Miscellaneous subjeKTs

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

IED thanks Doug for his sudden barrage of fascinating
inside news, and admits to a pang of jealousy that
Doug is privy to such revelations so early on. But
at least IED had the new single before Doug did!!!!!!

Now, then, although most of what Doug said is fair,
IED has several points to contest.

>I'd like to remind everyone that Kate's compilation album, *The Whole
>Story*, was released in the U.S. on Friday, and should appear in the
>stores sometime in next week or so.  The single, "Experiment IV" is
>being released in the U.S. on the 26th in both seven inch and twelve
>inch.

These are the dates IED was given, also, but he'll believe them
when he sees the records in the stores. Such faith you have, Doug!

>For those who haven't yet heard X4 (I just managed to get a copy a
>couple days ago -- these new import bans are horrible!), it is quite a
>nice song.  It's not as Andy maintains the greatest natural phenomenon
>in the history of the universe, because that's "Get Out Of My House".

IED has, L-Hs will note, amended his earlier statement. It now reads
simply:

    "'Experiment IV' is the universe, and everything else besides."

So relax, there is no conflict between us on this issue, Doug.

>I'm not so sure about this Bananarama bit (Hey, I like "Cruel
>Summer" as much as the next guy, but...).

Speak for yourself. IED LOATHES Bananarama and thinks their
music -- "Cruel Summer" or any other track, since they are
about as unvaried in style as any pop entity in the history
of the business -- is AWFUL. Needless to say, the comparison
to "Experiment IV" is horribly, grossly, hideously inapt.

>The 12-inch single version is better than the normal version.
>It sort of sounds like Kate meets Klaus Schulze and Windham Hill (and
>Bananarama?).  There is a nice and moody violin on the 12-inch that
>isn't on the normal mix.

This is ridiculous. The seven-inch version is the whole, the
twelve-inch is like an inspired rhapsody on the original. But
one is not "better" than the other. But then, how is one to
make such a fact clear to a listener who likens the universe
to Klaus Schulze, Windham Hill and Bananarama?
At least listen to it long enough to get your facts straight, Doug:
the "nice and moody violin" on the 12-inch IS on the normal mix --
it appears in the last section of the 7-inch mix. "Nice"? An absurdly
frivolous choice of modifier to describe one of the most profound
and important passages in the history of twentieth century music!

>I have to disagree with Mark Kat(e)souros about the picture sleeve for
>"Experiment IV".  It looks like Kate's trying to look like a sex
>kitten again.

This is unfair. Although actually IED agrees with Doug that
this cover is not a great success, his reasons are entirely different.
Kate herself has NEVER tried to look like a "sex kitten". This
particular photo, in fact, is less likely to be interpreted in that
way than almost any of her early covers, since her expression is
rather antiseptic, and the gauzy soft-focus photograph bland.
But in all cases where the "sex kitten" has been seen,
the interpretation has revealed far more about the
viewer than about the subject.

>And there are better glamour photographers than
>John Carter Bush (like the one who took the Japanese cover for *The
>Kick Inside*!).  When JC Bush tries to do something artistically
>interesting, his photography is often really neat (though ultimately
>Kate looks silly with "If I only could -- I'd be running up that hill"
>scrawled across her back), but I really am not wild about the front
>cover of the HoL album or X4 single.

IED assumes that Doug is referring to John Carder Bush?
Actually, John's front cover for Hounds of Love is an extremely
masterful piece of work. The Japanese cover for The Kick Inside!? This
is Doug's idea of "glamour"? You are using the term "glamour
photography" in its lowest, contemporary sense, as a sleazy
pseudonym for girlie photography, apparently. IED is thinking
of the _real_ "glamour" photography, i.e. the works of Karsch,
Horst, etc. (Names spelled right?) In other words, highly filtered,
sometimes touched-up portraits of ca. 1940, designed to flatter as much
as possible and to distance the subject from the mundane plane of
existence to which he/she is in fact inseparably linked.
With this definition in mind, the portraits by Lord Lichfield
and Gerald Mankowicz (again spelling?) come far closer to
that vintage standard than the "pink leotard" shot. And as for
the Hounds of Love cover -- it IS one of JCB's symbolic, artistic images,
and it conveys several intriguing connotations. It has
the same kind of multiplicity of meaning that his shots for Lionheart,
and "Babooshka", and "Sat In Your Lap" and "Running Up That Hill"
have.
And Kate does NOT "look silly" in the body calligraphy shots. They are
a brilliant and extremely ambiguous group of photographs, one of the
best and most intriguing of all the cover photographs released to date.

>There are no
>con T-shirts left over; someone swiped the remaining shirts.

THIS IS TERRIBLE! IED shipped Peter a boatload of cash over there
for one of those damn shirts. Now what'll he do?

>Kate Bush won the CMJ New Music award
>for best female artist and Peter Gabriel won it for best male artist.
>(Oh boy, oh boy!)

Well what do you think IED and the giraffes were talking
about all last week????
This is the awards show that was shown on the USA Network twice
last week. Check your TV Guides to see if it will be repeated
again, as Kate makes a B.B.P.S. (Brief But Profound Speech) with
the help of S.S.I.L. (Some Silly Imaginary Livestock).

>Kate did show up
>for the KB video party in London, after all.  She stayed for an hour
>an a half or so, talking to people and signing stuff.

Did you go to London, Doug????? IED had assumed that you just talked
with Peter or Dave over the phone, but this looks as though you
were there.

>Other random news: Kate is doing the title song for a movie called
>"Castaways", which will be released early next year.

Could you please give any further information that you might have
about this unexpected and exciting development? Thanks.

-- Andrew Marvick