January 18th 2003: Newsbits Round Up: A lot of stuff to get through in this new year update, I’ve been a bit lazy since Christmas but I’m sure you’ll allow me that! Here we go with a whole heap of Kate Bush newsy bits:

The Top Of The Pops 2 website has just set up a new vote “Who’s the foxiest lady of pop?” There are 6 choices, 5 blondes including Madonna & Kylie, and Kate. They say “Did the sight, sound or thought of any of these pop temptresses keep you awake at night? Did you have a poster on your wall which you used to peck goodnight each evening?” The good news is that Kate is currently leading the vote here….female folk singer Bill Jones (short for Belinda) has released a new live CD called “Live at the Live” ( released on Brick Wall Music BRICK 004CD). This collection is described as “polished” by the BBC and includes a beautiful rendition of Kate’s Never Be Mine. Read more here….those who like music industry gossip website Popbitch will have recently read that “The 80s women are back. Claudia Brucken (Propaganda) and Kate Bush are set to release new albums in 2003.”….The January issue of Audio Music magazine mention Kate in their 25 years of pop retro, calling The Kick Inside “The debut album from the fairy of pop, a milestone. Purest romanticism, a kick for the heart. Do finally remaster, please”. They also single out Don’t Give Up from 1986 “In the end it’s Kate Bush who makes this a winner. The ballad of the century, irresistible.”

Birgitte in the Netherlands tells us that the Dutch amusement park De Efteling celebrated it’s 50th anniversary in 2002. She noticed a sign there when she went there last summer at the haunted castle (where Kate filmed the TV special in 1978). The translation of the sign (pictured here) is “Spooks, ghosts and skeletons try to please you in a macabre dance, but for TV recordings in 1978 they could not scare away Kate Bush”…in the UK Herald on 7th January Toyah Wilcox is interviewed and yet again she mentions Kate (interestingly described as Kate’s “best friend” by the writer). “Many of her contemporaries are still working and still relevant. Siouxsie Sioux, Kate Bush, Debbie Harry were all women who inspired a generation of teenage girls with more than platform soles, branded lollipops, and girl-power soundbites.”I think at the time people like us were still struggling in a real male area. I do think that people who liked me really suffered for it. Everything I did came from inside my head in a darkened room, so I probably attracted like-minded folk, whereas someone like Kate was very good at researching her music and lyrics.”….

Writer Neil Gaiman recently quoted Kate in his online journal for Friday, January 3, 2003. “Is there anything I’d change? Not really. I wish I had been a better writer when I was writing the first dozen Sandmans, and I wish the colour separations on Brief Lives hadn’t been so dreadful, but beyond that, it is what it is, and I’m content with that. “Be kind to your mistakes,” as Kate Bush so wisely said.”. Gamain mentioned her again in his journal on January 5th: “I was just getting to the point where I was running out of CDs to stick on the iPod, when I realised that I’d forgotten about Boxed Sets. And of course, that’s what they’re for: you buy them, play them once or possibly twice, and then put them back in the box and tidy them up and put them away somewhere inconvenient, faintly pleased that you’ve actually got Kate Bush singing “Ken is the leader of the GLC” on disc somewhere, but with no burning desire ever to hear it again in your lifetime.” (thanks to Jeremy and Tristan)

Recording artiste Lee Kaay will be performing a melody of Kate tunes on his forthcoming tour next year, the 4 songs are Cloudbusting, Hounds Of Love, The Big Sky and The Red Shoes….Australian newspaper The Melbourne Herald-Sun had an article on the albums due for release in 2003. Kate got a mention in the ‘also coming’ section. “Kate Bush: Another serial procrastinator, last year Bush started making noise about having an album, her first since 1993’s The Red Shoes, out this year. We’ll believe it when we see it.”….Larry tells us that Sound & Vision magazine mentions The Dreaming as an album worth releasing on DVD Audio or SACD here….The Independent in the UK likened Shakira‘s new “Mongoose” tour as “one of the loopiest shows from a mainstream artist since the heyday of Kate Bush” here….Lituanian singer Gintaré has been compard to Kate, Bjork and Enya (read more here)….Tankgirl writes that Kate is mentioned in the Dutch TV channel Nederland 3’s Top 2000 records a total of 5 times, the highest being Wuthering Heights at 95 (read more here)….the French magazine Jukebox has an article on Kate in the current issue (#187), see a scan here….Record Collector in the UK have a monthly feature called “Time Tunnel” where they look back at what happened in the music scene 25 years ago. In the current issue, they report about the events back in Dec ’77 and say that future editions will feature Kate shooting to fame in 1978 with Wuthering Heights….finally SWAN noticed that an online record store is boldly claiming that Kate’s new album is out in September here…(special thanks to Michael Leitz and Cynthia Conrad for keeping me up to date)