Re: Video history

[Richard Bensam <rabensam@earthlink.net>]

Sean the Archaeologist remembers:

>My earliest memory of Kate was seeing the video of Wuthering Heights
>on The Multi-Coloured Swap Shop in 1978, and thinking ( I was 5 at
>the time ), that she was a witch of some kind !!!!!!

Aha!  So *that's* where this witch thing started.

>I will always remember the multi-image effect of her waving her aems
>and I remember thinking that it was an amazing special effect !

You mean it wasn't?  Kate can actually do that with her arms?  Wow...

>I also remember that that Saturday morning show also showed Skippy
>the Bush Kangaroo so of course I thought Kate "Bush" was from Australia and
>only found out in 1985 that she was in fact English !!!!

LOL!

Apart from giving me the opportunity to make some cheap wisecracks, this
recollection points out something which needs to be remembered in the
discussion of Kate's early video clips.  The fact is, in Britain and the
rest of Europe there were always more television programs devoted to pop
music -- and variety programs which would feature music -- than there ever
were in America.  Besides Top Of The Pops, at any given moment there was
Ready Steady Go, or the inexplicably named Old Grey Whistle Test, or the
Kenny Everett Video Show, and dozens of others.  These shows featured
prerecorded promo films in addition to live or lip-synched studio
performances.  In addition, British chat shows often featured current rock
musicians -- Jimi Hendrix even performed live on shows hosted by Lulu and
Dusty Springfield! -- at a time when American viewers would be lucky to get
Englebert Humperdinck.  (The Ed Sullivan show being a notable exception
which did feature contemporary rock acts on our side of the pond.)  The
point being that when Kate made her first videos, it was with the knowledge
that there were plenty of shows on television which would air them -- she
was not really breaking any new ground there, at least not in that sense.

Unfortunately, because there weren't many mainstream outlets for video
clips in the States in 1978, devoted American viewers would have to stay up
till 2 AM to catch a Kate video on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, say, or the
occasional imported Kenny Everett show.  If MTV had existed in the States
at the time of her debut, quite probably Kate would have enjoyed more
prominence here from the start, and her career might have gone in a
perceptibly different direction.  But by the time of MTV's debut, Kate was
already considered "old news" and was overlooked.


RAB

_______________________________________

Richard Bensam Home Page
http://home.earthlink.net/~rabensam/

Gaffaweb: A Tribute To Kate Bush And Her Fans
http://www.gryphon.com/gaffa/