THE GARDEN -- GARDEN1.TXT - SECTION 1 (OF 5).

[rhill@pnet01.cts.com (Ronald Hill)]

              THE GARDEN, VOL. 1--GARDEN1.TXT--JUNE 1991
                     Beginning through Chronology 

            A PUBLICATION OF THE WICKHAM STREET IRREGULAR PRESS





                                T H E

                              G A R D E N

                              VOLUME ONE




      A PUBLICATION OF THE WICKHAM STREET IRREGULAR PRESS




                                T H E

                              G A R D E N


                               VOLUME ONE




A PUBLICATION OF THE WICKHAM STREET IRREGULAR PRESS





T H E   G A R D E N



A COMPENDIUM OF INFORMATION
FOR THE SERIOUS KATE BUSH FAN

FOURTH REFERENCE EDITION
Published in Four Volumes

BASED ON THE REFERENCE EDITIONS OF 1987, 1988 and 1989. NOW COMPLETELY
REVISED IN ALL DEPARTMENTS INCLUDING ALSO A DEPARTMENT OF RECENT
INTERVIEWS, BEING THE LATEST AUTHENTIC QUARTO EDITION OF
THE WICKHAM STREET SERIES


ANDREW B. MARVICK, KBC No. K4735R
EDITOR IN CHIEF




VOLUME ONE


Miscellaneous Writings and Catalogues



T H E   G A R D E N

Address all enquiries to
Andrew Marvick
10499 Wilkins Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90024

 c  1988, 1989, 1990 by Andrew Marvick

This book is not for sale.


T H E   G A R D E N


This book is dedicated to


K A T E    B U S H


in love and admiration
on behalf of an American fan
July 30, 1988




                    T H E   G A R D E N



     
     
     
        "If one tells the truth, one is       
         sure, sooner or later, to be found out."
       
         Oscar Wilde, Phrases for the Young (1894)








     
     
     
        "It wouldn't take me long     
         To tell you how to find it,     
         To tell you where we'll meet     
         This little girl inside me     
         Is retreating to her favourite place.

     
       "Go into the garden.      
        Go under the ivy,
        Under the leaves,
        Away from the party.
        Go right to the rose.     
        Go right to the white rose
        For me."

        Kate Bush, Under the Ivy (1985)




T H E   G A R D E N


Preface to the Fourth Edition




     Welcome to The Garden.
     If you are relatively new to the work of Kate Bush, the collection of
original and re-printed lists, texts and interviews which comprise this set of
reference books will help you to catch up on a subject which has been getting
larger and more complicated every day for the past thirteen years. Even if
you've followed Kate's music for a while already, some of the material here
may still be of interest.
     For as long as it remains affordable to me, there will be no charge for
these books. If you own them, they are a gift from one Kate fan to another. I
suspect Kate would prefer it that way. Unfortunately, due to the printing and
postage costs of The Garden, which now amount to about $70.00 (within the
U.S.--as much as $120.00 for overseas air-mail delivery), I cannot afford to
make the books widely available.
the next edition.
     With a few exceptions, the catalogues and texts contained in The Garden
were compiled, transcribed and edited by me. Except where otherwise indicated
all comments contained in brackets ([ ]) are mine. Any comments contained in
parentheses (as distinguished from brackets) are not the comments of the
editor, but are a part of the original text. The primary function of my
bracketed remarks is to clarify points which might otherwise mislead the
reader as to the facts. Unfortunately, however, I have a certain weakness for
sharing my opinions; weeds will appear from time to time among the flowers of
even the most lovingly tended garden. The reader is asked to pass over these
with a tolerant eye.
     I thank MarK T. Ganzer for his early support of the project. Special
thanks go to John Carder Bush, whose great kindness and generosity to me one
autumn afternoon at East Wickham Farm helped provide the inspiration for these
books. Finally, I would like to thank Kate Bush for planting her rare and
wonderful flowers in my mind.
     Now you are invited to open the gate...




T H E   G A R D E N











Table of Contents: Volume One


  11   Preface (AM)
  13   Table of Contents
  15   Introduction: Sue Hudson, writing in Hi-Fi News and Record
 Review (AM)
  19   Peter FitzGerald-Morris's chronology of Kate's career (AM)
  45   Catalogue of Kate's recorded music to date (AM, MTG, DA)
  55   The Record Collector's article on Kate Bush collectibles (AM)
  63   Catalogue of Kate Bush video (AM)
  81   List of Kate Bush organizations and fanzines (AM)
  87   The Complete Newsletter writings of Paddy Bush (AM)
       87   Paddy's first Newsletter contribution
       89   Paddy's second Newsletter contribution
       91   Paddy's third Newsletter contribution
       93   Paddy's fourth Newsletter contribution
       95   Paddy's fifth Newsletter contribution
       97   Paddy's sixth Newsletter contribution
       99   Paddy's seventh Newsletter contribution
      101   Paddy's eighth Newsletter contribution
      103   Paddy's ninth Newsletter contribution
      105   Paddy's tenth Newsletter contribution
      107   Paddy's eleventh Newsletter contribution
      109   Paddy's twelfth Newsletter contribution
      111   Paddy's thirteenth Newsletter contribution
      113   Paddy's fourteenth Newsletter contribution
      115   Paddy's fifteenth Newsletter contribution
  117   John Carder Bush's five Newsletter contributions
      117   John Carder Bush's first Newsletter contribution
      119   John Carder Bush's second Newsletter contribution
      121   John Carder Bush's third Newsletter
      125   John Carder Bush's fourth Newsletter contribution
      129   John Carder Bush's announcement for Cathy


                    T H E   G A R D E N












       Sue Hudson's Hi-Fi and Record Review article on Kate Bush (AM)





     [The following article was written by Sue Hudson, an editor for the
British magazine Hi-Fi & Record Review. It appeared in their December 1985
issue. Ms. Hudson's article may not be accurate in every detail, but it's one
of the most heartfelt brief statements about Kate to have appeared in a
mainstream British publication to date. I felt it would be a nice way to begin
this volume. Edited by Andrew Marvick.]

The Back Page 
    We've been holding our breath for a long time. Three years of playing the
old songs and wondering "whatever next?" Would it be even weirder than The
Dreaming? Would it leave more admirers by the wayside, shaking their heads?
        The real fans will happily go along for the ride, even if she isn't
going the pretty way. For Kate journeys into new and exciting territories. She
is an original in a music world dominated by cover versions, regressive
movements and identikit superstars. The direct opposite of the archetypal rock
star: compulsively introvert in a world of screaming extraverts, middle-class
and deeply English amid England's all-pervasive working class American ethos,
boldly feminine in rock's macho climate. Her melodic genius and articulate
lyrics make the rest seem moronically simplistic. Her instrumentation is far
removed from the traditional guitar/drum-kit set-up and predictable
synthesizer riffs. Instead, she brews a heady mixture of musique concrete,
multi-tracked chorus and acoustic instruments from the dijeridu to the
balalaika; all skillfully appropriated to produce precisely calculated
effects. Her lyrics are also multi-diverse. After a thousand songs on the
theme of boy-meets-girl-boy-loses-girl or Thatcher's Britain, exposure to her
music comes as an imaginative release as we go giddily flying into the
limitless possibilities of the poetic viewpoint. Here is talk of whales, of
Peter Pan, kites, Houdini, mysticism...
        Acquaintances have observed, "She lives in a world of her own." But
it's a world that lives within all of us, and her songs shine light into
neglected areas of our minds. Using imagery nostalgically familiar to fellow
Englanders, her subjects come tripping from library shelves, television and
cinema screens and musty books of fairy tales, the stuff that dreams are made
of. She spins tunes that haunt, twist and turn the mind, triggering long
forgotten moods. Listening intently to her albums is an experience akin to
having a lucid and feverish dream. Jungian symbols of youth, innocence,
spiritual escape and the dark, feminine realm abound. Ghosts haunt the black
vinyl grooves. Uncanny intimations disturb the sensitive. The spirit of Peter
Pan hovers over her work, sometimes overtly, as in In Search of Peter Pan, but
also covertly, as a yearning for the human closeness and heightened awareness
of youth. The plangeant beauty of Irish and English folksong lies at the heart
of the music, working its ancient magic. Magic, too, is the rich Celtic blood
that Kate shares with so many poets and spell-weavers.
    But it's not all brooding intensity. There are jokes, too, some
Ealingesque: movie-obsessed bank robbers break into The Dreaming, there's a
Brechtian romp through Arsenic and Old Lace country in Coffee Homeground and
those "Darling, you were wonderful!" theatrics from Wow. Teasing seduction has
produced some adorable songs, a poet's sensuality perfuming the lyrics. Images
of silk and lace, flickering candlelight, white rosebushes in a storm, dusty
ivy, plaiting hair by the fire, ravish the mind's eye.
    But don't imagine that her music is "wet." When multi-layered sonic
collage, Kate's own spectacular vocal tricks and chant-like Oriental rhythms
combine at the ends of the more fey tracks, the effect can be as power-packed
as the heaviest metal. The use of Eastern borrowings in odd harmonies and
interlocking, unfamiliar rhythms opens up and strengthens the Romanticism. The
lyrics, too, have Oriental influences, in the shape of Gurdjieff--a Sufic guru
whose strange terminology and mystic psychology are a recurring motif. While
it must baffle most listeners, it does lend a suitably mysterious distancing
to her deeply personal songs, sharpening an image that threatens to become too
sweet. It's a mischievous paradox that, while rock at its ultra-macho best is
exhilarating and energizing, yet just at the moment when it is most strident
and loud it leaves you needing something more.  Then along comes a shy
doctor's daughter from Welling who out-screams the best, out-powers the
noisiest and tops it with the satisfying impact of musical and psychological
depth. It's almost Wagnerian.
    In a sense, the music is retrospective, since it uses the English/Irish
folk idiom that went, via country-and-western, to make up rock and roll. The
blues/gospel element of Kate's "rock" music is very minor. The rhythms are
more often Oriental or old-European than African--waltzes, jigs and ragas. So,
to the European and the Eastern ear, Kate's music has a sweet familiarity,
especially for the British, who learn their folksongs in school and still sing
hymns and carols in the traditional settings.
   Her talent was precocious. The Saxophone Song and The Man With the Child in
His Eyes were recorded as demo tapes when Kate was still at school. The first
album, The Kick Inside (1978), caused tremendous media interest and is still
the public's favourite. Her voice, criticized at the time, was small and
childlike, the range erratic, if impressive. Since then it has improved
enormously, deepening and
gaining power and flexibility, until now it is a great asset, individual and
capable of both subtle and stunning effects. The fleshing out of the basic
material has also improved with experience, the moods becoming more
atmospherically defined, with more sophisticated instrumentation and
extrapolation of themes.
     The second album, Lionheart, was made at the height of her popularity and
is almost extravert in tone, with a strong dash of theatricality. Its
hit-that-never-was, Hammer Horror, has fun with the ghosts and ghouls that
lurk in the dark corners of her more sombre songs. Symphony in Blue is
optimistic and self-affirming. The title track is a beautiful lullaby for a
sleeping nation.
     The album Never For ever came next and starts in happy mood, with a
summer night of a cha-cha-cha tribute to a new-found hero, Delius. The
philosophic All We Ever Look For creates a remarkable and rare mood of
reassurance and upbeat resignation, a Bush specialty. We end Side One with a
hippy tour of Egypt, but Side Two plunges straight into gloom with a violent
Western. The dark continues with the shiveringly ghostly The Infant Kiss,
based on Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, and the bittersweet Army
Dreamers, with its ingenious use of waltz time. The end comes in the
horrifying Breathing, a vision of the nuclear holocaust through the eyes of an
unborn child.
     On to The Dreaming, a strange, alien album full of mysticism and
obscurantae. Its impact owes much to sheer production quality. Kate has
gradually taken over this aspect of her records since Lionheart, and each LP
is technically more impressive. Her voice here is forward and strong and, on
Leave It Open, deliberately distorted to create a surreal effect. Get Out of
My House is a shattering trip into madness, with a stunning culmination which
finds Kate braying like a mule amid a chorus of Indian drum talk.
     The new album, Hounds of Love, breaks new ground for Kate with the
b-side. This is a story -- The Ninth Wave -- told in a series of songs, like a
Pink Floyd concept album. Free from the necessity of setting a fresh context
for each track, the lyrics are more spare, more integral to the music, and her
talent blossoms. The strong storyline, with its claustrophobic, mystic theme,
has possibilities beyond a mere side, as do many of Kate's ideas. Such a
fertile imagination is quite capable of keeping our interest in one situation
for an hour, or longer. Her musicianship is now skilled and inventive enough
to sustain more instrumental episodes and linking themes. And as mistress of
mood, she has the right combination of talents to stretch out beyond the
limiting confines of pop into more "operatic" form.
    Casual listeners will miss the depth of the music. You must sit down with
the lyric sheet and find out what's going on. All the vocal acrobatics and
weird sounds click into place when you know what ideas, stories and situations
they are expressing. In most rock and pop, the music and words may be linked,
but are basically separate. Kate creates, more and more, a fusion between the
two--the sounds directly expressing the subject. This is a throwback to
Wagner's music-drama, with its leitmotifs, turning music into an idea. The
Beatles revived the technique, and bands of the hippy era like Pink Floyd
carried the banner. But only since the development of electronics, which put
virtually the whole world of sound at the fingertips of the "player" of a
Fairlight, has there been such flexibility to allow individuality and
encourage creativity. Kate is fast becoming a master in the use of this sonic
montage, perhaps because the ideas she is using are far more complex, have
more "resonances", than those of her contemporaries.
    But Kate will never be an academic artist, drily applying intellectual
music theory to the delight of a handful of peers, forging into new areas for
the sake of "progress". Her style is personal, individual, impressionistic.
Like Delius, her music will always flow from poetic necessity, breaking from
the confines of tradition because expression demands it. I just hope that she
will have the confidence to follow her instincts and not be discouraged by the
music press, who in the main are baffled and annoyed by her uniqueness. Unable
to pigeon-hole her music, they turn instead to ridicule and condescension to
fill the pages. Which is a disservice to the British public who, to their
undying credit, have made Kate Bush such a popular success. 
    Sue Hudson 


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