No Subject

"Incredible." "Mindblowing." "Astounding."  "Spellbinding."  "Magical."

Full details of these concerts via Ectophile impressions can be found in
the Ecto archives beginning with Digest 187.  

These concerts provided the very first opportunity for a "Happy Gathering
of Ectophiles." May there be many, many more!
 
{Background}

She was a very lonely child and has always been a loner. She suffered
from depression as an adolescent and teenager and sought solace and
help in the music she listened to (Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, Bach) and
in writing songs herself. She "wrote out" the demons in her mind,
never guessing that the songs would someday end up on albums that would
be cherished by other people. 

Happy is an interesting, intelligent, singer/songwriter/musician who 
cares deeply about her music and makes music to last, music that matters.
Happy's lyrics can sear your heart and soul in its intensity and
introspectiveness. Her lyrics are very often dark and are nearly all
autobiographical, but they are almost all about emotions. Human emotions
are universal, so many of her songs touch nerves in other people too.

Many of her songs are about depression, some are about suicidal feelings
and some are cynical, but there are also songs about hope and light,
with a "you must love yourself before anyone else can love you" point of
view. She does have a sense of humor, and it comes out in a few songs,
but most of her songs are very serious. Not that they are all slow,
dirge-like ballads. Many songs are fast-paced and very melodic. You could
enjoy the music and Happy's voice(s) without ever paying attention to the
lyrics. The lyrics add another layer to be fascinated by if you choose to
delve further, though.

{Fans}

Happy's fan base is small but growing and we here in Ecto think it's 
exciting to see how she's progressing and to "be with her" at each step
of her career from now on.

Happy Rhodes fans are very passionate about promoting her music.
Record companies have ignored her (and, so far, continue to) I think 
because they don't really know what to do with her. She can't be easily
put into a box and labled. We all think that it's extremely unfair
and wrong that she's unknown and obscure. We want to change that!
It's only at a small grass-roots level at the moment, but will grow
as more people become aware of Happy, fall in love with her music,
and care enough to spread the word about her.

H&K are *very* aware of Ecto and are kept informed of it's topics of 
conversation. They are deeply appreciative of everyone's interest and
have great affection for Ecto. This affection manifested itself after
the Philadelphia concert when Happy and Kevin made it a point to invite
Ectophiles to a post-concert "Schmooze-With-Philly-Bigwigs" party at
the Penn Towers Hotel. They didn't *have* to invite us, they *wanted* to.

{History of Ecto}

Semi-regular postings about Happy Rhodes have appeared in rec.music.gaffa
(Love-Hounds) since January 1989 via Vickie Mapes, who "found" Happy in
1988 and played her regularly on her radio show called Suspended In Gaffa.
The release of Warpaint in April 1991 prompted many gaffa readers to try
her music for the first time. Many of those people liked what they heard
and went on to complete their collection with the early tapes. As discussion
grew to deafening levels, it was pointed out to the Happy Rhodes fans that,
no, not *every* Kate Bush fan will like Happy's music, and could we please
start talking about Kate again? As many gaffians wanted to continue to talk
about Happy, but wanted to respect the wishes of those who had no interest,
on June 13, 1991 Jessica Dembski created the mailing list Ecto.

The list has been *very* active, and topics on any subject of interest to
Ectophiles are welcome. 

GIFs, lyrics to all the albums, articles, interviews, reviews, other tidbits
and Ecto Archives are available from:

hardees.rutgers.edu by anonymous ftp, in pub/hr
(Internet address is:  128.6.18.2.)

For those without FTP capability, Doug Burks has offered to send anything
in the archives to you via e-mail. Write him at:

dbx@olympic.atmos.colostate.edu

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Vickie                                   "My ears are lucky to hear
katefans@chinet.chi.il.us                     these glorious songs" HTR
                              _________
                             |_  _ | _   The Happy Rhodes mailing list
"Imagination sets in, then   |__|_ ||_|  ecto-request@ns1.rutgers.edu
 all the voices begin" KB                Jessica Dembski-Ecto Goddess Lady
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