Early KT and Oregon

[IED0DXM%UCLAMVS.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU]

I was going to try to set J. Rossi straight about
early KT but Doug already did an excellent
job, and, besides, Mr. Rossi is already
recanting. But I, too, want to stress that this
was long, long ago. The Kick Inside was
universally regarded as a major stylistic
departure from anything else on the market
in 1978. I remember hearing "Wuthering Heights"
on the radio in April of that year and
thinking that *no-one* sounded like
that; but it wasn't just the voice, there was
that bizarre phrasing -- the lyrics were twisted
into strange phonetic jumbles, and the time
signature had a way of changing every few bars.
(In the final measures before the fade-out, if
you follow the drummer's back-beat, you can hear
him lose track himself, and skip a few beats rather
than make a mistake). This was a very young girl,
still without control over the production; it's
easy to hear the weaknesses in the early music now, when
we have The Dreaming and Hounds of Love to compare it to,
but The Kick Inside was definitely a break-through
album in its day. Lionheart always gets abused
nowadays, mainly because it's so smooth and safe.
That was audible even when it first came out, but
remember that Kate had to put that LP out in November of
1978, only five or six months after The Kick Inside.
Only a few of the songs on that album were newly
written, and she still had little control over the
arrangements or sound. Even so, Lionheart has a sonic
intimacy and eccentricity that sets it far apart from
other pop music of its time. And there are
many first class Kate Bush musical ideas in it, as well.
The tour, too, was unanimously accepted as completely
unique, mainly because of the use of choreography
and theatrical methods in performance. And once again, that
was *seven* years ago.
About Oregon/Organon, I completely agree with Doug. The
Orgonon reference is undeniable, just read Peter Reich's
books, or anything by the Orgonon Press. The only point
I would dispute concerns the use of Oregon in The Oregon
Times. It is only barely possible, I argue, that
Kate simply didn't know the difference between Oregon
and Arizona, where the yo-yo scenes took place in the book
(Reich was apprehended at Orgonon proper, in Maine). I think
it's more likely that she heard the name Oregon and decided
its similarity to the name Orgonon was worth exploiting.