Kate in Smash Hits!

[Doug Alan <nessus>]

There is an article/interview with Kate Bush in the 28 August - 10 September
1985 Smash Hits.  Some quotes:

	She had a number one single when she was 18, and followed that
	with a string of hits.  Then she vanished.  So what happened?
	Did she disappear to France?  Did she turn into an 18-stone blob?
	No she didn't, actually, reports Chris Heath...

	...

	Those days ["The Kick Inside", "Lionheart" -- Doug], despite her
	success, most people thought of her as a rather weird doctor's
	daughter with the "funny" voice and the funnier dances who said
	either "amazing" or "wow" (or possibly both) whenever she opened
	her mouth.

	They only took her a bit more seriously a couple of years later
	when she had a hit about nuclear war ("Breathing"), and then
	another about a boy who grows up wanting to be a soldier ("Army
	Dreamers".

	...

	Then things went a bit wrong.  Her last LP, "The Dreaming" in
	1982, had no big hit singles and met with mixed response.  Some
	said it was her best record ever

It was!

It is strange that in England, "The Dreaming" was a relative commercial
disaster, but in the U.S., it is "The Dreaming" that got KB noticed.
The relative commercial success of "The Dreaming" in the U.S. (hey, well
it got up to nearly 150 on the charts!) and rave reviews of "The
Dreaming" in the U.S. press caused EMI-America to finally release
"Lionheart" (1978) and "Never for Ever" (1980) in 1984.

	but others either said that she was down in the dumper or just
	laughed because it featured Rolph Harris playing digeridoo.
	She's still fuming about that.

	"There's so much snobishness.  Their attitude was not to take
	him seriously but in fact on levels of musicianship he was
	fantastic."

	....

	She says that she is not very fond of interviews and she only
	does them to help launch her records -- "send it off safe into
	the world like you do a baby or a ship" -- so that they can earn
	enough money to make the next one.  And she's not very much in
	touch with her competition in the charts.  "I never listen to
	much contemporary music," she says, admitting that she's never
	even *heard* Madonna before Live Aid.

I was wrong, thank goodness!  Kate just couldn't come out and say
something good about Madonna!  Every other time someone has aksed "Do
you like Foo?" she always said "Yeah, Foo is really great!" no matter
who Foo is because she'll never insult anyone in specific.

	....

	When asked about the worst thing that's happened to her she
	snaps "I don't want to answer such a negatively based question",
	though she does then cryptically reply "loosing my I-Ching card
	and Killing Joke splitting up."

	....

	How weird.  Maybe the Killing Joke bit's got to do with the fact
	that Youth, the band's old bass player (now in Brillian),
	appears on the new LP.  She does say later that "Killing Joke
	were a band with such good energy -- I really liked 'Eighties'."


"Eighties -- I'm living in the eighties
 Eighties -- I have to push, I have to struggle
 Eighties -- get out of my way, I'm not for sale no more"

-Doug

P.S.  There is now YAKBFZ (Yet Another Kate Bush FanZine)!  It is called
"Blow-Away" and is published in Scotland.  I'm beginning to lose count
of all the Kate Bush fanzines there are!