To completely change notes, here, I just got back from day 2 of a A Different Drum Synthpop Festival. Some notable bands you should check out:

Monolithic - Pure power, with a lot of trance influences (most notably on his second album). If you get a chance to see him live (which is unlikely, as he said this was his last live performance, but you never know) do it. You will not regret it, great charisma and stage presence.
Leiahdorus - Very sweet, good to sleep or ride the train to. More dancable live than recorded. Also, both the main guy (Jason) and the female vocalist (Darla) are H.O.T.
James D. Stark - Wow. This guy blew me away. Jilli, you'd like him - very darkwave, a la Cruxshadows.
Intuition - Really, they remind me of a boy band. But good, light, dancable stuff.

I'm a bit regretful that I didn't have Jilli write about The Dreaming for the book.

I would have done that. I always felt that it was such a crazy, disturbing but sonically amazing album.

I'm a bit regretful that I didn't have Jilli write about The Dreaming for the book.

So do another book. See, the answer is easy!

runs away quickly ...

I don't know that anyone in here is interested, but just in case I thought I'd let you know that I have two auctions going on ebay. The first one is for a Linndrum Drum Machine and the other is for an E-Mu Drumulator Drum Machine.

I love them and they are so much fun to have, but they've been mostly collecting dust for more than 5 years now and they deserve better than that.

You mean besides Tori Amos? Or Fiona Apple? Or all those other girls at pianos? Whassername, Vanessa Carlton?

OK, OK. But to me the difference is that Tori is a very confessional songwriter where Kate isn't as much of one.

And I tend to associate Kate with British prog-rock and art-rock, mainly because of Dave Gilmour and the number of Genesis fans I knew in high school who were into her. OTOH, I think of Tori as the musical descendant of Joni Mitchell and the mother of the 1990s female singer-songwriter movement.

I'm probably totally wrong, but it wouldn't be the first time.

Allmusic lists both Bush and Mitchell as Tori's influences. So, I'll shut up now.

I think you're right, dw -- "girls at pianos" is a little broad for my peception of Kate Bush. Although I would have gone with Tori Amos as the closest in style, and more influenced by Bush than Mitchell.

Then again, Prince always cites Mitchell as one of his influences, so make of that what you will.

Prince wrote at least one song for Kate Bush (and recorded with?), and I think has been quoted as being a fan.

And I tend to associate Kate with British prog-rock and art-rock, mainly because of Dave Gilmour and the number of Genesis fans I knew in high school who were into her. OTOH, I think of Tori as the musical descendant of Joni Mitchell and the mother of the 1990s female singer-songwriter movement.

I think Tori's influences are split pretty evenly along Joni and Kate lines (with plenty of her own originality). But I think you're right, that in many ways Kate was a fellow traveler with specific British musical streams like prog (Peter Gabriel was an acknowledged influence long before she dueted with him). You're right that Kate has not tended to the confessional - or rather, it's more fair to say that she's cloaked her personal experience in broader metaphors. (I've watched her talking about "Suspended in Gaffa" on a VH-1 Flashback and she's quite interesting and articulate talking about it relating to her Catholic school training about Purgatory.) In a lot of ways, I think Kate is close in spirit to an art-pop group like Sparks or early Split Enz.

This weekend I went down to Fry's and bought a 160GB hard drive and an external HD kit, because I was running low on space for my 11,000 MP3s.

Good Lord, I have 11,000 MP3s -- and I still haven't ripped a third of my music collection.

All this to say that I downloaded the Streets' "A Grand Don't Come For Free" from eMusic. Damn fine album.