The _Newsletter_ file 1: Kate's and Paddy's articles, issue No. 23

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

 To: Love-Hounds
 From: Andrew Marvick (IED)
 Subject: The _Newsletter_ file 1: Kate's and Paddy's articles, issue No. 23

       <This is the brief note which Kate wrote for fans in the
long-delayed twenty-third (Fall '89) issue of the Kate Bush Club _Newsletter_.
The article was accompanied by an unabridged transcription of the late
Roger Scott's last interview with Kate, which can be found (in a
slightly more accurate edition) somewhere in the vast and
inaccessible Love-Hounds Archives.
       <This is followed by a transcription of the accompanying
article by Kate's brother Paddy Bush. It originally appeared in the
same issue of the _Newsletter_. Edited by Andrew Marvick.>


                            Be Kind to My Mistakes
                            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

   Well, hello. After such a long wait I just hope you
won't be disappointed with the album. Thank you all for your notes
and the kind words you sent during the making of the album--they all
helped a lot. I've tried to sit down and write about the tracks
and found it extremely difficult--I guess I've said it all in the
songs--and for your interest we've printed an interview I did
with Roger Scott. It talks about the songs in a way I could not
write down. I think this interview is the most in-depth I've
done, in some ways. Roger is a lovely person, and he presents
questions in such a way that I'm happy to talk about things
that with other people I might not want to touch on. I also feel
Roger did one of the best interviews I've been asked to do--it
was around the time of _The_Dreaming_ album.
     This album is my most personal, and I feel my most female so far.
It was very difficult to write the material, but some of the work on
this album has touched me more deeply--working with the Trio Bulgarka,
meeting people in Bulgaria who let us in to their homes and hearts,
our work in Ireland, feeling the tracks coming together through old
friends like Pad, Stuart, Charlie, Al, Dave Gilmour, and new friends
like Nigel Kennedy and Davey Spillane. Many difficult moments in my head
with these songs, but so many warm feelings, and my memories of all
the people involved in this project are of us laughing. A huge
thank you to Del--what a long and intense project it was for us. I
couldn't have done it without him! It means a lot to me--he
is my favourite engineer.
     Because of the intimacy with just Del and myself working so
closely, I feel this is the most direct communication I've
had with the music in my head and the music that comes back from tape.
Also many thanks to Kevin Killen, who became a close member of our
small group. Kevin was wonderful to work with. Sometimes it is hard
to bring someone in to such a personal set-up, but Kevin was so
sensitive and enthusiastic and such a good mixing engineer. I
really couldn't have wished for nicer people to work with on all the
stages of this album.
     I can't tell you how relieved I am that this album is
finished--there were times when I think we all wondered...?
     And I&csqm so happy to let it go now--thanks again to all of you
for your kind words, birthday presents and patience.
     I hope you like the album--and a big thanks and best wishes
to you all.
                                     Lots of love,

                                     Kate xxx

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        <And here is Paddy's article from the twenty-third (Fall '89)
issue of the Kate Bush Club _Newsletter_. Edited by Andrew Marvick.>

   ...I suppose that I must have been about seventeen years old. I was
working for the English Folk Dance and Song Society in a little
cupboard. We dealt with traditional music and stuff to do with folklore
and dancing. It was quite a scene: it was the early days of the
Sixties 'folk revival,', there were a lot of guys with beards
and girls in tartan dresses, the odd vicar dressed as a hobby-horse,
people would sing unaccompanied songs often with a finger in one ear,
arran sweaters, concertinas, sword-dances, portable tape-recorders,
corn-dollies, bagpipes, penny-whistles and Appalachian dulcimers...
   An outside world of hovercraft and mini-skirts skimmed by, as
I sold tickets and insytruments and books to these various folk. I
had a pretty good working knowledge of all our stock and new
releases, so one snowy Saturday I found myself confused when I saw
an album on the counter that I didn't recognize and had no
reference for. Its name was _A_Cool_Day_and_Crooked_Corn_.
So I placed it on our phonograph platter and accidentally exploded
an atomic bomb in my life.
     I sat there trasfixed over my Kit-Kat and cup of tea, almost
wishing I wasn't hearing this. I couldn't understand a single
word, and yet this thing seemed to be liquidizing my soul. A group
of girls from New York singing in supernatural harmony and involved
in their own kind of revival: the music of Bulgaria.
<IED has tracked down this record, and has discovered that, indeed,
The Pennywhistlers managed to create an extraordinarily accurate
reproduction of the authentic a cappella female vocal-group sound
which more recent converts to Bulgarian music have become acquainted
with through the recordings of The Bulgarian State Radio and Television
Female Vocal Choir and The Trio Bulgarka. The Pennywhistlers' voices lack
perhaps a little of the Bulgarians' original power, but their elocution
and musicality seem, to this amateur enthusiast, at least, very
convincing.>
   By the time I had played the album continuously three or four times,
the snow was pouring down. A young couple came into the shop--if you
would like the details, the man looked a bit like a Swedish Tom
Petty in an Afghan coat, which was a rare garment in those days,
and the young lady was small with short dark hair and very beautiful.
They were my first customers of the day. I said,
  "Hello. Isn't this music beautiful? I've just found it
sitting on the counter..."
   She said, "It's our record."
  "I'm sorry, I didn't know who it belonged to. I just
found it here. I hope you don't mind me playing it..."
  "No," she said. "No, it's _our_record_. Look
on the back. My name is Ethel Raim, and this is my group,
The Pennywhistlers."
     I looked on the back and there was a picture of Ethel and
her friends. I looked straight up, and there she was, standing in
front of me. We talked about Bulgarian music and instruments.
She even autographed a photo for my little sister Kate.
     You could say that I became obsessed with the album, the
sound of their voices and the shapes of the words, and long after
I stopped working there Ethel's music was my constant
companion.
     It opened a door into a huge world of tradition. In many
ways I had taken a finger out of my ear so I could listen in stereo;
and I found myself in a whirlpool of music, magic and marvel.
     These are the bottom rungs of a ladder that stretches through
time and leads to here: The Sensual World of Kate and her sisters
Eva, Stoyanka and Yanka--The Trio Bulgarka.
     This ladder is so long now that time and weirdness are
insufficient for me to give you the individual steps and influences
that brought us to the point of this unique collaboration. I hope
it's a combination that will please you.
     Let me tell you something else I'd like to get
straight with you concerning the title track...If you look at the
credits you can see that it says that I am playing whips on
the track. This is a mistake made by some silly person that didn't
ask. I'm playing a pair of fishing rods. I wanted to get
the impression of a rich Irish lakeland, and the swishing sound of
the rods should conjure the atmosphere of fly-fishing, tweed hats
and long Wellingtons. However, the idea of whips is a long way
from my original intention, so please accept my apologies, as I
feel this credit is misleading.
     OK...What's a valiha?
     It's the instrument on _Love_and_Anger_ that starts
and ends the track, and sounds a little like a classical
guitar, but it's not. It comes from the island of Madagascar,
and is a kind of box-shaped harp about four feet in length, with
strings on two sides. The strings are made from untwisted bicycle
brake-cable. There is a little wooden bridge under each string for
tuning, and the strings are plucked with the tips of the fingers...
     There's someone out there that I owe a big thankyou to.
We can't find your name. We know you live in Holland, and
several years ago you sent a cassette to us of a selection of your
of your favourite tunes, including _Rosina_de_Peira_, harmony-
singing from the Bahamas, and some Macedonian a-la-Turk
ensemble music...You must know who you are by now, and that you
are an unsung run on the ladder, so get in touch and be recognized,
and in the time in between please accept my thanks and a kiss from
my sister. <The person in question is Jan Libbenga, a music
journalist who provided a tape of a version of the Macedonian
melody which Kate subsequently arranged for Irish instruments and
recorded as a part of the title track of her album. Unfortunately for Mr.
Libbenga, he did not wait to read the above graceful acknowledgement
by Paddy and Kate, but lost no time in publishing a sarcastically
"astonished" piece in a Dutch music journal which essentially accused
Kate of "fraud". Love-Hounds will probably remember this sordid episode.>
     Other helpful folk include: Joe Boyd, Sally Reeves, Judy
Greenwell, Borimira Nedeva, Rumyana Tzintzarska, Nellie Tzvetkova,
Fred Muller, Zandra Markus, Patrick Jauneaud, John Porter, Mitra
and Lubimka Bisserov <The Bisserovs are another Bulgarian female
vocal ensemble--younger than the Trio Bulgarka--who became friends
with Kate during her involvement with the Bulgarians' concerts in
England and Europe>, Melanie Spriggs, Professor Lee Saunders,
Jim and Haydn <Bendall> and Ken from Abbey Road Studios,
Roy and Jacqui Harper, Dave and Toni Arthur, Chris Thomas and
Ian of Audio-Venue, Guy Marriot, Dr. Smola & Dr. Crausse of
Supraphon Records, Dave Clancey of Casio, Rev. Normal <this
last is an inside joke: the Reverend Normal is a character in
some of Del's and Paddy's articles from earlier issues of the
_Newsletter_.> Thank you for your kindness and help.


                                     Paddy

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-- Andrew Marvick