Kate-echism VIII.5.ii

[IED0DXM%UCLAMVS.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu]

IED is relieved to see that it is not he who is the object of Sue's
glorious rage. She knows that IED won't likely make the kind of
faux pas just committed by our anti-Husker-Du L-H. Having learned his
lesson in tolerance the hard way, IED now cultivates mellowness.

Mark, glad to hear you got the KaTalogue. Sad to hear that IED
apparently no longer has a way of communicating directly with
you. He was glad to have you over. You're very welcome to come over
again before the Bush Bash, if you're in town. Just give a ring
when you feel the urge for a fix of Kate and/or brainstorming.
(We really should have stuck with the backwards listening a while
longer. Sorry.)

>There are 32 people currently on the love-hounds KompilaTion tape.
>If each one puts on 10 minutes of music, that makes 320 minutes (yow!
>I knew college was good for something!)
>If IED mailed out a 90 minute tape, that makes the running time about
>230 minutes too long.  Time to start thinking about breaking up the
>list into subtapes, gang!
>
>--Jon "my sister not only likes madonna but buys her records" Drukman

Yikes, that's a shocking idea! (Buying Madonna records, not
breaking up the KompilaTion Tape list.) You're right, of course.
Is it fair to ask the unlucky ninth or tenth person on the list
to buy a second tape, and so on? Personally, IED thinks this
whole thing will peter out before it ever gets that far, but he's
a terrible pessimist, so don't mind him.

>Believe me, I am no fan of MTV but the copy of "Experiment IV" that
>I taped from MTV included the ending to which you refer above.  My
>copy was taped from MTV's 120 Minutes show.  Was an abbreviated version
>used in their normal rotation?
>
>    Eric Cotton

This is good news. All three times that IED saw "X4" on MTV
(twice on "New Video Hour" and once thereafter), both the beginning
and the ending were cut off so the idiotic MTV talking head could
disseminate more inane factitia about Kate's "discovery" by Dave Gilmour,
or announce the venues and dates for the latest Bon Jovi tour.

>For something that was written fairly quickly, "Be Kind to My Mistakes"
>is GREAT! It has elements of structure quite similar to X4 but with the
>energy of "The Big Sky".

It's amazing how various are the ways in which different listeners
hear the same piece. Even though both Mark and IED are deeply caught
up in "Be Kind to My Mistakes" and even though each
of us has (IED flatters himself to believe)
a healthy respect for the other's listening and analytical ability,
we still come up with radically different opinions about the nature
of the music we're hearing.
IED, for example, would never have thought of likening BKtmM with
"The Big Sky", because what strikes him as most distinctive about
the former is its restrained tone, its contemplative sound and
attitude. This being Love-Hounds (and not the WSI), his impulse
is to argue the issue.

>In fact the structure is so similar to X4 that
>I would have to speculate that they were both written at approximately
>the same time.

You are referring to the seven-inch version of X4, right? Well,
in some places there is a corellation, but IED doesn't off-hand
see where the scatter-voice bridge is parallelled in BKtmM. Also,
X4 ends very classically, with a clear, well-rounded coda
and a long, emphatic closing "note"; whereas BKtmM is more or less
"deconstructed" -- really from just after the instrumental bridge.

>The tempo (140 beats/min) is the same, the rhythm patterns
>are not the same but similar in effect...
>But BKtMM has a much stronger base rhythm...

To this listener, the rhythm patterns are radically different
in everything except tempo. He would have said, in fact, that
the rhythm was what most distinguished X4 from BKtMM, since in
the former the rhythm is sharply synthetic and precise, with a
big, well-rounded "snare" sound which draws attention to itself
by its disquieting omission from every fourth upbeat; whereas in
the latter, the rhythm seems to be mainly acoustic, and even a bit
tinny and ill-tuned, creating a loose, almost garage-like sound;
and is truly "constant", without any unconventional deviations from
rock patterns.
Furthermore, to this listener, the drums in X4 are far more prominent
in the mix than those in BKtMM.

>single bar guitar "loops"...single bar bass "loops"...

No difference of opinion here, but your use of the word "loops"
is confusing. IED has always understood the term to refer to
tape loops, consisting of sound patterns which repeat themselves
through the artificial device of an "endless" tape loop. Although
the guitar and bass patterns in parts of BKtmM are brief and do
repeat themselves more or less, IED doesn't hear any sign of
tape (or sample-machine) "looping". Both parts are apparently
being played in real-time by Del and one of Kate's usual guitarists.

>    a) The 16 bar intro builds the layers of the music, starting with a
>    basic percussion, bass, and keyboard rhythm in the first 4 bars, then
>    adding background chorus in the next 4 bars. The 3rd 4 bar segment
>    adds the guitar, and the 4th segment combines them all.

IED agrees, except that in the fourth segment, the chorus note
(Kate, overdubbed in unison, singing something like "Lawwwwwwww...")
that is heard in the second segment is not really repeated. Instead,
the fourth segment "chorus" notes now sound to IED like a synth (or
Fairlight sample) sound.

>    b) In the vocal climax, when the 4 bar pattern is cut to 3 bars, to
>    heighten the climax, the basic 2-4-and rhythm is changed twice to
>    a strong 3-and-4 pattern twice and then to a 2-and and-4-and pattern
>    once two bars later. A very nice effect to heighten the climax.

Yes! IED sees what you mean here. In other words, the confusion he
had here was caused not by the reduction of the number of bars (which
he was able to follow), but by the additional shifts of emphasis within
each section, right? It's very complicated.

>    c) During the extended vocal coda, layers of the music are being
>    lifted as the chord progression breaks down.

Aha!

>    d) During the fade-out, it almost sounds as if the the rhythm of
>    the right and left channels loses synch (this is very apparent
>    with headphones). It almost sounds as if everything is coming apart,
>    yet when listening to each individual channel, the rhythm stays
>    together to the end!

Exactly! There's some kind of "gate" opened in the last four bars
(during the fade-out). the drums seem to be followed, more or less,
by a kind of clattering echo of themselves, but these mimicking
sounds remain in rhythmic harmony with the rest of the fade-out.
It would be much clearer without the simultaneous fade-in of the next
track.

You're right that it's basically (or superficially, actually) a
"commercial" song. But that's a long, long way from saying it's
"disco Kate", as someone else in this forum flippantly called it.
There is practically no term less applicable to this recording than
"disco"!

>About "The Whole Story" Wow video:      I thought I read that the reason
>the changed the video was because in putting together the compilation,
>there was no live footage and she felt that there should be some because
>the tour was an important milestone in her career. It was just
>that the Wow video was the logical one (was this in the Zwort Finkle
>"interview"? I don't have it in front of me).

Right. This was mentioned the other day, actually. The way she put it
was that the live shows were "part of the whole story," and should
therefore be covered somehow in the video compilation.

>West Coast Love-Hounds: I got a preview of the videos to be shown at
>the party Fri 22 May and can definitely say that if you don't make it,
>you're definitely going to miss something. With the laser video and Dolby
>Surround Sound, this is probably the best picture in the western hemisphere.

Thanks, but perhaps |>oug has them all on PAL tape now, which MIGHT give
you as good a picture as NTSC laser-disk. But it couldn't give you
the same quality audio; and anyway, even PAL tape suffers from the
universal problems of tape, namely the presence of drop-outs and glitches
and the slight but constant motion of the tape's motion.

-- Andy