🚀 go-pugleaf

Love-Hounds Digest			Monday, June 9, 1986, 04:58 EDT

Topics:

			   New Love & Rockets
				  UTI3
	       The British music press is at it again....
			    Commercial Music
		     Kate Bush trivia for today....
			      David Gahan
		  To harmonize or not to harmonize...
		   Tuxedomoon should move to the moon
			    Re: Danielle Dax
			The Major Label Desert?
			Another piece of KTrivia

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Subject: New Love & Rockets
Date: Sat, 07 Jun 86 03:59:20 -0700
From: J. Peter Alfke <alfke@csvax.caltech.edu>

New acquisition: brand new Love & Rockets 12" in a cute embossed silver sleeve.

A-side: "Kundalini Express"
	A My-T tasty slab of guitar riff, sort of Bauhaus-meets-glam, with
	genuinely silly lyrics bouncing back between David J and Daniel Ash
	on opposite speakers.  Goes through a few changes in the middle,
	including b-vox straight out of "Sympathy For the Devil", all adding
	up to a rather archly psychedelic feeling.  Great fun.

B-side: "Lucifer Sam"
	Yes, the classic Syd Barrett-era Floyd song.  The original still
	can't be topped (has no one else ever picked up Barrett's distinctive
	lunatic guitar style, or was it uncopyable?), but this interpre-
	tation is quite worth listening	to on its own merits.  Incorporates
	the rad guitar line, but on piano.

	(How many covers of this song does that make now?  And has ANY other
	 Floyd song every been covered?  Seems somebody did "Astronomy
	 Domine" recently, but maybe not.  Any post-Barrett stuff, or is it
	 too politically incorrect nowadays?  (Hell, the Palace, a muy-trendy
	 LA dance club, played Led Zep's "Rock and Roll" last I was there,
	 in between New Order and the Pet Shop Boys -- given time everything
	 comes back.  "In ten years, there will be a Cocteau Twins revival"
	 (Robin Guthrie) ) )  Oh, yes.  Back to the review.

	"Holiday on the Moon"
	A piece of fluff, but enjoyable.  See most of the lyrics below.

The whole thing reminds me a bit of XTC's "Dukes of Stratosphear" thingy
(wigged-out 60's homage/send-up) albeit a lot less extreme.  I'm really
getting to like Love & Rockets, especially with the CD version of their
album with the added tracks; if I weren't so damn busy with finals I'd
go see them open for Siouxsie tomorrow night.  Sigh.  Why can't the good
concerts happen during the summer?  Instead we get Bob F*cking Hope and
Neil Anushead-except-that-he-did-write-some-of-the-Monkees'-best-songs
Diamond.  Grrr.

Also got a used promo 12" of "The Big Sky", which it turns out just has
the "Special Single Mix" on both sides.  Sounds the same except she turned
the bass up.  Hoo boy.  Guess I'll go back and fork over 5 bux for the
real 12-incher.
						--Peter Alfke
						  alfke@csvax.caltech.edu
"You can't get a suntan on the moon
 But I wouldn't mind a holiday there"

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Date:    Sat, 07 Jun 86 17:55 PDT
From: IED0DXM%UCLAMVS.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
Subject: UTI3

Received "Under the Ivy" #3 today -- in
an opened envelope. I think issues 1 and 2
fell out in transit. Great, huh? Anyway, there
are three or four ok black-and-white snapshots
from the "Big Sky" shooting and the Comic Relief
shows. The editors make a little bit too much of
a deal about their being "the first GLOSSY International
Kate Bush fanzine", especially since to qualify even
for that dubious distinction it's necessary to discount
the KBC Newsletter, and since Homeground has now gone
"glossy" only a couple of months since UTI began publication.
Besides, the new entry into the KT fanzine market is
all black-and-white, and not all that well edited (not
to mention proof-reading!). Still, it is very well-intentioned.
There's a lively account of the "Big Sky" shooting, and
a shorter one of the BPI Awards and the Comic Relief show.

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Date: Sat, 7 Jun 86 23:20:01 EDT
From: nessus (Doug Alan)
Subject: The British music press is at it again....

Sometimes I think that someone should just off the entire British music
press.

I just read two disgusting articles on Peter Gabriel and one on Kate
Bush.  The two articles on Peter Gabriel, one in Blitz and one in Melody
Maker, were both written by this jerk named Jim Shelley.  I realized
they were by the same person by the inane writing style.  In both the
articles, he is extremely petty.  He spends most of the time talking
about how pathetic Peter is because when Peter talks he pauses and says
"er..." a lot.  The fact that he thinks Kate Bush is "our only genius"
does not redeem him.  In fact, his articles seem like parodies of all
those awful articles several years back on Kate Bush, where they spent
all their time attacking her because she'd say "wow" and "amazing" all
the time.

The article on Kate Bush is just as bad.  Richard Cook insults Peter
Gabriel; defames all of art-rock, the Grimm stories and the excellent
movie *The Company of Wolves*; and calls Pink Floyd "the most miserable
group that ever existed" in the process of attacking Kate.  But I think
that these quotes from the article

	... Like her underwear, her guard doesn't drop for a moment....

	... The cosiness of Bush denies her any erotic standing in pop.
	She's a family girl, surrounded by the domestic glow of brothers
	and parents.  If people fantasise about her, it must be as an
	elfin sprite, an immortal of love, not a flesh and blood thing
	with the smell of female.  She's just too *nice* for that....

	... And, somehow, we find it all fascinating.  Then we knock;
	but she does not let us in-a-her window.

make it clear that Mr. Cook is just a pathetic lovelorn man who probably
has an uncaring family and who is probably scared of any woman who is
more than just a cunt.  Is this supposed to be journalism?  I almost
feel sorry for the guy...  I hope he can swim -- he's going to have to
do a lot of that when the flood comes...

			-Doug

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Date: Sat, 7 Jun 86 23:52:12 EDT
From: nessus (Doug Alan)
Subject: Commercial Music

According to Melody Maker, Sigue Sigue Sputnik is going to put commercials
inbetween the tracks of their next album.  They hope that the commercials
will completely cover the cost of the album.  Those guys....


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Date: Sun, 8 Jun 86 00:29:42 EDT
From: nessus (Doug Alan)
Subject: Kate Bush trivia for today....

Did you know that Donovan sings background vocals on Kate's cover version
of Donovan's "Lord of the Reedy River"?

Did you know that Nick Rhodes and Simon Le Bon both say that "Hounds of Love"
is the best album of 1985?  (Oh boy, oh boy!  I'm still not going to buy any
Duran Duran records.)

Did you know that there is a famous Kate Bush fan who keeps the KT logo
shaved into his head?

Did you care?

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Date: Sun, 8 Jun 86 03:33:32 edt
From: Joe Turner <cutter%umass-boston.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
Subject: David Gahan

But Doug, all that proves is that he has good taste...


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Date: Sun, 8 Jun 86 04:00:48 EDT
From: nessus (Doug Alan)
Subject: To harmonize or not to harmonize...

> From: Andrew Marvick

> I think John Lorch is probably right about the harmonizer/Fairlight
> issue. There's no audible sign of the harmonizer in the vocals of
> "Waking The Witch", as far as I can tell.  The inquisitor's voice is
> distorted, obviously, but not in the way a harmonizer distorts.

A digital harmonizer can be used as a pitch shifter.  This is what was
done.  This is from the mouth of Del Palmer, so it's likely to be
correct.  I asked him if the judge was done by Kate singing through a
pitch-shifter, and he said yeah.  He said that they had tried doing
the voice two different ways (1) using a harmonizer to shift the pitch
down an octave (2) playing a tape at slower speed.  He said that if he
recalled correctly, what was put on the album was the vocals digitally
pitch-shifted with a harmonizer.

			"Confess to me, girl!"

			 Doug

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Date: Sun, 8 Jun 86 04:10:18 EDT
From: nessus (Doug Alan)
Subject: Tuxedomoon should move to the moon

I saw Tuxedomoon when they came to Boston two weeks ago and they were
AWFUL, with a capital AWW!  They were pretentious, in the worst of
ways, pseudo artsy-fartsy, overly dramatic, and overly cute.  There
was no evidence at all of any of the stuff which makes their first
album and the three 12-inch singles I have by them so great.  Nothing
at all.  It would have been a total waste of five bucks and several
hours, if I hadn't gotten to talk to Roger Miller, who was there, for
a little while before the show.

Regarding Roger Miller, he told me that "Beat of the Mesozoic" has
been delayed because of problems with printing the album cover.  He
also told me that he came up with his wonderful cover version of
"Interstellar Overdrive" when he was to open for Robyn Hitchcock and
he wanted to blow Hitchcock's mind.  Unfortunately, that show was
cancelled.
			-Doug

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Date: Sun, 8 Jun 86 04:22:37 EDT
From: nessus (Doug Alan)
Subject: Re: Danielle Dax

> [Jim Hofpersonn:] I found a couple of her records in a friends
> collection... What's the big deal here?  Sounds like a low-rent Nina
> Hagen just like Thurston said back in 1984...

Danielle Dax sounds nothing like a low-rent Nina Hagen.  Nina Hagen is
great, but Danielle Dax doesn't sound anything like her.  She sounds
much more like a low-rent Dreaming era Kate Bush, though not really
that either.  If only someone would give her a fancy studio rather
than the four track one she has to use...

			"In a Holocaust haze
			 Your lunacy seems calm"

			Doug

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Date: Sun, 8 Jun 86 05:43:03 EDT
From: nessus (Doug Alan)
Subject: The Major Label Desert?

> [Greg Earle:] The point is, I spent 70 DOLLARS on records in
> one week and STILL didn't cover all the stuff I wanted.

Oh you're just so fscking Godlike, Greggie because you spend as much
on records as I do.  Wow!  Of course, you forget to point out that a
poorer person could so just as well by listening to a few decent
college radio stations.

> How many of YOU blow that much cash on music in one or two weeks
> time??  I thought so.

Guess you were wrong, and in any case, who gives a shlitz?

> The land outside that somewhere is the land reserved for your vitriol and
> spiteful hate; whether it be Hofmann's land of Art Rock Suffering ArTestes 
> and Synth Trendioids and most things English; or Peter Alfke's land of
> HardBore No Thank You; or Bob Krajewski's land of English You Ripped Us Off
> Bands; etc. etc. AD NAUSEUM.

Or Greg Earle's land of the Major Label Desert.

> F*ck This Crap.

Exactly!
	
		"But we slept all night in the virgin's bed
		 And dreamed of death"

		 Doug


P.S.  And do you really expect us to believe, Greg, that in that Major
Label Desert, Siouxsie's and The Cure's latest are oasises, and KB's
latest is not?  Gimme a break.  Siouxsie's, for example, is okay.  But
she and the banshees have been doing the same thing for nty-n years.
Not only that, but Siouxsie is a bitch.  When she played in Boston,
she smashed a photographer with her microphone stand.  His camera was
broken and he had to be taken to the hospital.

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Date: Sun, 8 Jun 86 06:03:18 EDT
From: nessus (Doug Alan)
Subject: Another piece of KTrivia

I forgot to mention that there is one interesting tidbit in that awful
article on Kate Bush in Sounds: according to the article, John Cale
says that Kate Bush's videos are the only creative work in the field.

No doubt, Mr. Cale's opinion is a bit exagerated, but he's always been
a cool dude, if you ask me...

			-Doug


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-- 
It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under.

Greg Skinner (gregbo)
{decvax!genrad, allegra, gatech, ihnp4}!mit-eddie!gds
gds@eddie.mit.edu