No Subject

Now, the mail-bag:
>Subject: stuff
>My deteriorating memory fails again... maybe IED was not one of the
>Ameri-phobes in "American music does/does not suck" debate a year ago.
>My apologies...

Accepted, of course. IED doesn't remember that argument, but although
he wouldn't say he's an Ameri-phobe, he will admit that he has very
little interest in recent American music, generally speaking.
Disinterest is different from hatred or fear, but it IS hard to
find anything very positive to say about the state of American music.
The problem IED has with most of the "underground" music so
ardently discussed by a few of the Love-Hounds in this forum
is that precious little of it is done with real care -- so little of
it shows the kind of attention to every detail that Kate's music
shows. Of course, he realizes that most such recordings are done
on a shoestring budget, and he is quite willing to admit that this is
just a matter of personal taste, anyway. He can only answer that
he simply has insufficient patience for messy body work,
however powerful the engine under the hood may be.

The other side of the coin -- the mainstream American popular
music of our time -- tends to be horribly conventional, emotionally
empty or (worse) false, and enslaved by rigid conventions of genre.
To give you an idea of how dry the American musical pool seems to
IED these days, the one piece of new domestic music he has liked in the
past month is "Chicago Song", by (gulp!) David Sanborn -- and IED
HATES that guy's sax playing! It's the rhythm in that track that
stands out -- it would have been a lot better with the sax lines
deleted.

Finally, part one of a new KT interview:
The following is a brand new interview with Kate, published in
the latest issue of the official Kate Bush Club Newsletter.
Don't ask IED what the deal on this Zwort guy is, he has no idea.
The last time Kate was interviewed by "Aunt Hettie"...

            "Cousin Kate" by Zwort Finkle

Hi, my name's Zwort Finkle, I'm from the U.S. of A. and I'm a
distant cousin of Kate's. We haven't seen each other for years,
so I had to fill her in on my life story. I left college three
years ago, and have been following a brilliant career in journalism,
working for such well known magazines as "Blurt", "Let's Go Crazy",
"Let's Go Crazy Again", "Son of Blurt" and "Let's Go Blurt Again".
This was my first visit to London, and I was astounded at how you
guys can survive this climate, how you manage to keep to one side
of the road when the roads are so small, how quaint and cute you
all are, and how totally bored and unenthused you all are with
things that would make us little old Americans go "Yee-Hah".

Zwort: Tell me, Katie, have you ever thought of living in America?

Katie: There are very few places I've been to that I've felt I
could live in -- I think too many of my roots are here in England,
and so much of my work is based here, and I seem to spend most
of my time working. I've only been to America a few times, and then
only to New York, L.A. and Las Vegas, but maybe if I visited more
parts of America I would find a place that I feel I could live in.
I really enjoyed my visits, especially to New York -- there's so
much energy there, so many different and interesting people and a
very social sense between artistic people, that certainly in the
music business doesn't exist in this country. People seem to work
in great isolation here, whereas in New York, people want to get
together and talk and enthuse.

Zwort: Like, er, do you feel there's a lack of enthusiasm here, cous'?

Katie: Yes, I do, and I feel a lot of people, certainly within the
music business, are particularly attracted to America by this.
"Artistic" people like -- possibly even need -- a lot of feedback,
and Americans are wonderful at making you feel wanted, and are very
positive about the launching of new ideas, new approaches. It's
exciting to be among this energy, and in England I think we're all
a bit hard on each other, but this country has a great wealth of
talent and creative ideas, it's just that people have to fight a
little to get a bit of enthusiasm going. But maybe that's not such
a bad thing -- maybe it creates more determination in a cause. What
do you think, cousin Rodney?

Zwort: Actually, it's Zwort.

Katie: Sorry?

Zwort: Zwort!!

Katie: Sorry, WHAT'S Zwort?

Zwort: My name, of course.

Katie: Oh!

Zwort: What were you doing in Las Vegas? That's an unusual place
to visit!

Katie: I was there with a guy from the record company just for a
day, and it was really just an opportunity to see the place while
he had business matters to deal with. It is an extraordinary place.
Instead of saying "How you doing?", everyone says, "Feeling lucky?"
It's like a strange oasis stuck right in the middle of the desert
away from everything. We took a flight in a small plane over the
Grand Canyon, and it was one of the most terrifying experiences I've
ever had. The Canyon is totally enormous, and we were so tiny --
I've never experienced that kind of vertigo before or since,
and with all the air pockets, we went up and down, up and down.

Zwort: I understand you don't do many interviews.

Katie: That's right.

Zwort: Why is that?

Katie: I find it very difficult to express myself in interviews.
Often people have so many preconceptions that I spend most of the
interview trying to defend myself from the image that was
created by the media eight years ago. That is understandable to a
certain extent -- that's when I did most of my interviews, and
I think the image was created by what the press felt the public
wanted, how they interpreted me as I was then, and how I projected
myself at that time.

Zwort: You mean like saying "wow", "amazing", and that you were frail
and fragile, etc.

Katie: Yes, that is part of it. I was very young, idealistic and
enthusiastic about so much then, but I felt they exaggerated these
qualities. And I was -- and am even more so now -- a private person,
and perhaps because I wouldn't talk about these areas of my life
they turned to the "wow", "amazing" girl, even when I didn't use
those words. The few interviews I do, people still seem to dwell
on this old "me", and I find it disappointing when I want to talk
about my current work.

Zwort: Do you , like, er, think enthusiasm was an unfashionable
thing, particularly at this time, when punk and street cred were
the "hip" thing?

Katie: Yes, I do. I think it still is, particularly in this country.
But I think clever people hide their unfashionable faces from the
public. Perhaps in a way, I was too open with the press, maybe
I should have "performed" for them, and puked and gobbed at the
cameras, but it's not my nature, I was brought up too well. The
interviews I've sat through patiently, sometimes hanging onto
my patience with the skin of my teeth, thinking it's good for
my tolerance and might make me a better person.

Zwort: But you do occasionally talk to the press?

Katie: Yes. There are good people to talk to, they're not always
talking about the past, or deliberately trying to make you look
like an idiot, and are genuinely interested in my work. But it's
like I said, I find it hard to express myself in interviews. It
depends how I feel -- sometimes they're fun, especially if I know
the journalist, and the questions are interesting -- they make
you think about areas you might not have even considered before.
But sometimes I find myself saying things just to please them,
or just to give a question an answer. Sometimes I get verbal
diarrhoea and just burble complete rubbish, and sometimes I feel
so guarded that I invert, and feel like a trapped animal. Quite
often I go over an interview in my head afterwards and realise
I've said something completely contrary to what I believe, but I
put most of it down to being quite a private person, and being
someone who likes to think carefully about how I say something.
Words are very special things, and are so easily misinterpreted --
I much prefer to write lyrics than do an interview. I feel I'm
a songwriter, not a personality, and I find it difficult to even
talk about my songs, sometimes. In a way, they speak for themselves,
and the subjects or inspirations can be so personal, or just
seem ridiculous when spoken about.

Zwort: Do you think it's important that people know what the
songs are about?

Katie: No, I think it can be interesting for people, but their
interpretation is what matters, and I find it fascinating how
people do seem to understand so much about a song that must be
totally obscure and is so personal to me, but maybe they just
FEEL it, they feel the emotions of the song, somehow grasp the
meanings. It's so hard for me to tell because I know what it's
about, but for example, some of the stuff on The Ninth Wave
are so obscure lyrically, and yet people seem to know exactly
what I'm trying to say. That's a great feeling. It stops me
worrying about that aspect of songwriting -- that someone
somewhere knows exactly what you're trying to put into words.

Zwort: Do you have favourite lyric-writers, as opposed to
"musical" songwriters?

Katie: I'm not sure you can separate the two, because once a
word is sung, it can completely change its feeling to the point
where you don't recognise the word any more -- for me that is
part of the fascination. But my favourite lyric just now is
"The Boy in the Bubble" by Paul Simon. The chorus of that is
totally brilliant, particualarly the line, "The way we look
to the distant constellation that is dying in the corner of the sky."
It's poetry, but the impact is the combination of the words with
the music, and the way he sings it -- it's SO good. But quite
often I mishear lyrics, and prefer my version to the real words
when I find them out. I know a lot of people who have the same
experience, and again we're back to what music means to the listener,
or how they hear it. Music is a very special thing.

Zwort: Would you say that music is something religious, even holy to you?

Katie: Some of the most beautiful music ever was written for God,
for a loved one, in a state of grief, sorrow, suppression -- it seems
to be an expression from a person on a higher level...? I'm not
sure I understand it at all, but music seems to come out of people
when very little else can. Some of the great composers wrote
beautiful music but, as people, were monsters or maniacs. People
who can't speak properly because of stutters can sing fluently.
I saw a clip from a programme about a man who only had a short-term
memory -- he couldn't remember anything: what he'd just said, just
done. He lived in a constant state of panic, buecause he didn't
know where he was, or why he was there. It was terrifying. The
only thing he could remember was he wife, and when he sat at the
church organ at his local church he could sing a play complete
pieces of music without any problems. It was like he'd suddenly
been set free. And yet when he was shown a video recording of
him doing this, he had no memory of it whatsoever. Music is
a strange and beautiful thing. It means a great deal to
me. I love listening to and making music. I am very lucky to be
able to be involved with music -- I hope I always will be.

Zwort: Do you think music comes from the soul? This is what some
people believe.

Katie: I don't know. I just know that music is something special,
and also something very personal for people.

Zwort: Going back to the obscurity of some of your songs that
are personal to you, and how you feel people pick up on this --
can you give some detailed examples?

Katie: Mmmh, let me think.

Zwort: I'll make a cup of coffee and you have a think, cous'.

            End of Part One; conclusion coming soon.