I don't know how to stop

I convinced D, the other day, to listen to some of the earlier Peter Gabriel albums. She was checking his new album, Scratch My Back, which is on my playlist. She had told me her dad used to listen to Genesis and Gabriel in the car when she was young, but she wasn't overly familiar with it. So I brought in a few albums for her to peruse. My favorite is the one with Peter Gabriel's melting face, which is his third self-titled solo album.

In any case, the point of this is that I listened to this album again, and it brought back a flood of memories. Lying on the bed and reading while listening. Studying the personnel list, which eventually and inevitably led to other exciting musical discoveries.Tony Levin and Robert Fripp pointed the way to King Crimson. Paul Weller opened the door to The Jam. In addition to producing this album, Steve Lillywhite produced U2, Big Country (laugh if you must, but I loved those first couple albums), and XTC, who were other bands I was getting into around that time.

Although I vaguely knew her name from singing backup on Gabriel's melty face album, a few years would pass before I discovered who Kate Bush really was. We didn't have cable television back then, my dad refused to pay for TV. I used to go over to Peter's, his mom was pretty cool and she worked nights which meant she was generally asleep during the day and we could watch whatever we wanted, usually some retarded horror flick or a baseball game. This one particular day, I think Peter was distracted by something. Maybe a girl on the phone, or whatever. I was flipping through the channels when I stumbled upon this gorgeous girl wearing chain mail and brandishing a sword. I was captivated, and when Peter was done with his distraction, I wouldn't let him change the channel until I found out the name of this warrior woman. The song was Babooshka, the name of the program was The Single File (which was a compilation of her videos), and the singer turned out to be Kate Bush. Amazing. I rushed out as soon as I could and picked up Hounds of Love, which was her current release at the time.

Strange how the mind works, this started out as an ode to Peter Gabriel, and I end up gushing over Kate Bush. Complete lack of discipline. I'm gonna leave it as it is, however, and I'll leave with these tunes. Peter Gabriel's No Self Control, on which you can hear Kate Bush singing backup. Kate Bush's Babooshka, which pretty much is the starting point of my lifelong Kate Bush odyssey. I actually have to belatedly thank the USA Network for airing that video. Who would have thought that one could see obscure Kate Bush videos on American network television?

And sometime soon, I will have to write up a little post on my favorite duet ever, Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush singing Don't Give Up, which appears on Gabriel's 1986 album, So. I'll save that one for later.

Peter Gabriel > No Self Control


Kate Bush > Babooshka


Lastly, as a little bonus, here is the video for Kate Bush's spellbinding Babooshka:

No one makes me feel the way you do

Say hello to the magical, Kate Bush. I love the sweet and lilting feel of this track, it's a perfect little gem. Songs like this are the reason that b-sides were invented.

Home For Christmas is a b-side from the Rubberband Girl single, which was taken from her 1993 album, The Red Shoes.

Kate Bush > Home For Christmas

Decadeology: A veil of diamond dust

One of the biggest releases in the past ten years, for me, was Kate Bush's Aerial. I fell in love with her when I first came across her in the mid-eighties. Hounds of Love had just been released and I quickly grabbed her previous releases. In 1993, she put out The Red Shoes and I have to confess that I was disappointed. So I hoped it was just a minor misstep, even Kate Bush can make a mistake, and waited for the next album. And I waited and waited. Soon enough, it seemed like she had disappeared from music altogether. There would be whispers and rumours of a new album every now and then, but nothing. In the summer of 2005, another rumor popped up. Then, there was actually a single, and a shiny new website! The anticipation was killing me.

I picked up Aerial one day in early November and, let me tell you, it did not disappoint. It's difficult to quantify whether it was worth a twelve year wait or not (how would you really measure that?), but the fact that it was a solid album helped lessen the sting a bit. I'd say that Nocturn is probably my favorite song on the album. It's the second to last track on the album and, to me, the preceding songs are like the steps that lead up to the pedestal of Nocturn. This song is the centerpiece of the album. The way it moves, it's very sensual. Not to mention the lyrics, running around on a beach naked, just before dawn. She's very good at painting pictures with her words.

Kate Bush > Nocturn