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("Ninja-Kate")
From: Scott Telford <s.telford@ed.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1993
12:30:30 GMT
Subject: Rubberband Girl single (UK)
..was released yesterday, if you didn't know.
CD single is EMI CDEM 280, I expect the cassingle and 7" are TCEM 280 and EMG 280 respectively, but I haven't checked.
Cover is the same photo I described from the MM ad. The inside has another photo (psychedelically solarised) from what looks like the video shoot - KaTe is wearing a straightjacket (!) and is being held by a small male dancer. There are some unidentifiable musicians in jeans in the background. The CD itself is a half-picture disc with the straightjacket photo in full colour on one half. Interestingly, the photos aren't by JCB, but by Guido Harari - somebody tell me where I've heard that name before?
Recording and mixing is by Del (groan 8-) - there seems to be a bit of noticable clipping at the peaks, drums could maybe be more emphatic.
The Extended Mix isn't particularly interesting - just the vanilla mix juggled around and with a bit of extra guitar and some bass drum.
"Big Stripey Lie" is a different kettle of fish. Very dark, desolate mood, drum machine + mournful violin (Nigel, maybe?) + very grungy (probably not the right word) guitar. Sparse vocals, heavy, obscure lyrics. The cheesey pseudo-Amercian accent kinda spoils it for me, though. Still doesn't sound like KaTe's music to me but at least it's reasonably wierd.
OK, so what does the Eat the Music single look like?
Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1993 22:57:21 +1000
From:
GRAHAM.G.R.DOMBKINS@BHPMELMSM.BHP.bhpmel04.telememo.au
Subject: RBG Single
Hi all,
Well I've had my copy of RBG for 4 days now and (fortunately) had the chance to listen to it for all that time BEFORE I got back to read some gaffa this morning. I like to try and formulate my own ideas and feelings for music before I let others start to influence me.
Cover:
WOW, don't you just love it! When Stephen coined it the 'ninja KaTe' picture I had to agree with him.
Rubber Band Girl & RBG (Extended):
To those who seem to be having second thought about this one I can only say this. Listen to it A LOT!! Listen to it LOUD!! I can just imagine KaTe in a wild dance to this one. It just contains so much energy.
Big Stripey Lie:
The KaTe I remember from TD and THoL. What a great song. It even has LOTS of KaTe screams (which I live for). I want MORE of this.
Date: Mon, 13-Sep-93 01:58:18 PDT
From: briarpatch!billy@uunet.UU.NET
(Billy Green)
Subject: New Singles--some thoughts
RUBBERBAND GIRL: I haven't see anyone else mention this yet--Kate's free-form vocalisation in the middle is very Middle Eastern, vertical music sounding, very like pop recordings I've heard from Islamic cultures. She starts with a skat-like "ra-ba-da-ba", then holds and quavers the vowel through the rest of the vocalisation. It also has the sound of a vocalised guitar solo. (Did I say something about blending musicalities?)
The lyrics are about wishing to be more flexible. This one I can easily see in the context of "The Red Shoes". Flexibility and rigidity definitely play into that story.
It definitely has the same playful spirit that was present in "The Big Sky". For example, the "Here I go", followed by the rubbery octave glissandos, proving that she is a Rubberband Girl because her vocal cords, at least, can be flexible.
BIG STRIPEY LIE: Take the pop-funk rhythm section from "I'm Still Waiting", the violin overlay from "Experiment IV" and the screaming from "Get Out Of My House". (BTW, did anyone ever notice that the drum track for "I'm Still Waiting" is almost identical to Janet Jackson's "Miss You Much"? They are, in fact, almost the same speed. Try dancing to "I'm Still Waiting", though. :-)
Very menacing and dark. A warning to someone to run away before getting trapped by the lie.
There is an interesting contradiction in the screamed lyrics. The scream is very growly and raspy, but it is saying, "I want to help you/Never want to hurt you/You know I could be good for you." So, is this the Big Stripey Lie? Given that the words are words of comfort and soothing, yet they are delivered with a growly scream, I would think probably so.
Date: Tue, 14 Sep 93 11:20:22 EDT
From: Andrew B Marvick <abm4@columbia.EDU>
Subject: RBG
IED agrees with Scott Telford that it sounds like Kate's own voice doing the "male" backing vocals on Rubberband Girl.
P.S.: IED has spotted the hidden KT sign, have you?
From: Scott Telford <s.telford@ed.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1993
12:55:46 GMT
Subject: Re: Rubberband Girl / Big Stripey Lie
Nobody seems to have mentioned the message scratched on side A of the UK 12" RbG picdisc - "WHACK IT ON". Make of that what you will...
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1993 01:09:11 -0400 (EDT)
From: Peter Byrne
Manchester <PMANCHESTER@ccmail.sunysb.edu>
Subject: bass tracks for
EtM, RBG, and BSL
We also did some systematic earballing of the bass tracks for EtM, RBG, and BSL since one the particular virtues of my Shahinian Obelisk speakers (driven at 600 watts/channel available power) is a notably dry, uncolored, but serious bass. The colors of the bass tracks on these songs are distinctively different. EtM has the sound of big stage speakers, some of that pushed-to- the-limit-of-travel clipping that makes for a 'live' sound--consistent with the rest of the mix. RBG has a growling, rough, orange-colored bass sound--heavy in a completely different way. BSL has an astonishingly intense, direct, clear-to-the-bottom line, whose clarity of timbre plays a major part in setting up the violin of Nigel Kennedy to be so searingly consoling/disconsolate at the end.
This is going to be a messy album, people.
From: davisg@ava.bcc.orst.edu (Glen Davis)
Date: 13 Dec 1993 18:49:33
GMT
Subject: New US single
I haven't seen anyone else mention it, so I will. The second U.S. single from TRS is now out your local store.
It's Rubberband Girl, RBG remix, Show a Little Devotion (or something like that) and Home for X-mas.
I didn't buy it because I was at a Musicland and they wanted $7.00 for it. Is "Home for X-mas" the traditional one we all grew up on or is it an original with the same name? Its good that at least this one has 2 new tracks.
Glen Davis
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 93 18:02:52 PST
From: steve.b@TQS.COM (Steve Berlin)
Subject: December will be Magic (again!)
"Show a Little Devotion":
Not a bad song, but certainly not one of Kate's better efforts. Sounds sort of like something you'd hear over the end credits for some mediocre film.
"Home for Christmas":
This is a cute song! Putting aside any opinions about the aestetic value of Kate's post-HoL stuff, or the production work thereof, you have to admit that the actual task of playing the (non-synth) instruments is done staggeringly well; that's where Kate's reputation as a perfection remains inarguable (for the record, *I* think, IMNSHO, that the production & aestetic values of TSW & TRS are perfect, too, with a couple of exceptions I won't get into here). ANYWAY, in this song it's NICE to hear the acoustic guitar being played rather badly. It's certainly the most HUMAN song Kate's done since, oh, "Under the Ivy". (I'm not comparing the two - I'm just saying that sometimes KATE BUSH the Major Deity tends to overwhelm whatever work I'm listening to of hers).
Oh, for those keeping score, I STILL think the re-mix of Rubberband Girl is the second-best re-mix (next to The Big Sky) Kate's done. Actually, those and Cloudbusting are the only TOLERABLE re-mixes she's done.
- Stev0 the devoted
From: Mike Jennings@Radius.COM (Mike Jennings)
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 1994
12:30:45 GMT
Subject: RBG
Hello--I'm kind of biased toward Rubberband Girl; it's my 2-yr-old daughter's favorite song (and her first CD), and we have a fun wobbly dance for it...
On
to Moments 2.2b. - "Eat the Music"
Written by Love-Hounds
compiled and edited
by
Wieland Willker
August 1995