview LPs, and it features a few interesting moments. It's also supposed to be very rare. 5. Kate Bush Self-Portrait (U.S. promo LP, EMI America SSA 3024). A very early interview (done in the summer of 1978). Kate is young and filled with enthusiasm. It makes a marked contrast from Number 4. 6. The Kick Inside (UK white-label test pressing in folder cover with photos & biography). One of the few white-labels for which the high price may be justified. It is very rare, is specially packaged, and supposedly has terrific sound. Except that the CD has even better sound; and anyway, if the LP gets played, its sound deteriorates and its value goes way down. So what's the point? 7. The Kick Inside Picture-Disk (original edition). Not really any higher quality than the later re-pressing, but its authenticity may still be of value to some collectors. 8. The Single File (original numbered edition). As with number 7, the original run of this item is no better than the later unnumbered edition, but its verifiable rarity gives it some value. The actual records are cheap re-prints, so collectors of singles would do better to concentrate on finding mint copies of the original U.K. picture-sleeve singles. 9. A tie between all of Kate's original U.K. picture-sleeve singles: Wuthering Heights, The Man With the Child in his Eyes, Hammer Horror, Wow and the Kate Bush On Stage double-pack. In perfect condition these are worth alot of money, and are genuinely valuable artifacts. 10. A tie between A Symphony in Blue (Canadian blue vinyl), Wow (Canadian yellow vinyl), Wuthering Heights (U.S. gold vinyl), Babooshka (Russian blue vinyl flexi), and a complete set of the Canadian mini-album (in Green, White, brown, red, blue and clear vinyl). These were all genuinely limited editions, unlike the U.S. marbleized Hounds of Love LPs and cassettes, of which a great number were pressed. The fact that the marbleized items bring a very high price nowadays doesn't mean they're worth it. >Houdini seems a bit calculated in comparison, >although there's obviously genuine feeling in it too. Still, "Get Out >Of My House" was placed at the very end of the album for a reason - to >shock the listener, to scare him/her and to make him/her ruminate on >the past ten songs... think about the themes brought up, the locales >visited, etc. We've just taken a trip through Kate's mind (house) and >now she wants us OUT!! Think about _that_ next time you plunk the >CD in your player. > >--Jon An interesting interpretation. GOoMH certainly is an inhospitable track! About your comment that Houdini seems comparatively more "calculated", IED respectfully disagrees. In general, the music which is accused of being calculated, manipulative, insincere or affected is comparatively quieter, more contemplative, more openly confessional and less aggressive than that which is judged to be less calculated, manipulative, etc. In fact, in this case, GOoMH is about as highly calculated and elaborately designed and polished as anything in pop music. But because it features such APPARENTLY spontaneous, aggressive vocals, etc., which mainly communicate emotions of anger and terror -- emotions seldom associated with affectation and preciousness -- it can easily be mistaken for a spontaneous piece of work, something it is not. >Oops, I meant to give you mine, too. But I don't need to be high on >the list. Not sure I have any rock esoteric enough myself, but I can >probably borrow some. Unless you want a track of Bulgarian choral >music or Hungarian dance tunes. (Seriously, that's what I collect, >folk dance records and such). Personally, IED would love to hear some of that on the tape. Your misgivings prompt a reminder to all potential KonTributors and listeners that the KompilaTion tape places NO restrictions on content. Love-Hounds are encouraged to put ANYTHING THEY DAMN WELL LIKE on the tape(s)! The more diverse and weird the collection the better. Above all, don't be too concerned that one or more listeners might already have heard something you want to put on the tape: If even one listener is unfamiliar with a recording and discovers something he likes as a result, that's more than enough justification for putting it on in the first place. And reverse snobbism is just as bad as the opposite. In other words, if you want Barry Manilow on the tape, put him on! (AARRGGHHHHH!!!!) In fact, there's not even any restriction against Kate Bush -- if that's what you like, put it on! (But don't worry, IED didn't include her.) The only suggestion would be to keep in mind your time limitations, and design your set so as to maximize outsiders' interest and minimize fast-forwards. Here's the list as it stands now: 1. IED0DXM c/o Andrew Marvick 10499 Wilkins Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90024 2. Mark Kat(e)souros 1807 Fox St. #104 Adelphi, MD 20783-2353 3. john labovitz 3314 farthing drive silver spring, maryland 20906 4. Gregory Taylor/602 Russell St./Madison, 602 Russell Street Madison, WI 53704 5. Joe Testa 196 W. 11th Ave. Columbus, OH 43210 7. Peter E. Lee 24 Puffton Village Amherst, MA 01002 8. Joe Turner 329 Ward Street Newton Center, MA 02139 (617) 965-8058/969-5993 9. Mark Ganzer 4670 Chateau Dr San Diego, CA 92117 10. Walter Henry xb.k98@forsyth.stanford.edu <ARPA> 11. Dan Hall 71 High St, Apt 2T Exeter, NH 03833-2908 12. Andrew Elliott 70 Caliente Reno Nevada 89509 (702) 786-8762 13. Sue Trowbridge 4401 Roland Avenue Apartment 215 Baltimore, MD 21210 14. Phil Stephens 4066 Yellowstone Drive, San Jose, Cal 95130 That's all. -- Andrew Marvick