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Newsflash!: Kate Performs at David Gilmour Concert!

Big news: At about 4pm yesterday the editors at HomeGround magazine heard a rumour that Kate was to perform at a concert at The Royal Festival Hall by Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour. The previous evening Bob Geldof had been his special guest. Peter Fitzgerald Morris (who says “we all missed this one!”) forwarded this review from a Pink Floyd fan website: “Concert was excellent last night…high points were Wish You Were Here (David stopped singing and the crowd sang the whole song), Fat Old Song and Dominoes. Guests were Kate Bush and Rick Wright.

Kate sang Comfortably Numb and Rick played keyboards for three songs.” Peter comments:”Unless I’m forgetting something, excluding Kate’s brief song at the 1990 Convention (an unaccompanied song of thanks to her fans), this was her first public performance since 1987 – almost fifteen years. Reports say these Gilmour gigs were being recorded for a DVD to be released later this year. In 1987 she did the Secret Policeman’s Third Ball with a backing band including Gilmour, and also the Peter Gabriel gig at Earl’s Court.” The concert had apparently sold out weeks ago. More on this breaking news as I get it! (with thanks to PDFM at)

New Year newsbits!

Kate at the Q Awards Nov '01HAPPY NEW YEAR! Well, the lady to the left certainly intends to have a good one, do we feel it could be an album year? You just never know. In the meantime, don’t you think there’s been something missing from 2002 so far?…that’s right, the latest crop of Newsbits! (with apologies to people for the delays in getting some of these online).

Hounds Of Love was at #90 in a poll of more than a quarter of a million music fans by the channel VH1 in November, see here (thanks to Michael Leitz)…Victor writes: “I just wanted to let you know ahead of time thatWFUV 90.7 – Public Radio from Fordham University has a segment on Saturday January 19th from 4-5pm called “The WFUV Long Player” where they’ll play Kate Bush’s album, The Sensual World, in its entirety. They sometimes provide a few details and tidbits regarding the albums they play, so who knows, it could turn out to be interesting even for those who’ve already heard/own the album. You can listen to it live via the net (www.wfuv.com) if you don’t live within the broadcasting area….Sozo from Japan has unearthed a rare clip: “We now have a chance of seeing the ‘Moving‘ clip from the Tokyo Music Festival (June ’78) in much enhanced quality.” His friend Hideaki Nishihara has been requesting a Japanese digital station to show Kate’s performance of Moving, and it seems the clip is going to be broadcast soon according to one of the presenters…(thanks Sozo)

Herb Leonhard is showcasing his new Christmas Kate art among other new pieces at his gallery here…In the US VH-1 played the December Will Be Magic Again video to tie in with the release of the “Big ’80s Christmas” CD from Rhino records. They also used the song as the intro/outro music in the 30 min special when going to commericals (thanks to Collin Kelley)….Nicole Kidman is now known to be a high-profle Kate fan. Growing up in Sydney, Kidman sang with a band called Divine Madness when she was 17. John Roger from Australia found this quote in a feature in “In Style” magazine from June of last year: “Three girls and four guys. We did a lot of seventies stuff. I did Kate Bush, I did Blondie, I did Chaka Khan,” she says. “I don’t have the really raunchy voice for Tina Turner. I wish I had a Janis Joplin voice. We played at parties and one pub gig. We never got paid.”…Jon Bishop has let me know of a new CD “West End Girls” featuring loads of female artists singing songs from the shows, Kate’s on disc 2 with ”The Man I Love’‘.

Finally, some old news I’d meant to tell you about. Kate Bush sites have started winning awards! In Sept ’01 Q Magazine made Kate Bush In MP3 its “MP3 Site Of The Month.” It says of the site: “Breathtaking collection of rareties including the earliest demos from 1973. The site acknowledges that Bush may disown some of these early works, but provides them as an antidote to commercial bootleggers. Manna for fans”. Find the site here.

Some Newsbits…

UK theatre performer Ruthie Henshall has a new solo album, and covers The Man With The Child In His Eyes, read more at her official site here. (thanks Robert)….a morning show on French TV called “Morning Live” includes a segment called “Le Tube du Grenier” in which they play an music video on a green screen and the host dresses up as the singer and imitates them. They played Babooshka recently and the host dressed up as Kate in black and danced with a cardboard cutout of a bass (thanks to Jeremy and Tristan in France)….part of “Don’t Push Your Foot On The Heartbrake” was played on UK Channel 4’s Brookside last month, the character Adele was playing it in her KB festooned bedroom. This was not long after another young character described her as a “meff” for liking Kate! (thanks to Boolbar)….Peter & Krys at HomeGround hope to have the next edition out in December, meanwhile check out their back issue sale here.

Newsbits…

NewsbitsCourtney Love, singer with the band Hole, has commented on her site’s guestbook in a “battle of the bands” between PJ Harvey and Tori Amos. Courtney posted: “Polly (wins) hands down. Also dont forget for ducks sake there is someone named KATE BUSH- if you like tori for all that glossy beauty doll stuff you might like kate better (never forever and lionheart)”…longtime Kate fan Andrew Marvick has posted on the love-hounds mailing list that “[…] he thought he should mention that the word “gaffa” (with that spelling) will be published in the next edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, and Kate Bush (writing in an old issue of The Kate Bush Club Newsletter) will be cited as the “first” to have used this spelling in print.”…new cover version of Cloudbusting from a band called Novembre from the album ‘Novembrine Waltz’. “It’s a kind of dark and impressive gothic metal.” writes Achim Riehn from Germany (thanks Achim)….A programme aired on BBC Radio 4 on Sunday afternoon (21st Oct) called ‘Adventures in Poetry’ which explored the poetry and writings on Emily Bronte. During the 30 min programme there was a clip of Kate singing ‘Wuthering Heights’ and an old interview clip of her saying where she got the idea for the clip from. (thanks to Simon O’Donovan)….Danny Diess updates us on progress of his Kate tribute show: “We are starting rehearsals on November 17th and rehearsing up until February. The songs and the sets have been chosen and the set list consists of 10 tracks, with some live musicians and a cast of 8 people. The  songs are Running Up That Hill, Hounds Of Love, Waking The Witch, Breathing, Lily, The Sensual World, Cloudbusting, Get Out Of My House, Sat In Your Lap and Wuthering Heights. We are planning to perform in Europe in July 2001” (thanks Danny)….In an interview in the Radio Times, impersonator and comedienne Ronni Ancona, best known for her impression of Posh Spice on Alistair McGowan’s BBC TV show, has been asked about whether there is a song lyric that means something to her. “There is a line form a Kate Bush song Oh England my Lionheart – ‘Peter Pan steals the kids in Kensington Park’, I always remember that line and think about it, I don’t know why”. (thanks to Lorraine in St Helens)….Talia Nix writes: “The instrumental section from “Jig of Life” was used on BBC2’s “The Ad Factor” – a documentary about marketing Guinness in Ireland.”

Newsbits…

Newsbits: This Woman’s Work was featured on the second episode of Alias, a new show by the creator of “Felicity” that airs on Sunday Nights on ABC in the US. The show is about a young woman who just happens to be a secret double agent for the CIA and its enemy organization SD-6. Creator J.J. Abrahms is clearly a fan, This Woman’s Work appears on the Felicity soundtrack….Kate fan Ingo Pohl has taken part in the German quiz show Risiko (see August 8th news). We are happy to report that Ingo won the quiz, his chosen topic being Kate of course, taking home 13,000 DM for his troubles….Bart writes: Guitar One and Rockrgrl magazines have released a special ‘Women Who Rock’ issue, to celebrate the contributions of 100 of the most essential female musicians in pop. Kate is of course mentioned, starting with this quote from Kate:

“Keep laughing and you stand a chance of getting through it alive. I’ll always be tough on myself. But I find strength in being alone, fighting a battle and emerging satisfied that I’ve done my best. Perhaps that’s what is strange about me. It’s music that says it; it says it eloquently enough.” The article continues:”The immensely talented and innovative Kate Bush has enjoyed succes commensurate with her abilities. Discovered while still in school by Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, Bush has since developed a reputation as a true musical original, creating and executing ever more sophisticated work. Her early discs like 1980’s Never For Ever, were lauded for their style, but her later works – ‘Running Up That Hill’ and ‘Cloudbusting’ – were stunning in scope, mind-boggling triumphs of vision and craftsmanship. Today, though the 43-year-old records sporadically, she is still recognized as one of the most uniquely accomplished artists of her era.”

….also, Kate gets mentioned in the new issue of the Dutch magazine OOR in a special issue on “30 years of pop music according to OOR” on the 1978 pages, and there is also a small piece on the 1982 pages….Hideaki Nishihara writes from Japan:”I have a video tape of Japanese TV programme “Tribute To The Great Song“. A Japanese female singer Mimori Yusa covered Kate’s Wuthering Heights, L’Amour Looks Something Like You & Army Dreamers on the 2nd October. Mimori Yusa is a famous singer in Japan and an ardent Kate Bush fan ever since she listened to Wuthering Heights. She explained that Kate has had a strong influence on her life and music”….

German Newsbits…

German Newsbits: (from Andreas Ströbl): “On Sunday, 30th September the political talkshow “Sabine Christiansen” (German TV-Station ARD), featured a trailer at the beginning of the show (which was about how terrorism could be dealt with after the attack in New York). It repeated the beginning and end of Kate’s Under Ice as very impressive background music – showing pictures of recent events…also last season the “Hamburger Schauspielhaus” ran a piece called “Alle Lust will Ewigkeit” which connects love songs from different centuries, cultures, languages and music styles and featured Kate’s “Wuthering Heights“…the actress did quite well, singing the song just accompanied by piano and cello and in the end climbing through the audience and up a balcony, looking for Heathcliff, which was quite comic.” (thanks Andreas)

Newsbits

Celebrities can’t seem to stop talking about Kate these days; Tori Amos is questioned by readers of the latest Attitude magazine and Brian Chambers of Brixton asked, “How many Kate Bush records do you own?” to which Tori replied, “Well I owned two, which are of course Hounds Of Love and the one after, The Sensual World. I really love those two. Someone gave me The Red Shoes, but then someone stole it …” (thanks to Boolbar) and on the 4th September, the UK Channel 4 show “The Big Breakfast” interviewed film star Nicole Kidman. She discussed her role in the film musical “Moulin Rouge” and said that she had insisted on singing all her songs herself. When asked what singers she liked she replied “Ella and Kate Bush”. (thanks to John Lang).

Q magazine’s music TV channel, where you can call up and request videos, are featuring ‘Hounds of Love’ this month…Tracy Story writes that “I have posted the new interview with Kevin McAlea in the photo section of my Yahoo Clubs site” If you’ve been keeping up with Tracy’s site you’ll know that he’s interviewed Charlie Morgan and Simon Drake. Kevin McAlea’s work with Kate over the years will be well known to Kate fans, read more about Tracy’s club in June 27th news or click here to visit the site…James Lagner tells us: “I recently authored a web site, an online version of the book “Cathy” by John Carder Bush, I think fans who have not seen this sweet tribute from a brother to his sister, might enjoy viewing it” (find it here)…in the US the CBS network is using This Woman’s Work in the commercial for the new fall episode of “Jag” (thanks to Chris)…Marinuz writes: “I just finished reading a book called ‘Juno & Juliet’. It’s about an 18 year old identical twin. Juliet, one of the two sisters, who listens to Kate Bush music. She has a tape of ‘Hounds of Love’ Juliet got to know about Kate’s music through her brother Paul. In the book a few characters go see the play of ‘Wuthering Heights’. Sounds like the Irish writer, Julian Gough, must be a Kate Bush fan himself.”

Newsbits…

Newsbits: The Right Stuff, distributed by EMI Music Distribution (USA), released “Hats Off” by Roy Harper on June 19, 2001, a 14-track set featuring a mix of Roy Harper’s solo work and all-star collaborations. It contains “You (The Game Part II)” with Kate, originally released in 1980. Roy says of the track “‘You’ is remarkable for Kate’s vocal. On the day, she picked the song up by the scruff of the neck and shook it up for me. It was quite an experience.” For more info, you can visit www.royharper.co.uk(click on the “Hats Off” banner – thanks to Michael Leitz)…more Q Magazine polls (!) Q asks for votes for the top 5 albums (no Greatest Hits) released during the magazines life, since September 1986, The Sensual World and The Red Shoes are thus eligible, email your Top 5 to q@emap.com (the magazine’s Women In Rock poll will be published before the end of the year)….a new Kate site detailing the “unofficial” & “bootleg” CD’s of Kate’s music & interviews from John Harper at www.ran-tan.co.uk.

Newsbits…

Newsbits: Ingo Pohl writes to tell us that he “took part in a German quiz show called Risiko, which is broadcast every day in the afternoon on German television (ZDF). This is a show in which candidates bring along their own special topics. The shows are pre-recorded and will be aired about 2 or 3 months later, as you might have guessed by now, my topic was Kate Bush. The four shows will be broadcast on the 4th, 5th, 8th and 9th of October, and they will feature extracts from the videos of Love and Anger, Cloudbusting, Running Up That Hill, Rubberband Girl (American version) and This Woman’s Work as well as audio clips of Wuthering Heights, Babooshka, The Sensual World, The Man With The Child In His Eyes and The Dreaming. (thanks Ingo)….Michael Maugeri has “stumbled upon the web site called “Am I Annoying or Not?” and Kate is #1 on the “least annoying celebrity” side, with Thom Yorke of Radiohead currently second. Fans of Kate are encouraged to keep her #1 status up!….Michael Leitz reports on a triple CD from Dressed 2 Kill records called “Take 3 Girls“, cover versions of tracks by Joni Mitchell, Tracy Chapman and Kate, the tracks are the same as those on the tribute CD by Eclypse featuring Jemma Price, available on . Also Michael tells Under The Ivy - painting by Herb Leonhardus about a (relatively) new (issued late 1999) Kate song/music book entitled “MIDI Kate Bush” by International Music Publications Ltd. “The music is usually in the original key, and is shown as a single melodic line in normal music script, with a chord symbols and lyrics for each song. The data is GM (General MIDI) standard. Songs include: Wuthering Heights, Running Up That Hill, Babooshka, Hounds Of Love, Cloudbusting, Moments Of Pleasure and Rubberband Girl…..Darren Brown heard Kate’s The Man With The Child In His Eyes used to accompany a lingerie challenge on Channel 4’s off-the-wall comedy ‘gambling’ programme Banzai!….Danny Diess says “we are having a dance tryout in October for additional people to perform in the tribute show”, if you’re interested in Danny’s work read more in previous stories (or the review in a recent HomeGround) and contact Danny by email….Midge Ure was featured in a recent  Review section of The Guradian newpaper: “Another favourite studio album is Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love. ‘I knew the engineer who mixed that, and it was done on a desk that wasn’t meant to be used at all, so you have all these strange noises coming up where they shouldn’t to make this fantastic sound. I’d like to think that she’s still making music, but the last time I saw her she was talking about giving it all up, which would be such a shame.” [Please note that Midge doesn’t mention when he last spoke to Kate and that Kate is still working on new material!] (thanks to Steven Owen)….Herb Leonhard has a couple of new paintings in his Kate art gallery here including an interpretation of Under The Ivy (pictured above).

Newsbits

Newsbits: James Raftery, songwriter for Rat Wakes Red has been in touch. He writes; “Kate Bush is my number one influence and has been an enormous force in my life. I reference her in one of my songs off my album, “Dizzy on Daddy” called Widows Burn. The lyric goes “Kate woke the witch, now look where we are.” Check out my album if you want, you can go to my site at http://www.ratwakesred.com……Keith De Weese writes to recommend the film “Valerie & Her Week Of Wonders” to all Kate Bush fans. He writes: “If a work of art exists in a parallel universe with that of Kate Bush’s, particularly her early work, it is that of Jaromil Jires.  Not only does 13 year Valerie (Jaroslava Schallerova) bear a striking resemblance to young Kate Bush, but the films’ themes, motifs, music, etc. are so Bushian that I can’t help but hope that Kate might have seen the film at some point in her life…. Boolbar writes: “A good chunk of “Feel It” was played during Brookside last night. Adele the 15 year old is accidently pregnant and she was lying on her bed listening to Kate whilst wondering what to do when her Mum (a Nolan Sister I’ll have you know) came in. The scene cut just before the “Synchronise rhythm now” line.” (Thanks Boolbar, for more on Brookie’s obsession with Kate see February 26th news)

Newsbits

The closing date for entries in the Q Magazine 100 Greatest Women In Music poll (see May 2nd 2001 news) has been extended to mid-June by the magazine, so I’d get any last minute nominations in before then if I were you. The email address to send entries to is: q@emap.com…a website verifying the truth or falsehood of so-called “urban legends” mentions Kate’s unusual UK 12″ release of The Sensual World in the section on double-grooved pressings, see www.snopes.com….the book “Rock Confidential“, (compiled) by Coral Amende, which is really a scrapbook of quotes, facts, trivia and the like associated with rock/pop stars includes one tongue-in-cheek quote from Kate which headlines the “Performing Rites” chapter. “Whenever I see the news, it’s about the same depressing things – wars, hostages, and people’s arms hanging off with all the tendons hanging out, you know. So I tend not to watch it much. I prefer to go and see a movie or something where it’s all done much more poetically. People getting their heads blown off in slow motion, very beautifully”. (thanks to David McInnes for all the above items)

More newsbits…

Record Collector articleThe June edition of Record Collector magazine features a six page article by James Blandford on the history of the “Early Years” and “Cathy Demos” bootleg recordings which have surfaced since 1989. A complete listing of all known demos is given. Also there is a page long article by the same writer musing on Kate’s current musical activities. He writes: “And while we await the highly anticipated new studio album there have been whispers for some time now that EMI are in the process of remastering Kate’s back catalogue for a series of reissues spanning a year. And, with the prospect of previously unreleased tracks on the horizon, Kate Bush fans can relax a little, finally having something concrete to look forward to. It has been a long and winding road, but we’re still behind her.”  See alsowww.recordcollectormag.com (thanks to Michael Leitz and Matthew Hutchinson)

In the just published interview with Karen Bliss on Rolling Stone magazine’s website, Fran Healy, lead singer of Travis is commenting on what he likes about working with ex-Katydids singer Susie Hug: “…Healy describes Hug’s material as very “feminine,” and says it is that quality that he most admires. “Joni Mitchell writes brilliantly and is very feminine,” he says. “I can’t say I know women very well because you can’t read people’s minds, but it appears to me that there are very few female artists who are very successful at expressing themselves in that way. There’s Joni, there’s Kate Bush. There’s a few, but I think guys are better at bullshitting basically.” (thanks to Kyla for the news)

Michael Leitz writes: The Whole Story, re-released on the Simply Vinyl Label, has taken the place of Hounds Of Love as a best seller (see Feb 15th, 2001 news) and is now being featured on the label’s homepage http://www.simplyvinyl.com “This sterling compilation of Kate Bush’s greatest hits has all the ingredients for a wonderful package filled to the brim with great music.” (thanks Michael)

Newsbits

Boolbar writes: “Last night on BBC1 just before the News At 10, they had a few minutes to spare in the schedule so they stuck a 5 minute program about the Top Of The Pops albums that used to be around in the 70s (older UK people should remember those leggy models that adorned each cover). They mentioned that all the tracks on these albums were recorded with session musicians and showed a clip from the Wuthering Heights video followed by someone saying how completely unlike Kate the TOTP album version of Wuthering Heights was. They played a bit of the TOTP version saying that it sounds more like Olive Oyl from Popeye.” (thanks Boolbar)

Kate - no reason, just liked the piccy ;-) The recent issue of “Stereo“, one of the leading German magazines that deals with testing audio equipment and reviewing music, comes with an extra booklet called “Stereo CD Guide: 100 Audiophile Pop, Jazz and Classic CDs” and features Kate’s The Whole Story, “…this compilation of Kate Bush’s most important hits and tracks is impressive because of great variety and musical quality. And its sound quality is smashing too…”. (thanks to Michael Leitz)…Kate was voted No. 45 in the 100 Best Voices Of The Century by BBC Radio2 in a programme presented by Paul Gambicini over Easter. Frank Sinatra topped the poll. Read the full results here (thanks to Jane Blackley, John Lang and Simon O’Donovan)….Carlton Home Entertainment will re-release “The Secret Policeman’s Third Ball” VHS video on June 11th (update: video release now brought forward to May 21st), (cat# 3037051653). The video has been out of print in Europe for a long time. It features Kate’s 1987 live performance of Running Up That Hill with David Gilmour on guitar. (thanks to Michael Leitz)….fan reaction to Channel 4’s “Pop Princesses” programme (see April 10th news) has been largely unfavourable. Kate was listed at number 4 in the Top Ten chart and comments about her veered wildly from “weird white witch” and “jug-eared” (!) to “the one great English female singer-songwriter”. You can download a clip here. Also, as a result of the show, the UK magazine What’s On TV had an article “Where Did Kate Go?”. You can see a scan of the article by Chris Twomey (no relation/connection to me) here….John Lang sends a link to a CD by the late guitarist Alan Murphy here.

Gered Mankowitz, the famous rock photographer is to exhibit some of his works around the UK in the near future (no dates yet sorry). It will feature Kate photographs from the Lionheart cover (thanks to Claire)…two unauthorised Kate Bush remixes on Napster Moments of Pleasure (Speedbliss mix) and also Candle In The Wind (Speedbliss mix)…a new cover version of “Don’t Give Up” by the Canadian band Saga on their brand new CD single “Money Talks/Don’t Give Up”. You can listen to a 30 sec long MP3 at the record label’s website hereAlannah Myles is doing Kate’s vocal part. (thanks to Michael Leitz)

Newsbits…

Some newsbitsGered Mankowitz, the famous rock photographer is to exhibit some of his works around the UK in the near future (no dates yet sorry). It will feature Kate photographs from the Lionheart cover (thanks to Claire)…two unauthorised Kate Bush remixes on Napster Moments of Pleasure (Speedbliss mix) and also Candle In The Wind (Speedbliss mix)…a new cover version of “Don’t Give Up” by the Canadian band Saga on their brand new CD single “Money Talks/Don’t Give Up”. You can listen to a 30 sec long MP3 at the record label’s website hereAlannah Myles is doing Kate’s vocal part. (thanks to Michael Leitz)

Newsbits…

Newsbits: American R&B singer Maxwell, who has been known as a Kate admirer and has a cover of This Woman’s Work in his “Unplugged” album, is going to release a new studio album (called “Now”) with a studio version of TWW in May (thanks to Sozo)….Greg Gilligan writes to tell us about “A Band Called bUrt” reviewed as follows at http://www.electromancer.com/ “With some songs, you have to listen twice to know if you like them. That’s always struck me as strange, but there are some songs that just grab you from the first few notes. “Home” is one such piece. “Home” could’ve been the lost track on album The Hounds of Love” (any Kate Bush fans out there)? This track has the slick yet understated/subtle groove that characterized an era when some of the best pop songs were made. Period. The combination of excellent production values, really wonderful vocals, and an engaging synthesizer line that will follow you around like the vision of a girl that you just can’t shake. This a must listen–for KB fans and non-fans alike.” Greg says Mark Wheadon from the band credits Kate as an influence….(thanks to Greg and Sozo)

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