Mailbag, KT News, and L-Hs Plea (Also: Kate Bush is God, people!)

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

IED had thought about posting a brief note about The Dolphin Brothers'
album, since he has occasionally taken time out from his obsession
with Kate to acknowledge the work of Japan and ex-Japan members in the
past, but decided that there was already far too much crap about
non-Kateian subjects clogging up Love-Hounds these days -- a
phenomenon made even less palatable by the TEN-DAY DELAYS that
CONTINUE to plague our discussion-group's attempts at timely
discussion (WHAT WAS WRONG WITH AUTO-PILOT IN THE FIRST PLACE?).

	[ There is lots of broken software out there these days that
	  causes many, many copies of some postings to appear in my
	  mail box.  If the mailing list were on auto-pilot, all that
	  garbage would also end up in your mail box. -- |>oug ]

But the "latest" (in both senses of the word) Love-Hounds Digest
included a remark about The Dolphin Brothers being a rip-off of Japan,
and this begs for clarification.

The Dolphin Brothers was a last-minute name which Steve Jansen and
Richard Barbieri gave themselves before releasing their second album,
called _Catch the Fall_. Their first album, released in abridged form
in the UK (originally a Japanese-only release), was called _Worlds in
a Small Room_, and was mainly instrumentals. Steve Jansen also
released a single with Yukihiro Takahashi called "Stay Close". But in
none of these cases would it be accurate to call the music a "copy of
Japan", since Jansen and Barbieri were half of the group Japan to
begin with! They are at least fifty percent responsible for the sound
of Japan's final two albums, _Gentlemen Take Polaroids_ and _Tin
Drum_. The similarity you hear is an entirely logical, natural
function of Jansen/Barbieri's musical development, and not a "copy" at
all. As for the similarity between David Sylvian's and Steve Jansen's
singing styles and voices, that is explained not only by the two men's
long musical partnership (which continues to this day, as Jansen
contributes to Sylvian's forthcoming album), but also by the fact that
the two are brothers. (Their real names are Steve and David Batt.)

Thanks to Dave Feltrow for the news about Gillian, and to Scott
Crumpton for posting Gillian's review of _TWS_ videos from _Goldmine_
(yes, they did misspell her name in the original). As for the review
itself, however, Gaar's "serious" criticism of some of the videos
unfortunately seem almost as silly as her _intentional_ humour in
_FTLOK_s past.

Stephen Christian: Glad you liked the interview. The Jeanne Moreau
movie Kate couldn't remember the name of is _The Bride Wore Black_.
MarK T. Ganzer and IED came up with the identification the other night
during one of our long phone discussions of Kate Bushological issues.

As for the "Rock 'n' Pop" show: Do you mean the 1979 _British Rock and
Pop Awards_ show, or the German show _RockPop_, both of which were
graced by Kate's presence? Such KT video is pretty hard to come by,
much harder still to get in high quality. Intergalactic Garage sells a
compilation of some stuff, or you might get some fans to trade...

About the superiority of the Prince's Trust Gala version of "The
Wedding List", that might be because of the extremely fine backup
support she had -- notably the terrifically sensitive basslines from
Mick Karn.

About the _Passing Through Air_ bootleg: It's true that this bootleg
is a very good deal for new fans of Kate, since it includes so many of
the b-sides and 12" mixes, but of course the audio quality is not so
good, and the whole LP is a flagrant ripoff. As for getting hold of
it, that's a problem with all bootlegs. You have to find the store or
dealer in your area who gets bootlegs in. Try record swap-meets, you
may have better luck, and the prices aren't always quite such a gyp.

Finally, IED is now BEGGING Doug to do something about the chronic
delays in distributing Love-Hounds. The whole purpose of Love-Hounds,
IED thought, was to allow for daily, or at least reasonably swift
exchange of information and opinions about music. These repeated
eight-day and ten-day delays in transmission are killing Love-Hounds,
and frustrating a growing number of readers/writers to the group.
Please, Doug, can't you put the Digest back on auto-pilot, at least
until you're able to give more time to L-Hs personally?  IED feels bad
being the ogre who complains publicly like this, but since he already
has a terrible reputation in this group, he has less face -- and fewer
sympathetic readers -- to lose.

	[ I'd like to oblige, but running on autopilot these days
	  would be very painful for everyone.  Maybe someday everyone
	  will be running reliable software again.  I'll try to devote
	  as much time to Love-Hounds as I can.  Now that my
	  girlfriend has dumped me for a semi-famous author who's soon
	  to get a million dollar contract, I might have some more
	  time.  --|>oug ]

-- Andrew Marvick