Profile: Kate Bush: Can she pull off the big sway-back?
In the cluttered loft that houses the memory of the average middle-aged bloke, a video flickers dully. It displays a child-woman of ethereal yet sexual allure who sways with beguiling swimming motions as her voice leaps the octaves of her 1978 hit Wuthering Heights.
The news that Kate Bush is planning a comeback after 12 years has lit up the captured moment when she erupted on the music scene as a 19-year-old, tangle-haired gypsy with a dazzling talent and a totally original approach to pop.
So agonisingly have devotees awaited her return that the writer John Mendelssohn penned a novel entitled Waiting for Kate Bush, published last month, featuring a Bush obsessive who has sent her 2,000 unanswered e-mails and is tormented by self-loathing.
Nobody would believe that Bush’s long silence was about to end had she not posted these words on a fan club’s website: “The album is nearly finished and will be out next year.” In a rare burst of garrulousness she added: “I hope you will all feel it’s been worth the wait.”
Now 46, the elusive Bush spent the interval at her home near Reading making sculptures, planning films and enjoying the company of Bertie, her six-year-old son, and his father, the guitarist Danny McIntosh, who played on Bush’s last record The Red Shoes.
A little more light was thrown on her absence by Peter Gabriel, her friend and collaborator on the hit single Don’t Give Up, who recently told a Canadian interviewer: “She’s being a mum and loving it. So music’s gone from being full-time to part-time (and) that slows you down.”
The doctor’s daughter from the London suburb of Bexleyheath altered the chemistry of pop in a career that produced nine albums and 13 hit singles, including The Man with the Child in His Eyes, written when she was only 13. Her unique performances combined musical theatre, dance, poetry and rock, crowned with a voice that could scale the upper registers with what has been described as a captivating screech.
Nobody had seen or heard anything quite like her before. One reviewer wrote: “It beggars belief . . . a stunningly original stage performance . . . it is devastatingly effective . . . a dazzling testimony to a remarkable talent.”
Her success was all the more notable because she was one of the few women to be taken seriously in the male-dominated world of pop, governed at the time by the aggressive sounds of punk. This 5ft 3in nip-waisted shy sprite not only composed and arranged her songs and produced her stage shows, but she also designed her costumes and was managing director of her management company.
Many female artists have claimed Bush as an inspiration, including Madonna, Björk, kd lang, PJ Harvey and Katie Melua. OutKast, the US hip-hop duo, want to do a song with her if they can track her down.
Male singers, too, owe a debt to Bush — perhaps none more so than Sir Cliff Richard. When he first saw her perform Wuthering Heights he was so impressed with her arm- flailing and gyratory motions that he incorporated them into his own static stage act. Like other Brontë aficionados, he probably imagined she had a detailed knowledge of the book, but it turned out she had not read it. The song was apparently based on her memory of the last moments of a television film.
In the studio, however, her perfectionism verged on control freakery. Recording the song Wow, she reportedly performed hundreds of vocals over several weeks, despite the producer’s insistence that he was perfectly content with the first take.
The experience led her to assume control of producing the album The Dreaming in 1982. Characterised by sound effects and animal cries, the record was not a success. Some blamed Rolf Harris’s contribution on the didgeridoo.
Catherine Bush was born in 1958, when British pop was waiting to be rescued by Elvis Presley. Her father was an English GP who played jazz piano, married to an Irishwoman who had been an accomplished folk dancer in Co Waterford. She was brought up in a comfortable home with two older brothers, John and Paddy. Both were fanatical about folk music and Kate imbibed their records of folk, sea shanties and Irish jigs.
She liked Buddy Holly and Presley, but her main inspiration was traditional music. “Irish airs, the uillean pipes — music like that affects me physically,” she said.
She also enjoyed hymns and took violin lessons at convent school, St Joseph’s at Abbey Wood, near Woolwich. “We lived in a farmhouse. I used to play hymns on an old organ in the barn till it was eaten out by mice,” she recalled.
By 11 she was writing poems; at 13 she was mixing music with the words. Her songs were intensely emotional, drawn from personal terrors and nightmares. “Horrible things fire my imagination,” she admitted. She had a particular fascination for films such as Don’t Look Now and The Cruel Sea, with “watery” themes.
Through her brothers, she joined a folk group called the KP Bush Band, playing pub gigs in the Lewisham area. When she was 15 she was introduced to Dave Gilmour, the lead guitarist with Pink Floyd, who encouraged young talent. “Absolutely terrified and trembling like a leaf, I sat down and played for him.” Gilmour liked her songs and put up some money for her to make three tracks.
The next year she was signed to Floyd’s record company, EMI, which was at first reluctant to let her record her preferred song, Wuthering Heights, until she felt ready to “handle the situation”.
She left school with a stack of O-levels, a recording contract and a windfall legacy from an aunt.
While getting more experience with the folk band, she started dance and mime classes. Emulating David Bowie, she studied with Lindsay Kemp, the mime artist and choreographer, and began to conceive of performing Wuthering Heights as a windblown figure with over-theatrical gestures.
The result was a sensation. On reflection, Bush said she was never too young to be a musician and her only ambition had been to get 10 songs onto a piece of plastic. “It couldn’t have happened fast enough. School inhibited me. It wasn’t until I left school that I found the real strength inside. All the rest was karma. It was meant to be.”
Ironically, the icon of Top of the Pops did not particularly like pop music, citing Chopin, Debussy, Sibelius and Erik Satie as her favourite listening. She also seemed oblivious to the effect her sultry performances had on audiences.
“I don’t deliberately try to be sexy when I perform,” she said. “I just concentrate on getting as much emotion and feeling into it as I can. I can feel myself switching on in front of an audience. It’s a very physical thing.”
The single’s success helped power her debut album, The Kick Inside, to the top of the charts and her sudden riches enabled her to set up home in south London with her cats Pywackit and Zoodle. In January 1979, accompanied by a troupe of dancers, jugglers and musicians, she set off on a scintillating tour. It was to be her last.
Instead she concentrated on studio work during the following decade and her hit albums included Never for Ever in 1980, the highly acclaimed Hounds of Love in 1985, and The Sensual World in 1989. There followed a four-year break until her collaboration with Eric Clapton on The Red Shoes in 1993, but the album was not well received and she vanished from view.
In recent years she has appeared in public a few times. She sang on stage with Gilmour at the Albert Hall in 2002 and appeared at the Q magazine awards. The industry tried to lure her back with the offer of a Brits lifetime achievement award but she turned it down because she would have had to have performed live.
Now she is ready to face the spotlight again. This, remember, is a female star whose versatility has perhaps never been surpassed, who pioneered the fusion of dance and circus entertainment in pop and conjured a new persona with each song. For fans, the anticipation is palpable.
SMALL TALK!
PIXIES are set to release a DVD while chronicles their sensational comeback year.
The band have completed an eight-month tour in New York on Saturday night (December 18), and during the jaunt they have been followed by a film crew. The footage will be used for a documentary on the band and possibly an in-concert DVD, according to Billboard.
The group's manager Ken Goes said: "I have collected film from about six or seven full concerts which we plan to edit for a compilation concert DVD.
"There is a possibility that these two DVDs will be combined into one double-disc set, but that is not yet confirmed."
Pixies reformed earlier this year, and the subsequent live shows were the band's first since 1992.
Director Michael Mann Talks Collateral
NEW YORK (CNN) -- "Collateral" has paid off.
The film, which starred Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx, was both a critical favorite and box office success when it was released in August. Now the kudos are paying off in award nominations, including a recent best director award for the film's helmer, Michael Mann, from the National Board of Review, and a Golden Globe nomination for co-star Jamie Foxx.
"Collateral" was released on DVD December 14. CNN's Doug Ganley sat down with Mann to talk about the film and the extras on the DVD release.
CNN: What does it mean to you to get an award like the National Board of Review's?
MICHAEL MANN: I think ... it's very significant to be honored this way by the National Board of Review. Particularly ... because they've been around for a long time. It's a really responsive group and it's very significant.
CNN: What does an award mean to the movie nowadays?
MANN: It makes your day. ... If something truly moves me and I did my job and well enough, it moves other people too, and that's nice to know. ...
You have to have your eye on the ball and the eye on the ball is the work, so ultimately the validation must come from the work. You have to do the work for the work. But it's great, you know."
CNN: What does the DVD offer?
MANN: DVDs offer us this fabulous ability to get behind the experience of the film. [You] see some of the thinking that went behind some of the craft work and some of the dedication and all this. In a way, you could almost become part of the group that's making it.
I [wanted to] do a documentary that's really about [how a film is really made]: why I'm trying to make you feel a certain way without knowing you're feeling that way by manipulating the background that's going past Tom's head just before he dies ... or how we wanted to see in the dark in ways that motion picture film can't do and here's how we went about [it]. (Mann shot much of the film in digital video and wanted to give Los Angeles a particularly colorful neon look.) ...
And it's got a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff with Tom's training and Jaime's training so that he could get the sense of driving a cab for 14 years everyday of the week [and get a feel for the vehicle]. ... And then Tom gaining the physical skills ... a lot of the weapons training.
But the other skills are also in this too. ... We had exercises in which [Cruise] was a FedEx delivery man and we'd have hidden cameras and his mission was to pick something up, make a delivery to somebody in, say, a very crowded central market in downtown Los Angeles, without that person realizing he was Tom Cruise. All of that's in there.
CNN: So you're opening up the curtain and letting the audience see in the back. Do you enjoy that?
MANN: I do if it's interesting. If it's just "everybody's wonderful," no. But if it's substantial, yeah, I do. [And so we] try to make it substantial.
CNN: You're not afraid of exposing any trade secrets?
MANN: I don't think [they're] secrets as it is. [They're] a fascinating look into how people do this and what's on their mind and what they really care about and the frustrations of it and the difficulty of it. It's not easy. And I'm not talking about myself, I'm talking about everybody, everybody working on the picture.
CNN: What was the biggest challenge for you as a director?
MANN: In this film there were three. One was how much could I get you to understand that you feel all the dimensions of the other person. ... How much can I manipulate this short, intense 10 hours to make you feel all the dimensions, all the history about Vincent without necessarily you knowing that you're doing it, but still you feel that you know. ...
Secondly was the change of registers. The film goes from pretty, I think pretty moving -- and it's in the screenplay this way -- pretty moving events like the death of Daniel. [But] when [Cruise's character] shoots him, and it goes from uh real pathetic tragedy to some outrageous comedy without any transition, and could I change registers without compromising either one.
And maybe the third challenge for me was evolving the hardware, the technology to be able to see into the night and I could get that on a video monitor.
CNN: Jamie Foxx is really coming into his own ...
MANN: This is Jamie's year. I mean, [Golden Globe nomination for] supporting actor in "Collateral," and his work in "Ray" is wonderful, it's just wonderful.
CNN: How good of a villain is Tom Cruise?
MANN: He's great. It's a great prescription to have an actor explore places he's not been, to be on a frontier because it just charges everything up, so Tom's work in "Magnolia," for example, is terrific, and I think his work in "Collateral" is just fabulous. It's way more dimensional than people realize. He's doing three things in some of these scenes at the same time. It's very, very complex and very difficult and I just think he did a spectacular job.
Contest searches for best resident DJ in Canada; winner to be crowned in May
TORONTO (CP) - Like mad scientists in dark laboratories, nightclub DJs across the country are experimenting with tunes to get the body moving as they take part in a Canada-wide competition.
"Hopefully it will expose Canadian talent internationally a bit more," Mark Oliver, a Toronto-based DJ, said of the contest.
"We're already doing well on the international scene but I think it can actually help Canadians appreciate what we have on our own doorstep."
The Smirnoff Vinyl Warriors showdown opened in October, inviting resident DJs - DJs who have contracts at clubs - to submit one original mix.
The tunes are played every Saturday night on the University of Toronto radio station CIUT and posted online at www.mysmirnoff.ca.
Listeners vote for their favourite mix online or through text messaging until Feb. 28. They must be of legal drinking age to do so.
The judges will ultimately narrow the top 10 vote-getters down to three finalists who will spin their stuff at a Toronto event in May.
"It's going to be tough," says Oliver, a contest judge. "A lot of these resident DJs have been playing for at least 10 years."
Oliver says selection of music, spinning style and stage presence will be considered in choosing a winner.
"I'll be looking at the crowd and if no one's dancing then obviously they're going to lose points," he explains.
"I'm sure if there are certain tracks that are played and the crowd starts screaming then that's going to be a big plus for that DJ."
Oliver looks forward to hearing the different spinning styles.
"You go to certain towns, say London, Ont., for example, and the clubs there might be more into break-beats and techno. And then you come to Toronto and those scenes aren't really as big on a whole," he explains.
Oliver says the U.K. dominates the electronic music scene but Canada isn't too far behind. He also says the industry itself has come a long way.
"For a long time DJ's were sort of frowned upon. When I started playing ... it was almost like DJ's were not viewed as real musicians."
A date and location for the final spinoff has yet to be determined.
TV QUIZ
1 What song was Janet Jackson singing when she had her infamous "wardrobe malfunction" during last year's Super Bowl? And who was she singing with?
2 How many people watched the finale of "Friends" on NBC?
3 Dan Rather announced last month that he's retiring from the "CBS Evening News" in March 2005. How many years will he have anchored the newscast by then?
4 Who was the runner-up to Fantasia Barrino on "American Idol 3"?
5 What's the name of the paper company in the British version of "The Office"?
6 What model car did Oprah Winfrey give away to each audience member on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" last September?
7 Who was the only "Desperate Housewives" star not to earn a Golden Globe nomination?
8 Who was the first winner of "The Swan" on Fox?
9 Who was the first person to be "fired" from the first edition of "The Apprentice"?
10 What's the name of "Late Show" host David Letterman's child, who turned 1 this year?
11 Who replaced Pat O'Brien as co-host of "Access Hollywood"?
12 How many consecutive games did "Jeopardy!" whiz Ken Jennings win, and how much money did he earn before he finally lost?
13 What show finally knocked "ER" off its perch as the top-rated show at 10 p.m. on Thursdays?
14 How many editions of "Survivor" have now aired since the first show in 2000?
15 How much were the stars of "Friends" being paid, per episode, by the time the show went off the air?
16 Who was the singer accused of lip-synching on "Saturday Night Live"?
17 What's the name of the most recent cast member to leave "Law & Order"?
18 What well-known radio personality signed a deal to host a daytime talk show?
19 What former "Friends" cast member will star in a show for HBO?
20 What old-time comedian played Larry's nearly-blind father on "Curb Your Enthusiasm"?
21 What 1960s TV star will anchor a morning radio show here in New York?
22 What former "Apprentice" contestant now works on a morning TV show?
23 On "The Sopranos" this past season, what was Carmine doing when he suffered his fatal heart attack at the country club?
24 What World War II movie did many stations refuse to air because they considered it to be "indecent" in parts?
25 Which classic TV series was remade as a reality show?
ANSWERS
1. "Rock Your Body" with Justin Timberlake 2. 52.3 million 3. Twenty-four years. 4. Diana DeGarmo 5. Wernham-Hogg 6. Pontiac G6. 7. Eva Longoria, who plays Gabrielle Solis. 8. Rachel Love Frasier 9. David Gould, a doctor-turned-real estate developer. 10. Harry 11. Billy Bush, who's a first-cousin to President George W. Bush. 12. 74 games and a total of $2.5 million 13. "Without a Trace," CBS 14. Nine so far. 15. $1 million per episode each. 16. Ashlee Simpson, sister of Jessica Simpson. 17. Elisabeth Rohm 18. Robin Quivers from "The Howard Stern Show." 19. Lisa Kudrow, who played Phoebe, will headline "Comeback" as a former sitcom star trying to revive her career. 20. Shelley Berman 21. Mickey Dolenz, who starred in "The Monkees," begins on WCBS-FM Jan. 10. 22. Ereka Vetrini on "The Tony Danza Show." 23. He was eating an egg-salad sandwich. 24. "Saving Private Ryan," ABC. 25. "Gilligan's Island" was transformed into "The Real Gilligan's Island" on TBS.
HOMER MEETS HIS MAKER
Homer is going to die.
"Simpsons" creator Matt Groening says he is going to kill off Daddy Simpson so that the star can go to heaven to argue with God.
Fear not.
Homer comes back at the end of the episode, he says, after deciding he misses wife Marge and kids Bart, Lisa and Maggie too much.
"Homer gets into an argument with God," Groening told reporters late last week at an award show in London.
"He tells God he should go back in time and change things that are wrong in the world.
"Homer says Superman could do it," the show's creator says.
This will not be Homer's first confrontation with the Almighty.
He has, in an earlier episode, argued with God about the relative merits of football and chuch ("Hey, what's the big deal about going to some building every Sunday? I mean, isn't God everywhere?")
But this will be the first time he dies in order to meet the Lord.
The creator of "The Simpsons" also said that he was excited that TV comic Ricky Gervais — the writer and star of "The Office" — had agreed to pen a "Simpsons" episode.
"It is the first time anyone has been given free rein to write an episode.
"We trust Ricky because we'll take his scripts and just rip it apart."
EYES ON THE PRIZE
Until this year, actor Zach Braff had never won any award. Nothing. Nada. Zip.
"Not even a Little League award," laughs the New Jersey native and star of NBC's "Scrubs."
"I joked when I got my first award of this year that I was going to glue a little guy playing baseball to the top of it," says Braff, "so I could have an award like my brothers."
He's going to need a steady supply of those little plastic guys in the future.
Braff scored a Humanitas Award nomination for the screenplay to "Garden State," his directorial debut, which comes out on DVD tomorrow.
It's a fitting place to start since the Humanitas is one of the few awards scored by the critically acclaimed "Scrubs" (Tuesdays at 9:30 p.m.) after four seasons of being mostly ignored by the Emmys.
But it's not the last award he's gotten.
"Garden State" — the story of a fitfully successful actor headed back to New Jersey to bury his mother, make peace with his estranged father, and make out with Natalie Portman (not in that order) — was also singled out by the National Board of Review, got two Independent Spirit Awards, and two People's Choice Awards.
And the soundtrack Braff oversaw (featuring everyone from critical faves The Shins to suicidally sad, cult-figure Nick Drake) just went gold and is nominated for a Grammy.
So maybe he should have sensed something was in the air this year come Golden Globes time?
"Yeah!" says Braff, who was nominated for Best Actor in a sitcom for "Scrubs." "But I didn't even wake up early this year. I wasn't expecting it."
Fans worry all the success will make Braff step away from the clever medical comedy that started it all.
But Braff is delighted that "Scrubs" is still on the air despite never scoring huge ratings. His co-star, Donald Faison, is one of his best friends in real life and he's in no mood to see it end.
"The show is so much fun to do," says the 29-year-old Braff. "We don't have a huge fan base but we have a really loyal one. It looks like we're going to be around a little while longer. I know it will go another year. I don't want it to be over. It's a job where you come to work and make your friends laugh a lot."
So despite some New Year's resolutions posted on his blog ("Forego all exercise — including walking" and "Learn to smoke — something thin like Capris"), Braff seems unlikely to let this sudden success change him.
Just ask who his date will be to the Golden Globes on Jan. 16.
"I'm bringing my mom," says Braff.
Subplots Abound for New Year's on TV
NEW YORK (AP) — Let the surfing begin. With an ailing king, two would-be successors and a ubiquitous substitute, New Year's Eve on television has more subplots than a party with three ex-girlfriends.
Dick Clark and his "New Year's Rockin' Eve" on ABC has been the go-to party for 32 years, but he'll be away from Times Square this Friday as he continues recovering from a stroke. Regis Philbin will fill in for him.
NBC is launching its own party show from Rockefeller Center with Carson Daly. Ryan Seacrest, in his third year for Fox, is bringing his show east to New York for the first time. Even gray-haired hipster Anderson Cooper will emcee a CNN New Year's show from Times Square with the rock band Green Day.
Both Daly and Seacrest were booked before Clark took ill, an indication of an approaching generational shift. Much like Clark took over from Guy Lombardo as television's most popular New Year's Eve host, Daly and Seacrest are jockeying to be the next in line.
"When it's time to say, `OK, here's the show and the guy that is going to be around on New Year's Eve for years to come,' I would definitely like to be the one that the baton gets passed to," Seacrest said.
Don't expect Clark, health permitting, and ABC to give it up easily. "New Year's Rockin' Eve" is annually ABC's second most popular entertainment special after the Oscars.
"There's never been anything to put a dent in it," said Andrea Wong, ABC's senior vice president for alternative series and specials. "There continues to be a huge appetite for the show."
Even in his mid-70s, as he introduces artists young enough to be his grandchildren, Clark's perpetual teenage image has kept the fogey factor at bay. In recent years, he's brought on a younger co-host from Hollywood, a role filled this week by Ashlee Simpson.
The ABC New Year's Eve special will run three and a half hours, starting at 10 p.m. EDT, breaking after an hour for local news and returning from 11:35 p.m. to 2:05 a.m. Besides Simpson, performers include Big & Rich; Ciara; Earth, Wind & Fire; Fabolous; Kenny G; Billy Idol; Los Lonely Boys and Simple Plan.
Philbin, who's yet to find a TV job he can't do, was Clark's choice, Wong said. Between that endorsement and Philbin's own popularity, ABC doesn't expect to relinquish its crown.
Daly and Seacrest are both big fans of Clark. They've used his career as a model, and speak of him ever-so-respectfully.
But is that the sound of a door creaking open?
"Things could perhaps be up in the air now in light of the recent circumstances, the unfortunate circumstances with Dick," Seacrest said. "They had to put Regis in at the last minute, and I'm not quite sure what that show will be like or feel like without Dick Clark. He certainly will be missed by America."
"It really won't feel the same without him in Times Square," he said.
Seacrest, now a radio host of "America's Top 40," will run his show (airing from 11 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. ET) like a countdown. Not only will the year's best songs be played, he'll incorporate pop culture lists like the top five bitter breakups of the year. It's his first year as executive producer, and Seacrest is looking for ways to make the show distinctive.
Hoobastank and Evanescence will perform, and the show will include the world premiere of a 20-minute Usher video featuring four of his hits.
Usher fans may be delirious, but there's a danger others could see that time as a huge indulgence. But Seacrest points out it will happen after midnight, when many people stop paying attention to these shows or can't see straight anyway.
Daly spent five years as host of MTV's New Year's Eve party (which, by the way, has Lindsay Lohan as host this year) before taking last year off. He has re-emerged to inaugurate NBC's pre-party, which airs from 10 to 11 p.m. Jay Leno will have a live "Tonight" show when the Times Square ball drops.
If Daly is disappointed at leaving the air an hour before midnight, he's not letting on.
"I didn't really look past the fact that they said `you'll be on the air live from 10 to 11 and here's the money,'" he said. "Maybe next year."
He wants the chance to establish himself as a potential New Year's Eve franchise for NBC.
"This is not about me trying to steal something from Dick Clark," he said.
His show will feature performances by Avril Lavigne, Maroon 5 and Duran Duran. Ever the good corporate soldier, Daly will also include a guest shot by "The Apprentice" star Donald Trump via satellite from Trump's own New Year's party in Florida and an appearance by "Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams.
CBS, by the way, is essentially punting on New Year's Eve, running a prime-time lineup of reruns and a repeat "Late Show" with David Letterman.
The closest Daly comes to trash talking with his rivals is calling Duran Duran a bigger act than "White Wedding" singer Idol, who's on ABC.
"There will be something younger and, in my opinion, a little cooler to watch that night," he said.
Cool. That's the territory that Fox and Seacrest is also trying to stake out.
Could a New Year's duel be far behind?
Since Seacrest will be in Times Square and Daly a few blocks away in Rockefeller Center, perhaps they could duke it out somewhere in the middle — say, Sixth Avenue.
"He's much taller and a little bit bigger than me," Seacrest said. "I think he'd probably be able to beat me up."