Photo: John Carder Bush from “Kate: Inside The Rainbow”
Cecilee Linke in the US has set herself the impressive task of covering every single Kate Bush song, one per episode, on her Strange Phenomena podcast. She is already on to the Hounds of Love album, and this week is her episode on the song The Big Sky. Among other contibutors she talks to our own Dave Cross of HomeGround Magazine fame. Dave chats about how himself, Peter and Krys helped to organise 150 fans to attend the taping of Kate’s 1986 music video for The Big Sky. Did you know that Dave starred in the video (along with Peter!) and donned a fetching moustache at Kate’s request as one of the Wright brothers?! You can listen to the episode here.
This is absolutely brilliant. For her cover of Running up that Hill, Los Angeles artist Meg Myers decided to make a music video that would bring the song into Crayola colour. With the help of 2,130 school children from Edmonton, the video’s director created a moving colouring book. Every frame in the 12-frame-per-second animation, features a page coloured by a different child.
Meg Myers
The video has more than 500,000 views since it launched last month.
“It’s quite intense with all the colours changing,” music video director Jo Roy told CBC Edmonton’s Radio Active on Wednesday. “But [it’s meant to] feel like a very colourful experience, with the narrative of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly.” The animation was created using illustrations based on film footage of Meg Myers dancing. There are other added flourishes as she morphs into a human-butterfly and flies through space. Read more about the project at this article here which includes an audio interview with director Jo Roy. Meg Myers official site is here: https://www.megmyers.com/
My Inspiration is a new podcast series from HMV in which they give musicians, actors, filmmakers and producers the chance to take a welcome break from talking about themselves and instead talk about their greatest inspiration. For their first episode, they welcome Neil Hannon, the creative force behind The Divine Comedy, who opened up about his life-long love of Kate Bush.
HMV writes: “During the podcast, Hannon spoke about how he discovered the eccentric songstress, how she inspired the theatricality in his songwriting and stagecraft and which LP he considers to be her ultimate masterpiece. You can listen to the podcast below and make sure you check back on hmv.com for more episodes of My Inspiration…”
Following their successful Songbook shows in Ireland with Del Palmer in 2018, Cloudbusting are taking the whole band across the Irish Sea for the first time this September:
CLOUDBUSTING 2019 IRISH TOUR DATES
SEPTEMBER 19TH – BUTTON FACTORY, DUBLIN – BOOK TICKETS
SEPTEMBER 22ND – SET THEATRE, KILKENNY – BOOK TICKETS
We’ve said it many times: before you bristle at the thought of a Kate Bush “tribute” act (and I certainly have in the past), you really should check out some of them for yourself. The quality really is very high indeed these days, in many ways Kate’s music just demands that. It’s a special thrill to hear these songs played in a live setting, feels a bit like getting a hug from an old friend! At the very top of the stack is of course Cloudbusting. Fronted by singer Mandy Watson, these superb musicians play to sold out shows and to huge demand all over the UK.
Their winning formula is fairly simple; they focus on the delivery of the music and the vocals without attempts at parody or mimicry. Their set really is the stuff of fans dreams; featuring not just all the well known singles, but unexpected album cuts and rarer songs too. To give you an example of what Cloudbusting bring to the table – read my review of their stunning 4oth Anniversary of The Kick Inside show. You can watch a clip from that show above where Kate’s choreography consultant and dance partner, Stewart Avon Arnold, joined them and performed a dance to complement The Man With The Child In His Eyes, along with his dance partner Tori Wood-Ives. Stewart had always wanted to create something for this song, one of the few he didn’t dance to on the 1979 Lionheart tour.
“Throughout, singer Mandy Watson brought a searing authenticity to her vocals, never attempting to parody Kate’s voice. The result is a performance from her that is consistently sensational. Mandy always addresses the audience as herself, a singer, never pretending to be Kate, just a genuine fan of this music wanting to do it justice. She deserves special praise for taking on the sheer array of Kate’s most elaborate songs which the band had woven into this show, and making it seem effortless.”
Irish fans – do not miss!
CLOUDBUSTING 2019 IRISH TOUR DATES
SEPTEMBER 19TH – BUTTON FACTORY, DUBLIN – BOOK TICKETS
Here’s the brief description: “Maxi Vinyl Kate Bush. Inclus deux titres rares chantés en français: Ne t’enfuis pas et Un baiser d’enfant.”
Both remastered tracks were included in Kate’s collection of rarities, The Other Sides, released in March this year. The cover uses the same photo from the original French Ne T’Enfuis Pas / Un Baiser D’Enfant single from July 1983 (shown below) but uses the distinctive Kate Bush Remastered font instead. Released on September 3rd, unlike Cloudbusting, there is no mention of a picture disc, so we may be looking at a regular double sided 12″ single here, which would be the first in that format since the rare Italian Rubberband Girl vinyl 12″ in 1993.
The disc is exclusively available in France (it seems) from the FNAC website, and, presumably in their stores around France come September. The vinyl disc is listed as a limited edition, but we don’t know how many there will be….quelle belle surprise!
What are Darrell and Paul’s Top 3’s from all of Kate’s albums, and what single, album, video and b-side would they take on a desert island? In this new episode of the Kate Bush Fan Podcast, for the first half we get the rare glimpse of hearing Darrell and Paul chatting together in the same place, as opposed to Skyping transatlantically. Plus, Ron and Cyril get another spin with a Kate cover!
You can subscribe to the Kate Bush Fan Podcast on iTunes or on any podcast app you happen to use, such as Stitcher or Tunein or listen below on Soundcloud.
Issue 100 of Prog Magazine celebrates this milestone and Kate is featured on the cover illustration, alongside Dave Gilmour, Thom Yorke…and a unicorn! As part of their “100 icons” feature inside, the magazine, which deals exclusively in “progressive rock” since the 1960s, has a piece on Kate written by Heather Findlay. It even comes bundled with a 148 page Jethro Tull Magazine! Kate has been the cover star of this magazine twice before. More details at the magazine site here.
Many of you will know that fRoots is a specialist music magazine published quarterly in the UK since 1979. It specialises in folk and world music, and features a compilation downloadable album with every issue, with occasional specials. Sadly, it seems the Summer 2019 issue may possibly be its last after 40 years of publication. A special feature by Tim Chipping in this issue explores “the untold story of how folk singer A.L. Lloyd influenced one of the greatest pop stars of the modern age” …Kate Bush, of course.
The excellent article features interviews with Kate’s brother John Carder Bush, our own Krys and Peter Fitzgerald Morris from HomeGround Magazine (!), Dave Arthur, Colin Irwin and Alistair Anderson (who performed concertina on Rocket Man). It also includes two beautiful photos from John’s 2014 updated edition of Cathy – the earliest photo we’ve seen of Kate singing!
Krys Fitzgerald Morris writes: “A lovely feature in the new edition of Froots folk magazine. Tim Chipping contacted me about a piece he wanted to write about Kate’s folk roots & he came over to interview Peter & myself in January. After meeting Tim I forwarded an email from him to John Carder Bush. John was interested & got involved. It’s a wonderful feature with a new unseen photo of Kate & John singing together when she was a child. Tim, you’ve done a fantastic job. X”
Kate’s work with the exquisite, breathtaking, Trio Bulgarka from Bulgaria remains one of the outstanding collaborations of her career to date. Seán has wanted to feature them in a special podcast episode for a long while now, and here he explores how Bulgarian singing started to be discovered by the world in the 1980s and how Kate met and recorded incredible music with Yanka, Eva and Stoyanka on two of her albums!
You can subscribe to the Kate Bush Fan Podcast on iTunes or on any podcast app you happen to use, such as Stitcher or Tunein or listen below on Soundcloud.
In the latest episode of the Kate Bush Fan Podcast, Bush Telegraph (aka Darrell and Paul) chat with Darrell’s brother and put him to task to see if he can answer a Kate Pop Quiz! Russell remembers hearing Kate through the bedroom wall constantly, and here he is interviewed to face the trauma it caused him one more time! Darrell and Paul also find a rare recording of the very first Kate tribute act. Not to be missed.
You can subscribe to the Kate Bush Fan Podcast on iTunes or on any podcast app you happen to use, such as Stitcher or Tunein or listen below on Soundcloud.
As Kate’s 12″ Cloudbusting picture disc tops the UK vinyl singles chart for a second week running, Seán devotes this episode of the Kate Bush Fan Podcast to discussing the origins and history of Kate’s glorious, classic song, along with the iconic promotional film co-starring Donald Sutherland. (Rare photo of the shoot above is taken from the book Kate: Inside The Rainbow by John Carder Bush, available here.)
You can subscribe to the Kate Bush Fan Podcast on iTunes or on any podcast app you happen to use, such as Stitcher or Tunein or listen below on Soundcloud.
UPDATE 7th June: Kate is now number 1 for 2 weeks running!
Forget your push-button digital downloads, way-too-easy streaming and oh-so-convenient iTunes libraries – UK fans have FLOCKED to actual bricks-and-mortar record stores (mostly FOPP and HMV) and have propelled Kate’s 12″ picture disc of Cloudbusting straight to Number 1 in the vinyl singles chart!
She has dislodged her hero, the much-missed David Bowie, from pole position. Congratulations to Kate and the Fish People, we love the beautiful disc, and all the excitement and energy it stirred in Kate fans around the world! Another big success for the Kate Bush Remastered project.
What is it? Kate has decided to release a (rather lovely) new 12″ picture disc of Cloudbusting, issued through selected record stores around the world on Friday May 24th. The disc features the original imagery from both the 1986 Cloudbusting single and the 1991 Rocket Man single (as shown below).
Why is it being released? Kate didn’t release any special vinyl for Record Store Day this year, but this picture disc coincides with her recent 4CD collection of rarities, The Other Sides, itself part of the Kate Bush Remastered project. In this way it is promoting her entire reissued back catalogue and supporting a lot of independent record shops worldwide in the process, as well as some selected larger retailers.
Tracklisting? The disc has 4 tracks and they are all taken from The Other Sides 4CD set AND also on the Remastered in Vinyl IV 4 disc box set. Side 1: Cloudbusting (The Orgonon Mix, 2018 Remaster) / Under The Ivy (2018 Remaster) Side 2: Rocket Man (2018 Remaster) / Warm And Soothing (2018 Remaster).
How to get one? An almost complete list of participating retailers is now up on Kate’s official site. Any fans who may not live near a record store, or who find their local store’s small allocation of discs has sold out – please know that many of the retailers are offering the disc online, even some not listed on Kate’s site, so don’t pay crazy Ebay/Discogs prices, shop around!
How limited is it? Kate’s site says that the disc will be an “extremely limited edition” release, but we don’t think it will be quite as limited as previous Record Store Day discs such as Lake Tahoe or the pink vinyl Hounds of Love EP, which now command huge prices on the collector’s market. Our best guestimate is 4,000-5,000 copies worldwide…but that hasn’t been confirmed! Our advice: if you do feel like adding this gorgeous disc to your collection (and who can argue with that iconic imagery from the Cloudbusting video shoot!) secure your copy now either in-store or online, before it sells out.
In the new episode of the Kate Bush Fan Podcast as we celebrate 40 years since the 1979 tour – What did Glenys get up to with Kate in Paris? What was Glenys’s favourite song to sing, and favourite song to watch Kate perform? What synchronicity did Kate, Glenys Groves and Liz Pearson* share? Part 2 of the Glenys Groves interview courtesy of Paul and Darrell (Bush Telegraph) is here!
You can subscribe to the Kate Bush Fan Podcast on iTunes or on any podcast app you happen to use, such as Stitcher or Tunein or listen below on Soundcloud.
*read Kate’s tribute to Liz Pearson, the other backing singer from 1979, from when Liz sadly passed away in May 2012…
Many of you will know that fRoots is a specialist music magazine published quarterly in the UK since 1979. It specialises in folk and world music, and features a compilation downloadable album with every issue, with occasional specials. Sadly, it seems the 
