Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Interview with Kate Walsh
Thursday, October 1, 2009
New Music from Kate! 4 track CD. "Cover Up" EP
Here is the new "Cover Up" EP, currently only available to purchase at Kate's gigs.
1. Who's That Girl? (The Eurythmics cover)
2. Save a Prayer (Duran Duran cover)
4. A Little Respect (Erasure cover)
Monday, September 28, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Sept 15: Article about Kate in Wears the Trousers mag
by Sacha Whitmarsh@wearsthetrousers.com
words in edgeways with kate walsh
After recording his BBC Radio Four show Loose Ends, legendary broadcaster Ned Sherrin used to treat his production team to a slap-up, boozy, lingering Saturday lunch in an old-fashioned, un-gastro’d central London pub. In tribute to Sherrin, who died in 2007, the team have kept on the tradition. This week Kate Walsh is joining them, having appeared on the show playing tracks from her excellent new album Light & Dark. Braving the clatter of glasses and the boisterous “It’s the weekend!” whooping (literally) of the merry punters, she sits down with Wears The Trousers for a chat.
Light & Dark is Kate’s third album and, despite previously being signed to both Kitchenware and Mercury Records, she decided to release it on her own label, Blueberry Pie. It seems like a surprising move. Why turn your back on a ticket to ride the major label wave of power, influence and money? “We released the last album, Tim’s House, on my own label,” she explains, “and then when it went to #1 on iTunes, suddenly all the major labels were like, ‘Who’s this girl, we’ve never heard of her’, and so they all kind of scrabbled to say hello and we ended up going with Mercury.”
However, like much of what was going on for Kate at that time, it wasn’t the experience she hoped it would be. “I lost a lot of job satisfaction being on a major label because we’d built it up from nothing and every little progress and every little success we’d had daily, we felt and were privy to. As soon as you go to a major label you hand over your baby and all the tiny little successes that they deem insignificant we just weren’t hearing about; I just felt like I was on a conveyor belt really. And that’s how it is. It has to be like that because it’s on such a big scale, but I just didn’t feel comfortable. It didn’t sit well with me in the end and I lost sight of what I was doing and I wasn’t enjoying it. So now I’m releasing on my own label again and I’m loving it!”
The ‘we’ she constantly refers to is what she affectionately labels ‘Team Walsh’, her little family of manager and trusted friend Jonathan Morley, producer extraordinaire Tim Bidwell and Jo Whippy, the cellist in the band who is also her cello teacher. “It’s just this really lovely homegrown team,” she elaborates. “And because of that we’re all just so ready to pick up the phone, 24 hours a day if we need to, and that’s really important to me. In the past with managers or labels I’ve felt like I’m just in my box and it shouldn’t be like that at all. We’re all like mates, we’re all best friends and it’s lovely.”
Now based in Brighton, where the love affair that is Team Walsh formed and continues to flourish, Kate grew up in Burnham-On-Crouch in the heart of Essex. She left home around the release of her first album Clocktower Park, moving to Newcastle – home of Kitchenware Records – but left are only about a year. “It ended up being quite fruitless so I moved to London where the streets are paved with gold and all that crap,” Walsh relates, drying. “And basically I had to get a job to fund me being there, so I didn’t do any music, worked in an accountant’s office, was thoroughly miserable, had a massive break-up…and so I moved to Brighton, I’d heard about the college there, the Institute of Modern Music. I think I found out about it one week and I was living there three weeks later. I’d never been to Brighton before either and I just love it; I’ve made such lovely friends there.”
One thing Kate Walsh will never be accused of is hiding her feelings in her songwriting; she’s well known for her frankness. And the tracks on Light & Dark are no exception to this rule. “People say, ‘How can you be so honest?’, but…” She smiles. “I never write the songs for anyone, it’s just real self-indulgent therapy. And so that’s why it comes out honestly ‘cos I’m not trying to pretty it up, and I’m not trying to write a song in three and a half minutes or anything like that. It’s just what it is and then afterwards I make sense of it and decide whether I want to show it to anyone.”
The album’s title track is written with an honesty that’ll make you almost wince and contains the tragic lines, “I left you for another man and he doesn’t deserve me / I know this inside / But he holds my heart between light and the dark / And I wish it was you”. It’s all the more heartbreaking because, for starters, this is apparently all true (why am I surprised?) and, for main, both men concerned heard the song independently and knew it was about them. The result? “A lot of trouble.” And also, a truly wonderful song of course.
As well as being brutally honest about her relationships, equally as revealing on the album is the track ‘1,000 Bees’ where Kate admirably exposes her issues with alcohol and the side of her brought out by the demon drink. Crucially, it’s this issue which very recently led to an epiphany of sorts in Kate’s life. Five months prior to the day of our meeting, she decided to knock the booze on the head and jumped firmly on the wagon. “It’s such a big thing to do,” she states. “For me, it was a massive thing to do and I can’t even begin to tell you how much my life has changed in five months for the better.”
Quite overcome with enthusiasm, she continues. “I’m enjoying my job again. I wanted to give this up. Even three months ago. I couldn’t enjoy the music, the job of the music. Music was always my sanctuary, my release, my hobby, my love, my passion. And as soon as that becomes your job you don’t have an escape from anything again. It’s 24/7. You can’t shut your door on the musical job and then get home and get on with being the real Kate.” So, like so many of us, Kate used drinking to escape all her issues rather than dealing with them. And for her, again like so many of us, that just led to more issues. “People don’t realise what an emotional load of baggage drinking [produces] if you’re an unhealthy drinker,” she states. “And I can be a very unhealthy drinker. The baggage…it’s like chainmail that you carry. Like Jacob Marley and his chain, he’s been carrying all his debts all his life. It’s emotional baggage I’ve been carrying my whole life.”
She pauses, laughing at herself for, once again, being almost too honest. You can see her searching for the right words, struggling to stop herself from revealing too much. But then she can’t help herself. “When you get drunk you don’t deal with anything,” she continues, more seriously now. “You’re adding another bit of baggage. And it’s just a massive, massive sense of low self-worth which just builds up and up and up. Now the drink’s gone there’s no release, there’s no escapism, I really am left with everything I am. And it’s only now that, for the first time in my life, I can actually look at what I have and be thoroughly grateful. I was so ungrateful all my life! I wasn’t a bitch or a moany cow or anything but I was just, ‘Oh woe is me, poor me’. And you think, ‘Nobody understands! Nobody understands how hard it is for me!’, because I’m either wallowing in the past, dwelling on everything I haven’t got in my life, totally missing everything I do have in my life. And worrying totally about what I’m gonna do in 10 years’ time! I mean fucking hell!” Her happiness really is great to witness. I’m having to stop myself from using the expression ‘born again’, but I’m starting to appreciate its meaning.
Her analysis of her circular treadmill of issues is fascinating because there are times when the level of emotional outpouring in her songs does tip into melodrama. Take new song ‘I Cling On For Dear Life’ for example; emotionally extreme on its own, you’d think, but Kate pushes the damsel in distress image still further, completing the title lyric with a knowing “till he says so”. It’s fair to say then that there’s still a certain amount of emotional wallowing going on. “Oh yes! There’s masses of it in there! It’s so self indulgent!” she shrieks. But Light & Dark is no less of a beautiful record for it. After all, so many great works of art are produced by that archetypal tortured soul of an artist. And if Kate can produce this standard of material in a haze of hungover self-loathing, what will sobriety produce? The next stage of her career is presumably going to be the most crucial. Kate herself agrees that, yes, of course her writing will change, and has a wonderfully carefree outlook on the future. “I’m really getting happy for the first time ever, I think. And I just can’t be bothered to waste my time wallowing anymore.”
She’s about to go out on tour in support of the album: twenty dates up and down the country from late September through October. Though she’d previously hated being on the road, this time she can’t wait. “For the first time!” she says. “I’m beaming! I feel like I’ve been in a coma for 26 years. I never thought I was seeing things as the glass half empty, but in hindsight…” She pauses to collect her thoughts. “I always just thought I had this little bit of me that wasn’t quite up to scratch and never would be, that I’d just have to deal with it; that life’s shit and I’d never be truly happy. But I deserve [happiness] now and I can see that, I’m just waking up to that now. This is all gushing out of me today because this is so recent for me. Like every day I get up now and I’m just so grateful for what I have. And just for that I’m grateful!”
In line with her analogy of waking from a coma, she talks of how she’s only recently feeling the real emotion wrapped up in the tracks on Light & Dark, even though some of the songs were written four or five years ago. “I was feeling them, but it was a wallowing emotion. It wasn’t true emotion, it was wallowing; it was just like an outpour. It’s only now that I’m singing them that I really feel what I was feeling back then. You know, it’s like going to watch a sad film where some scenes are like you’re actually in it, like you really feel what they’re feeling. I think I’m only just grieving for all those things that I was doing, whereas before I was just in this cloud of wallowing, romantic crap. Thankfully, because I got the songs out of it. But I’m feeling it all now, I’m really feeling it.”
It’s quite inspiring, hearing the story of someone turning their life around. And from what Kate is saying, she will probably continue on that path to happiness. She’s adamant that, financially, she only needs to break even and clearly has no interest whatsoever in the superficial trappings of the music industry. “I don’t care about money and fame. I’d love to be well-respected within my field and it’s lovely to have my music out there to as many people as possible,” she states. “But the idea of being famous fills me with unease. I like my quiet life.”
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Kate Walsh Live at Tim's House (acoustic sessions)
June Last Year:
Gather My Strength:
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Pre-Order Kate's New Album
It will also be released on UK itunes with a bonus cover track "On & On" (Long Pigs cover). Since I am more into cds than downloads I am really hoping it will be on the special limited edition cd of cover songs that Kate will be selling at her live gigs!!! I'm hoping to be at Sheffield, maybe Manchester and maybe even somewhere else too if I can wangle it!
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Light & Dark Album Offcial Tracklist Confirmation
2. Trying 3:26
3. June Last Year 3:12
4. Greatest Love 4:26
5. Light & Dark 3:44
6. Seafarer 4:13
7. Be Mine 3:26
8. 1000 Bees 3:41
9. On The Stage 3:40
10. I Cling On For Dear Life 3:06
11. Old Man 3:26
12. Gather My Strength 4:09
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Article/Review about Kate's New album and tour
Singer to embark on lengthy tour in September
Two years on from her breakthrough second album Tim’s House, Kate Walsh is ready to unleash a “much darker” follow-up on August 31st. Gone are the sunlit photos – here the light comes from a waxing moon, hushed and covered in clouds as it looms above a pitch-black ocean. It’s a literal take on the title, Light & Dark, but an effective one. And besides, it’s not all doom and gloom. ‘Be Mine’, for example, is a sweet little love song, while the lyrically bleak ‘1000 Bees’ has an irresistible pop stomp behind it.
Returning to a fully independent operation under her own label Blueberry Pie following a brief, tense alliance with major label Mercury Records, Kate has clearly learnt a lot from the experience. Writing in her Myspace blog last month she said of the partnership: “It became became quite apparent that mixing with the big wigs wasn’t necessarily beneficial. It seemed like a very good idea at the time but to lose control of the project like that meant that the sense of achievement and all its soul was lost with it.”
Working once more alongside producer Tim Bidwell, Kate has moved away from the acoustic guitar-led compositions of her earlier work, introducing some warm piano and other keyboard sounds, sometimes used beautifully sparingly. Strings are everywhere too – tasteful orchestrations that allow space for less imposing sounds to come through: a bit of banjo here, some glockenspiel there. It’s all put together so cleverly, and, at times, the songs seem to hinge on nothing but Kate’s endlessly appealing vocals. Even when the subject matter takes a turn for the worse, the voice is a comfort.
The first fruits from the album are on sale already in the form of a limited edition double A-side single featuring the songs ‘Light & Dark’ and ‘Trying’, the latter of which features Olly Knights and Gale Paridjanian of Turin Brakes on vocals and slide guitar, respectively. It’s a bit pricey at £4.99 but you can get it here if you’re interested (you’ll also get MP3s/WMA files for computer listening). On the same site, you can buy e-tickets for certain shows in the itinerary for Kate’s month-long, 21-date tour of the UK and Ireland that kicks off in Manchester on September 27th and ends up in Dublin on October 28th, many of which she appears to be promoting herself. Any orders made through the site will receive a free MP3 of non-album track ‘Sitting Pretty’. Not such a bad deal after all.
Light & Dark
01 As He Pleases
02 Trying
03 June Last Year
04 Greatest Love
05 Light & Dark
06 Seafarer
07 Be Mine
08 1000 Bees
09 On The Stage
10 I Cling On For Dear Life
11 Old Man
12 Gather My StrengthiTunes stores will carry the exclusive bonus track ‘On & On’, a cover of one of Kate’s favourite songs by mid-’90s Brit band Longpigs and, according to her Twitter, meets with former frontman Crispin Hunt’s approval.
Kate’s tour will be preceded by a slot at the Electric Picnic festival on September 6th. Here’s the full tour info:
06.09.09 Electric Picnic, Stradbally
27.09.09 The Deaf Institute, Manchester
28.09.09 Cox’s Yard, Stratford-upon-Avon
30.09.09 Thekla, Bristol
02.10.09 Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff
03.10.09 Acorn Arts Centre, Penzance
05.10.09 The Phoenix, Exeter
07.10.09 The Cellars at Eastney, Portsmouth
08.10.09 The Maze, Nottingham
09.10.09 The Plug, Sheffield
11.10.09 The Cluny 2, Newcastle
12.10.09 Glee Club, Birmingham
13.10.09 Telfords Warehouse, Chester
14.10.09 The Tabernacle, London
16.10.09 Oran Mor, Glasgow
17.10.09 The Lemon Tree, Aberdeen
18.10.09 Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh
19.10.09 Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
20.10.09 Arts Centre, Norwich
21.10.09 The Hanbury, Brighton
27.10.09 Auntie Annie’s, Belfast
28.10.09 The Sugar Club, DublinAlan Pedder
Monday, July 13, 2009
13 Jul: An Update from Kate Walsh
Light & Dark The build-up to the release of Kate’s new album continues to pick up pace. We can now reveal the new album will be released 31st August and will come in two formats – CD and Download. The album will contain 12 brand new recordings whilst the iTunes version will contain a bonus track. The full track listing is: As He Pleases The album will be preceded by the first single ‘June Last Year’ (24th August – Download only). But, as a teaser of what’s to come, Kate has made a limited run of 500 7” singles featuring the title track from the album ‘Light & Dark’ and ‘Trying’ - this song features Turin Brakes. The 7” single is available to purchase from today and on top of the vinyl, you’ll automatically be sent high quality mp3s of the two songs + a bonus track - ‘Sitting Pretty’. Click here to order... The album will be available to pre-order shortly from iTunes and Amazon. UK Tour Kate will undertake her biggest UK tour so far in September and October. Accompanying Kate will be Jo Whippy on Cello and Robin Waterson on Keys and Guitar. Confirmed shows are: 27 Sep The Deaf Institute MANCHESTER buy tickets Facebook/Myspace/Twtter If you’re not following Kate on these sites already, click on the links below to subscribe. |
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Buy Kate's "Light & Dark" Vinyl 7" Single now....
If you purchase the vinyl single of "Light & Dark" through this link (from Kate's myspace page) then you will get the tracks in mp3 aswell as a bonus mp3 track called "Sitting Pretty"!!!!
New Songs on Kate's Myspace
Visit Kate Walsh's myspace page here to listen to 2 new songs from the forthcoming album called "Light and Dark". The two tracks you can listen to are the title track and also a beautiful number called "Trying".
The album is set for release on 31st August this year.
Kate Walsh is touring the UK later this year!
| The Deaf Institute | MANCHESTER | ||
| Cox’s Yard | STRATFORD-UPON-AVON | ||
| The Thekla | BRISTOL, Southwest | ||
| Clwb Ifor Bach | CARDIFF, Wales | ||
| The Acorn Arts Centre | PENZANCE | ||
| The Phoenix | EXETER, Southwest | ||
| The Cellars at Eastney | PORTSMOUTH, South | ||
| The Maze | NOTTINGHAM, Midlands | ||
| The Plug | SHEFFIELD, Midlands | ||
| The Cluny 2 | NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE, Northeast | ||
| The Glee Club | BIRMINGHAM, Midlands | ||
| Telfords Warehouse | CHESTER, Midlands | ||
| The Tabernacle | LONDON, London and South East | ||
| Oran Mor | GLASGOW, Scotland | ||
| The Lemon Tree | ABERDEEN, Scotland | ||
| The Voodoo Rooms | EDINBURGH, Scotland | ||
| Brudenell Social | LEEDS, Midlands | ||
| Arts Centre | NORWICH, East | ||
| The Hanbury | BRIGHTON, South | ||
| Auntie Annie’s | BELFAST, Northern Ireland | ||
| The Sugar Club | DUBLIN |
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
New songs and new website July 1st!
 | Current mood:  aroused hello again, i know you're all itching to hear the new material, and that the player on my page is very annoying at the moment (only playing short samples, if at all)...but this will all change come 1st July! Everything is going live (yay...remember gordon the gofer?) ehem, from 1st July. The website will be up and running with lots of exclusive info and there will be some new tunes from the new album up on the myspace player (just how many? i haven't decided yet). So please make sure you come back on WEDNESDAY 1ST JULY to hear new tracks for the first time, i'm dying to know what you will all think of them. Ofcourse, if you can make it to the Luminaire on 23rd June then you really will be the first peeps to hear all the new material, with a new line up and an EXTREMELY SPECIAL GUEST singing with me....all will be revealed! For tickets go to luminaire tickets see you soon kate xx |
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
New website
| Current mood:  ecstatic I don't know....all this blogging...some might say i'm actually getting the hang of all this stuff! So we now have a holding page up for the new website (the whole thing should go live by July 1st). If you haven't done so already please visit.... www.katewalsh.co.uk .....and sign up to the mailng list. Now that we are in control of the site and all its content i will be updating you regularly on all info regarding touring/releases/video blogs/merchandise etc etc. Once the site is fully operational this will be the first place that you can hear music from the new album and receive info about exclusive competitions and giveaways and the like! In the meantime hopefully i will see you either at the london Luminaire show on June 23rd or at Glastonbury! Happy camping! kate xx |
Sunday, June 7, 2009
More news about Kate's new album
| Current mood:  jolly so, the next chapter of my life is looming...and it feels bloody marvelous! After setting up my own record label 'Blueberry Pie' to release 'Tim's House' 2 years ago (can't believe it's been that long...) me and 'team walsh' were filled with a great sense of pride and determination and we had an absolute ball. Then after we'd handed the baton over to Mercury to take it to the next level it became quite apparent that mixing with the big wigs wasn't necessarily beneficial. It seemed like a very good idea at the time but to lose control of the project like that meant that the sense of achievement and all it's soul was lost with it. So after agreeing that myself and Mercury were headed in different directions I am releasing my next album 'Light & Dark' on Blueberry Pie again....and i'm looking forward to every single step of the way! The album is all set to come out at the end of august and we'll be following it with a tour of the UK and Ireland in Sept/Oct. It's been a long while since i have seen any of you and i have a whole plethora of new songs to sing to you. I can't wait to get on the road with my cellist Jo and my pianist Robin. We've also got the Luninaire show in London coming up soon so if you haven't already got yourself a ticket then follow this link.... My new website www.katewalsh.co.uk should be up and running soon. It will have loads of photos/blogs and info regarding tours and merchandise etc so if you want to be one of the first to find out about it all then please sign up to my mailing list! Hopefully some of you will be at Glastonbury so see you there, or if not hopefully catch up with you later on in the year. kate xx ps....come twitter me up.....(@katewalshmusic) |
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Kate Walsh & Turin Brakes Live@ Canterbury 15th/16th May 09
If you're liking this track then go get Kate Walsh's Daytotter session since it features this track (along with 2 other new songs presumably featured on the forthcoming new album).
Thanks to Mark for this review:
Friday's Turin Brakes/Kate Walsh review: Magic performances at the ISC. Kate Walsh sang with the pure and intimate vocals of a relaxed and assured star. When she brought on Turin's Olly for company for a duet their harmonies meshed really well - a bit hesitant at first - then they clicked and it was magic! Warmth from all of us in the audience for Turin as they settled in to their first gig in months. I have never seen them live before, so what a treat! Guitar sounds to die for, base textures magnificent, and vocals from Ed superb. 3 musicians making a sound like 30. Slide guitar from Gale was complimentary yet dominant sometimes, his tone resonant and his array of pedals mixed in depth and textures that the PA held really well.A new song "Paper Moon" reduced one audience member to tears, and after the interval they really took command and deserved the standing ovation that followed. We made a 140 mile round trip for this magic and would double the mileage to see them again!If you have the setlist/any pics/vids/reviews please leave a comment!
I didn't realise I was lovely. :-)
TURIN BRAKES
Current mood: giddy
I have had an amazing weekend with the Turin Brakes boys. The gigs were fantastic, going straight to the top of 'my most memorable' list.
Olly, Gale and Eddie were lovely to be around and our music complimented eachother's perfectly.
Olly and Gale both feature on my forthcoming album 'Light & Dark' and when me and Olly sang together on stage it was a dream come true..i had to keep pinching myself!
If anybody has any photos or video footage of either friday or saturday night then please send it to http://katewalshmusic.blogspot.com/
The lovely Danyelle has set up a fan page for me and i know she would appreciate some new material.
Thanks to everyone that came to the show, and if you enjoyed it half as much as i did then i am over the moon!
see you all again soon
kate xx
ps....dont forget my gig at The Luminaire (London) on 23rd June...see my page for details.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
1 May: New album called "Light and Dark"
Kate has a couple of gigs coming up soon (Canterbury, London and Glastonbury) but I believe she'll be doing a UK tour September/October 2009.
I'm hoping to be able to make a gig or two. Kate's myspace is the place to look for updates but I believe Kate's official website will be back up and running with updates pretty soon.
Kate's upcoming shows:
| Canterbury Cathedral International Study Centre w/TURIN BRAKES | Canterbury | ||
| Canterbury Cathedral International Study Centre w/TURIN BRAKES**SOLD OUT | Canterbury |
| The Luminaire | London |
| Glastonbury Festival | Glastonbury |
Thursday, April 9, 2009
New Songs - Kate Walsh Day Trotter Session
Web: http://www.katewalsh.co.uk/Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/katewalsh
New Songs!!! So Great!
As He Pleases
Light and Dark
The Greatest Love