Re: More DetraKTion; Elvis; Breathing; Robyn Hitchcock

[Bob Krajewski <lmi-angel!rpk>]

    > [Kevin C:] Dear Kate, [...] I happen to think that you miss a few
    > times in Running Up That Hill, especially near the end when the
    > "other noises" come in; your usual adeptness at orchestration flags
    > there (Elvis wouldn't have missed on that one).

    [Doug:] ... Elvis could never do something this awesome.

Actually, Kate's vocals on RUTH do sound kinda like Elvis, with that close
echo.  ``A wop bop a loo bop a wop bam boom.''

    One of the reasons why Kate's best songs are the best songs in
    existence is because they are, at the same time, both beautifully
    melodic and excrutiatingly dissonant.

??? By whose standards ?  Have you heard any Schoenberg ?  Or Alban Berg ?
Or five hundred drugged out Peruvian pan-pipers COMPETING with each other ?
I don't think it's as simple as mixing melody with ``dissonance,'' a rather
vaguely defined term...

Sonic Minutiae Department:

I got ``Breathing'' as a single back in 1980, and am pleased at its
appearance on the Whole Story.  Now, the CD will sound different from the
single, but I'm almost led to believe one is a different mix.  Comments ?

Robyn Hitchcock Department:

Element of Light is now available on digital frisbee, with four extra
tracks.  In the context of the album, ``If You a Were a Priest'' sounds
almost crassly commercial, with that retro/1986 Hammond Organ.  ``Tell Me
About Your Drugs'' (xtra track) is a *cool* anti-drug song that RIPS !
``Lady Waters and the Hooded One'' is a totally appropriate updating of the
English ballad [form].  Overall impressions: more consistent than Fegmania;
production which deploys modern techniques in the service of the music (and
that should be the real ``meaning of 1986'' or any year); great bass
playing; and a somewhat predictable seafood fixation, but what do you want
from a guy who is pathologically incapable of writing a bad song ?

Dreaming and breathing...