My whole story...

[bottoms@radar.nrl.navy.mil (Maitland Bottoms)]

It was a warm spring day in Iowa, middle of a weekday afternoon:
Martha Quinn was on MTV and she told me to pay attention to this new
Kate Bush video...... "Suspended in Gaffa". The rest of the day I moved
to the rythm of that song and that snippet of melody I caught on first
hearing. I caught the video again about a week later. Hmm, I'll keep
that in mind next time I visit a record store. (That was April 1983)

School's out for summer, back in Northern Virginia. Penguin Feather's
had a "midnight madness" sale. I went, along with a friend, and got
_The_Dreaming_. Girlfriend, that was, and I must comment here that it
is quite wonderful to simultaneously fall in Love and also discover
Kate Bush music. We returned to the record store periodically to pick
up other albums - TKI, LH, NFE. My turntable was never without a Kate
album on it the whole summer.

Back to Iowa, warm day at the end of August, driving around Ames in my
Celica I heard "Wuthering Heights" on KUSR. Pulled a U-turn and proceeded
directly to the station, where I went inside to talk to the DJ. She said
"You mean _The_Kick_Inside_ isn't her only album?"  - I said "That's
right, and you just have to hear the others". On the air, too. We
played Kate on KUSR quite often after that. The "Mini-LP" was released,
and in the spring I got the _Singles_File_ box set. I also started to
get Break-Through magazine. The addiction was clearly taking over.

You know, I'd always liked the backing vocals on Peter Gabriel's
"Games Without Frontiers" - never knew who that was before!

Those were Kate-filled days, ~1984-1986, when I had two roomies also
heavily addicted. Seems like all we ever did was play Kate Bush music
as often and as loud as possible. A newcomer to Ames asked someone I'd
never met whether there was a Kate Bush club in town - and he got
*my* name! (No doubt he's reading this message along with the rest of us
Love-Hounds).

Yes, It was a long wait for KBV (as we called it then, how were we to
know what her 5th album would be called, eh?). But I needed the time to
get all those wonderful collectables. Am I doin' it? Can I have it
all now?

More than the music, the videos, the collectables... there are friendships
quickly formed ("Oh, you like Kate Bush? Me too!...") and often lasting.
It's those "Soul-birds of a feather" flocking together. I find Kate-fans
to be quite an interesting bunch of people. I do wish I knew more of you
rec.music.gaffa readers, and I do regret not being able to fly to London
last October.

	Which album do I turn to when all others fail me?
		The Dreaming

Enough for now,
 Maitland...