Running Up That Hill: Kate Bush Covers for Reproductive Rights (V/A – Digital Download)

RunningUpThatHillV/A – Running Up That Hill  EP (USA, 2014)
Digital Download
(Released February 04, 2014)

While in the midst of recording “C is for Cthulhu” we received an e-mail from the C.J. Boyd, Molly McDermott, and Daena Lower who had this really great idea of asking artists to contribute a cover of a Kate Bush song with the proceeds going to help in the struggle for reproductive rights.

Since we were just busy recording a super heavy song, it was a bit of a shift in gears but we were able to knock out a nice cover of Kate’s  “Watching you without me” in a mere two weeks and despite the high stress in the process we all came out pretty happy with the results. I think our February 4th blog pretty much sums up the whole project…

“I’m sure Steve will be happy if I go on the record here and state that Steve (the most Rock and Roll member of the LP4) hates Kate Bush’s music.  Others in the band may not care for her work but Steve really, really cannot stand it on every level – her voice, her composition, the recordings, you name it.  I’m sure if I even gave him a tosser like “But dude she’s Kate Bush, CBE!”   Steve would not even acknowledge that “Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire!” is a badass title to have.

So, how do you approach a cover if you are the only person in the band who is a fan?  I mean, yes, of course, I knew if everyone voted to do it, Steve would put his grumbling aside and take to the task like a pro but that didn’t mean that I could discount his distaste entirely and walk on eggshells I did.  I picked 4 songs which I felt could be adapted but eventually, with some help from Larry, chose “Watching You Without Me” from Hounds of Love because it would be the most wide-open of all the songs for adaptation.  The final approach I took was to only have Larry and Mlee hear the original song and let Steve, Clinton, and Charlie wing it.  Giving people only the barest of direction can be pretty annoying for musicians in a recording session but by doing this, not only would I not torture them with music they didn’t care for but more importantly they could approach it with a clean slate and not have any preconceptions of the track.  It was just a lot of booze, here are two notes and “Larry, hit that beat!”  Steve ended up inverting the bass line, Clinton channelled Black Sabbath’s “Planet Caravan,” and Charlie heard echoes of Nick Cave’s “Red Right Hand.”   I had a ton of reverb so I just kind of went all Will Sargent on my open-tuned guitar and the ever brilliant Mlee brought it all together.  I thought her drunky drunk live scratch track was pretty awesome as they were but Mlee came in the week after and redubbed that track with all these layers of vocals to get that cool etherial vocal thing she does so well and just nailed it perfectly.  Honestly, while the jam was pretty cool, without her vocals, the track just wouldn’t have held together as well as it does.   In the end, everyone was pretty happy with the results and we were all pretty thrilled to be able to contribute.

It’s a very cool and thoughtful project to be sure and we are very grateful to C.J. Boyd, Molly McDermott, and Daena Lower spearheading this idea. As we mentioned in the last post, the anthology is a fundraising tool for  reproductive rights organizations, low-cost abortion clinics, and other pro-choice advocates.  For a mere $20 you get 28 tracks from diverse artists and the beneficiaries of this project will include places like Kentucky Support Network in Louisville, KY; The Richmond Reproductive Freedom Project in Richmond, VA;  WV FREE in Charleston, WV; Texas Equal Access Fund in Dallas, TX; The Body is Not An Apology in Oakland, CA; and The National Network of Abortion Funds. Cool comp, good cause, so go check it out.”

Technical Details

Running Up That Hill: Kate Bush Covers for Reproductive Rights

Release date: 04 February 2014

Full Track Listing

01 Lindsey Schief (LAKE) – This Woman’s Work
02 Binary Marketing Show – Deeper Understanding
03 Optiganally Yours – There Goes A Tenner
04 Wasp Summer – Under The Ivy
05 Marie Haddad – Night Scented Stock
06 The New Heaven And The New Earth – Army Dreamers
07 Jason Ajemian – Them Heavy People
08 Dream Tiger (Liz Wolf of WHY?) – My Lagan Love
09 Dave Watkins – Big Stripey Lie
10 Andrew Weathers Ensemble – Hounds of Love
11 Kathleen Baird / Eric Carbonara / Jesse Sparhawk – Strange Phenomena
12 Shelley Doty X-Tet – L’Amour Looks Something Like You
13 Electrician – The Kick Inside
14 Benoît Pioulard – Cloudbusting
15 C.J. Boyd & Helena Espvall – Under Ice
16 Hunterchild – Song of Solomon
17 Leverage Models (feat Alena Spanger) – The Morning Fog
18 Bigawatt – Get Out of My House
19 Kurva Choir – Breathing
20 Casey Chisholm – Running Up That Hill
21 Brain Grimmer – Babooshka
22 Poppet – Suspended in Gaffa
23 Karl Blau – Man With The Child In His Eyes
24 Linus Pauling Quartet – Watching You Without Me
25 Nick Shapland – Bertie
26 Sophie Tusnelda – Feel It
27 YlangYlang – Delius (Song of summer)
28 Anonymous Choir (feat. (Nona Invie of Dark Dark Dark) – This Woman’s Work

Track Details

Stephen Finley: fretless bass
Clinton Heider: guitar, antipodean lead guitar
Charlie Horshack: micro-Korg
Larry Liska: batterie
Ramon “LP4” Medina: guitar, orotund lead guitar, Grendel oscillator
with Mlee Marie: Vocals, tambourine

Recorded and Engineered by Stephen Finley
Aug 11 – Sept 4, 2013 @ Digital Warehaus Productions

 

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