Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU.UUCP (03/17/87)
Really-From: IED0DXM%UCLAMVS.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu KT GOOD News: From the ashes of the Break-Through holocaust soars a NEW edition! Today IED received a letter from Robyn Carstairs -- now back in Winnipeg following her separation from her husband. She is soliciting KT material ASAP, for a new issue of the once-great Canadian fanzine. If anyone has anything he/she would like to say about Kate or her music, and you were planning to share it with the Love-Hounds, how about printing out a copy and sending it along to Robyn for her fanzine? She will almost certainly publish it. As she puts it, "To hell with the printing costs!" Now, the mail-bag: >Subject: stuff >My deteriorating memory fails again... maybe IED was not one of the >Ameri-phobes in "American music does/does not suck" debate a year ago. >My apologies... Accepted, of course. IED doesn't remember that argument, but although he wouldn't say he's an Ameri-phobe, he will admit that he has very little interest in recent American music, generally speaking. Disinterest is different from hatred or fear, but it IS hard to find anything very positive to say about the state of American music. The problem IED has with most of the "underground" music so ardently discussed by a few of the Love-Hounds in this forum is that precious little of it is done with real care -- so little of it shows the kind of attention to every detail that Kate's music shows. Of course, he realizes that most such recordings are done on a shoestring budget, and he is quite willing to admit that this is just a matter of personal taste, anyway. He can only answer that he simply has insufficient patience for messy body work, however powerful the engine under the hood may be. The other side of the coin -- the mainstream American popular music of our time -- tends to be horribly conventional, emotionally empty or (worse) false, and enslaved by rigid conventions of genre. To give you an idea of how dry the American musical pool seems to IED these days, the one piece of new domestic music he has liked in the past month is "Chicago Song", by (gulp!) David Sanborn -- and IED HATES that guy's sax playing! It's the rhythm in that track that stands out -- it would have been a lot better with the sax lines deleted. Finally, part one of a new KT interview: The following is a brand new interview with Kate, published in the latest issue of the official Kate Bush Club Newsletter. Don't ask IED what the deal on this Zwort guy is, he has no idea. The last time Kate was interviewed by "Aunt Hettie"... "Cousin Kate" by Zwort Finkle Hi, my name's Zwort Finkle, I'm from the U.S. of A. and I'm a distant cousin of Kate's. We haven't seen each other for years, so I had to fill her in on my life story. I left college three years ago, and have been following a brilliant career in journalism, working for such well known magazines as "Blurt", "Let's Go Crazy", "Let's Go Crazy Again", "Son of Blurt" and "Let's Go Blurt Again". This was my first visit to London, and I was astounded at how you guys can survive this climate, how you manage to keep to one side of the road when the roads are so small, how quaint and cute you all are, and how totally bored and unenthused you all are with things that would make us little old Americans go "Yee-Hah". Zwort: Tell me, Katie, have you ever thought of living in America? Katie: There are very few places I've been to that I've felt I could live in -- I think too many of my roots are here in England, and so much of my work is based here, and I seem to spend most of my time working. I've only been to America a few times, and then only to New York, L.A. and Las Vegas, but maybe if I visited more parts of America I would find a place that I feel I could live in. I really enjoyed my visits, especially to New York -- there's so much energy there, so many different and interesting people and a very social sense between artistic people, that certainly in the music business doesn't exist in this country. People seem to work in great isolation here, whereas in New York, people want to get together and talk and enthuse. Zwort: Like, er, do you feel there's a lack of enthusiasm here, cous'? Katie: Yes, I do, and I feel a lot of people, certainly within the music business, are particularly attracted to America by this. "Artistic" people like -- possibly even need -- a lot of feedback, and Americans are wonderful at making you feel wanted, and are very positive about the launching of new ideas, new approaches. It's exciting to be among this energy, and in England I think we're all a bit hard on each other, but this country has a great wealth of talent and creative ideas, it's just that people have to fight a little to get a bit of enthusiasm going. But maybe that's not such a bad thing -- maybe it creates more determination in a cause. What do you think, cousin Rodney? Zwort: Actually, it's Zwort. Katie: Sorry? Zwort: Zwort!! Katie: Sorry, WHAT'S Zwort? Zwort: My name, of course. Katie: Oh! Zwort: What were you doing in Las Vegas? That's an unusual place to visit! Katie: I was there with a guy from the record company just for a day, and it was really just an opportunity to see the place while he had business matters to deal with. It is an extraordinary place. Instead of saying "How you doing?", everyone says, "Feeling lucky?" It's like a strange oasis stuck right in the middle of the desert away from everything. We took a flight in a small plane over the Grand Canyon, and it was one of the most terrifying experiences I've ever had. The Canyon is totally enormous, and we were so tiny -- I've never experienced that kind of vertigo before or since, and with all the air pockets, we went up and down, up and down. Zwort: I understand you don't do many interviews. Katie: That's right. Zwort: Why is that? Katie: I find it very difficult to express myself in interviews. Often people have so many preconceptions that I spend most of the interview trying to defend myself from the image that was created by the media eight years ago. That is understandable to a certain extent -- that's when I did most of my interviews, and I think the image was created by what the press felt the public wanted, how they interpreted me as I was then, and how I projected myself at that time. Zwort: You mean like saying "wow", "amazing", and that you were frail and fragile, etc. Katie: Yes, that is part of it. I was very young, idealistic and enthusiastic about so much then, but I felt they exaggerated these qualities. And I was -- and am even more so now -- a private person, and perhaps because I wouldn't talk about these areas of my life they turned to the "wow", "amazing" girl, even when I didn't use those words. The few interviews I do, people still seem to dwell on this old "me", and I find it disappointing when I want to talk about my current work. Zwort: Do you , like, er, think enthusiasm was an unfashionable thing, particularly at this time, when punk and street cred were the "hip" thing? Katie: Yes, I do. I think it still is, particularly in this country. But I think clever people hide their unfashionable faces from the public. Perhaps in a way, I was too open with the press, maybe I should have "performed" for them, and puked and gobbed at the cameras, but it's not my nature, I was brought up too well. The interviews I've sat through patiently, sometimes hanging onto my patience with the skin of my teeth, thinking it's good for my tolerance and might make me a better person. Zwort: But you do occasionally talk to the press? Katie: Yes. There are good people to talk to, they're not always talking about the past, or deliberately trying to make you look like an idiot, and are genuinely interested in my work. But it's like I said, I find it hard to express myself in interviews. It depends how I feel -- sometimes they're fun, especially if I know the journalist, and the questions are interesting -- they make you think about areas you might not have even considered before. But sometimes I find myself saying things just to please them, or just to give a question an answer. Sometimes I get verbal diarrhoea and just burble complete rubbish, and sometimes I feel so guarded that I invert, and feel like a trapped animal. Quite often I go over an interview in my head afterwards and realise I've said something completely contrary to what I believe, but I put most of it down to being quite a private person, and being someone who likes to think carefully about how I say something. Words are very special things, and are so easily misinterpreted -- I much prefer to write lyrics than do an interview. I feel I'm a songwriter, not a personality, and I find it difficult to even talk about my songs, sometimes. In a way, they speak for themselves, and the subjects or inspirations can be so personal, or just seem ridiculous when spoken about. Zwort: Do you think it's important that people know what the songs are about? Katie: No, I think it can be interesting for people, but their interpretation is what matters, and I find it fascinating how people do seem to understand so much about a song that must be totally obscure and is so personal to me, but maybe they just FEEL it, they feel the emotions of the song, somehow grasp the meanings. It's so hard for me to tell because I know what it's about, but for example, some of the stuff on The Ninth Wave are so obscure lyrically, and yet people seem to know exactly what I'm trying to say. That's a great feeling. It stops me worrying about that aspect of songwriting -- that someone somewhere knows exactly what you're trying to put into words. Zwort: Do you have favourite lyric-writers, as opposed to "musical" songwriters? Katie: I'm not sure you can separate the two, because once a word is sung, it can completely change its feeling to the point where you don't recognise the word any more -- for me that is part of the fascination. But my favourite lyric just now is "The Boy in the Bubble" by Paul Simon. The chorus of that is totally brilliant, particualarly the line, "The way we look to the distant constellation that is dying in the corner of the sky." It's poetry, but the impact is the combination of the words with the music, and the way he sings it -- it's SO good. But quite often I mishear lyrics, and prefer my version to the real words when I find them out. I know a lot of people who have the same experience, and again we're back to what music means to the listener, or how they hear it. Music is a very special thing. Zwort: Would you say that music is something religious, even holy to you? Katie: Some of the most beautiful music ever was written for God, for a loved one, in a state of grief, sorrow, suppression -- it seems to be an expression from a person on a higher level...? I'm not sure I understand it at all, but music seems to come out of people when very little else can. Some of the great composers wrote beautiful music but, as people, were monsters or maniacs. People who can't speak properly because of stutters can sing fluently. I saw a clip from a programme about a man who only had a short-term memory -- he couldn't remember anything: what he'd just said, just done. He lived in a constant state of panic, buecause he didn't know where he was, or why he was there. It was terrifying. The only thing he could remember was he wife, and when he sat at the church organ at his local church he could sing a play complete pieces of music without any problems. It was like he'd suddenly been set free. And yet when he was shown a video recording of him doing this, he had no memory of it whatsoever. Music is a strange and beautiful thing. It means a great deal to me. I love listening to and making music. I am very lucky to be able to be involved with music -- I hope I always will be. Zwort: Do you think music comes from the soul? This is what some people believe. Katie: I don't know. I just know that music is something special, and also something very personal for people. Zwort: Going back to the obscurity of some of your songs that are personal to you, and how you feel people pick up on this -- can you give some detailed examples? Katie: Mmmh, let me think. Zwort: I'll make a cup of coffee and you have a think, cous'. End of Part One; conclusion coming soon.
Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (03/17/87)
Really-From: Dave Hsu <hsu@eneevax.umd.edu> >Really-From: IED0DXM%UCLAMVS.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu > >KT GOOD News: >From the ashes of the Break-Through holocaust soars a NEW >edition! Today IED received a letter from Robyn Carstairs -- now >back in Winnipeg following her separation from her husband. >She is soliciting KT material ASAP, for a new issue of the >once-great Canadian fanzine. If anyone has anything he/she >would like to say about Kate or her music, and you were planning >to share it with the Love-Hounds, how about printing out a copy >and sending it along to Robyn for her fanzine? She will almost >certainly publish it. As she puts it, "To hell with the printing >costs!" Just a quick (but somewhat wordy) note: I finally got around to seeing what a record convention looks like when I dropped by Record Convergence last Sunday. On the one hand, my lack of attendance all this time is peculiar because I've known the people behind the UMd annual convention for some years now. On the other hand, when you only have CD players, there isn't much motivation for going to see a couple dozen vendors hawk these (mostly) round, flat, plastic things with one precision made scratch on each side :-) Among the other vendors was one InterGalactic Garage, which I am happy to report, is far from being a KT-paraphenalia-only shop (think about it, can anyone (besides Kate herself, that is) really hope to make a living selling only posters and trinkets? Not that anyone strongly implied this...) and in fact, seems to carry quite some variety of odds and ends relating to other, lesser artists (snicker). The upshot of which is, Allan Balliott (proprietor of above, who says "hello, |>oug") is looking for some convenient way to receive L-H, either locally (wrt D.C.) or through a PC-Pursuit-able site. Is there a better answer than handing him off to WELL or to the Soup Kitchen? -dave -- David "bd" Hsu Professional Undergrad & System Fascist ARPA: hsu@eneevax.umd.edu UUCP: [seismo,allegra]!mimsy!eneevax!hsu USNAIL: EE Computer Facility, Maryversity of Uniland, College Park, MD 20742