MisK

[ed@das.llnl.gov (Edward Suranyi)]

1. I have a vague memory of someone mentioning a group
called Blue Pearl.  Was it you, Jorn, who posted about them?
I can't remember, and it must have been before the
beginning of this month.

In any case, they do a cover version of "Running Up That Hill".
Vickie played it to me over the telephone last night.  It actually
sounds pretty good!  It has a kind of soul sound, and Vickie said
that the singer is, indeed, a black woman.  Dave Gilmour and Youth
perform on the song, and the album was produced by Youth!  (For new
Love-Hounds, I should say that Youth, who used to be a member of
the band Killing Joke, played on _Hounds Of Love_.)

2.  I went to Let It Be Records in San Francisco today.  As 
the name suggests, this tiny store specializes in the Beatles.
However, he also has a lot of Kate Bush items.  Although I think
his prices are somewhat high, he's about the only local store
that still has lots of rareties, such as the early Japanese singles
with the different covers, the "Night of the Swallow" single, and
several differently colored vinyl versions of the Canadian mini-LP.
Today I saw a German translation of Paul Kerton's biography, and
a Hong Kong cassette version of _The Whole Story_.  One could
see immediately that the later was a black-market item.  The
artwork was entirely different, as was the selection of songs.
It even included "Don't Give Up"!  I also saw a 1983 EMI-America
compilation album that includes "The Man With. . .", and a 1984
EMI-America promo compilation album that includes "Wow".

One interesting item I picked up was an LP for the syndicated
radio show "Radio Free America".  I had never heard of this
show before, but apparently it was a new music show that went
on a few college stations.  The one I got was from sometime in
1983, and "Sat In Your Lap" was played (although they called
it "Sit On Your Lap" in the playlist that came with the record).
This is by far the earliest time known to me specifically when
Kate was played on American radio.  The announcer says, "her music
has created quite a stir in new music radio recently."

I was talking with the owner of Let It Be about Kate for
a while.  One thing he said, which I hadn't thought about
before, was that now that Kate is on CBS in the USA, there
shouldn't be any money troubles to get in the way of an
American tour.  This refers to something that I don't think
many Kate Bush fans realize.  For most of the eighties,
EMI-America (later EMI-Manhattan) has been in moderately to
severely difficult financial shape.  They only started
to recover with a few hit albums in the late eighties (1988 or so).
On the other hand, CBS is doing very well -- otherwise Sony
would not have bought it.  If they want to help Kate tour
here, money is not an object for them.






Ed Suranyi             | "I couldn't hope to do it anywhere near as well
ed@das.llnl.gov        |  as Kate Bush because she is a Goddess."
(415) 447-3405         |                 -- Sinead O'Connor