Pissed

[gatech!chinet.chi.il.us!katefans@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Chris Williams)]

Vickie here.  To hell with my "swan song", it's hot and I'm in a bad mood. 

Vishal wrote:
 
   >>> I am also tired of the endless postings by recent Happy convertee 
   >>> basically saying "I just got my Happy tapes and she is like *AWESOME*.
   >>> I feel *so* cool now that I am a Happy fan.

I wrote:

   >> This is so *unbelieveably* unfair!!!! What a rude thing to say! 

Ken Brownfield wrote:

> Doesn't it suck when someone has a different opinion than you?  Darnit.

and later added:

> I'm busy trying to find out when the Chicago Katemas is!  ;-)

How odd. Ken, where you come from, is is customary to be sarcasticly rude 
to people who are hosting a party you plan on attending?

For the record, I still think what Vishal said was unfair. People weren't 
saying they liked Happy's music just because they thought it was a cool 
thing to say. They said it because they liked Happy's music. Simple as that.

Dan Welsh writes (re the "frothing"):

> This makes me hesitant to try it, because EVERY artist has his/her/their
> die-hard fans, and I tend to discard these people's opinion's immediately,
> because they cannot be objective in re the artist. 

Is it just me, or is there an whiff of "If so many people say it's so great
then it must not be any good" in the air? Others have said nearly the
same sort of thing. I might agree if we were rec.music.misc. but...

these are not music.misc readers who suddenly showed up in gaffa touting
Happy. These are people who are true Kate fans. People who would more than
likely agree with the declaration that "Kate IS God" as would I. Most
of them had never heard of (or at least heard) Happy until a couple of 
months ago! They were just stating their enthusiastic opinion! I *know*
that not every Katefan will like Happy, and there have been posts that
have confirmed this. But I feel that some people have discounted Happy
simply because so many people, in a short space of time, popped up with
"I got her and I like her" posts. That's extremely silly.

Dan also said:

> But in Happy's case, there have been mostly yawns outside of the
> die-hard camp, and this isn't encouraging to me.

I haven't counted them but the "amazings" seem to outnumber the "yawns"
by about 27 to 4. At least 2 of those "yawns" (maybe all 4) failed 
to carefully read some of those "amazing" posts and didn't catch the 
descriptions (yes, they did exist, in abundance) of Happy's music that
said it was "simple" and they no doubt expected to hear "The Ninth Wave"
and _The Dreaming_, at the very least, by God. When they failed to hear this
and were not blown clear across the room in ecstacy, they tended to "yawn" 
in response. I *know* that not every Kate fan will like Happy (how many
times am I going to have to say that to make up for past mistakes?) but
it's also hard to tell if they don't like Happy because of taste, or 
because they didn't pay attention and their expectations were all out
of whack?

Ken later added:

> When the Holier Than Thou Happy Fan crowd pushed in, my lunch 
> involuntarily pushed out.

Judging by what you said in other posts, I guess this refers to me.
I never meant to be "Holier Than Thou" as you seem to think. I thought
that many of Kate's fans would be likely to like Happy, knowing (of course)
that tastes here are wide and varied and that it wouldn't apply to
everyone. I'll be the first to admit that I may have gone overboard and
alienated some people. What can I say? I've said "sorry" too many times
already, so I'll forego that one. How about....oh well darn...too bad!

I'm estatic that so many people trusted my taste enough to give Happy a
try, and that so many of them were pleased with what they heard.


Quoting Shane, Ken also said:
  
>     I will carefully assume "she's golden, just like KaTe is." had an
> invisible IMO after it.  Correct assumption?

Why should it? Just because you don't think so doesn't mean that she isn't.
See my other post about "magic" and the fact that if people feel it then
it's there. Happy *IS* "golden", in a different way, for different reasons,
but it is true. No IMO, IMHO, IMVHO, INVHSO. Shane feels it, Jessica feels
it, Steve feels it, Kirsten feels it, Jeff feels it, I feel it and so do 
MANY others. It's *TRUE*!

I *know* you don't like Happy anywhere _near_ as much as you like Kate.
That's fine. I understand. No problem. We're not saying there's anything
wrong with you or that. You just have different tastes and priorities.
I respect your opinion. 

Happy is not as important to you as Kate is. 
Happy is not as important to me as Kate is.
Happy is more important to me than she is to you.

Feeling "magic" from an artist is a very individual thing.

But all of these "how dare you call Happy golden, how dare you say 
that Happy has magic, how dare you mention Happy and Kate in the same
breath" -ish- posts are as sickening to me as you and others say the
"Happy is amazing" -ish- posts are to you.

People have complained that there's a "Buy Happy, like Happy, or be a dork"
tone to posts. That's NOT true. I've read over all the Happily estatic
posts and I don't see that anywhere. There WAS a tone (I started it, and
boy am I sorry) of "If you like Kate you'll like Happy" and of course
it's not true for everybody. I *know* that and I'd go back and change my
posts' wording if I could. Now, from the anti-Happy posts people there is
*definitely* a tone of "If you love Happy so much, then you're not as big
a Katefan as you say you are" and that's silly too.

Kate is IT and any other great solo female artists are just
phony wannabes? And if we love any of those phony wannabes 
anywhere _near_ as much as we love Kate then we're in the
WRONG newsgroup? Give me a break!!! 

> I do like Kate just as much I as I say I do.  Take my word for it. 
> But I reserve the right make my own decisions on who's music I like or 
> don't like and I refuse to have my love of Kate's music called into 
> question because of it.

Richard, we finally agree on something! I truly, deeply, honestly and
sincerely love Kate Bush's music. I also truly, deeply, honestly and
sincerely love Jane Siberry's music and Happy Rhodes' music. My love for
their music has no impact on, does not diminish my love for Kate's music
in any way shape or form. If anyone dares to question *MY* "credentials"
as a Katefan, just because I push Happy so hard, I'll sic IED on 'em!!!!

Jon writes:

> It's like calling Inky Bloaters "dance music." (Remember that one?)

Yes, very well, and it's a great example of how different people have
different viewpoints. To you, Dance Music is a genre, like Opera, Pop,
Country, etc. It's music specifically recorded to be played in discos,
er, excuse me, dance clubs. I acknowledged and accepted your viewpoint.
onds, not that they'd let me in in the
first place, being as how I'm so un-hip and all :-) However, I do love to
dance, and when I'm by myself I'm a regular old dancin' fool. I can dance
to songs by Kate, Jane Siberry, Danielle Dax, Najma, kd lang, Victoria
Williams, Patsy Montana, Monsoon and yes, Happy Rhodes, to name a few.
That's what I mean when I say "dance music" and, as I recall, you never
acknowledged or accepted my point of view. You just gave me your Patented
Jon Drukman roll-your-eyes-and-sneer technique. Thanks.


> Richard heard Caterwaul on a tape I made for him of about 20 different
> female vocal tracks.  I just listed the artists and titles, he asked about
> the stuff that interested him.  Quite different from logging in every day
> and seeing five new messages telling him to mail order all their stuff.

You're right, in hindsight we should have handled the whole thing
differently. At the time, we had no idea so many people were ticked off.
Btw, I didn't know that Richard heard Caterwaul from you. I thought it was
from me talking about them. 

> Or, to use a rather apt metaphor: The first taste was free!
                                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

This last line really pissed me off. Quickly, not because you said it,
but because it reminded me of my SIG Pass-Along tapes. They disappeared
after only a few people had gotten them. There were nearly 30 people on
the list who wanted them. Since there was over an hour of Happy's music
on those tapes, many more would have gotten a taste of her music over a
*year* ago if the pass along had worked out the way I planned. Not only 
just Happy, but dozens of other female artists were represented, both 
on audio and on video. Grrrrrrrr!!!!! I thought about doing it again
but I'm more wary now. It was a big expense of time, effort and money,
for myself and for Larry Hernandez, and the tapes are probably just
sitting on someone's shelf now, gathering dust, or probably taped over.
May the person who stole them be cursed with Vanilla Icytosis!!!

(Hey YOU, whoever you are, if you're reading this....FUCK YOU!!!! 
Yes, I'm pissed!!! There was so much great music on those tapes and 
you prevented many others from sampling and possibly enjoying it!
Besides, you owe Larry and I money for the audio and video tapes!!!
Pay up JERK!!!)

Now that that rant is over, I leave you with...

On June 9 Ken Saint John said:

> Frankly right now you could not _give_ me a Happy record or CD!

On June 29 Ken Saint John said:
 
> I received the "Warpaint" CD as a gift...

No comment, just thought it was interesting.


Posts about posts about posts about posts! .......sigh......

Now that I got that stuff out of my system, I can go back to being 
Vickie Sunshine. Huhhh!

Vickie (one of us)
katefans@chinet.chi.il.us

"I'll never hate you, I'll never think of you, and I'll never grieve"

                                             Someone nice