of Koffee and Tapes

[IEDSRI@aol.com]

   Many thanks to Rolf Peukert for his wonderful bit of linguistic analysis
re Coffee Homeground. IED has wondered about this sotto voce spoken line
these seventeen years (on and off!), and is very happy to have such
knowledgeable and careful input on the subject at last. Thanks to Uli and
others for their suggestions, too. Perhaps all the native German-speakers in
the group could give the passage one last listen, reach a consensus, and
present us with a final, "Love-Hounds-Authorized edition"?
   Just as many thanks to Wieland for his thorough run-down of the several CD
editions of the "Cathy Demos". Very very useful information!
  Wieland writes:

 > - - Alone at my piano, Ukinel Records, NY 1988, 22 songs
 > (CD-version of the cassette "Fiddle"?)

 > This CD sounds different. You can't hear any of the typical record noise.
 > It seems to me that this might be either a direct copy from a demotape, or
 > from a tape dubbed from a demotape? IED? What exactly is "fiddle"? 

   By "record noise", IED assumes you're referring to vinyl surface noise,
not tape hiss, of which this CD has a great deal.
   "Fiddle" is the title of an early (1988?) cassette-only bootleg of 22 of
the demos, which IED picked up at a record swapmeet.  From your description
both "Fiddle" and "Alone At My Piano" appear to stem from the same source
(perhaps the Phoenix FM broadcast).  
   BUT: although these versions are not from vinyl, and although they do not
cut out between tracks (with the exception that Wieland listed yesterday),
they DO seem to be several generations from the "master" (whatever that may
have been).  Like "Alone At My Piano", "Fiddle" suffers from terrible tape
hiss, which gets louder in between songs (indicating the use of an
auto-record-level dub at some point during the course of the recording's
ancestry). 
   As far as IED is aware, all of the other current CD editions so
comprehensively listed by Wieland appear to derive from the bootleg LPs,
"Cathy's Album" and "Cathy's Album Too" (there was at least one other title
for one or both of these, too). And THEY in turn derive from the five vinyl
"originals", called the "Cathy's Demos" EPs -- which explains the large
amount of vinyl surface noise on these various CD editions: two generations
(at least) of vinyl can be heard.  
   Unfortunately, the LPs retained neither the sound quality of the EP set
(which was noticeably superior even to early versions of the "continuous"
dub, such as "Fiddle"), NOR the little bits of quiet ambient noises between
tracks.  
   The problem is two-fold, therefore: first, all of the CDs except "Alone At
My Piano" are missing most of the between-song bits; and second, NONE of the
CDs (INCLUDING "Alone At My Piano") has as good a source as it would have
had, had any of them originated from the EPs themselves. 
   The problem is even more frustrating, however, because only the first of
the five "Cathy's Demos" EPs is "continuous" (i.e., retains the between-song
sounds), yet it is clear from that single record that the continuous sounds
in all of the OTHER "continuous" editions ("Fiddle", "Alone At My Piano",
perhaps others) are grossly distorted by subsequent use of an
auto-record-level meter, which artificially exaggerates the volume and timbre
of low-level sounds (like the originally very quiet clicks of Kate's
tape-recorder, which in all the later "continuous" dubs sound like giant
trip-hammers). 
   All of this is simply to point out the serious need for an authorized EMI
release of the demos -- WITH official lyrics and commentary by Kate Bush
about each song, please!

-- Andrew Marvick (IED)
   S        R         I