"IT'S ME-KATY"

Rip It Up, Issue 17, 1 November 1978, Page 8

"IT'S ME-KATY"

Francis Stark

I suppose that a lot of you put Kate Bush’s recent New Zealand visit in much the same category as that of Leif Garrett: a media event staged for the benefit of the T.V. channels and a few thousand more middle-of-the-road record sales. But, really, I don’t think that that’s very

accurate. Despite the obvious fascination that she holds for T.V. programmers, and her substantial appeal to a non-rock and roll audience, Kate Bush has a lot more going for her than that.

For a start, as a writer and musician she is more than a few steps beyond mere telestardom, and secondly, she retains an obvious understanding of the star-maker machinery around her, and a willingness to try to answer honestly all the tiresome round of questions that she suffered through. So concerned was she to do herself justice that she seized upon those questions which did actually touch on more than her hobbies or whether "Wuthering Heights” was her favourite song, and did her level best to answer them fully.

When she was asked whether she didn’t fear that "Wuthering Heights” might turn into a millstone in the long run, she didn’t simply shrug it off but said that she thought it was, "inevitable—it’s the only really universal thing that people do know about me ... I can probably only change that now if I can do another one with the same impact." On the subject of her song-writing she frankly admitted that most of the songs she has turned out in her lengthy sessions with her piano are “rubbish”: "Everyone”, she says, “is full of rubbish.”

She also feels frustrated at the extent to which people overlook her musicianship. After all, she does play all the piano on The Kick Inside album. “It’s important for me that I do get across that lam a musician— it’s only a very recent thing for me to sing and not play the piano.”

Most often, however, it was a matter of the hobbies and karate lessons, time for the drivetime jungle, the television taping, the sounds of the star-making machinery grinding on. However much she doesn’t fit in— the feeling is there that Kate Bush might just go under yet.