Ktrivia & mailbag -- Can it be Love-Hounds is rising from the ashes?

[IED0DXM@OAC.UCLA.EDU]

> Vinal Fetish: 7305 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA  90046
>     A narrow, little store.  On display was a varity of Bushmabelia
> including a picture disk for $25, a press kit for $50, a huge poster
> for $40, and a signed photo collection for $750.  (These are the best
> recollections of my wife and I, we bought nothing.)

> Bleecker Bobs: 7663 Melrose Ave, LA
>     Another small store with nothing interesting.

Actually, you've got Vinyl Fetish confused with Bleecker Bob's.  All
of the items you describe above are on display in Bleecker Bob's, not
Vinyl Fetish. The huge poster you mention is an original EMI-America
40x40" of the "Tammy Wynette" cover of _The Kick Inside_.  And it was
for sale for $60, not $40 (though that would have been a bit more
reasonable). IED knows because he very nearly bought the damn thing,
but wisely resisted the urge. Incidentally, the guy who puts the
prices on those Kate items is first of all an incredible jerk, and
second of all an obscenely exploitative merchant. The two framed,
signed photographs that you mentioned, which Bleecker's is selling for
$750 (can you _believe_ that price?), were originally sold by Kate's
own company, Novercia, Ltd., for 19.95 Pounds each, plus A-1 packing &
postage, and that was including the wood-and-glass frames, and Kate's
signature on each. And IED thought even that was a bit steep!  As for
the press-kit -- nothing special, certainly not $50-special!
     Three other items just acquired by Bleecker's and put out on
display were the Canadian _On Stage_ (7" in a unique 12" sleeve) -- at
the equally insane price of $125; a second-pressing copy of the
official _The Kick Inside_ picture-disk, also for $125 -- this was the
top price of the _first_ pressing before the second pressing ever came
out (the picture-disk LP is not that rare any more, since the second
pressing was quite large); and a used, unnumbered (second pressing)
_The Single File_ boxed set at $150 (four months back they had an
_unopened_ second pressing of the boxed set going for $100, and that
was already ridiculously high).
     So anyway, IED's recommendation is, if you want to start
collecting Kate Bush merchandise, do it as far away from Bleecker
Bob's as possible!

     By the way, assuming you were thinking of Vinyl Fetish when you
mentioned another store with nothing of interest, IED has to object:
VF is a wonderful store. They have lots of things that no-one else in
town carries, and they carry quite a bit of stuff that's behind the
counter. The new man who's in charge there (Joseph and Henry have
largely moved out of the retail side of the company -- they have been
major figures in L.A. clubs for years, and continue to influence
playlists in SoCal in various clubs) has added alot of rare used stuff
to the stock, too -- Japan collectors should take a look sometime.
     On the other hand, if you were referring to Rene's All Ears (in
between Aron's and Bleecker's), IED would have to agree with you --
they've really gone downhill in the past two years (since the owner
decided there was more money in selling skateboard paraphernalia than
import records).

> the tune of four records.  And I broke down and purchased the
> picture interview disk.

Very reasonable price. Aron's is always fair, and there are some nice
people working there -- Jeff, their CD buyer, is a great guy. IED's
question is -- which interview picture-disk did you buy? There are now
three on the market.

>     'Kate Bush - Live at Odeon'

That's "Hammersmith Odeon", in case anyone is confused.

IED was not amused by Niels Mayer's crude bathroom satire. He sounds
like the type of man who wishes it was still o.k. to club women over
the head and drag them into his cave by the hair. Really slimy.

All right, new subject: Speaking of Kate Bush merchandise, IED just
picked up a bunch of new stuff which he thought might be of some
interest to some of the Love-Hounds.

 1. First, four back issues plus the latest (#14) of _Dreamtime_,
the Australian KT fanzine, just arrived in the mail. Low-budget,
but fantastic energy and density of information. _Dreamtime_
is _highly_ recommended. Interested parties can reach them at:

46 Gladstone Avenue, South Perth, 6151, Western Australia. $12.00
(Australian currency) will bring a year's subscription (three
issues, IED believes) air-mail to the U.S. It's worth it.

2. _Under the Ivy Bush_. Another KT bootleg album, this one features
quite slick packaging, although the photos used are obviously from
positives. The cover is of the Japanese-_TKI_ pink leotard shot
(uncropped, of course). The album is a hodge-podge, but is quite
interesting. Tracks one and two are, as Peter FitzGerald-Morris
of _Homeground_ has said already, simply mono tapes of the
LP tracks of "Running Up That Hill" and "The Big Sky" as used
by Kate for lip-synch performances. The only differences between
these and the LP tracks are that these are in terrible low-fi TV
sound, and they include a studio audience cheering at the beginning
and end of the lip-synch tracks. By the way, these two tracks
are taken from Kate's appearance on the German TV show "Peter's Pop
Show", which was also re-broadcast on a French program, both of which
aired in the fall of 1985.
     Track 3 is another matter altogether. It is a live version
of "James and the Cold Gun" that has never appeared in any boot
or video that IED has seen before. It's not from the Hammersmith
film, nor is it like the "On Stage" version of the Hammersmith version,
nor is it from the Bristol or the Paris shows. The sound is better than
average for bootleg live material, and it's a really confident, loose
performance.
     Tracks 4 and 5 are just the Satie "Gymnopedie" and "Symphony
in Blue" from "Kate", the 1979 Christmas special. However, the
audio on these tracks is _far_ superior to that on the earlier
bootleg transfers of the "Kate" program.
     Side Two starts off with "The Man With the Child in His Eyes"
from the "Kate" program.
     Track 2, Side Two is just an excerpt from the German
documentary on Kate called "Kate Bush in Concert". You can hear
the last words of one of Kate's answers to an interviewer's question,
which segues into the live version of "Violin" from the TV program's
filmed excerpts of the Mannheim and Hamburg concerts.
     Track 3 is just the "Hammer Horror" from the Tour of Life. (The
specific concert is untraceable, really, because this recording of the
song was made by Kate in the studio with the KT Bush Band specifically
for the Tour, so that she wouldn't have to worry about singing for at
least one song in the show, which left her a bit freer to dance during
that song. Consequently this track is identical in all the concerts).
      Track 4, Side Two begins with some bootlegger's idea of a joke:
it's a phrase from an interview Kate gave for the German TV film "Kate
Bush In Concert" (IED believes), which the bootleggers have
_backwards-masked_! The words that Kate utters, when played backwards,
are: "...will be totally believed by an awful lot of people." Ha ha.
     Track 5 is a pre-tour live version of "Wuthering Heights", taken
(probably) from one of the two German TV shows on which Kate appeared
to perform the song in 1978. The sound, again, is quite good for a
transfer from TV.
     Track 6, the last track on the album, is again a reasonably clear
transfer from a thin, mono TV original. This one, however, is
something special: the live version of "Under the Ivy" which Kate
performed solo, accompanying herself on piano, in Abbey Road Studios
for the satellite broadcast of a special edition of the U.K.  TV
program _The Tube_.
     That's it. Altogether a pretty queer collection of tracks, but
not without value or interest.

3. _Kate Bush Live in Manchester, April 10th, 1979_. This album, a
two-record set from our old familiar NYC-based bootleg outfit, is
exactly what it claims to be. These people finally got hold of a new
tape, instead of putting out the same old H-O, Bristol, Paris and
"Kate" tapes in still other packaging. The record is not as complete a
record of the Tour programme as the recent bootleg 2-LP set of the
Bristol concert (which is a virtually unedited copy of the entire
concert), since it only contains twenty tracks, and some though not
all of the incidental music and prose-readings are missing. But it
_is_ a different performance, and Kate and the band are in unusually
fine form. The sound is boomy on the bottom and weak on the treble,
but it still manages to create a strong atmosphere and presence, and
the album, overall, is considerably more listenable than, say, the
Paris concert bootlegs, which have extremely muffled and distant
sound. "Moving" is extremely beautiful and ethereal in this
performance.

4. "What Katie Did at Amnesty International". This is the seven-inch
bootleg that IED listed in earlier L-Hs postings. It has a b&w cover
design on high-quality cardpaper, with red and black lettering in a
type-face that is meant to imitate the style used by Peter Gabriel for
several recent singles. The photo, too, is a nearly-abstract b&w shot
of a figure moving down a street (not Kate), sort of like the blurred
shots on some of Gabriel's _So_ singles covers. The record itself
features the live performance of "Running Up That Hill" from the
_other_ night (as opposed to the one which is included on the official
_Secret Policeman's Third Ball: The Music_ LP), but of course the
sound is very poor in comparison with the Amnesty LP track. The real
selling-point of this bootleg is its b-side, a crude but quite
listenable recording of the live version of "Let It Be" which Kate
gave at the Amnesty concerts. It's not earth-shaking, but it's a
_huge_ artistic advance on the performance of the same song which Kate
gave with Steve Harley and Peter Gabriel in 1979.  This is a very
thoughtful and well-thought-out interpretation, and Kate sings all but
the second verse this time around (IED can't say for sure who the male
singer in this version is, but supposes it could be a very hoarse
Gabriel?).

That's all the Ktrivia from IED for now, people. Brace yourselves,
though, there's likely to be still more before you know it.

-- Andrew Marvick