Lovehounders

[smith david rt <p0070421@brookes.ac.uk>]

This message basically includes my feelings on Lovehounds in general.
I've been on the list for well over a year now and I've witnessed the
numerous flamewars (inluding the infamous Jorn fiasco) and I consider
myself a semi-lurker (only coming out of the woodwork when I have both
the time and the inclination to). I've put my points to two sections, good
and bad. So here goes.....

Good 
----

The Lovehounds Video Collection, a set of tapes that I will treasure for
ever and for which I will be ever grateful to Chris, Pete Manchester et al 
for.

Finding out about the Convention and thoroughly enjoying myself when I was
there. When's the next one by the way?

The Lovehounds Tee-Shirt project (even though I never got round to getting
one!)

Being able to read peoples opinions (either good or bad) about KaTe's
music.

The Kate Tarot project, which I think is a good idea but then again
I'm interested in Tarot/Astrology/Wicca etc. anyway.

Making a pal in Australia (Richard Frost) and being able to swap items
etc.

Finding out things I didn't know about Kate (her life, records of her's
that Iv'e heard of before, new books, press releases, interviews etc etc.)

Bad
---

I think this has been said before but occasisonally I get the feeling
that Lovehounds is a very close-knit community (I would include Chris
and Vickie, IED, Pete Manchester, Steveo, Uli, Doug amongst others).

On occasion I feel that newcomers and people like myself can find this
community a bit overpowering and extremely hard to get into. People are
probably sometimes afraid to voice their own opions for fear of being
flamed alived or in the case of newcomers they read their digests and 
unsubscribe immediately because they don't like what they see.

I know that a lot of the people who I mentioned above  have on the list for 
a very long time, if not from the beginning. I also know that a few of
them have been lucky enough to have met Kate and their knowledge of Kate's
life and  music is immensei. I admire them for their knowledge and like everyone
they are entitled to voice their own opinions.

Howver:- 

These opinions can become emebeded in stone (I'll cite the one of 'There
Is Only One Truly Magnificent Album and That is THE DREAMING as an example.)       
People interpret music in different ways.  People might listen to say
'Rubberband Girl' and find it makes them happy, others might think it's
a crock of shite. People also interpret lyrics differently, I know that
some songs are obvious as to their meaning but people see things differently
for fucks sake.  

These clashes of opinion can make being on Lovehounds more interesting
and on occasion it can be a lot of fun. But just because you've actually
met Kate or you've been on the list since year dot or you can name every
Kate single including catalogue numbers doesn't mean your opinion is any
more valid than someone who has only been on the list for a few days.

Well thats my spleen vented for now. The above is just my opinion, a lot
of good things happen on Lovehound which far out weigh the bad ones!

David



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