*** MONTHLY POST FOR NEWCOMERS ****

[rhill@pnet01.cts.com (Ronald Hill)]

[DO NOT RESPOND TO ME AT THIS ADDRESS.  USE rhill@netlink.cts.com]


Rec.music.gaffa is a 6-year-old newsgroup dedicated to the sublime, 
peerless artistic genius of Kate Bush.  "Gaffa" comes from her song 
"Suspended in Gaffa" (on _The_Dreaming_), and (according to Kate) refers to 
gaffer's tape, or duct tape, used to keep people from tripping over 
electrical cabling, and metaphorically, apparently, to a frustrating sort 
of limbo-dimension ("the idea of seeing something incredibly beautiful, 
having a religious experience... but not being able to get back there"): 
 
"Suddenly my feet are feet of mud/ It all goes slo-mo 
I don't know why I'm crying/ Am I suspended In Gaffa?" 
 
Rec.music.gaffa is run as a moderated group only because submissions to it 
are forwarded to an extensive mailing list of people without netnews 
access.  This means that anyone with the ability to send and receive mail can
take part.  The mailing list was r.m.g's original format, when started by
|>oug /\lan so many years ago.  Together, the mailing list and r.m.g. form an
informal fan club called "Love-Hounds."  You can mail submissions, without
fear of censorship, to: 
 
love-hounds@eddie.mit.edu 
 
Especially rabid Hounds subscribe to the list as well as reading r.m.g., 
because glitches can cause you to miss messages. To subscribe to the 
mailing list, send a friendly message to the "moderator", Bill Wisner 
(who's actually in California), via: 
 
love-hounds-request@eddie.mit.edu 
 
It is possible to subscribe via various other email services: Compuserve, 
MCI-Mail, FidoNet, SprintMail, Peacenet, Bix, Envoy-100, Connect, and 
others.  For example, Compuserve users can use the above addresses with 
">INTERNET:" in front of them.  Right now, GEnie, Prodigy, and America 
OnLine are NOT possible gateways to Usenet.  Love-Hound Richard Caldwell 
offers access for the price of your long-distance call via the Big Sky BBS, 
24 hours a day at 614-864-1198 (1200 or 2400 baud). 

Recently, an entirely seperate group called WarmRoom has been formed, it is
distributed as a mailing list and is already quite active.  The people who
formed this group felt that the flaming on Love-Hounds had grown so bad that
it was stiffling Kate discussion and so they formed a group of their own, with
the simple rule that no flames were allowed.  Others felt that this wasn't
neccesary and so have stayed on Love-Hounds, while still others remain on
both.  To subscribe send a message to: warmroom-request@ils.nwu.edu.
 
Abreiviations commonly used on Love-Hounds include sideways faces, such as
:-), IMHOP (In My Own Opinion), and the initials of Kate's songs, such as RUTH
for Running Up That Hill.
 
Love-Hounds celebrate Kate's birthday (Katemas) each year around July 30, 
with parties all over the world.  1991 saw parties in Boston, Washington 
DC, Cleveland, San Jose, Seattle, Austin, Dallas, Iowa City, Chapel Hill, 
Chicago, Ipswich UK, Sweden, and two sites in Australia. 
 
At a fan club convention in November 1990, Kate announced that she hoped to 
have a new album finished by the end of 1991, and that she was planning to 
"play some dates" at the end of 1991, her first 'tour' since her only tour 
in 1979.  Del Palmer told a fan it might include some in the US.  In her
latest interview (December '91) Kate said her album might be out the "middle
to later part" of 1992. Kate's boyent cover of Rocket Man finally arrived
October 22, on the Elton John tribute album "Two Rooms", and a CDsingle with
Kate's cover of "Candle in the Wind" as 'B-side' is out in the UK.  Kate also
made a video for "Rocket Man" (not commonly seen yet in America) and performed
the song on Britain's Wogan program.  The tour is as far as anyone knows still
in the works, but of course the album must be finished first. 
 
Kate's earliest band was called the KT Bush Band, (KT being readable as 
Katie), and all her albums have had a KT emblem hidden somewhere on the 
cover.  With the release of the This Woman's Work boxed set in the UK, 
Japan and Canada, she introduced a new version of the symbol, integrating 
the astrological 
symbol for Venus (ie, the                 _O_ 
biological symbol for woman).              |< 
 
FAQs: No, she's not married, but she has a longstanding Significant Other: 
Del Palmer, her bassist.  Yes, she smokes, and we all hope she'll stop.  
Yes, she's a vegetarian, though she now eats fish.  5'3", no middle name.  She
has two brothers, John Carter Bush (Jay), born 1944 he takes many of the
photos of Kate that appear on her albums.  Paddy Bush, B. 1952, he plays many
of the exotic instruments found on Kate's albums.

Albums: 
        The Cathy Demos (bootleg gems ca. 1975) 
        The Kick Inside (TKI: passionate and girlish, includes her British
megahit 
Wuthering Heights, 1978)  
        Lionheart (LH: rushed, rewarmed TKI is still absolute genius, 1978) 
        Never For Ever (NfE: Kate begins producing, ascends into the sixth
level of enlightenment, 1980) 
        The Dreaming (TD: The Seventh Level of Enlightenment. Too naked for
more 
timid souls.  Play it... LOUDER! 1982) 
        The Single File (Boxset of 45's, *tres* collectible. 1983) 
        Hounds of Love (HoL: One side delectably bright, one side deliciously 
shadowy.  The shadowy side is a never-filmed movie of a drowning woman's 
last hours in the sea.  Does she survive?  We just don't know, but we hope 
so. 1985) 
        The Whole Story (TWS: compilation-cum-video, 1986) 
        The Sensual World (TSW: Her "most feminine" album, whatever that
means.  
Noisily engineered.  Controversial, especially "Reaching Out".  1989) 
        This Woman's Work Boxed Set (TWW) , including extra disks I and II:: 
        Almost all B-sides, dance-mixes, and other incidentals are collected
on the extra disks, but not all, and damned pricey, too. Great music though,
yeah! 
1990)  
        The Japanese version of this boxset has: 
--no stickers (umpteen almost-identical KTfems symbols - tell us if you think
of something to do with em?), 
--more/ bigger books in Japanese with non-canonical lyrics in English, 
--the Japanese album-covers for TKI and NfE, and 
--the mythical "better-sounding CDs" (tell us if you believe this). 

Topics of interest to Love-Hounds include other alternative female artists, 
and Kate-related others like Peter Gabriel and Roy Harper, and, for that 
matter, anything sproingy, or not-so-sproingy.  Many new discoveries have 
been brought to our attention by Vickie Mapes (of Vickie'n'Chris), whose 
definitively sproingy radio show "Suspended in Gaffa" focuses on 
alternative female artists, airing Wednesdays from 7 to 8pm on WZRD in 
Chicago (88.3 FM), and Saturdays from 10 to 12pm on KKFI (90.1 FM) in 
Kansas City.  Vickie is especially big on Jane Siberry, the 
soon-to-be-superstar from Albany Happy Tyler Rhodes, and Victoria Williams. 
 
A less-frequent visitor these days is the numinous curmudgeon "IED", Andy 
Marvick's self-parody as the ultimate "true believer" Katefan.  IED used to 
act as the flame-wielding bouncer of the group, but seems to have mellowed 
of late into the more natural role of encyclopedic demigod. 
 
Katefans are generally the nicest people you could hope to meet, but r.m.g. 
does erupt fairly regularly into classic Usenet flamewar- behavior.  
**We're les concierges, chez-nous, honey, and we let the weirdness in.**  
This tender agreement sometimes gets abused, and we try to do the best we 
can to uphold our ideals in the face of mindless astral violence, as Kate 
would surely want.  (If you consider that what you write here may one day 
be read by her... be kind to everybody's mistakes, huh?)  Newcomers can 
rest assured that you are welcome to participate, and if you feel ignored 
or incinerated you can be pretty sure it's nothing personal, and persist 
until you feel accepted... for if your interest is genuine, you certainly 
will be.  The best way to deal with rude posts is to ignore then and post
something positive and interesting.

(One recent flamewar centered on the question of whether Katenews was being 
unfairly swamped by discussion of Happy Rhodes, whose new CD "Warpaint" has 
spawned a #1 hit on Philadelphia's NPR station.  HR traffic has been moved 
to a mailing-list that grows more and more active, shadowing the 
gaffa-flow.  You can send a request to subscribe to Jessica via: 
ecto-request@cs.rutgers.edu  
Ordering info for Happy's tapes: Aural Gratification, POB 8658 Academy 
Station, Albany NY 12208. Tapes are $9.99 plus $2.00 s&h ($0.35 each add'l 
tape or CD): Vol 1, Vol 2, Rearmament, Ecto, and Warpaint.  CD of Warpaint 
is $13.99 and $2 shipping. UK: #8/tape, #11/CD, incl. s&h.) 
 
        Official video tapes are:
    Live At The Hammersmith Odeon (1983).  TV special of Kate's only concert
tour, unfortunately it contains only one hour out of the two and a half hour
show.  The missing footage has never been seen, aside from one showing at the
1985 Kate Bush Convention.
        The Whole Story (1986). Contains most of Kate's videos up to 1986.
        The Single File (1983).  Contains all of Kate's video up till 1983. 
Simular to The Whole Story, but contains five videos not on The Whole story
(the earlier "Wow" video, Hammer Horror, Them Heavy People, Suspended In
Gaffa, There Goes A Tennor) and lacks the newer videos.  Not available in the
U.S.A., but it is available on import from Canada.
        The Sensual World (1989). Contains videos from that album and
interview footage.  The American version contains much less interview footage
then the British version.  The British version is the complete 1989 VH-1
special.
        The Hair Of The Hound (1986) is now out of date, as The Whole Story
contains everything on The Hair Of The Hound. 

Printed books on Kate are numerous, more details about and corrections to
these books are available in the archives:

        Kate Bush - A Visual Documentary (1988).  Probably the best liked book
overall.
        Kate Bush Complete - "Official" book containing the sheet music to all
of Kate's songs up to 1986.  Also contains separate lyrics, a great
chronology, many photos, and a discography.  
        Cathy (1986) - Book of photos of Kate as a child, by her brother, John
Carter Bush.  No longer available. 
        The Illustrated Collector's Guide To Kate Bush (1991) - Book with
details and pictures of all kinds of Kate Kollectables, fun even for
non-collectors.  To order send $13.95 to CSIDE RECORDS, PO BOX 8456
CLEARWATER, FL  34618.
        Kate Bush - The Whole Story (1988).  Despite appearances, not a
sanctioned book, and certainly not the whole story.   Positive, but contains
numerous factual and publishing errors.  For "The Whole Story" on this book,
see Andrew Marvicks review in the archives.
        Kate Bush - With Love (1988).  Reprints of Kate-related articles,
interviews, and reviews, some positive, some negative.  Interesting mainly to
see how the music press has reacted to Kate over the years.
        Secret History of Kate Bush (And The Strange Art Of Pop) (1983). 
Intellectual (as opposed to intelligent) book about Kate's family history,
story, and fans.  Commonly available, but only recommend for the photos.
        Kate Bush: Princess of Suburbia by Fred and Judy Vermel (1980?), again
only recommended for the photos.  Hard to find. 
        Kate Bush: A Biography (1980?) by Paul Kerton, positive but error
prone book.  Interesting yet again mainly for the photos.  Hard to find.

Two priceless resources for Katefans have recently been made available, both
of which are much more interesting then anything published: 
        "The Garden" is Andrew Marvick's compilation of reference material on
Kate, including ALL of the lyrics (including background voices) to ALL of
Kate's known songs (including unreleased songs).  Also, a detailed chronology
of her life and career (much more complete then anything available anywhere
else), a discography and videography (which includes both official videos and
the television appearances), an extensive list of fan magazines, and many
transcriptions of interviews, including all of Kate's, John's and Paddy's
interiews and articles for the Kate Bush Club Newsletter.
        "Cloudbusting - Kate Bush In Her Own Words" is a compilation of almost
200 interviews, sorted by song, story, and subject order, forming the closest
we may ever see to a full-fledged Kate autobiography.  [The following
describes EDITION 2, AVAILABLE REAL SOON NOW] It is available in regular text
format, or in Wordperfect 4.2 format [SOON] , which makes use of Wordperfect's
underlining, bolding, and italizing, ability, and contains an extensive index.
 There are also a series of Cloudbusting GIFS, which show the cover's of each
of Kate's albums next to a list of songs from that album.  
        A third, in-progress, book will be "Deeper Understanding - A
collection of Kate Bush Articles" which will compile the "best of" the
love-hounds as well as a few articles from fan magazines and published
reviews. 

        Fan Magazines (fanzines) are numerous, including the Kate Bush Club
(KBC) and Homeground. 

There are also innumberable GIF (picture) files available including pics from
the 1990 Kate Bush convention, which include pics of Kate's house and a
love-hounds group pic (lovename.gif).  Also, there are pics from the Cathy
book (cathy??.gif), pics from the This Woman's Work booklet (TWW??.gif), pics
from the 1979 Tour of Life booklet (page_??.gif), and uncounted more.

To view these GIFs you will need a program for your type of computer.   Public
doman picture file viewers include CSHOW for the IBM and TURBOGIF and HAMGIF
for the Amiga. 

All five years of rec.music.gaffa/love-hounds-digest can be ftp'd from the 
love-hounds archive at wiretap.Spies.com (a California public access site 
named Spies in the Net, IP 130.43.3.3) in directory /love-hounds/archives 
 
Song lyrics, interviews, the Garden and Cloudbusting, etc are in 
/love-hounds/kb on the same host. 
 
GIF files are also available in 
/love-hounds/kb/pix/gif [and gif.new, gif_footah, gif.saintjohn, pix.hill, 
gif_tour_program, gif.newer, gif.fenger] 
 
If you've never used ftp, you use a program on your UNIX system called FTP. 
 You connect by typing: 
ftp wiretap.Spies.com 
Log in as "anonymous", and use your username as your password. 
To change directories type: 
cd love-hounds 
"dir" will get you a directory, "get" and the filename will retrieve the 
file.  If you "cd" again into "archives" or "kb" you'll find the main 
goodies, with "pix" being another subdirectory within "kb", and "gif" and 
"gif.new" within "pix".  (When downloading gif's, set your transfer type to 
binary by typing 
binary 
at the "ftp>" prompt.) 

[COMMENTS ON THE FOLLOWING ARE APRECIATED, I'M NEW TO THIS]

If you don't have FTP (file transfer ability) you can still get the files by
using an FTP mail server run by DEC.  You send it a list of commands and then
it sends you the files as regular mail messages, so anyone who has the ability
to send and receive private mail can use this.  If a file is larger then 60k
it will be send as more then one message.  If you want to GET binary files
(GIF picture files, Wordperfect files, or anything that's not straight text) 
if will send you the files in a special text format called UUENCODED, you will
need a program called UUDECODE for your computer to decode these.  Note that
this is not always the most relible way of getting files, IE you may have to
do it several times. 
        To start off using this, send a message to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com, the
first message should read simply HELP - don't bother with a subject line as
these are ignored.  You will be send back the basic commands and some
examples, read this carefully (as much as you are able to understand).  Here
are some specific examples for accessing the love-hounds archives, don't type
the parts in brackets [].  Note that when typing in file names, upper and
lower case are important! 

-> Connect to the archives and get a directory of some of the main areas.

reply [your address]       [this may or may not be needed on all messages for 
                            your system]
connect wiretap.spies.com  [connect to the file archives]
chdir love-hounds/kb       [change to the main area, only one CHDIR per       
                             session]
dir                        [get directory of main area]
dir garden                 [get directory of GARDEN files]
dir pix                    [get dir of pix directories]
quit

 
-> Connect to the GARDEN section and get some GARDEN files

reply [your address]
connect wiretap.spies.com 
chdir love-hounds/kb/garden [change to garden subdirectory]
get GARDEN01                [GET first GARDEN file] 
get GARDEN02                [GET another file, can GET only 10 at once] 
quit


-> Connect to pix.hill and get love-hounds picture 

reply [your address]
connect wiretap.spies.com
chdir love-hounds/kb/pix/pix.hill
uuencode                             [specify UUENCODE format]
binary                               [specify BINARY format]
get LOVENAME.GIF
quit


For those without FTP capabilities or the patience to figure all this out,
Richard Caldwell's Big Sky BBS offers the GIFs, too.  Tom Richards of C-Side
Records, a good guy who hopes to have a similar system operational Real Soon
Now. 
 
=================================================================== 
"She really IS!  No, really, she IS! 
=================================================================== 

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