The Chicago Tribune reports that the Decibelle Music and Culture Festival comes to Chicago Filmmakers on Friday with a program that includes the short film “Two of Hearts” (a “spinning kaleidoscope of skin and hair” that is an homage to early music videos of Kate Bush and ABBA).
A new site, kbarchives.org has been put together which aims to compliment the information already available on the brilliant Gaffaweb site with newly gathered material. One resource offered are full scans of every single edition of the (now seemingly defunct) Kate Bush Club newsletter. These carefully-produced magazines were a means for Kate, Del, Paddy, John and many others close to Kate’s work to keep fans posted on what was going on. Big thanks are due to the lovely Lisa Bradley for all her hard work on running Kate’s official fan club and producing these wonderful magazines.
Another site to check out is Sozo’s Japanese translation of katebushnews.com – an incredible labour of love, he’s been quietly providing this service for Japanese-speaking fans for many years now. All the more impressive considering he has managed to mimic the new site format successfully! See it here.
Kristian Fletcher sent us the following about a Kate Bush tribute party in Australia. Date: Sunday 7th November 2010. Venue: StageDoor Dinner Theatre, 4 Cintra Rd Bowen Hills, Brisbane Australia. Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of HOUNDS OF LOVE. With tribute performances, DJ, licensed bar, film clips, footage – and much more! Tickets $15.00 per person. Bookings 3216 1115 or available at the door. “25 years ago, the Hounds of Love album by Kate Bush was released to commercial and critical acclaim. Featuring the hits Running Up That Hill and Cloudbusting, Hounds of Love took the British singer from cult artist to mainstream success in 1985, and marked a return to the UK and Australian charts. This party pays tribute to this special album… the enigmatic woman… her vast music catalogue… and the fans she continues to inspire. Hot food will be available for purchase. More info under Music events here: http://www.kristianfletcher.com/
I missed these blog posts which appeared in August and September. Little Girl Lost elevates Kate to the Galactic Monarchy. Dislocated Underbites et al reviews The Dreaming. The Aardvark likes Cloudbusting. The Politics of Music whacks in a heavy article covering Kate’s entire career, and reviews Aerial.
The Straight Dope polls for the most popular Kate album. Hounds of Love is way ahead.
Audio Fidelity are releasing the second of their vinyl Kate Bush re-masters on November 2nd, and katebushnews.com has 5 copies to give away!
The Sensual World will be presented on 180g pure virgin vinyl in an audiophile edition with a gatefold sleeve.
Read full details of how to enter at the competition page here.
A sound clip featuring about 60 seconds from “She Moved Through the Fair”, the duet that Kate (relatively) recently recorded with Rolf Harris, has surfaced on Youtube here. It is unclear at the moment whether the clip has been uploaded by someone associated with Rolf or whether Rolf himself played the clip at a recent UK radio appearance. The 80 year old Australian artist and musician has frequently mentioned the duet in interviews and has been anxious to see it released. Featuring Rolf’s trademark didjeridu along with swirling Irish whistles and a soaring vocal from Kate, this has certainly got us excited to hear the full version of this up-tempo treat. This then, the first time we’ve heard Kate singing new material since Lyra in 2007, nearly three years ago.
Update: At the request of Rolf’s publisher, we have removed the audio from the clip that was posted on Youtube, it appears to have been an unauthorised leak. The publishers will update us on plans to release the song when that has been decided.
Gemma Arterton wants to play Kate in a biopic, should anyone actually be making one – see here here and here …. comedy duo Frisky and Mannish have melded Kate Nash’s cockney pop patter Foundations and Kate’s Wuthering Heights into “a jaw-droppingly brilliant twin-Kate soundclash” see here here and here …. MTV com notes that Maxwell‘s album Now has topped the US charts, and considers that the best moment on the album (“and perhaps the most astonishing moment of Maxwell’s career”) is his cover of This Woman’s Work …. Placebo‘s cover of Running Up That Hill will feature on the Vampire Diaries soundtrack album …. the recent Cardiff Mardi Gras included a presentation by Deborah Withers of her recent book Adventures in Kate Bush and Theory …. American Idols LIVE! brought the top ten finalists from season nine to Seattle’s Key Arena Friday, August 20th, 2010 and contestant Lynche began his set “with possibly the best received song of his Idol run” Kate’s This Woman’s Work …. “I can just about accept that Kate Bush at her dippiest might be channelling the old weird Albion of early pagan folk songs, but the electronic soundscapes of Coil or Psychic TV are as far from folk music as it is possible to go” – Sean O’Hagan reviews Rob Young’s folkopus Electric Eden in The Observer … Big Boi still wants to work with Kate …’Hello Earth’ was selected by Jarvis Cocker on his BBC 6 music radio show, the same Sunday as The Kick Inside was Johnnie Walker’s featured album…
Ann Powers at the LA Times music blog considers who hasn’t been, and ought to be, nominated for the (US) Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:
“Kate Bush: The godmother of New Wave, a pioneer of electronic music and the definitive artist of what I call “ultrafemme” pop, this thorny English rose is probably too reclusive to ever make it into the Rock Hall’s party crowd. But with artists like Maxwell and Big Boi speaking up for her, Bush is ripe for reevaluation.”
… well according to Altius anyway. This essay reads to me like an episode of ‘Allo ‘Allo!.
The New York Times reviews Theo’s new show of extraordinary Kate covers here: “Kate Bush is a special fit for him. The arc of her career, uneasily abutting art-rock and alternative music, jibes with his own off-kilter profile. And she’s another transfixing singer with a penchant for careful diction and spooky connotation, and deep interest in the subconscious. “Hello Earth! The Music of Kate Bush,” Mr. Bleckmann’s new project, had its premiere this spring; he plans to record an album next year.”
WQXR broadcast the Poisson Rouge gig live and you can “listen again” here.
The press is having great fun with the story that Steve Blacknell is putting up for auction a handwritten copy of the lyrics to The Man With the Child in His Eyes see HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE. We doubt if the origin of any of Kate’s songs is quite so simple. Still, the one thing this shows is that the media is still very much interested in Kate. This bodes well for her next release of work, whenever that may be.
The story is now in the hands of the commentators: see HERE, HERE, and HERE