Chris' stuff

[katefans@world.std.com (Chris'n'Vickie of Chicago)]

Chris here,

  Wandering about London on our last night in town we decided to walk
around the "City of London". Walking up the Strand to Fleet Street we
paused to check our maps to see where we were. A stranger stopped to
help us. He turned out to be a guard at the "Middle Temple". (I think
he'd nipped out for a pint before the pubs closed). He walked along
with us for a while explaining the history of the buildings, pointing
out the ones that had survived the Great Fire, and (most importantly)
the history of the Knights Templar. To those few Love-Hounds who might
not be aware, our Beloved took the Knights Templar symbol, the KT sign,
as her own. The amount of improbability involved in running into a
knowledgeable source on the Knights at midnight on a Wednesday in an
other-wise deserted part of the City might not be enough to transport
us halfway across the galaxy, but it could probably produce a bowl of
petunias.

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  Those who are concerned can rest easy that someone close to Kate
is aware that not everyone is happy with the Box Set, though I'm
afraid I may have made a bit of an ass of myself in the process.
  Lisa (of the KBC) dropped by the Love-Hounds Central (a bunch of
couches and chairs) to see how we were doing and what we thought of
the convention. Andy suggested that it would be nice if she would sing,
and Lisa replied that "Kate would love to sing, she really would, but
you know it would be bootlegged". Now this seemed like a rather lame 
excuse, as that possibility exists any time she sings in public.
I replied "What's the harm in that?".
  I mentioned that it seemed perfectly plain to me that bootlegs are
something that only the most ardent fans buy after they have bought
everything that they can legally buy, and that most bootleg material
wouldn't be profitable for the record companies to release.
  Lisa replied that "Well, it's a violation of trust, isn't it?" I
believe I looked very skeptical as she changed her tack and said,
"Well it's really the loss of control."
  This brought about the question of who controlled the box set,
Kate or EMI. She said EMI, and I pointed out that EMI said the final
decision had been Kate's. She didn't reply to that and I said that
Andy and Derek had put together a very good set that had been rejected.
(I later found out that Homeground had put together a set as well, and
EMI had gone as far as making up test cassettes of their arrangement)
  I believe I may have gotten a little frantic in telling her that the
Box Set was a "God-Damn rip-off". Well, it was a very emotional day.
  I'm in the process of writing a nice little note of apology, as was
suggested by David Cross. Our feelings are not stopping us from buying
_two_ box sets, though. The Club newsletter was an enormous rip-off for
American fans for a number of years (one year passed without a single
newsletter). In self defense I should point out that Kate's family
and friends do a pretty good job of insulating her from the outside
world,and it's quite possible that she is not aware that anyone feels
this way.
   
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   Two theories about why the box set exists:

    1: Kate wanted a nice box to take out to the back yard and bury to
       put a period on this part of her career.
    2: Kate wanted something nice to give as Christmas presents.
         (we understand that Kate _bought_ 50 LP and 50 CD sets.)

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A bit from Andy's transcription of the Q & A session...

      (Laughter and applause. Someone near the front of the 
audience hands some framed artwork to Kate.)
   "That's lovely, oh, that's really beautiful. Did you do that?
Isn't that lovely?"
   (Applause.)
   "Thank you...Ooh, another one!"
   (Pause, while another picture is handed up by the fan, who 
has produced these things from a bag. Laughter, as Kate puts
these objects by her side on the couch.)
   "This is a Mary Poppins bag, isn't it? Goes up onto
the stage and gets out a giraffe..."

    ...reminded me of the wonderful (but unfortunately short-lived)
fanzine "For The Love of Kate". It was produced by Gillian Garr and
friends of Seattle, and we have four issues.
   As they didn't have any actual information about Kate or her activities,
they just made it all up. The result is some of the funniest, and in some
ways truest, stuff ever written about Kate. Here is the bit I was reminded
of ...

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

         The Poppins Connection
  
    It's a fact that Kate was born, and grew up, living the life of a
fairly normal child. But even at a tender age, she was reaching out,
learning to grow. Check her early performance as "Jane" in the film
'Mary Poppins'. Such play acting was not just a job to her. Kate went
on to adopt Mary Poppins as her mentor, and threw herself into Poppins'
way of life.
     Mary Poppins was a dedicated lady, who took her job very seriously.
Suffering no nonsense from anybody, many thought her strict and hard.
However, she delt with herself in an equally firm manner, setting higher
standards for herself than she ever expected from anyone else. As a
result, she did become "practically perfect in every way." Besides
learning how to succeed in a tough, competitive world, Poppins also
developed several skills that served her well; singing, flying, and
telekinesis. Following this example, Kate also developed these skills.

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

    ...sure it's absolute nonsense but what the hell! It goes on to
describe that _every_ one of Kate songs is autobiographical. I'd type
more in, but text alone cannot do it justice; a typical page might have
2 or 3 small pictures with strange captions like a photo of "Divine"
with the caption "'The Dreaming' captured many new fans for Kate" or
a photo of Paul McCartney with the caption "I had my picture taken with
Kate Bush once, and since then I've had several hit records!"

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Ed Suranyi asked:

>Does anybody know what happened to the following love-hounds?
>
>Julian West
>Corey Lofdahl
>Ant in Chicago
>Tracy Roberts (though I've heard from her about four months ago)

  I may be wrong, but I believe "Ant in Chicago" became "Ant somewhere
back in England without Net access" shortly before we got here.

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Neil Calton posted:

> Both these extracts plus Ed's news that the next album is expected to
> be complete by July 1991 and that the tour will be in support of it
> indicate that we should expect a very different Kate album next time.
> I would not be surprised if she produced a largely acoustic album
> featuring many tracks with just piano. The only comparison that comes
> to mind at the moment is Springstein's Nebraska album which was
> extremely basic compared to his other albums. I cannot see any other
> way that Kate will complete an album by the middle of next year
> unless she is planning to reduce the production to a bare minimum.

   I don't know. Info that was out at the time that "The Dreaming" was
being produced indicated that Kate makes records like most people write
software; it will be done "RSN" (Real Soon Now). Somewhere around here we
have an article indicating that "The Dreaming" was expected less than a year
after "Never for Ever". I'm not starting to hold my breath until I hear word
that halls have been booked, and possibly not even then. A "FoaF" (Friend
of a Friend) who books for several venues in Chicago claims that 8 places
in the USA were tentatively scheduled a couple of years ago but that the
dates were called off for the obvious reason that the album wasn't finished.


Neal R Caldwell, Ii posted:

>I hope that a great deal of consideration goes into choosing the
>venues and means of ticket sales for any tour that might come to pass.
>If some means of allowing the hard core fans to pre-purchase their
>tickets isn't found  scalpers will make a fortune and there are bound 
>to be some very distraught Kate fans left outside.  It's too
>frightening to even consider.

  The best situation would be the type that Grateful Dead created on
the last tour. The Dead bought every single ticket at every single show.
They made books of tickets for the entire tour available by mail-order
to the fans on the DeadHead mailing lists, fanzines, The Well and through
the grapevine. They then sold the tickets that they didn't need for the 
DeadHeads back to the halls and promoters.
 I'm sure that Kate dosn't have the cash reserves that the Dead have, but
maybe _something_ could be done to avoid the kind of fleecing that the
scalpers are just slobbering all over their nasty, greasy little selves
waiting for. 

Footah (Greg Bossert) posted:
>Trade:  There are some things I saw at the KonvenTion which I now covet, 
>to whit:
>        Those In/Breathing/Out buttons
>        Those LionHeart buttons (mine got lost in the fray...)
>        Any of those videos (particularly the Dutch performances and the
>                "Keeping Fit" dreaming thing.
>        Of course, a tape of Ms. Bush's appearance
>
>and so on.  Several of the elder statepeople of LoveHounds/gaffa (i.e. IED
>and Vickie'n'Chris ) expressed their very reasonable reasons for limiting
>the distribution of their private collections -- it's simply too much work
>and too open to awkward misfortune. 

  The "Looking Good, Feeling Fit" bit has been floating around on a number
of tapes that have duplicated any number of times. When we were actively
involved in trading videos we must have gotten that from at least five
different sources. Are you referring to the "Kate Bush in Concert" tour
film or the "Die Eftling" videos? Both are wonderful.
  We don't have any problem dubbing stuff for Katefans other than lack of
time for dubbing, packaging and mailing. At one point we were sending
out 2 or 3 packages of tapes a day. We requested two tapes, one for the
dub and one for our expenses. Eventually people started sending "well,
here's a check for the cost of two tapes" and we moved, and it started
taking us a long time to send tapes out. It was an unhappy situation.
   Any Katefan who can make it to Chicago is more than welcome to drop by
and dub from our tapes here...we'll even put you up on our hide-a-bed.

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   I'm not sure but our quiz team may have done better than we thought.
The question about the location of the 85 convention may have been correct,
I'll have to check the old newsletters to see if it was really moved.
Talking to Peter and Kris the next day, it seems that there was a number
of entries with an 19 or 20 correct answers, and they feared having to 
do a run-off, so that when the one with "You (The Game Part II...Two
Halves In Flight)" came up they were relieved.

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   Regarding these "where is our beloved IED, and who is this Andrew
Marvick person" questions; IED is an "Artificial Arrogance" (AA) program.
It was accidently created when the complete works of Wilhelm Reich were
loaded into a Kate Bush data-base. This program seized control of the
computer that Andrew was using at school. It intercepted all of Andrew's 
innocent mail and re-wrote it in a bizarre style, black-mailing Andrew
by threatening to erase his transcript. Andrew's move to New York was an 
attempt to escape the control of this creature. It has been threatening 
to transfer itself across the net. A crack team of researchers has been 
assembled to combat it, including Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Dr. Wayne Dyer,
Dr. Suess,and The Amazing Kreskin.

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   A big howdy (we're from the mid-west, y'know) to Andy, Footah, Ed
(he's _much_ taller than Kate, BTW), Larry, Jorn and all of the people 
that we haven't meet in person before...Meridith, all those people that
I'm forgetting (wow, this is _just_ like the Academy Awards!) and most
especially Graham from Australia! A splendid time was had by all.

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   Well that's all for now,
                               Chris Williams
                                    Chris'n'Vickie of Chicago
                                         katefans@world.std.com

**************************************************************************
*  NF: Complete the following: "Hi, I'm Kate Bush and what I like best   *
*      in a man is..."                                                   *
*  KB: (pause and a pained expression) Do I have to say it like that?    *
*  NF: No, you can say it however you like.                              *
*  KB: Ok....Hi, I'm Kate Bush and the kind of man I like best... is a   *
*      quiet-spoken Englishman...    can I go now?                       *
**************************************************************************