more collectiKateibles:

[Ulrich Grepel <uli@intellektik.informatik.th-darmstadt.de>]

Now here's the next episode in the never-ending story of additions to the
Illustrated Collector's Guide to Kate Bush:.

Recently I found three things that I added to my list of collectiKateibles:

- British 'Kate Bush' 3CD-box.
  This '92 release contains the three early Kate albums, all British releases,
  and consits of a card box with a quite dark picture of Kate with her
  'Lionheart' hairdo on the front, 'Kate Bush' and the three album titles
  on the sides, and a track listing of all three CDs on the back. I have
  not seen this item mentioned here before, so here I go. (Not quite true:
  Someone (dunno who now) has mentioned a French ripoff with the same contents,
  but 1. this one is British and 2. other than the other poster said about
  the French one, the albums are always listed in the right order.) I hate
  EMI for doing such ripoffs. At least it was not more expensive than the
  three CDs would have cost separately...

- Japanese 'The Dreaming'-CD on "Supermasters"-series.
  It has a date of '91 on the CD itself, has the order number TOCP-6702,
  a white plastic insert (as the Japanese TWW box CDs), a booklet with
  English and Japanese lyrics and a Japanese article (and if I only could,
  I'd make a read in Kanji...) and Japanese discography. The contents of
  the booklet is more or less similar to the boxed set one, but in a slightly
  altered order. It is also not on glossy paper except the outer sheet of
  paper. The picture frame around the disc's contents on page three of the
  boxed set one is replaced by a simple grey frame with 'Supermasters' on
  it. What is interesting is the way they have botched the pictures:
  - Front page of booklet: The boxed set has the boxed-set-order-number
    'TOCP-6463' at the bottom left corner. On the supermasters edition there
    is a clearly visible manipulation of the photo: Take a rectangle of another
    part of the photo that is similar in colour and then apply it over the 
    number. Wham! It's away. Now you do a new, black, order number 'TOCP-6702'
    on thet bottom right corner. If you think in these terms, a hundredth-
    generation-cover is quite patched and unrecognizable. Looks like a
    buggy screensaver doing 15-puzzle. Or more than 15...
  - Back page of booklet: Where the boxed set edition has the EMI-logo and
    some text ("STEREO * $%@EMI{@$%(' MADE IN JAPAN", followed by a single
    Kanji or so character in a little square at the bottom of the picture,
    the SM-edition has the same thing, except that the character in the
    square at the end is a quite normal, Latin 'T' and - more disturbing 
    - another 'get some (subset of a) rectangle of the photo and copy it
    to conceal the original writings' un-work. If I were working at 
    Toshiba-EMI, I would immediately suggest the photo editor to perform 
    Harakiri. Never seen as bad a job in photo manipulation.
  - The back of the CD box has a quite different layout than the boxed
    set one: there is a white frame around the picture that appeared on the 
    backside of the booklet, where the whole writing at the bottom is 
    completely deleted by copying that part just above the concealed part. The 
    white frame contains some (for me) undecipherable Kanji as well as a track 
    listing in Kanji, as well as a blue 'ribbon' with 'Superm/\sters' 
    (Hi |>oug /\lan!) written on it. There's something there that looks like 
    '91.4.12', perhaps that's some release date, but is this December or April? 
    How do the Japanese order their dates? BTW: The boxed set CD has - as my
    UK one - a different ivy leaves subset of the LP back cover on the back
    side of the booklet compared to the back of the CD box. The SM-edition
    has the back-of-booklet subset both times.
  The whole story behind my describing this obviously cheap Japanese CD
  (can any Japanese import CD be cheap? This surely wasn't...) is just 
  because Kate seems to be on some Nice-Price series in Japan. The whole
  thing costs 2,300 Yen in Japan (much more here, I have to admit). What
  are regular CD prices in Japan? 2,300 Yen sound Nice-Price to my German
  influenced CD pricings, but not so in the US. BTW: Kates CD albums are
  - with the exception of TWS - all in the Nice-Price range in Germany.
  You won't have to pay more than 22,- DM for them. Normal CDs are >30 DM
  nowadays.
- Kate did a RUTH lip synch performance in September '85 on the German
  TV station WDR's programme WWF-Club. Further details in another message by
  me from today.

I hope I have not bored too many people out there with this information
that is only relevant to even a subset of the true fans, but...

Uli

P.S.: At the moment I am using up my precious time for doing something 
completely irrelevant: I have downloaded about 40 Megabytes of Love-Hounds
archives and I actually am reading them. Until now I have succeded to the
beginning of Feb. 87. Funny time. Interesting is that 'The Dreaming' wasn't out 
on CD until then. Considering that I bought mine (or actually my first one) 
less than a year later, just a little while after being introduced to Kate by 
HoL, I see that I am one of the early owners of TD on CD! I did not know that 
before! And NfE even came out later! How much later? I have bought it together
with TD.