Kate Bush News

We are delighted to let you know about this stunning new painting by artist Steven Brown. Regular site visitors will know that we host a gallery of Steven’s work here in our HomeGround pages, and Steven’s Kate Bush art adorns both covers of the recent HomeGround Magazine Anthology books. Inspired by Kate’s “Before The Dawn” live shows, the artwork is now available to purchase as a limited edition print.

The prints are 13.5”x19” (Glycee) with a gloss finish on quality art card and are limited to 100 copies. Please contact Steven by email at stevenbrown12@btinternet.com for details on pricing and availability. You can also see some of his work at his artist blog here.

So much going on! We can barely keep up. Here’s a quick round-up.

The Big Issue magazine in the UK features Kate on it’s current cover. “Tickets for Kate Bush’s long awaited live return went in a nanosecond. Ahead of this much anticipated to-do we hear from, amongst others, Gered Mankowitz, the celebrated snapper who caught her at Wuthering Heights; Mark Radcliffe, the journalist she talks to most; Jo Brand, a superfan; Sarah Hadland, the actress who introduced a new generation to Bush through a Horrible Histories routine; and the great poet Paul Muldoon, on her writing. A piece to savour.” Read more about The Big Issue and who they support here….Simon Reynolds in The Guardian examines Kate’s critical appeal throughout her career here…Stephen Fry has tweeted to remind fans to watch the BBC4 documentary on Kate on Friday 22nd at 9.10pm…if you’re in the UK, you can see clips from the documentary on the BBC iPlayer here…

Kate was placed at number 8 in the NME‘s 100 most influential artists currently working today. “Kate Bush pretty much created the archetype for mysterious singer-songwriters everywhere. Turn on the radio these days and you’ll hear echoes of her in the overblown production of Wild Beasts, the electro-celt inventions of Björk and PJ Harvey, the expansive wafts of Zola Jesus and in the dolphin-lunged vocals of Florence + The Machine or London Grammar.” More here …singer Toyah Willcox is on Kate’s concert guestlist, she tweeted: “Yipeeeeee @KateBushMusic has put me on her guest list. Best pressie ever! Lots of love 2 kate xxx”…the London Evening Standard ran a piece entitled “Why we love Kate Bush” featuring some of her fanmous fans,  ioncluding, Boy George, Anna Calvi, Holly Johnson and Rumer.  Says Boy George: “Kate Bush has always been a typewriter in a renaissance. She appeared out of nowhere at the tail end of punk and sort of embodied the punk spirit by just being completely herself. I know Johnny Rotten loved her. She blew things apart with things like Running Up That Hill because it defied the classic logic of pop. Kate is unique and a bit of a Greta Garbo, which makes her even more interesting. Most importantly, she’s from south-east London, like me.” Read the article here… Gail Walker reflects on what Kate means to her in the Belfast Telegraph here…The Telegraph ran a nice appreciation of Kate’s 1985 Cloudbusting video: “Kate Bush, Donald Sutherland, and weird science combined beautifully in the film for her song Cloudbusting. Is this the perfect music video? asks Bernadette McNulty” See it here…Bradley Brady continues his wonderful 50-article countdown to Kate’s shows at his “Divas: the power of the female voice” blog here. We think you should start at 50 and enjoy counting down with him, some great memories here…iTunes have revamped Kate’s online store and her albums are on special offer in the UK to celebrate her live shows…

…the London Evening Standard also rounds up the alternative Kate Bush events taking place in London for those who didn’t get tickets here…The Independent speculates about Kate’s shows here…The Independent also ran an article about the Harari/Mankowitz photography exhibition and on her stage return in a magazine cover feature, see scans at the excellent kbarchives site here….also in The Independent on Sunday Magazine, a long feature on Kate: “One of the great enigmas of British music is about to perform live for the first time since 1979 – and who knows what will happen? Four writers try to distill the elusive essence of Kate Bush” read it here…The Telegraph featured an article by Graeme Thomson on Kate’s first ever round of gigs with the KT Bush Band back in 1977 here…more about the Snap Galleries photo exhibition in London (and some nice shots from it) in the Independent here…the Radio Times featured a nice appreciation of Kate by Stuart Maconie, read a scan at kbarchives here…Marie Claire ran a Kate feature in their August edition, more on that here… Another review of the “Cutting Off Kate Bush” fringe festival show is here…Helen Brown wonders what we might expect from Kate’s stage shows in The Telegraph: “The poster for Kate Bush’s first series of concerts in 35 years finds her adrift in a dark and choppy sea. Her long, wavy hair swirls over a bright orange life jacket and her arms are stretched wide as she stares, hard, up at the camera. Here she is: part vulnerable human survivor, part mermaid. A 56-year-old artist who has both fought against, and floated with, the currents of popular music for almost forty years, making wonderfully strange music on her own terms and refusing to play the celebrity game.” Read the full article here…The Artifice blog examines “The Storytelling Quality of Kate Bush’s Music” here…the Artbeat show on Dublin City FM celebrated Kate’s return with a special show on Wednesday 20th…the Evening Herald on those elusive tickets here…in the iPad edition of the Radio Times, three unseen photos of Kate, taken by photographer Don Smith, performing Wuthering Heights at the BBC were published (see below). We’d like to know if this performance ever aired? Hmmm…

Greg Coulton illustrated an article on Kate’s return to the live stage in the Independent Magazine in the UK last weekend. You can read the full article here. After considerable interest from fans, he is now offering prints of the artwork for sale. Details of how to purchase them can be found here.

Greg has a gallery of how the illustration came together on his site here.

Mojo Magazine celebrate Kate’s return to the live stage with a 20-page cover feature special, on sale in the UK from Tuesday, August 26th. From the Mojo site:

THERE’S NOT MUCH YOU can get Prince, Tricky, David Gilmour and Stephen Fry to agree on – imagine that dinner party – but they’re alike in their admiration for Kate Bush.

Over a 36-year recording career she has never failed to startle, debuting in spellbinding style with Wuthering Heights – a song that brought Britain to a standstill in January 1978 as jaws dropped in front of Top Of The Pops. Not just an incredible voice – although she had that, has that, in spades – and an immediately iconic presence, but a brave, experimental songwriter gifted with a knack for other-worldly melodies. Love and loss, murder and mayhem, Australian politics, maths and ornithology – she’s made it all sound equally magical.

The latest MOJO is a Kate-lovers’ dream as we ponder her 50 Greatest Songs – from the obvious to the obscure, Cloudbusting to The Empty Bullring. There’s also an in-depth look at the creation of her masterpiece, 1985′s epic Hounds Of Love album, relived by some of those who helped make it. Our covermount CD, The Dreamers, is also Kate Bush-themed, with 15 tracks of contemporary dream pop and original female voices to whisk you away from the quotidian grind.

The new MOJO is on sale in the UK from Tuesday, August 26. As fate would have it, the same day Bush opens her run of feverishly anticipated comeback shows at the Eventim Hammersmith Apollo. Order the magazine at the Mojo website here.

Lucy Benson-Brown‘s one-woman show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, “Cutting Off Kate Bush“, is gathering some nice reviews.

“With Kate Bush touring for the first time in 35 years, Cutting off Kate Bush arrives at the right time. Lucy Benson-Brown channels the Gothic undertones of Bush’s music to create a new take on family politics. Young Kathy has had to return home and is attempting to come to terms with her father’s new relationship.

Certainly no tribute act, the play explores the tragedy and comedy of moving back home through the singer-songwriter. It is the honesty of Bush’s music that makes for ideal theatre according to Benson-Brown, as well as her own memories. ‘I remember being aware of Kate Bush as a teenager, I vividly remember “Wuthering Heights” being played on Top of the Pops 2 and my mum singing along,’ says Benson Brown. ‘Bowie, Pink Floyd, Bananarama, Genesis, Spandau Ballet, perhaps even Madonna, would have shaped a similar story because it’s inspired by the music that my parents listened to, it’s just that they wouldn’t offer the same magic as Kate Bush. Her music lends itself so well to dramatisation.’

Featuring hits from the eccentric songstress as well as showcasing Benson-Brown’s ballet training through Bush-influenced dance routines, it promises to capture the revived passion for the ethereal Kate Bush while telling a very human tale.”

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 622 6552, 2–25 Aug, 1.30pm, £10–£11 (£9–£10). Previews 30 Jul–1 Aug, £6.

More here: https://www.facebook.com/cuttingoffkatebush

No, you’re not experiencing déjà vu. As mentioned in the previous post, both photographers from the Snap Galleries exhibition in London are launching books of their photography of Kate to coincide with the exhibition – which runs for the duration of Kate’s Before the Dawn shows in the Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith.

This book, Kate Bush: Portraits by Gered Mankowitz contains 48 pages with an introduction by the photographer, and measures 7×7 inches. It is a hardcover with dustjacket and each copy is signed by Mankowitz and he has deliberately left the front cover (above) free of text so that “owners of this beautiful book can enjoy his classic Wuthering Heights colour portrait without distraction.”

Gered Mankowitz worked with Kate in 1978 and 1979 and his photographs appeared on LP and single sleeves including Lionheart and the US cover of The Kick Inside.

From the gallery website: “In this new book Gered brings together some of his favourite photographs from his many sessions with Kate Bush. He recalls these sessions fondly: “Kate was a wonderful subject and I worked with her over several sessions throughout 1978 and into 79.”

He continues, “She was always a delight and an inspiration to work with. I am immensely proud of the work I have done with her and will always be grateful to have been associated with such a gifted artist from the very beginning of her long and important career.”

You can order a copy here.

It’s been a great year for your Kate Bush bookshelf so far with the publication of the hugely popular two-volume HomeGround anthologies (read all about them here). And now, to coincide with a new exhibition running in London for the duration of Kate’s live Before the Dawn shows, photographers Gered Mankowitz and Guido Harari are releasing new books of their work with Kate. From Tuesday 26th August at 4pm the joint exhibition kicks off at Snap Galleries, 12 Piccadilly Arcade, London.

The first of these books, “Kate Bush – photographs by Guido Harari” is available to order now.

Guido Harari first photographed Kate Bush in 1982. He remembers the day clearly – it was September 25th. He recalls “Kate accepted my request for an impromptu photo shoot in her hotel (Hotel Plaza). I had my portable studio equipment with me and, she launched into a wild performance on the tiny set. I was stunned: this was exactly what I expected from an all-round artist like her, but really had no hope for. This was pure instant theatre in a compressed space and time. The next day we met again in Milan to check the results of our shoot. She was very pleased. How could I know that this would be the start of a ten years long collaboration.”

When he photographed her for the last time, in 1993, Guido remembers leaving the set telling her that they shouldn’t wait another ten years to get together again. “She just smiled and said nothing. It wasn’t until twelve years later, in November 2005, that she released another album, Aerial, followed in 2011 by 50 Words For Snow. And now she has announced her first concerts in 35 years! Wow!”

A softcover measuring 22 x 22cm ( approx 8.6 x 8.6 inches ) it contains 60 pages and each copy is signed by Guido Harari. The gallery says that they will only be offering this book until the end of the exhibition on 2 October 2014.

You can order one here

Record Collector magazine features Kate on the cover of their latest issue. It features an article by Kris Needs, who has interviewed ate three times over the years. Here’s a brief extract from the article – the magazine is available to order at the Record Collector site here.

“The return of Kate Bush to the concert stage after 35 years has been greeted with the kind of hysteria which has already made the 22 shows she’s performing at the Eventim Apollo in London this year’s most scorching ticket.

Recalling and possibly trumping Bowie effortlessly claiming 2013 by slipping out a new album, the announcement of Kate’s Before The Dawn residency has quite rightly been greeted as a major shock; certainly the last thing anyone expected.

Those decades since 1979’s ahead-of-its-time Tour Of Life have seen Kate become one of the world’s most elusive, mysterious but ever-fascinating artists, her enigma boosted by her self-imposed retreat from the spotlight. But away from occasionally sleazy speculation such a below-the-radar public profile always stokes (the tabloids laughably claimed La Bush was 25 stones when she took three years to make 1985’s Hounds Of Love), her return to the stage at the age of 56 shouldn’t be that unexpected…”

Less than five weeks to go till the opening night of Before The Dawn on August 26th! Very soon, we’ll be collecting all the latest news from the musicians who have been working with Kate (without any actual spoilers about the content of the shows!). We won’t be reporting on the content of the shows till the first reviews come in after opening night AND even when we run those, we’ll be careful to hide them behind spoiler warnings for you.

Here’s something a little bit fun in the meantime. Guitarist David Rhodes has posted some photos on his Facebook page that he snapped while travelling to Kate’s rehearsals, somewhere deep in the English countryside. He describes the pictures as “phone snaps on the daily ride into work; happy and productive days.” Kate has hired a very exciting and interesting range of musical talent to bring her stage ambitions to life, and as expected the crew of people she has gathered around her have been keeping tight-lipped about these shows, so that Kate can unveil her shows to everyone in August in the way that she wants. We couldn’t be more excited!