nbc@INF.RL.AC.UK (12/06/89)
Fred and Judy Vermerol (sp?) were on Radio 4's Midweek programme this morning. Fred, who wrote an unofficial "pop biog" on Kate Bush was described as an expert "on the fan in history". He and his wife apparently have some new book out on fans (as in pop or film fans). The presenter made some reference to a description in the book of one Kate fan who apparently tried to collect Kate's bath water from the overflow pipe outside her house! This led on to a discussion of Fred's strange behaviour when he was writing his book. This included following Kate around and trying to climb up her drainpipe whilst drunk. He claimed that he was trying to understand the obsessive behaviour of many fans and just chose Kate as a suitable victim (my word). He likened his book to an absurdist novel. I have never read his biog. of Kate but it sounded like a load of <expletive deleted>. For info. Kate was not on Monday's edition of Wogan but still two more chance this week. Also, further transcription of the Int. Musician article has been delayed but will follow soon. Neil ------------------------------------------------------------------- Neil Calton UUCP: ..!mcvax!ukc!rlinf!nbc Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, NSFNET: nbc%inf.rl.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Chilton, Didcot, Oxon OX11 0QX JANET: nbc@uk.ac.rl.inf England Tel: (0235) 821900 ext 5740
nessus@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Doug Alan) (12/07/89)
> Fred and Judy Vermerol (sp?) were on Radio 4's Midweek programme > this morning. Fred, who wrote an unofficial "pop biog" on Kate Bush > was described as an expert "on the fan in history". Actually Fred wrote two unofficial biogs of Kate. Kate and family sued over the first one and it got pulled from the shelves. The first one was written pre-*Never for Ever* and was a scandal sheet sort of affair -- containing photos of Kate's (alleged) first lover, etc. In this biography, he was highly critical of Kate. The second biography (done post-*The Dreaming*) was rather strange in light of the first biography. Instead of being critical, instead it seemed like the author was masturbating extensively while writing every sentence. It covered the history of the Bush clan back through the dawn of time, contained a photo of the very ditch that Kate's great grandfather supposedly drowned in while walking home from the pub, etc. When it gets to Kate it goes on and and analyzing the symbology of Kate's lips and nipples and does an analyses of her work with respect to David Hockney and Post Structuralist theory, etc. I could never quite figure out where this bizarre dude was coming from. More recently, he said that his biogs of Kate weren't really biogs of Kate at all -- they were writing exercises. For the first one, he wanted to try his hand at writing a scandal sheet and Kate seemed like as good a subject as any. For the second biog, he wanted to write a book from the point of view of a crazed professor obsessed with a pop icon, and again he figured Kate was as good a subject as any. In light of this, it all makes sense. Vermorel is a weird dude. |>oug "I is for IDA who drowned in a lake"