Another KT-shirt design; and: enKA-TExt

[IED0DXM%UCLAMVS.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA]

Subject: KT-shirt design; and: enKa aT love-hounds?

>It has always my impression that the submarine sonar sounds indicate
>that Kate is rescued by a submarine.  After all, we have the voice
>telling us that "somewhere in the depth, there is a light", then we
>hear submarine sounds, and then Kate is safe on land again.

Thanks, Doug. Great point which IED applauds, is excited by,
and feels dumb for not having thought of on his own.

Subject: KT-shirts

Well, here's IED's latest idea for a T-shirt design:






                    F R O N T
         _________/            \__________
        |           Love-Hounds           |  < this line in HoL script
        |         An International        |
        |______      Kate Bush      ______|  < These lines in upper-
               |   Computer Forum  |           and lower-case block
               |    ___________    |           print, taking up less
               |   | 9th Wave  |   |           space than as shown;
               |   |    or     |   |
               |   |  gold key |   |
               |   | photo here|   |
               |   |___________|   |
               |                   |
               |                   |
               |                   |
               |___________________|


                     B A C K
         ---------/            \----------
        |                                 |
        |                                 |        These lines in
        |______ ...With a kiss I'd  ______|        Hounds of Love
               |   pass the key... |           <   script, unless
               |                   |               someone can do
               |   --__--__--_ -/_ |               J.C. Bush-style
               |       ||   ///    |               calligraphy
               |        |//        |
               |       | \\        |               The logo roughly
               |        | \\       |            <  drawn, or as though
               |       |   \\\     |               painted on; N.B.:
               |       ||    \\    |               unwise to copy KBC
               |                   |               logo exactly
               |___________________|

Fu-Sheng brings up a good point, namely, that the official
cover photos are likely to get us into trouble if we
use them on a t-shirt. At the very least, they won't
exactly be a hit at future official conventions, etc.

What we really need is a very simple  black-and-white
(or at least very high contrast, sharp-edged), unofficial
snapshot of Kate.

Concerning Michael Knight's idea of a logo: Great, but does it have
to be a dog? Wouldn't a monogram design command more respect from
the KognoscenTi?

>Another Japanese music fan. Good taste, IED. Have you tried following
>the YMO clan as solos? Quite an expensive hobby, but worthwhile. Are
>there other LH "Nipponophiles" out there?

(Well, Doug, you said anything goes, but you didn't know what
you were letting the L-Hs in for:)

Yes, John, IED has all of Hosono, Sakamoto, Takahashi, even Kenji Omura,
Akira Mitake, Plastics and Melon, Tachibana, Urban Dance and Shi-Shonen
(prod. Hosono), Akiko Yano, Sandii, etc. Not that he thinks all of this
stuff is good -- he dislikes early Hosono and Takahashi's Sadistic
Mika Band stuff, that pre-YMO L.A./Little Feat stuff is awful, or
at least very dull. To IED's ears, BGM was the first really
significant Japanese pop LP. Technodelic even finer. Naughty Boys
was a retrogression in terms of attitude, though not production-wise.
Neuromantic was exceptional, but Takahashi's style hasn't fundamentally
changed since then, only gotten more and more enka-ish (i.e.
schlocky) -- although his sound is always first-rate. As for
Sakamoto, he's too inconsistent as a solo musician for this taste;
Esperanto was excellent, as was B-2 Unit, but Left-Handed Dream
and The Arrangement, as well as Picture Book Music
(Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia) and the latest (Miraiho Yaru,
or Futurista) all show deplorable American-cum-Akiko Yano
influence. (Yano herself, reputedly the "Japanese Kate Bush,
is, IED thinks, tiresome, silly and MOR, "Rose Garden" excepted.)
Hosono is great from Philharmony on, although SFX
and The Making of Non-Standard Music are admittedly very light.
His ambient LPs -- El Nokto in Galaxia, Co-Incidental Music, Mercuric
Dance, Paradise View, The Endless Talking -- are very well done,
but there's enough of it now to last a lifetime. As for Shi-Shonen
and Urban Dance, well, they're not great artistic successes.
Interiors are a bit better, but not very expert. P-Model and
Friction are execrable, and Phew! is respectable but dull. Both of
Miharu Koshi's LPs are of the highest quality, and IED has a
weakness for the Susan's two Takahashi-produced LPs: Do You
Believe in Mazik? and The Girl Can't Help It.
IED's personal favorite from Japan is Ippu-Do's
Night Mirage, which is exquisite in its details, and gloriously
effete and aestheticist. Tsuchiya's Rice Music was very respectable,
though not as potent as Night Mirage, but his latest (?), Tokyo
Ballet, is too main-stream rock for this listener, despite one
or two very refined tracks.
Equally fine, though only tangentially related, of course, is
late Japan, and its members' various solo releases. The best
of these are Sylvian's Brilliant Trees and Jansen/Barbieri's
regrettably brief Worlds in a Small Room (Japanese-only import).
Steve Jansen has reportedly released an album with Yukihiro
Takahashi in Japan, and IED has heard that a 12" single from it
has even been seen briefly in Tower, although his searches have
always proved futile. It is called "Stay Close". And of course
Sylvian has released his next single, from the forthcoming
double-LP (hope that doesn't mean cuts will be deleted from the
CD): Gone to Earth.

Does John Lorch collect CDs of any of the above? IED suspects
that Night Mirage, Live and Zen, Rice Music, Tokyo Ballet,
Tutu, Parallelisme, Neuromantic, B-2 Unit and Immigrants
are all out on CD in Japan, but for some confounded reason no-one
in the U.S. is making any effort to import them. Does John or
anyone else out there know anything about this issue?
Even more important, does anyone know if there has been anything
new from Susan or from Miharu Koshi since, respectively, The Girl
Can't Help It and Parallelisme? The Japanese are so prolific that
it seems unlikely there hasn't been a lot of stuff from them in
the past two years. The problem in L.A. is that The Other Side
Records, which specialized in Japanese imports, folded with the
advent of CDs, which have ruined the audiophile end of the
Japanese import business.