John Otway

["Neil B. M. Calton" <nbc@vax-d.rutherford.ac.uk>]

> From: jsd%UMASS.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU (Jonathan S. Drukman)
> Subject: xtc news flash!

> A new single has appeared in record stores.  Put out under the name
> "Johnny Japes and his Jesticles", it features the song "Bags Of Fun
> With Buster Gonads" and the B-side has a special "Scrotal Scratch
> Mix".

> This is not strictly XTC.  The song was written and produced by Andy
> Partridge and Dave Gregory, but features a guy named John Ottway
> singing.  John Ottway has a very distinctive vocal style and accent
> too.

I have not heard this single but it sounds as if this guy is John
Otway who had some minor success along with Wild Willie Barrett. They
did a song called "Really Free" which Kate mentioned in one of her
interviews (IED may well know which one).

Which reminds me - I put "Really Free" on the Lovehounds compilation
tape (#5 if I remember correctly). What happened to all those tapes?
Tape #5 managed to travel from Scotland to England to Australia and
then to Canada or the US (multiplying into two tapes on the route)
only to vanish; it seems along with all the others. Is anyone still
circulating those things or has the US mail service managed to lose
them all, or have people deposited them in the lesser known regions of
their bedrooms? Answers or theories welcome.

> From: "I'm totally free...living in the trees."
>	<BABOOSHKA@nuacc.acns.nwu.edu> 
> Subject: The latest Love Hounds Digest

> After 24 years of pining for England (I should have been born there
> instead of Iowa), I finally made it to London for a week after
> Christmas. I felt like I had finally come home. One of my favorite
> memories was visiting Covent Garden. Despite being New Year's Eve,
> it was nearly 60 degrees and sunny. The place was full of people out
> to do their shopping, and as I located the market stalls and walked
> into the building, "Wuthering Heights" began playing on someone's
> radio, and wherever I went in the stalls it was playing. It seemed
> so appropriate that standing there in very correct London amid very
> exotic goods that I heard Kate's vocal gymnastics. (The other big
> song at the time was that Rick Astley song that's now so big
> here--that wouldn't have fit in at all!)

I'm glad you had a good time in London and I hate to be a typical
English spoilsport but just what is "very correct London"? Covent
Garden is a fun place but it is really just a tourist attraction
(national and international) selling overpriced goods. The buskers are
fun and the crafts are good but the real Covent Garden was a fruit and
veg. market. The modern CG is totally rebuilt and the sense of
tradition and history has for this native vanished, and in that
respect I find it hard to understand your association of Kate with
that environment. If you really want to "feel" a song like Wuthering
Heights then you should visit the Yorkshire Moors - perhaps on your
next trip.  (Don't let "American Werewolf in London" put you off!).

Be seeing you.