Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (01/14/87)
Really-From: IED0DXM%UCLAMVS.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU IED, having found a proper parking space, has returned to try sorting out the sheaf of phosphur crowding up his mailbox. Again, allow IED to thank those who have taken the time to post a sympathetic word or two. As for those who still persist in criticizing him, IED KNOWS WHO YOU ARE. By request, IED will resume his traditional form of self-identification. By the way, could Doug please return to the tried and true method of Love-Hounds dialogue (complete quotation followed by response)? Recently, IED has noticed responses stitched into the fabric of the earlier messages, and identified only by "#" signs. This is a cruel editorial move, as it deprives the original posting of whatever argumentative potential it might have had in its own right, and gives the editor an unfair advantage. Incidentally, this kind of editorial format has now begun appearing in the letters pages of Break-Through -- as a means of blocking all ears to any opinions other than those with which that publication's fanatically religious editors are in agreement. It's a subversive habit to get into, and has no place in Love-Hounds. Speaking of which, Allen B. of Intergalactic Garage (the alias of a highly exploitive, immoral, and much-envied Kate Bush merchandise salesman in the D.C. area) has started publishing nasty remarks about Break-Through's recent leanings in the direction of Christian mumbo-jumbo; and in his latest flier, he proposes the launching of a new U.S. Kate fanzine (presumably to be edited by him), one which would apparently be motivated more by antipathy for Dale and Robyn than by interest in the art of its purported subject. Sounds like an unwelcome addition to an already too-competitive market. >Wednesday night (1/14) at 8 in the Coop. Yo, IED! Are you ready, >to be thrown down?? > --John IED received this communique in his mailbox today. Could someone please tell him what it means, what spurred its creation, and why it was sent to IED? > Some titles, e.g. 'Sat In Your Lap', deserve a larger format on >their musical merits. I don't know what format that should be, but I >felt disappointed at the (too sudden) end. There was more in it than >could be expressed in a three minute title. The last sentence in the above paragraph hints at an explanation for your disappointment, and Kate's record-making aesthetic principles. It is, however, incorrect. What you were trying to say is: >There was more in it than I was able to absorb comfortably in a >three minute title. IED's point being not to insult you, but to point out that, as seems almost always to be the case, criticism of Kate's art tends to reveal far more about the critic than about Kate's art. The fact is that "Sat In Your Lap" marks the first time Kate was able to express herself with complete artistic freedom: not co-incidentally, it is also more densely packed with musical and para-musical ideas than any piece of popular music had ever been before. As such it was, indeed, an experiment -- but it was an entirely successful one. Several music critics have observed before that The Dreaming contains enough musical information to fill at least two LPs. The tragedy of such an observation is that it evolves out of a too-great familiarity with and subsequent tolerance for the comparatively low standards of the rest of popular music, which Kate exceeds by such a margin that the complacent are bewildered. And, bewildered, they re-act with suspicion. >For somebody whose native tongue is not English, some of her lyrics are >very difficult, ranging to impossible, to understand. And, recalling >some of the contributions in this group, this seems to be true even for >native English/American speakers. Frankly, I can't understand why EMI >has chosen not to include the printed lyrics. IED can't, either. A very good point, and a great mystery, considering the care with which the compilation seems to have been made -- and considering the title of the album, which stresses the narrative orientation of Kate's songs. RE: Biolek's German TV show >Well, I have the show on video tape somewhere... but I can't remember >what she sang. Probably "Wuthering Heights". All I remember is the >guy asking Kate if she knew any German and Kate giggling and saying >"Nien." Kate is still fairly popular in Germany, I believe. She's >not nearly as popular there as in England, though. -- Doug If IED remembers correctly, that's the show on which Kate sang "Wuthering Heights" and "Kite", accompanied by a pre-recorded instrumental backing. By the way, it's "nein". >BTW, it is ironic that she was kicked out >of a choir when she was young. From what spurious source did you obtain the above notion? > Other topics... Congrats to IED for showing that he can use the >first person (I know some of you will say he just did a global >substitute of "I" for "he", but that's just sour grapes), now let's >work on the verbs a little. As far as what IED stands for... This >seems to get some people irate and I for one fail to understand why. >If the man wants to call himself the King of Prussia who the f*ck >cares? It really doesn't make any difference and it certainly doesn't >hurt anyone. Use of the third person doesn't make his points any less >valid; he's willing to stand for and defend his points and >(occasionally) has been known to take some points back. And while he >is a fanatic about Kate, he doesn't mind if you think she sucks or >believe that listening to her music is hazardous to your eardrums, as >long as you state that that's your belief and not a categorical >statement! IED hasn't anything to say about this. He just wanted to see it in Love-Hounds two days in a row. >Maybe we can put the whole subject to rest by holding a >"What IED stands for" contest. We could all submit our entries and >let IED choose the best entry. (IED: I hope you don't decide to >electronically impale me for suggesting this; I think it'd be fun; my >own entry: "I Envy Doug".) You're more than welcome to use the moniker as you see fit -- this is a public forum, and IED takes the same risks as everyone else in it. ("'Oy! 'e's a decent chap, 'e is!") His only stipulation: Giraffes are ineligible to compete. ("Bloody 'ell.") >It is also the culmination of all the >efforts she has made on all the albums subsequent to the first, and side two >makes her last album (_The Dreaming_) completely dispensable (except for those >of you who love to program yourselves into really bummer realities). Well, Doug, you showed admirable restraint in not responding to this assessment! Alas, IED, as every L-H knows, is not so admirable as Doug. It's odd enough preferring The Kick Inside to Hounds of Love, although everyone is entitled to his opinion. Asserting that Hounds of Love makes The Dreaming "completely dispensable" (sic), however, is sheer folly. Dismissing (and with such eloquence!) The Dreaming as nothing more than a collection of "really bummer realities" is like discarding Gericault's Raft of the Medusa, or Brahms's German Requiem, or Goya's Caprichos, or Picasso's Guernica, or, in fact, a good fifty percent of the human race's best art as -- "a downer, dude". >Side one is poppy. If you had intended to use your adjective as a noun, it might have been a rather striking description of Side Two. As you did not, however, it is merely a meaningless, absurd over-simplification of Side One. >Whereas an experience of _The Dreaming_ seemed merely something >any sane individual would want to avoid... You give IED new reason to be thankful that he is not quite so far gone as to be "any sane individual". >For those who are still pondering why Andrew Marvick refers to himself >in the third person as IED, I have dragged this statement of last May >by him out of the Love-Hounds archives: >> Partly out of a feeling of empathy for such a means of >> justifying one's obsessions, I have chosen to adopt Reich's >> pedantic forms and ponderous style in dealing with the work of >> Kate Bush, since this kind of obsessive interest in another >> person's life and work is better disguised, I think, when >> couched in the dry-as-dust language of the Orgonotic scholar. > |>oug Thanks again, Doug. As those who are interested will understand from the above statement, IED's Bushological style is the result of his fascination with -- and imprisonment within -- the legacy of Western scholarship; a corpus of work which, arguably, finds its most compelling, frightening and disturbing expression in the late publications of the Orgonon Press. In his last years Wilhelm Reich published, in faultlessly learned and footnoted fashion, some of the most shockingly psychotic, yet disquietingly beautiful theoretical papers that IED has ever found. It is unlikely that anyone could, after reading them, hear "Cloudbusting" in quite the same way again. (N.B.: For hardcore Kate fans only.) Now, some KTrivia. The latest (January 12?) issue of Billboard shows The Whole Story up another nine places in the LP charts, at No. 106. Keep fingers crossed, those who are commercially minded. Those who like their charts light, breezy and full of cheap sensationalism may take heart in the knowledge that Cashbox puts the LP well up in the Seventies. And for those who like to speculate about Nirvana for the slightest of reasons, race your brains on this: Along with EMI's announcement that the first four UK Beatles LPs would definitely be released on CD in the next couple of months (which declaration became a headliner on "Entertainment Tonight" and the networks' evening news shows) was the additional promise that OTHER EMI artists -- Kate Bush specifically mentioned among them -- would also now become available on CD. Whether this means only that the same LPs that are already out as import CDs will now become available as domestic products (EMI-America has an operating plant in the States), or that Never For Ever and The Dreaming are really going to appear on the compact horizon, or both, is anyone's guess, for now. But what can it hurt to dream? -- Andrew Marvick
Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (01/14/87)
Really-From: Vulture of Light <trainor@CS.UCLA.EDU> >>Wednesday night (1/14) at 8 in the Coop. Yo, IED! Are you ready, >>to be thrown down?? >> --John >IED received this communique in his mailbox today. Could someone please >tell him what it means, what spurred its creation, and why it was >sent to IED? I'll tell you what it means. It means that things are happening at UCLA Wednesday night. In the Cooperage, which is where one buys and consumes pizzas at UCLA. It was probably spurred by the fact that we [speaking loosely for the Gang-of-Four] would like you to know about the events that occur on YOUR OWN FUCKING CAMPUS. It don't cost money either. IED, please excuse my pedestrian prose. Douglas
Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU.UUCP (01/15/87)
Really-From: seismo!udenva!showard (Steve "Blore" Howard) >IED's point being not to insult you, but to point out that, as seems >almost always to be the case, criticism of Kate's art tends to reveal >far more about the critic than about Kate's art. It's only fair to point out that IED's statement does not necessarily apply only to Kate Bush, nor does it apply only to negative criticism of her. I personally feel that IED's view that Kate Bush is perfect reveals far more about him than does my more reasonable position that her music is very good with occasional serious flaws. -- "Wait a minute! These aren't blender wounds!" Steve "Blore" Howard, not playing with a full deck {hplabs, seismo}!hao!udenva!showard or {boulder, cires, ucbvax!nbires, cisden}!udenva!showard