You Always Remember Your First Time (was Re: First Encounter)

[estephen@netcom.com (E. Stephen Mack)]

My first encounter with Kate was through LoveHounds, the mailing list.
Really.  It was this group (before it was a newsgroup) that first led
to my listening to Kate's music.

When I was taking a course in Pascal at Berkeley eight years ago,
one of the course readers (Leo Pereira, where are you now?) subscribed
to LoveHounds.  He was showing me how mailing lists worked, and used
LoveHounds as an example.  ("You can get lots of mail this way.  That
way you can feel popular.")  One of the first things I read was an
article by Doug Alan.  The obsession, the concern, the dedication -- it
impressed me immediately.  So I asked Leo what it was all about, who
this Kate Bush person was.

There was a boom box in the lab room, and he played Hounds of Love
on it.  I bought the album that same day.  (My roommate hated it,
though, so I only played it when he wasn't around.)  Coincidentally,
this was the same time that Running Up That Hill became a single.

Over a vacation, I had left the album at home and needed to hear
Running Up That Hill desperately (my parents didn't have a working
turntable anyway); so I would lie awake at nights listening to
local radio stations hoping they'd play it.  The one station that I
knew did play the song was The Cat (KATD in Los Gatos, CA).  But
when I called them to request it, the DJ told me that, "Well,
she's an alternative artist, and we've already played that song
this week.  Sorry."  (No wonder the station went bankrupt.)  All of
this just increased my appetite for more of Kate's music.

Leo told me I wouldn't like the rest of Kate's work.  The Dreaming
was his favorite album, and when he played it for me at a poker
game, I didn't like it.  (On first listen; now I love it, of course.
Out of interest, did anyone here like The Dreaming the first time
they heard it?)  Fortunately, he also played Never For Ever, which
hooked me right away and is now my favorite album.  I'm listening to
The Infant Kiss as I type these words.

Leo moved on, but I found that my best friend Jay's girlfriend, Erin
Denny, was also a fan of Kate Bush.  We were both new to Kate's music.
We would listen to Babooshka over and over again (annoying Jay to no
end) trying to work out all of the lyrics.  On Wuthering Heights,
I misheard the line as "It's me, I'm Cathy, I'm coming home now,
so come and let me into your underwear" which struck us as odd.  A
coincidental post here with the full lyrics cleared that up. 

Erin and Jay broke up and Erin is in Wisconsin now.  My other friends
are not fans of Kate's music.  When Live 105 (KITS 105.3, San Francisco)
happened to play Wuthering Heights while some friends were in my car,
I pulled over to listen to it because I needed to hear it right then.
They told me they thought her voice was too high, grating, like chewing
on aluminum foil.  It hurt.

But this group is a great support network; seeing your concerns,
your passion, I know that I'm not alone.

I don't post much (this is only my fifth post in eight years) because
I don't know as much about Kate as all of you, and I don't like to
expose my ignorance....  Plus, since I have only liked her since 1985,
I feel like a newcomer.  I suspect that there are lots of us, listening
and reading, nodding along with Chris and Vickie, appreciating Andrew
Marvick's clever posts, missing Doug Alan's contributions.  And
waiting, always waiting, for the next album.

Thank you, all of you, for your passion.  It is shared.

                                * * *

In other news, I bought Patti Smith's CD Wave based on the help
I received here from many people.  (I had inquired about the U2
cover of her song Dancing Barefoot.)  Wave is a great album.  The
song So You Want To Be A Rock And Roll Star is a nice bonus, too.
It seems that Patti is frequently covered by other bands.  Like Kate,
like Kate.  I appreciate the help I was given in tracking this one
down.

                                * * *

World Party's new album, Bang, is also very good and recommended by me.
I don't think any of the other songs live up to the first single,
Is It Like Today?, but the whole album works well.  It's growing on me,
in part because of the many different styles of the songs, but the
album would be stronger if it were more emotional.

                                * * *

Two songs that make me think of Kate are Sarah Brightman's Captain
Nemo and Deep Forest's Lullaby.  I don't own either album (but
hear these songs on Live 105 a lot).  When I first heard Captain
Nemo, for the first minute I thought it was a Kate song I'd missed
or else a track from the future somehow sent back in time.

Later, I woke up.

                                * * *

P.J. Harvey's second U.S. album, Rid of Me, is very strong (although
not as good as Dry in my opinion).  She's playing at the Warfield
in San Francisco on Monday, July 12.  Anyone thinking of seeing her
show?

                                * * *

As maligned as Something Good (the Utah Saint's cover of Cloudbusting)
is here, I'd really like to have a sample of their sample.  Does anyone
have sound clips of this or any other Kate songs?

With all of the talk of the archives and their contents, perhaps there
should be some short sound files on the CD or in the archives?

                                * * *

You all know that you can get two Kate Bush songs, Wuthering Heights
and Experiment IV, in .au format from sounds.sdsu.edu in the /sounds
directory?  (Songs from many other artists are here also.)  The
recording quality is not great, but it's a good source of Kate
sounds for your computer if you're interested.


E. Stephen Mack
estephen@netcom.com

You look like an angel sleeping it off at a station
Were you only passing through?
		-- L'Amour Looks Something Like You