Saturday, December 27, 2008

Kate Bush - Alone At My Piano


This CD has a story behind it... Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I used to buy exotic CDs from a mail-order place in Germany. Now, they didn't actually manufacture anything. They just tried to act as a wholesaler for all of the smaller independent labels that were around at the time. The catalog from the German company, therefore, wasn't their own. They didn't actually stock any CDs. They just told you what they *should* be able to get from their suppliers. It turned out, of course, that their suppliers were notoriously unstable organizations.
Soooooo.... I never actually received any of the CDs that I ordered from the Germans. They just sent me piles of whatever they happened to have on hand. Under normal circumstances, that might make for an unhappy customer. But, I loved getting the box of surprises every few months.

One of the CDs that fell from The Great Beyond was this Kate Bush number. The liner notes list a manufacturer's postal address in the United States. I wrote to it all those many years ago (asking for a catalog) only to have my inquiry returned bearing a large "Invalid Address" stamp.

A Kate Bush collector once offered me $200 for this disk. I have never seen a copy for sale anywhere. I have never seen any other titles by this same record label.

The contents of the CD, I am sure, are probably readily available in these heady days of torrents and such. It's not really the music that makes me smile whenever I happen across this title - it's remembering what a beautiful surprise it was opening that box back nearly 20 years ago.


PS: Anyone with any further information would be very welcome to leave it in the comments...

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

First of all - thank you so much for the tons of Kate material you've posted so far. As a Kate-maniac I looked up the "Alone at my piano" CD in my Illustrated Collector's Guide. Here is what it says:
UKINEL 200 (US). The best digital version of this material so far. The home demo tapes, unfortunately not quite complete (but with different titles)....

If you are interested I could send you a list of the "original" titles that appeared on the home demo tapes that match with the songs listed on the "Alone..." CD.

Greetings from Germany

Bekky

Anonymous said...

I just found out about your site. Being a Kate fan since 1984,I thank you for your effort! I really hope soon you will be able to add Hounds of Love under review DVD. greetings from Holland

Anonymous said...

Excellent Kate Bush dvds.Does anyone have a cover for the "Eat The Video" dvd?

Dr. Forrester said...

I believe that I included the appropriate art files when I posted those DVDs. I should have done. I always try to do so whenever possible. Have a look & see.

Anonymous said...

I appologise,the artwork is indeed included with disc 1.I had downloaded disc 2 first so hadnt seen it.Thanx again for some great material,keep up the good work

Anonymous said...

Is there a problem with Part 15 of disc 1.The rar file downloads but is only small and gives a corrupt message when tryin to extract

Dr. Forrester said...

You will probably need to download it again. Sometimes, you won't get the whole file due to network problems or whatever. If you're not using a download manager, you might want to seriously try one.

Anonymous said...

Have tried endlessly the last day or so trying to download file 15 disc 1 but having no luck whatsoever.Have downloaded all the other 87 files with no problems,would you be able to check if its working properly?
The link goes to rapidshare and the countdown works but once timer gets to zero its keeps sayin session expired or try again in 15minutes.
Hope you can help.Thank you

Dr. Forrester said...

Frustrating, I know. But, I really can do nothing to help. I can't reupload, as I do not have the file. I can't repair any netowrk issues at RS. You just have to be patient with them and try again in a day or two. This is also why I suggested using a download manager.

Anonymous said...

Ok thanx for your help.I did use a download manager for the balk of the downloads as its so much easier than having to keep waiting between downloads.I shall keep trying tho.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for sharing all of these rare Kate Bush material! I really appreciate all you've done for us fans. By the way, I'm just curious if there are lossless copies of Kate's 1973 demos floating around? This is a collection of her earliest known demos (e.g. Atlantis, Cussi Cussi, Sunsi, etc.). I have all of them in mp3s but I have yet to see/hear any of them in FLAC format.

Anonymous said...

Ditto at the above comment! Plus, do you have the rarest Kate videos floating around? The ones shown on youtube such as Moving & Let It Be (Japan TV) and Wedding List (Prince's Trust)? Thanks once again for sharing these gems! :-)

raj said...

Hi! I just found this material on your site. I have downloaded "Cathy's Home Demos" CD from other source some time ago, but the quality here is much better - you can actually listen to this, while with "Cathy's Home Demos" it's not always possible...
Too bad that someone along the way who re-recorded this material in those days used automatic level control in the tape recorder (despite all instruction manuals for tape recorders telling to NEVER EVER use ALC for recording music!), which distorted these recordings a lot. But anyway it's great to have them! Thanks!

nomadsway said...

Howdy
it,s ben about a year or so ago that i went to the heavy Ballon Blog,so excellent Records,today i wanted to go there again but hey i need a inviation %&§&,can you help me to get one or tell me how to get one?
Rock an Roll Cheerio from Germany
mahatmanix

Dr. Forrester said...

Sure. No worries. Just send me an email or leave your email address in a comment. I won't publish the comment. But, one way or another, I need to get your email address. B-) Then I'll send an invitation along.