MST and KaTey.

[brownfld@rcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (Kenneth R Brownfield)]

Re: c'est la mort/hearts lust in limbo review :
[...]
>15. the moon seven times "miranda" - this is the band area, renamed and
>sans steve jones...so, that damn casiotone is gone! yeah! :) and as an
>added bonus, they have a real drummer now and that alone adds so much
>to their sound. imagine is area picked up  where they left off after 
>releasing _the perfect dream_ and then developed for a few years. lynn
>canfield's voice is as wonderful as before and the music is fuller and 
>better. my second fave track. (incidentially, they have an album pretty
>much in the can and are just waiting for a distribution deal - i've
>gotten to hear the music on it and it is *wonderful* - i can't say
>enough good things about them, so i'll stop now and hope that the thing
>gets released someday).
[...]

     I can't say enough good things about them either, but maybe two unenoughs
is an enough!
     I've only listened to The Perfect Dream, and that only once or twice
distractedly.  There are also a couple of uncut Area tracks on the MST tape
I have.  With real drums, and without Steve Jones, this new music is boggling.
I'm going to have to buy the CD; the metal tape the music is on is deteriorat-
ing!  I've listened to it endlessly for two weeks!
     This and That is my current favorite MST track, defeating even my total
lack of a good stereo to be blasted, although when I heard Miranda on David
Thomas' show (I wish that bugger would get net access soon! ;-) I had that
song repeating, repeating, repeating 'til death did it part.
     There are some good Area tracks where the IMHO tinker-dink drum patterns
still let Henry's guitar and Lynn Canfields voice through, all of them working
well together.  The new music is so much more relaxed and natural.  Wonderful,
wonderful stuff.

     Yes, there is some Kate buried in here!

     I have, of course, been following the Kate vs. Catherine string.  I
think everyone's been making good points.  Dean Cerrato hit a really good
point: TSW is simply a change.  Hasn't anyone noticed that taste in Kate has
two (albeit vague) sides, those who favor early and TSW albums, and those who
favor middle albums?  Two different tastes in Kate.  While a common interest
in Kate can single out similar tastes in music, there is still room within
Kate, room within her mind that follows and learns from her past and present.
A change in her music, as long as it doesn't drop in obvious quality
(casiotones with Kate singing with a sponge in her mouth, as a 'blasphemous'
example) is still Kate.
     I wouldn't have to work hard at all to wait for the next album.  I
haven't failed to love any of Kate's albums, and simply because one album
doesn't suit a person's taste, does _not_ mean Kate's music really never
did, or that it never will again.  NOT!
     I can dislike, for instance, the engineering on Rocket's Tail, but it is
still a boggling song.  I'd love to replace every little detail I found wrong
with TSW and fix it, but it would be a "Kate with digging around by Ken"
album, not a "Kate" album.  I haven't seen any evidence that 1) Kate has lost
her sense of musical quality (real horns are so much better than synthesized,
etc.) and 2) that Kate would choose any other way of doing anything that was
not exactly what she wanted.  TSW is what she wanted, it is not a mistake to
be remedied.
     While I won't go to the overbearing mentions of "your loss" and "I'm sure
it would be _fine_ for you to change whatever you wanted in Kate's music"
arguments, I think a personal dislike of music is one of the more remote
indicators of the actual general impact of music.  There is no musical grade.
If music touches one person, it's entirely worthwhile.  TSW has touched one
person (to be extremely minimalistic) and is thus worthwhile.  If you like one
song on the album, her style hasn't changed completely in any sense.  Dis-
liking some songs is merely your own specific taste.  There's no problem with
that.  Generalizations based on that dislike are, however, worthless.
     You either like Kate as a writer, or you like her albums.  There is a
distinct difference, however hard it may be to understand.

     That was not in direct response to any note or person (specifically not
woj, even though that's who I started responding to!) so don't take it as
such.  I quoted enough as it is!

>woj@remus.rutgers.edu - smou/dj-for-hire - ignore the sexy interface

                                                        Ken.
brownfld@uiuc.edu <-- mail only
brownfld@rcnext.cso.uiuc.edu                      "It wasn't me."