Kate-echism XXI.5.xxiii

[IED0DXM%OAC.UCLA.EDU@mitvma.mit.edu]

 To: Love-Hounds
 From: Andrew Marvick
 Subject: Kate-echism XXI.5.xxiii

 >I don't like the idea of supporting the bootleggers, either, hence I
 >have evolved a straightforward strategem for dealing with it all:
 >       If I can buy a legal copy that gets royalties back to the
 >       artist - Great!  They can use the money to make more records.
 >       If I can't, because it's a bootleg or whatever, then I
 >       feel obliged to make copies and distribute them, thereby
 >       eroding the bootlegger's business.
 >You can't stop bootlegging any more than you can stop people from
 >breathing, but you can play it against itself.
 >
 >-- larry

     Perhaps it's not a question of attempting actually to harm
bootleggers' business, but of acting according to a moral code
of one's own. You seem to have found a way to retain a feeling of virtu-
ousness even while you continue to buy bootleggers' products. The only
way to be relieved of all complicity with the bootleggers is not
to buy even a single copy--at least that's how IED sees it. Making
copies for others after buying a bootleg doesn't expiate the original
crime one committed in buying the bootleg. But this introduces some
long-defunct (ancient Greek?) standards of morality which may not have
any meaning for most people in our era, so IED will point no accusatory
finger.

 >Some people say that this issue of Penthouse was specifically designed
 >with a Kate Bush rumor in mind in order to increase sales in England.
 >Whether this is true or not, I do not know.
 >
 >-- |>oug

     As IED understands it, the photos and story appeared in
the UK edition of _Penthouse_ only; and the article was filled with
teasing insinuations that left the reader in little doubt they were
supposed to think it was Kate ("young doctor's daughter from Kent";
"been composing since she was a child"; etc.) But Doug's buddy Alan won't
give up a copy of the mag itself for less than $25.00, so IED has never
been able to confirm these reports. Doug and Dan are definitely right,
though, that the pictures are _not_ of Kate Bush.

     Dan Kozak writes:
 >And the record isn't worth $3.60, let alone $36.  The sound is abysmal.
 >Actually, I have yet to hear any Kate bootlegs that are equal in sound
 >quality to most of the other artists whose work I am interested enough
 >in to care.  On the other hand I haven't heard all that many, but my
 >experiences to date prevent me from risking any more cash on the
 >quest.  Didn't she ever do a BBC or King Biscuit show that could be
 >found on bootleg?  I've got the Police, the Jam and a few others that
 >were originally one of these radio shows and the sound and performance
 >are all quite good.  Enquirn' minds want to know . . . what are the
 >great Kate boots, or do they exist?

     The sound _is_ abysmal, you're right, Dan, but there are no bootlegs
of the 1979 concerts that have good sound. Unless you want to count the
new CD of the _Hammersmith_Odeon_ film's soundtrack (from the laser-
disk's digital re-master). The best-sounding one that includes all
the songs and incidental bits and pieces is probably the Manchester
concert (a two-LP set, though only a little less complete than the _DT_
3-LP set). But they're all miserable. Kate never gave any live Tour of
Life performances on radio or on TV, although a few months later (Dec.
'79) she performed a few songs live in-studio on her Xmas special. Also,
there are a few clips from other live Tour of Life shows on three
different TV programmes: the Tour episode of _Nationwide_ (UK TV);
a German programme called _Kate_Bush_in_Concert_ (which has some
songs from the Hamburg and Mannheim concerts); and a Swedish
show called _Rockdrotting_ (with a few songs from the Stockholm
concerts). All are in mono TV sound, however. It seems pretty
clear at this point that no fan was well enough equipped soundwise
to get a decent in-audience copy of any of Kate's Tour of Life
concerts. And so far no soundboard mixes or outtakes from the unedited
_Hammersmith_ film have surfaced in the bootleg market. (An Italian fan
offered a tape of the Amsterdam concert once, but IED never heard it, and
anyway it's doubtful that it's any better than the others.)
     As to whether _Dreamtime_ is worth $36 or $3.60: that all
depends on how important it is to you to have a complete record of
Kate's entire concert--good sound or not. If you already have the nearly
unedited Bristol bootleg or the more or less unedited Manchester
bootleg, then IED would agree with you that there's little point
in buying _Dreamtime_. But if not, $36.00 is a price many fans can
live with if it means they'll finally get to hear about the crushed
acorns and chestnuts in her hair...

-- Andrew Marvick