MisK; IED; International Musician extra bits

[nbc%INF.RL.AC.UK@mitvma.mit.edu]

MisK

>From: Edward_Lee_Whiteside@cup.portal.com
>Subject: MTV, VH-1, and The Laugh
>Did anyone see the post I sent a while back comparing the times shown on
>the actual tape that Kate delivered to EMI?  (Picture in the last KBC issue)
>The times shown there would indicate that "the laugh" did indeed belong to
>"Love and Anger".

Yes I did. I meant to mention it when I cast my vote for The Laugh
being part of Love and Anger. It is interesting that those who
claim that the laugh is part of The Fog have chosen to *ignore* this fact.
Well guys?

>From: Michael Simms <michaels%hci.heriot-watt.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK>
>The actor in the This Woman's Work video has been in
>both Blackadder 2 and Blackadder 4
>He played the upper class twit Percy in Blackadder 2,
>and in the latest 1st World War series, Blackadder 4, he
>played Captain Darling!!
>Unfortunately I cannot remember his name !!

As others have already mentioned. He is Tim McInnery, he also played
the Percy character in the first Blackadder series and was also in
one episode of Blackadder 3. He declined to appear as Percy in the
third series because he did not want to get typecast as a weak character
and agreed to play Darling in the 4th because he was very different to Percy.

>p.s. FYI, Blackadder 1,2,3 and 4 are separate series of
>costume comedy from different era's in the history of Britain
>starring Rowan Atkinson as Edmund Blackadder and also Tony Capstick

That's Tony Robinson.

>as Baldrick as well as other notable comedien(ne)s such as
>Stephen Fry, Miranda Richardson and even Brian Blessed in Blackadder 1

This may be pedantic, but Richardson and Blessed are really actors
who sometimes play comic roles.

>Blackadder 1 was about the War of the Roses
>Blackadder 2 was set in the Elizabethan times
>Blackadder 3 was set in Victorian Times

Surely earlier than this - look at the costumes. At least a century
before I would say. There was a Blackadder Xmas special set in Victorian
times (repeated this Xmas if you missed it last year).

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IED rules OK.

Is it not ironic that the majority of people who have been flaming
IED and suggesting that he amend his postings or leave this group
have never contributed a single useful fact to Love-hounds about
Kate or her music? There have been times in the lean periods during the
last couple of years when IED's contributions have kept this forum
going practically single-handed. IED has been able to dredge up
information about Kate which even Homeground and the KBC have failed
to discover. He has continually provided important and timely information
to all Love-hounds. Even within the last month he has provided me with
information about the pic-disc single and the Wogan appearance that I
might well have missed - and he is thousands of miles away!

Regular readers will also be aware of a period when Love-hounds
bulletins stopped appearing altogether for several weeks (no slur
on our humble pseudo-moderator intended. In fact |>oug qualifies as the
number one man for putting the whole show on the road). During this period IED
put together a mailing list to keep as many people as possible
informed of any Kate news that surfaced. IED has answered all questions
about Kate that have been asked by new subscribers to this forum even
when these questions have already been asked and answered countless
times in the past. The normal response in any other newsgroup would be
go RTFM or its equivalent. Surely IED has the right to get angry when
people have the nerve to write things like "This is my first posting
to this group - and by the way Kate sucks". If you want respect you
have got to earn it.  Most of the anti-IED brigade just do not have any
credibility: they have contributed nothing. IED has given this group
far more than it deserves sometimes. IED's style of prose and his choice
of vocabulary may not be to the taste of everyone but in terms of hard
facts he would be sorely missed. So let's hear it for IED. Four more years,
four more years etc.

*********************************************************

International Musician - extras that accompanied the main article.

		Tony Horkins - Dec. 1989

		Kate's Place

Nesting in the grounds of her parents' house is Kate's studio.
Not much has changed since we last visited, though there has been
one major investment.

"We now have an SSL. It's an expensive board, but not the most
expensive, and it's very versatile. It has a good sound, and all those
facilities. For the money the Soundcraft was great, but the SSL is much more
efficient to work with. On the last album we spent a lot of time working around
the desk, and on this one it was just working around me.""

"We're still using two A80s - we work on 48-track all the time, though
it drives people crazy. When you get outside people in, you can see their
impatience with the machines. We use them with the Lynx, though we used to have
a Q-Lok. I'm not sure there's that much in it, but I think the Lynx is a bit
quicker. It would be even better if we had 800s. The A80s seem a bit
archaic now.

"With outboard, I love the Quantec. It has a crystalline quality to it,
very distinctive. I use it on instruments sometimes, but particularly vocals.
We've got two Lexicons - the 224 and the 224X. We hire stuff in when we mix -
outboard eqs, like a couple of old Pultecs, they have a really warm sound -
warmer than the SSL eq.

"We master analogue half inch. A lot of noise, but I still prefer working
analogue. At this point we've found it wise not to change machines
mid-stream.

"Monitoring is on AR18s, and we did get some Gold Spot Tannoys, they're quite
useful for some things, though generally we stick to the 18s, and Auratones.
We don't use big speakers. We had some but they sounded awful.

"As we have a Fairlight, it tends to negate us getting in other sampling
gear. We're pretty well covered with the Fairlight and the DX7 for keyboards,
and the quality of the Fairlight is much better, though so difficult to use.
Everyone says that. I used to programme it myself, but since the new
software ... I can't keep up. They keep changing it as soon as I learn to
programme it.

"Sometimes we're happier just flying in the half-inch, the old fashioned
technique. There's something about it - I quite like the purist approach.
Like tape delay - you can't get that same sound. It doesn't have the same
presence, it has a whispy quality. With tape delay it's lovely.

"I guess I'm just a sucker for analogue sounds."

		Kate and the Bulgarians

"They work so hard!" says Kate: "When we went out there we worked from
nine in the morning to 11 at night. They'll sing all day and always stand in
the same order; you'd think that the soloist would stand in the middle, but she
stands at one end. They run Yanka, Eva, Stoyanka - and it spells 'yes' ..."

"... We didn't mike them individually. We took advice from Joe Boyd, who's
worked with them, and he suggested a single ambient mike ... It's
incredible the quality when the three of them are singing - you can almost
hear the air cracking. The harmonic distortion is so exciting. One of
the songs they do I just cry - there's very little music that hits me
deeply enough to make me cry."

Dorka Hristova is conductor of the Women's Choir of the Bulgaria
Broadcasting Service, conducting some of the most beautiful female
voices in the world - including The Trio Bulgarka:

"It's quite different from Bel Canto singing in the West. It is straight
and natural. Very direct with great tension. The sound comes from the
epiglottis, with the resonance mainly here in the breast and not in the
forehead. That is why the women in our choir are ... not fatter, but have
fuller breasts!"

But it isn't just the style of singing that makes the music so unusual:

"Well, the harmonies are different. Bulgarian Folk is characterised with
one voice singing, then two voices - Diatonic - and sometimes, three
voices singing, Triaphonic. Diaphony is typical for the Sophia region.
One is a drone and the other voice makes the melody. These are at second
intervals and include quarter notes as well as semitones. Western
harmonies are based on 3rds ... This type of singing cannot be taught
in the colleges; it comes from inside the person. So, it is a kind of mystery
to us as well."

Suggested listening:
A Cathedral Concert: Les Mystere Des Voix Bulgares (Jaro)
Trio Bulgarka: The Trio Bulgarka (Hannibal)
Les Mystere Des Voix Bulgares: Records 1 & 2 (4AD)

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That completes the International Musician article folks.
There is a rather washed out photo of Kate on the front cover
wearing a black hat, and a colour photo of Kate with the sand in
her hands from TSW promotion.