A nice new article which includes the story of his meeting with Kate in 2005 by BBC DJ Mark Radcliffe has been published in The Daily Mail here. The article also recalls his meetings with David Bowie, Paul McCartney, Madonna and Kylie Minogue. The transcript of the radio interview with Kate to which he refers can be found on Gaffaweb here
Category: Books & Magazines Page 4 of 6
Hoping you all had a great Christmas and are having a good 2009! We’ve been miserable with chesty coughs and flus around here – ah well. Here’s a bit of Katyness to brighten up your January – Kate is featured on the cover (an old photo) of the new edition of Word Magazine and inside the magazine is a 10 page feature with classic interviews. Word is an always-excellent music and culture magazine, I was wondering when they’d get around to featuring Kate. The February issue is out now. Thanks to Justin P Huntley for the news. Read more at the mags site here.
A very in-depth new book about Kate’s work and in particular the Hounds Of Love album has just been released by Ashgate publishing as part of their Popular and Folk Music Series. From the publishers: “The album allows the author, Ron Moy, the critical opportunity to explore a wide range of issues relating to technology, production, authorship, grain of the voice, iconography, critical and commercial impact, collaboration, gender, sexuality, narrative, and social and cultural context.” Ron Moy is a lecturer in the School of Media, Critical and Creative Arts, at Liverpool John Moores University, UK. As such this book presents a very academic text book approach to appraising Kate’s work – I haven’t yet seen a copy myself, but on reading the author’s introduction the book should be somewhat refreshing after the recent published biographies. And any book which ends with a closing section called “Coda: We Become Panoramic” is a tempting proposition for Aerial-era Kate fans! The book is called ‘Kate Bush and Hounds of Love’ and can be ordered at Amazon here.
A new calendar featuring photos of Kate has just been issued. While this isn’t an official calendar release and won’t be featuring any new pics of Kate there will be demand from fans. David over at the KutureShock website is offering the calendar with free postage to UK fans from this site. You just need to enter bush2008 in the coupon section at the checkout. You can order the calendar at this page here.
Happy New Year folks! We’re still very much enjoying Aerial here at KBN&I and hope that you are too. A Coral Room is still knocking us out this week. We kick off 2007 with the news that Kate has written a special foreword to a MOJO Magazine Classic Special Edition on 60 Years of David Bowie (he’s the same age as my mum!). On sale 24th January in the UK and Ireland. Kate writes: “I was sitting in my bath, submerged in bubbles, when I heard David Bowie for the first time…” The magazine writes: “60 Years Of Bowie” A Mojo Classic special edition magazine is a month-by-month, year-by-year celebration of one of rock music’s greatest icons. Containing eyewitness stories, previously unpublished photgraphs, classic interviews, album reappraisals, the best Bowie songs from each era, plus a specially written forward by Kate Bush.” (can we just squeak that as huge ‘we are not worthy’ Bowie fans at KBN&I this is a dream come true!…eeep)
The next issue Q Magazine will be published with 20 different covers in celebration of the title’s 20th birthday. Each cover will feature a musical icon, including Kate. Each artist has given the magazine an exclusive photoshoot and interview, in which they recount their personal high and low points from the past two decades. The issue also includes Q’s nominations for the best 20 albums and songs released during its lifetime. Editor Paul Rees said: “The 20th anniversary of Q, the essential music guide, is a landmark moment, and therefore we were determined to mark it with a landmark publishing event. I believe we have done so. I can think of few magazines anywhere in the world who could exclusively photograph, interview and do separate covers with 20 of the biggest and most iconic stars in their world. That Q has done so is befitting for a magazine with its rich history and stature.” The 20 stars in full are: Damon Albarn, Richard Ashcroft, Beyonce, Johnny Borrell, David Bowie, Ian Brown, Kate Bush, Dido, Noel Gallagher, David Gilmore, Dave Grohl, Madonna, Paul McCartney, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, Britney Spears, Michael Stipe, Pete Townshend, U2 and Paul Weller. The issue goes on sale on 30th September. Subscribers to the magazine will receive a specially produced edition that features all 20 different cover images. We will have Kate’s special cover on here as soon as it surfaces – meanwhile here’s a picture of 4 of the special editions…
On November 2nd Mojo magazine publish what seems to be one of only two Aerial interviews with Kate (BBC Radio 2 have secured the second). The Guardian have published extracts from this interview with Tom Doyle here. The Mojo article presents Kate as “the antithesis of the mysterious recluse” which the tabloid press is so ridiculously fond of portraying her as. “…here, in Kate Bush’s home, there is a 47-year-old mother of one, dressed in a workday uniform of brown shirt, jeans and trainers, hair clipped up in practical busy-busy fashion, all wary smiles and nervous laughter…around us there is evidence of a very regular, family-shaped existence – toys and kiddie books scattered everywhere, a Sony widescreen with a DVD of Shackleton sitting below it.
Atop the fireplace hangs a painting called Fishermen by James Southall, a tableau of weather-beaten seadogs wrestling with a rowing boat; it is soon to be familiar as part of the inner artwork of Aerial. Balanced against a wall in the office next door is a replica of the Rosebud sledge burned at the dramatic conclusion of Citizen Kane, as commissioned for the video of Bush’s comeback single, King of the Mountain, and brought home as a gift for her seven-year-old son Bertie. “I go out of my way to be a very normal person and I just find it frustrating that people think that I’m some kind of weirdo reclusive that never comes out into the world.” Her voice notches up in volume. “Y’know, I’m a very strong person and I think that’s why actually I find it really infuriating when I read, ‘She had a nervous breakdown’ or ‘She’s not very mentally stable, just a weak, frail little creature’.” If the outside world was wondering whether Kate Bush would ever finish her long-awaited album, then it was a feeling shared by its creator. “Oh yeah,” she sighs. “I mean, there were so many times I thought, I’ll have the album finished this year, definitely, we’ll get it out this year. Then there were a couple of years where I thought, I’m never gonna do this. If I could make albums quicker, I’d be on a roll wouldn’t I? Everything just seems to take so much time. I don’t know why. Time…evaporates…for the last 12 years, I’ve felt really privileged to be living such a normal life,” she explains. “It’s so a part of who I am. It’s so important to me to do the washing, do the Hoovering. Friends of mine in the business don’t know how dishwashers work. For me, that’s frightening. I want to be in a position where I can function as a human being. Even more so now where you’ve got this sort of truly silly preoccupation with celebrities. Just because somebody’s been in an ad on TV, so what? Who gives a toss?”
Kate discusses the track Mrs Bartolozzi: “A couple of people who heard it early on,” she says, dipping a spoon into her avocado, “they either really liked it or they found it very uncomfortable. I liked the idea of it being a very small subject. Clothes are such a strong part of who a human being is. Y’know, skin cells, the smell. Somebody thought that maybe there’d been this murder going on, I thought that was great. I love the ambiguity.” The shiver-inducing stand-out track on Aerial, however, comes at the end of the first disc. A Coral Room is a piano-and-vocal ballad that Bush admits she first considered to be too personal for release, dealing as it does with the death of her mother, a matter that she didn’t address at the time in any of the songs on The Red Shoes. “No, no I didn’t,” she says. “I mean, how would you address it? I think it’s a long time before you can go anywhere near it because it hurts too much. I’ve read a couple of things that I was sort of close to having a nervous breakdown. But I don’t think I was. I was very, very tired. It was a really difficult time.” Read the exclusive 16-page interview with Kate in MOJO magazine, on sale on Wednesday November 3rd.
The style section of The Guardian has commented on the current fad for all things ‘Kate Bush’: “The return of Ms Bush to the fashion cognoscenti’s consciousness is, in our humble opinion, the best trend for yonks. First, we had the pleasure of watching Fran Cutler (remember her?) at frostfrench’s show last week mouthing along to the song Babooshka. On top of that, in i-D this month, Bjork waxes lyrical about Bush’s influence, while Swiss artist Sandrine Pelletier creates images inspired by our Kate. Elle Girl, meanwhile, revels in her love of jumpsuits, leggings and legwarmers, all of which cropped up in the recent batch of London fashion shows. Designer Hussein Chalayan recently commented that his musical heroine was “before her time” and The Futureheads’ cover of her 80s hit Hounds of Love is out today. With a new Kate Bush album destined for release later this year, it’s time to big up your hair, start dancing freeform and let out a Heathcliff wail.” Read the article here…meanwhile the clothes designer Byblos has revealed in coverage of fashion week in Milan that Kate Bush was the inspiration for part of their collection. Behind the designer during one news segment was a wall with pictures of Kate. See an Italian news article here.
As mentioned in the Guardian article above, this month’s i-D Magazine (issue 252), titled “the feminine issue” has used The Kick Inside as its cover title. It contains a six-page spread of photographs of a Kate-themed installation by artist Sandrine Pelletier and a short essay by Björk about Kate. “From the catwalk to the club to the bedroom, her music and influence are suddenly here again. Here Swiss artist Sandrine Pelletier and Icelandic musician Björk present unique fan tributes to the myth, magic and mystery of Kate Bush.” Björk writes: “To me, Kate Bush will always represent the age of exploring your sexuality, when you change from a girl to a woman. All of that. There were so many records in my parent’s house, so I saw a lot of album covers. I thought they were all macho and occupied with power, things I didn’t like. I guess that’s what I found fascinating about Kate, she totally stuck out. She was so – what’s the word – so complete. The music, the lyrics and the way she looked, it all made sense. Especially for a thirteen or fourteen year old girl. It was the first time I had my own bedroom. Even though my room had just enough space for a bed and a desk I felt like it was a palace. My grandad gave me a big blue lamp with a blue light…It was like walking into an aquarium. It was then that I found a Kate Bush album and..you can imagine the rest, right? I used to close the door and didn’t want anybody to come in. My favourite songs have changed over time. I really liked the one about Peter Pan. Obviously I loved ‘Man With the Child in his Eyes’. Everybody adored Kate’s voice and a lot of people really noticed what she looked like but I think what is really underrated is the production. I think it’s really original and really feminine, but with more primitivity than women have, or what men would like to believe we have. If it had just been the voice and the look I’m not sure I would have been that into her – what’s so common, a girl that looks great and sings great. What’s very special about Kate Bush is that she didn’t do that. She created her own look and she produced her own sound. There’s a timelessness to Kate’s music, for me personally it has a nostalgic feeling. It’s not to do with ‘yes I listen to it’, it’s more to do with ‘I listened a lot to it from thirteen to fifteen’. I think that for someone like me, there hasn’t been many ladies to look up to in the pop world. Then when I was sixteen I started growing out of it, coming back to it occasionally like a box of memories…” (Thanks to Matt Denney and Michael Nurse)
The Sadie Frost fashion show mentioned by The Guardian showcased the latest collection from her FrostFrench label at London Fashion Week. The theme was “Russian Peasant Chic”. Models strode down a snowy catwalk to the strains of Babooshka. Read more here…The Independent on the 12th February had a piece where they approached fashion designer Hussein Chalayan (of Björk ‘Post’ album cover fame) to write about a musical heroine in their regular “heroes and villains” section. “I thought she was this amazing person that in some ways I could relate to. I felt that the work was such a bridge between fantasy and reality, and there was so much spirit in it. I just wanted to know everything about her work…to me she’s an emotional thinker, she’s somebody who made her emotions real through the music. There were so many references to emotion and to failure and to the good and bad, your relationship to nature, and your relationship to other people and I just felt it was so much richer than most of the stuff that was happening at the time…when I hear the music it makes me think that everything around me is wonderful. At times it’s almost like hearing a prayer, at other times it’s just like lunacy, and other times it’s just incredible engineering. In my view she deserves a lot more credit, but maybe the fact that she didn’t become too mainstream has made her remain more special…she’s a heroine for me because she’s never cared too much about public opinion. She’s done her own thing and I think that in her heart she did well, up to a point. She was very experimental and before her time, and I think that she can set an example for visual people like myself…I’m not easily impressed. But she did with music what people have done with writing. It’s incredibly inventive and forward-thinking. I always wanted my work to have that level of openness.” You can see a scan of the article here. (thanks PDFM and Matt Denney)
Music Week, the UK’s definitive music industry news service has a front page article this week about Kate’s KBC album announcement: “One of the longest waits for a follow-up will finally be over next year, when the first Kate Bush album in more than a decade appears. The EMI artist last week confirmed that she is set to deliver her first new studio set since 1993’s The Red Shoes in 2005, having been working on new material over the past few years. Bush announced that the long wait was nearly over in a letter last week to members of her fan club. EMI has since confirmed to Music Week a new album is definitely on its way. Besides collaborating with the late Michael Kamen, Bush has also been working with bassist Mick Karn, drummer Stuart Elliott and percussionist Peter Erskine. Although she has largely been out of the limelight as she concentrated on bringing up her son Bertie, Bush was at the Ivor Novello Awards in 2002 to collect the outstanding contribution to British music award. (With thanks to Monty and Ben on the site’s forum). Read more about Music Week at its site here.
A new book on Kate by music journalist John Mendelssohn, entitled “Waiting for Kate Bush” is now already listed (pre-publication) on the UK, German, Canadian and Japanese Amazon websites. It will contain 240 pages and will be published on 15 November 2004. The blurb reads: “When Kate Bush came out of nowhere in 1978 with her jaw-droppingly eccentric debut single ‘Wuthering Heights’, screeching like a banshee, flapping her arms as though trying to take wing, pulling alarming faces, people either adored or loathed her. One of the former was an American underwear model, Lesley Herskovits, who, in spite of his remarkable good looks, reserved his loathing for himself. By the time Kate had taken to keeping her fans waiting literally ages between albums, he’d found himself a boarding house near Kate’s birthplace that accommodated only fervent Kate fans. Only his disinclination to miss her eighth album, after waiting more than a decade for it, kept him from leaping off a multi-storey tower block. In Waiting for Kate Bush – an unusual hybrid of satirical novel and music biography – the reader will not only laugh aloud at Herskovits’ attempt to make sense of his life in an alien culture, but also learn in detail what Kate Bush – known alternately as “the barmiest bird in pop”, “the Pre-Raphaelite nymph with Minnie Mouse’s soprano” and “the greatest artist of the last 30 years” – has been up to in the silent decade-plus since the release of her last and best alb [sic]” An anonymous review on the Amazon site says “Having read the proof and viewed fans comments via the web, this book beats all expectations and is a worthy addition to any Kate Bush fan while waiting for the new album. The information is fresh and well written and explains above all why KB fans are some of the best and most patient in the world. Beautiful pictures inside. A worthy buy when released.” It will be interesting to see initial reactions to what sounds like one of the most unusual books yet written about Kate. (thanks to Henrik and Kyla).
Hope you’re having a good summer! Yes, the site updates have been slack lately but I’m going to rectify that this coming weekend, prepare for a large dose of the usual newsy stuff, thanks to everyone for sending it all in. In the meantime here’s a cartoon to amuse you that David Bowden has sent in which appeared in a recent issue of the Pink Paper (click to enlarge!) – Seán 🙂
I’ve been getting mostly a very positive reception from fans to the new February edition of Mojo Magazine which features Kate on the cover and includes a nine page retrospective feature by Phil Sutcliffe entitled “Season Of The Witch”. The Mojo website outline the article as follows: “Eccentric, elusive, English. It’s almost 25 years since Wuthering Heights made Kate Bush a star, and a decade since she quietly slipped from view. Phil Sutcliffe traces the path of a stubbornly individual and charmingly enigmatic songwriting genius.” The article includes contributions from some of Kate’s closest colleagues;Haydn Bendall (“I’m amazed she isn’t a megastar, that more people aren’t just thrilled that she’s around”), Stuart Elliott (“She comes into the studio and smiles and it’s all airy and sunshine. She really does care about people”), Jon Kelly (“We made Never For Ever a real home record, the studio was filled with flowers, plants, people”), David Gilmour (On the early demos she was “lively and quick, aching to know how everything worked”), David Paton (“You knew she was driven, it was the path she had to take”). Also quotes from David Munns, currently looking after her in EMI: (“Basically you don’t fuck with her. She ebbs and flows. You stay with her for life. She’s precious. I want her to be the way she is”). Kate didn’t give an interview to Mojo. Her business manager told them that she “wouldn’t be talking untill the album was out.” When Mojo asked when that might be, the reply was “how long is a piece of string?” The article also claims that Kate recently turned down a “life-time” Brit award “because the organisers insisted she had to perform or she couldn’t have it”.
A few random comments from fans on the guestbook: “It’s nice to read how well respected she is though within the industry.”, “considered and well written, very well worth the cover price.”, “excellent and well thought out”. Elsewhere in this “English Eccentrics” edition of Mojo, The Dreaming makes the Top 50 eccentric albums list “stuffed with beautiful, bold music defining her magnificent voice”. John Harper has some scans here. It is great to see Kate on all the news-stands and that the article sums up her unique, strong-minded individuality so well. Nice one Mojo! (Note: it seems the US edition of Mojo features Carlos Santana on the cover, but still has the Kate article inside).
Newsbits: Robert Brown lets us know that Kate is featured on TOTP2 next Wednesday 6th March on BBC2 at 7.05pm (thanks Robert)…the UK’s best-selling men’s magazine, FHM, has included Babooshka in its list of the 100 sexiest music videos. “So she’s really talented and writes all her own stuff and lives like a recluse, but Christ will you look at this – 
chainmail bikini, thighs, wind-machine ebony hair, thighs, leather boots, thighs, and check out that knife! That’s gotta be bondage. Babooshka made a bona fide sex object of Kate and vies with Olivia Newton John’s Physical as the most reliable 3-minute arouser of its day. Sadly, Kate then went and built a studio in her house, and she’s barely emerged since.” See FHM website here…David Sheasby reads in the currrent Q Magazine that they mention the possibility of a Kate album later this year, “‘Though we have been waiting quite a while already,’ said a spokesman”…and one eager (but incorrect) website even lists the “new CD” as coming out this summer here…a tiny clip of the Babooshka video was broadcast last Monday night on the RAI2 programme in Italy “Cocktail d’Amore“, and Kate was also mentioned during the afternoon quiz “Passaparola“, Canale 5, which asked “Which Kate abandoned music to be a mum?” Antonello (who sent in this news) has contacted the TV station to let them know Kate hasn’t abandoned music!
Newsbits: The Bristol Sound website carries an interview with Massive Attack‘s Robert Del Naja. On the subject of their upcoming collaboration with Sinead O’Connor he has this to say: “After Sinead I can’t imagine any other female singers who have that passion and angle we’re looking for. At great risk to my personal safety, I don’t hear many great female singers at the moment, apart from the usual soul diva area where you hear some br
illiant vocal performances. If you look at all the great songs that can make you cry, it was usually male singers. Having said that, Kate Bush could be really interesting.” Read the whole interview here (thanks to Russ Thomas)…Kate appears in another special edition of Q magazine – the 100 Greatest Rock N’ Roll Photographs. Kate’s cover for the 1978 Lionheartalbum by Gered Mankowitz is at number 13…On February 25th Virgin are re-releasing Peter Gabriel’s “Shaking The Tree” hits collection, featuring Don’t Give Up with Kate, remastered for the very first time 
and digitally enhanced while the album has been repackaged by Real World Design with a new and improved 12-page booklet (thanks to Barry Jobson)…On the occasion of the 30th birthday of the German radio station HR3 their listeners were able to choose their all-time favourites out of a list of 700 songs. The songs that got the most votes were played on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, Wuthering Heights was placed at number 20, see the station’s site here (thanks to Michael Leitz)…described as having a “Kate Bush mixed with Renaissance style” Japanese band Abysmal Masquerade‘s second release features the classically trained female vocalist Hiroko Nagai. The band perform a version of James & The Cold Gun…Beate Meiswinkel tells us about a new German CD collection “Best Of Keltica” featuring Kate’s Mná na hÉireann, released by Sony Vertrieb. Check www.amazon.de (thanks Beate)…and finally Kyla has been inspired by some art she saw on this site’s Stephen Brown gallery to have a tattoo of Kate done! She has sent us this photo of it, click on it for a larger version.
“If I’m really honest what I find so exciting is that people want to listen to my music when I’m not thrust in their faces. In this fast-moving world, people do forget, but they’re incredibly patient with me” (Kate Bush, London, Nov ’01)
Kate fans in the London area have been the first to get their hands on the new Q Magazine and Kate interview. Kate is pictured looking very happy and relaxed and speaks of how life’s been treating her since The Red Shoes album, her break from making music and her obvious happiness now with Bertie and his dad, guitarist Danny McIntosh. Kate admits that she found the immediate aftermath of The Red Shoes difficult.
“I needed to stop working because there were a lot of things I wanted to look at in my life. I was exhausted on every level. There was part of me that didn’t want to work. I’d got to a point where it was something I didn’t feel good about. It was as if I was testing myself to see if I could write, but I didn’t like what I was writing. I thought, No, if you don’t want to do it, it will be rubbish. Basically, the batteries were completely run out and I needed to restimulate again.”
The writer of the article sums up Kate’s story of the last few years: ‘Eventually, Bush tentatively set about writing her eighth album. Then she found herself pregnant. The father was Danny McIntosh, responsible for most of the guitars on The Red Shoes, although in the late 70s he was a member of hard rockers Bandit …three years ago, 
Bush gave birth to Albert, destined to go through life as Bertie…little Bertie has his father’s hair (auburn), his mother’s eyes and the broadest grin you ever did see. Bush’s guard comes tumbling down.
“Although I hadn’t always wanted children, I had for a long time. People say that magic doesn’t exist but I look at him, think I gave birth to him and I know that magic does exist.”‘
“I am really happy. I feel I’ve got the balance right where Bertie comes first and then the album. Some people say the best work comes from suffering: I don’t agree with this. Hounds Of Love is one of my best albums and I was very happy then. I’m very happy with Danny. I feel very lucky and that I’ve achieved a lot of the things I was looking for after the last album.”
And what’s it like (the new album)?
“I’m not sure, because I don’t get to listen to it. You see, with my other albums I used to listen to stuff such a lot. It’s very different now because with Bertie I don’t have the time. I’m quite pleased with it, though. There’s quite a lot of it done, but I can’t really talk about something that’s not finished, it’s like talking about an event that hasn’t happened.”
Worth pointing out, and perhaps it’s not illustrated fully by the quotes selected in the news piece below (Dec 5th), but Kate makes it very clear that she perceived a distinct sense ofdisappointment from people with the way The Red Shoes album, and particularly the accompanying film, The Line, The Cross & The Curve, were received. Kate says in relation to the 1993 film:
“I shouldn’t have done it, I was so tired. I’m very pleased with four minutes of it, but I’m very disappointed with the rest. I let down people like Miranda Richardson who worked so hard on it. I had the opportunity to do something really interesting and blew it. Also I was viewed in quite a negative light at that point, more so than after The Dreaming where I was viewed as some kind of nutter. It dissipated my energy severely and threw me into a state of severe exhaustion. You just get worn down…I slept, I spent a lot of time sleeping, enjoying bad televison.”
The article is entitled “The Big Sleep”, and the writer John Aizlewood found Kate in “robust” health, and tells Kate “all people care about is whether you’re happy”. Kate has obviously been through a rough time, and has come out of it the other side re-energised. As for when the new album may be released, Kate has to admit that she can’t give a definite date: “It’s hard to say when because it’s a matter of how much time I get to work on what’s left to do, so I couldn’t actually measure it in time.”
[This edition of Q also features an excellent cover CD, featuring “the best music of 2001”, with REM, Ed Harcourt, Starsailor, Air, Daft Punk, The Strokes etc…as if you needed any more reason to buy it…Q magazine – music fans, and especially Kate fans salute you! (Huge thanks to Dam Bryce, additional thanks to Reza Sayeed)]
As if recent events weren’t enough to confirm Kate’s status and influence in the world of music, she has made the number three spot in Q Magazine’s Women In Rock Poll, which will be published, along with a new interview with Kate, in next Friday’s January 2002 edition of the music publication. PJ Harvey has topped the poll, with Madonna beating Kate to the second position. 200,000 readers (!) are said to have voted in the poll. Tori Amos and Bjork were in fourth and fifth places respectively. Reuters report that: “Harvey beat off competition from classic artists including Janis Joplin (10th), Stevie Nicks (9th) and Aretha Franklin (11th). Big-selling pop idols who failed to make the top 20 included Britney Spears at 24th, Mariah Carey (46th) and Whitney Houston (71st).” (thanks to Boolbar, Brian and Stewart)