******** MONTHLY FAQ FOR NEWCOMERS **********

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

[Do not resond to me here.  Use netrun.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?" 
 
Submissions to Rec.music.gaffa 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 [hopefully fixed with the new
system]. 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 separate group called WarmRoom has been formed, as both
mailing list and digest, 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, 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 with Love-Hounds.  To subscribe send a message
to: warmroom-request@ils.nwu.edu.

There is also "Kate-talk", a process that allows fans to talk to each other in
real time.  For more info contact Jessica at jessica@cs.rutgers.edu, who
provides the following information: You need a unix machine or a vms machine,
connected directly to the internet. It compiles fairly easily on most unix
machines. If you have trouble with yours, I'm willing to help get it running.
Client programs can be ftped from hardees.rutgers.edu in
~ftp/pub/icb-client.tar.Z for the unix client and in the pub/icb directory for
the vms client.  I know nothing about vms, and do not have a vms account, so I
can't help much for vms people, and I don't have a clue what to do with the
files that are there. I'd appreciate someone on a vms system trying it out for
me :) 
 
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.  Come back soon, IED!
 
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 and/or uninteresting posts is to ignore then and post something positive
and interesting.

(One 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 and now includes other female
artists, 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.) 
  
Abbreviations commonly used on Love-Hounds include sideways faces, such as
:-), IMHO (In My Humble Opinion), ROFL (Rolling on the floor) 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.  This year there is a big
party planned in Boston and there will probably be others.
 
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 buoyant 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-sid' 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.  Latest news is
that Eric Clapton plays on several of the tracks.

Fans of Kate were saddened by the news of the passing of her mother on
Valentine's day, 1992. 
 
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.
 It can also be seen in the _Army_Dreamers_ and _The_Big_Sky_ videos.  (The
initials KT can also be seen in the _Army_Dreamers_ video.)  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 AND MOST COMMON ANSWERS: 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-- and
Paddy Bush, b. 1952, who plays many of the exotic instruments found on Kate's
albums.
        No, she doesn't hate to tour, just can't find the time between making
albums and videos.  Yes, that's Donald Sutherland in the Cloudbusting video.  

Albums: 
        The Cathy Demos (Twenty three bootleg gems ca. 1975)  Five of these
are demos of songs that later albums.  Available on various bootlegs. 
(Anybody have an early 80's album called THE EARLY YEARS?)  There are also six
"Kick Inside demos", which include an unreleased song "Scares Me Silly".  Also
there are two Babooshka demos and various other songs on boots. 
        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?  Kate says so, your mileage may vary.
1985) 
        The Whole Story (TWS: compilation-cum-video, 1986) 
        The Sensual World (TSW: Her "most feminine" album, whatever that
means. Noisily engineered.  Some love it, some don't quite love it, especially
"Reaching Out".  1989) 
        This Woman's Work Boxed Set (TWW).  Not released in the U.S.A.  
Awefully pricey, and no lryics or credits on the extra disks.  Includes extra
disks I and II: 
        Almost all B-sides, dance-mixes, and other incidentals are collected
on the extra disks, but not all.  Major songs missing are: Dreamtime (The
Dreaming instrumental/remix), Running Up That Hill (instrumental), The Sensual
World (instrumental), Be Kind to My Mistakes (original soundtrack album
version, much longer than and very different from the single re-mix, most like
it better), The Confrontation (instrumental from the Comic Strip film, GLC)
        Doesn't included any previously unreleased material or session work
with other artists.  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). 


        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.
Similar 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. 

                There are also more then a hundred "underground" videos, which
are traded amoung fans and are shown at Katemas parties and the like.  These
are primarily television performances and interviews. 

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 C-SIDE RECORDS, PO BOX 8456
CLEARWATER, FL  34618.  Phone 1-183-461-4327.  C-SIDE is also a good place to
get all kinds of Kate stuff, be sure to get on their mailing list.
        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 Marvick's review in the archives.
        Kate Bush - The First Twelve Years [1992].  Homeground says: is
another collection of newpaper and magazine cutting covering the years from
1978 in two volumes selling for about L12-00 in Britain and L15 postpaid to
America.  Details can be obtained via the fanzine Never For Ever.   [Who's
address they list as 28 Millbrook St, Plasmar 1, Swansea  SA6 8JY Wales]
        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 Vermorel (1980?),
again only recommended for the photos.  Hard to find. 
        Kate Bush: An Illustrated Biography (1980) by Paul Kerton, positive
but error-prone book.  Interesting yet again mainly for the photos.  Hard to
find.

        After being on love-hounds for a few months, most fans find the
fanzines rarely have information they have not already heard.  The most common
fanzines are the Kate Bush Club (KBC) and Homeground.   The KBC unfortunately
only seems to come now when there is a new album out, but is always worth the
wait as it has original articles by Kate and her family and lots of great
photos.  KBC,  PO Box 120,  Welling Kent,  DA16 3DS,  UK 
        Homeground comes out almost regularly and has news, great articles,
stories, and drawings.   Homeground, PO Box 176, Orpington, Kent, BR5 3NA 
UK 

        Kate's session work for other artists include:_You_ for Roy Harper,
_Sing, 
_Children,_Sing_ for Leslie Duncan (Kate is scarcely identifiable), _Flowers_
for Zaine Griff, _The_Man_With_the_Child_in_His_Eyes_ for Ray Shell,
_The_Seer_ for Big Country, _The_King_is_Dead_ for Go West,
_Sister_and_Brother_ for Midge Ure, _Do_Bears_Sh..._in_the_Woods?_ with Rowan
Atkinson (from _The_Utterly_Utterly_Live_Comic_Relief_ album) , and
_No_Self_Control_, _Games_Without_Frontiers_ and _Don't_Give_Up_ for Peter
Gabriel; plus her performance of the Maurice Jarre/Paul Webster song
_The_Magician_, which is only barely audible in the background of the Alan
Arkin movie, _The_Magician_of_Lublin_.   Also, the never released title track
for the movie _Brazil_ and _The_Spirit_Of_The_Forest_ benefit single. 

All past messages 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. 


There are 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
domain picture file viewers include CSHOW and PICEM for the IBM, TURBOGIF and
HAMGIF for the Amiga, and Giffer or QuickGif for the Macintosh.
 
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.) 

Two priceless resources for Katefans have recently been made available, both
of Thewhich are much more interesting then anything published: 
        "The Garden" is Andrew Marvick's compilation of reference material on
Kate, [availible in love-hounds/kb/garden] including a detailed chronology of
her life and career (much more complete then anything available anywhere else)
[GARDEN01].  Also, a listing of all known Kate recordings, videography (which
includes both official videos and the television appearances), and an
extensive list of fan magazines  [GARDEN02].  ALL of the lyrics (including
background voices) to ALL of Kate's known songs (including unreleased songs)
[GARDEN04].  All of John's and Paddy's [GARDEN03] interviews and articles for
the Kate Bush Club Newsletter, as well as Kate's articles for the KBC
[GARDEN05, GARDEN06].  Also included are about sixty interviews [GARDEN07
through GARDEN10].
        "Cloudbusting - Kate Bush In Her Own Words" is Ron Hill's 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.  It is
available in regular text format, or in Wordperfect 4.2 format, which makes
use of Wordperfect's underlining, bolding, and italizing, ability, and
contains an extensive index.  (Eventually the unedited interviews will be
added into The Garden). 
        There are also a series of Cloudbusting GIF (picture) files, which are
located in love-hounds/kb/cloudbusting/gif.  A title page [CTITLE.GIF and a
larger version, CTITLEB.GIF], a title page for Part II [CSTORY.GIF] and part
III [CSUBJECT.GIF], a credits screen [CREDITS.GIF], and a pic of 3 inch disk
label [CLABEL.GIF, and a b&w version CLABELBW.GIF].  There are also pictures
for most of the albums which show the picture of Kate from the album cover
next to a listing of songs [titles begin with "O"].  There are also
"alternative" pics for some of the albums, which show pictures SIMULAR to but
not identical to the album covers [files begin with "A"].  There are also
"full" pictures for some of the albums [titles begin with "F"], which are the
raw, uncropped, pictures.
        Cloudbusting is available in /love-hounds/kb/cloudbusting.  The text
version is in /love-hounds/kb/cloudbusting/text.   Filenames are cloud0.txt,
cloud1a.txt, cloud1b.txt, cloud1c.txt, cloud2a.txt, cloud2b.txt, cloud3a.txt,
cloud 3b.txt, cloud3c.txt, cloud4.txt, cloud5.txt, clouds.txt.  It is also
available compressed with ZIP in /love-hounds/kb/cloudbusting/zip as filenames
cloud045.zip, cloud1.zip, cloud2.zip, cloud3.zip. 
        For those that can't get Cloudbusting any other way, there are two
Cloudbusting "mail chains", one Wordperfect and the other Text.  To get on
these, simply leave a message saying you want to, and include which version
you want.   You will then be mailed the disks, and be obligated to mail them
to the next person who asks.  The disk package is on five IBM 3 inch 720k
disks, and includes Cloudbusting, the Cloudbusting GIFS, and the non-interview
Garden files.  (You may want to try the proccess mentioned below first). 

        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. 




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)  it 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 sent 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 cloudbusting           [dir directory of Cloudbusting directories]
dir pix                    [get dir of pix directories]
quit

 
-> Connect to the Cloudbusting section and get some text files

reply [your address]
connect wiretap.spies.com 
chdir love-hounds/kb/cloudbusting/text [change to Cloudbusting subdirectory]
get cloud1a.txt               [GET a file] 
get cloud1b.txt               [GET another file, can GET only 10 at once] 
get cloud1c.txt          
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!"
====================================================================
What the world or Kate doesn't need is any more "casual Kate Bush
fans."  What the world and Kate need is more FUCKING KATE BUSH MANIACS.
- IED
======================================================================

[Do not resond to me here.  Use netrun.cts.com.]


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