Nancy Bush? Kate Sinatra?

[phs!paul@MCNC.ORG]

Damn!   I have no idea how to post to rec.music.gaffa.  I don't even
know what it's called any more.  And it's 2:30 a.m., Sunday, and there's
accordingly no one to ask.  Too bad.

To whomever receives this, if anyone:  title it "Nancy Bush?  Kate
Sinatra?"

It was like a post-hypnotic suggestion, don't you know; there it was,
my birthday, or close, and I was trying to decice what to buy myself,
and "The Whole Story" leapt into mind.  Well, what the Hell, the wife
and kid had just ditched me, temporarily, in favor of PA and my vacation
was delayed, thanks to the machinations of the Panama Shipping Bureau,
so I was going to be staring through my microscope, again, on a Saturday
-- so I went 'way out of my way to pick up "The Whole Story."  Also
Gould's "Burchfield Gallery" and "Apple Waltzes," of which more later.

I had high hopes.  A year and a half ago, or so, inspired by the volume
and inanity of pro-Kate postings on nutnews, which I read in those days,
I taped a show or two on TBS (?) -- Kate Bush at the Hammersmith Odeon
and Kate Bush's hot tunes (circa 1/2 from HoL).  The more I listened,
the more I liked.  Of course, it didn't hurt that Kate's appearance made
her, as Hoffboy once suggested, the sex kitten of something-or-another,
but I started to really like it.  (My son liked it, too -- in fact, even
at age 5.5, he lost the ability to respond to English commands when
"Babooshka" was playing.  As the twig is bent, so grew the tree preceding).
After this, I went down to the Durham public library and checked out
"The Kick Inside" and "The Dreaming."  Put one on one side of a 90-minute
tape and one on the other, and took them with me to Vermont, circa
the 4th of July, 1986, for a conference on "Steroid Hormones and the
Extracellular Matrix," I think.  Meeting times were 8 am - noon and
7-9 pm, or some such, and I was commuting from my aunt and uncle's
house an hour or so away, so each day I'd commute, and commune, over
and over, with Kate:  from 7 am with the cows till late at night with
the owls; lakes, sunrises, sunsets, green mountains, twisted and largely
deserted roads, Fort Ticonderoga -- the forces of anti-Kate, maintaining
Bach over Bush, hadn't a chance.

[short break;  out of beer; break out the gin and tonic.  Danger! --
almost out of tonic.  Note:  Have lately discovered that adding lime
to gin and tonic is a commie plot.  Maybe the same is true of tonic?]

So, anyway, played Kate in the lab, and became worried.  "Wuthering
Heights" re-done sounded outright bad.  All the stuff from "Hounds
of Love," which I'd only heard/seen on video, sounded appropriately
insipid, as expected, since I hadn't cared for the videos, either.
(Except, surprisingly, RutH -- seems to get better and better.)
And almost everything else sounded, well, not quite right.

Time to break from tradition.  Till now, had always listened to Kate
on more or less cheap boom boxes (wife likes Barbra Streisand, hates
Kate, good for Kate), and thought, Hey, maybe actual (though still
very cheap) stereo will improve "The Whole Story."

Not so.  The main offender was the opening tune, "Wuthering Heights."
This song, which used to be bizarre and great, had become bizarre
and putrid.  I suspected that I'd bought Pat Benatar's cover, but
no mention of her name in the credits.  The only thing in its favor
was that I could understand the lyrics.  Kate now elevated to the
status of Sammy Davis, Jr. -- who, after all, doesn't know the
lyrics of "The Candy Man" by heart?

"Wuthering Heights" is not the only offender.  Everything I know
sounds really, really bad.  Right now -- I write slowly -- "Sat
in Your Lap" is on.  Very bad.  Kate does reds, lots of 'em.
"The Man with the Child in His Eyes" -- more of the same.
Throughout, music replaced by shoddy percussion track; Kate goes
disco, sort of, and fails.  The only survivors:  songs I don't
know, from "Never Forever" and "Lionheart" and "Experiment IV."

I asked my cat.  Gretel, a Siamese bimbo, if ever there was one.
"Yo, Gretel, whaddya think?  Good, eh?"  We're doomed; Gretel
smiles archly.  Yup, it's true.

Kate's been replaced by a junkie bimbo.

Even "The Dreaming" -- I told you I write slow -- stinks.  I
thought of buying this album -- TWS --  to straighten out my
sister, 11 years younger, who thinks Laurie Anderson ripped
off Suzanne Vega, but this would only convince her that Kate
Bush ripped off Nancy Sinatra.

Awk!  Death!  She makes "Babooshka" sound bad.  My son, if he
were here, would go to bed early.  Well, late, but sick.  Nancy
Sinatra on drugs, no less.  Ba.  Boo.  Shka.  Ya.  [Yawn.]  Ya.
Zzz.

Jesus, I almost missed "Hunter" to write this; what a waste.  Oh,
what the hell, I'll tape it.  Meantimes, tonic's all gone; dear
readers -- gin and what?  Shall I show a bottle of vermouth to
the gin?  or just whisper it's name?

OK, I know I'm not reliable when drinking.  Hell, if I drink enough
I think that William Schuman's nine (?) symphonies nicely finish
what Ives's 3rd only started.  But damn it, "Dance Symphony" just
finished, and it's WAY WAY WAY better than "The Whole Story."

[Late breaking story -- Tonic is not a commie plot.  On the other
hand, it ain't the Bill of Rights, either.]

Is my stereo broken?  I simply cannot believe that "Wuthering
Heights," on this, the 5th listen, is this bad.  No, it
supersedes bad -- it's awful, putrid, foul, disgusting, I just
turned it down out of fear of offending the neighbors.  Who have
three barking dogs.

So what's better?  Hey, check out "Dance Symphony."  "It works
for me."  Or Schuman's nine (?) symphonies, or Ives's 3rd and/or
his 4th (more work), or Reich (Desert Music, also heard tonight,
is great; Stoltzmann sounds very good on NY counterpoint), or
Glass (Glassworks, Mishima, S? [something long and Indian], anything
but Song from Liquid Days), Bartok's "Music for Strings, Percussion
and Celeste," Barber's "Medea's Meditation and Dance of Vengeance,"
Beethoven's "Waldstein" sonata, Janacek's "Sinfonietta," most of
Honegger's symphonies (you've gotta be in a dark mood), all
of Mahler's symphonies and lieder, Milhaud's "Creation du Monde"
and "Saudades do Brasil," Nielson's wind quintet, Orff's
"Gassenhauer," Poulenc's just-about-anything (especially his
"Gloria"), all kinds of Prokofiev, Shostakovitch String Quartet
#4, Stravinsky's just-about-anything -- and much of that pabulum.
Wake up, Jack and Jill.

Sincerely, Paul Dolber (duke!phs!paul; rarely, indeed, only when
posting, and then only when I can figure out how, duke!dolber).

PS:  More, as promised, on Gould.  Imagine Aaron Copland, say,
composing after smoking something really mellow.  At half the
price of "The Whole Story," if you're not embarrassed to buy
cut-outs, a far better bargain than Nancy Sinatra Bush.  What
the Hell, forget mellow;  Copland's "Dance Symphony" just finished,
and it's a damned sight better than "Kate Does Downers."

PPS:  Oh, no, oh god, oh no, oh god, oh NOOOOOOOOO, oh gahhhhhhhhd,
oh NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, I'm dead, I'm laughing so hard I'm crying,
oh shit, oh fucking hell, I just recorded "Hunter" over the
Giants-Redskins post-season fiasco.  But listen, my friend -- I am
wide awake.  The mind is listening.

PPPS:  Should I walk -- certainly can't drive -- 7 miles to the lab
to directly compare old and new Kate and send this in -- to God
knows what group, I gather mod.music.gaffa's gone, and I don't know
where to send this -- or wait till tomorrow (i.e., later today),
and send this sober, i.e., not send it at all?  Hint:  this is no
longer handwritten, I'm in the lab, and it's 3:15 am Sunday.