Rediscovering…Kate Nash

Ok, I know, this post is a little bit off topic. But it is about rediscovering something, and it is about a feminist, so it kind of fits.

For those of you who don’t know, Kate Nash is a British singer/songwriter who in 2007(I think) was brought to fame with her song Foundations(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryH5cga0yUI). It was in the charts the same year Rhianna’s Umbrella(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvBfHwUxHIk) brought a summer full of rain, and The Way I Are by Timbaland(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5rLz5AZBIA). I spent a lot of time that summer at my best friends house drinking tea and watching music channels, so got to know these songs very well indeed. Foundations in particular is the only “break-up” song I’ve had, and the album – Made of Bricks – also helped a great deal, especially the song “Dickhead”(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suaveqvlWP8) I also went to see her in Bristol when she did her album tour, and I have a burned CD made for me by that same best friend of some demo stuff that hadn’t been released yet.(FYI I no longer download music or burn CDs, in the same way I don’t watch illegal copies of films/tv programmes. Kind of think of it as biting the hand that feeds you.)

Anyway, a year after that album, I went away to drama school, and Kate Nash went off my radar a bit, which was possibly a mix of her not having another song chart as high as Foundations(I think) my being veery busy studying, and that I started listening to Radio 4 rather than Radio 1. Yes, I’m that cool. My student house had a library. 

Aaanyway, as I said in my last post, I went to Glastonbury Festival at the weekend. Which was bloody fantastic. I was performing with my other company, the pieces went really well, saw the Rolling Stones and had a generally awesome time. Part of that was the discovery of the Leftfield Tent, which is the politics tent. There was also some great political comedy from Josie Long in the Cabaret tent, which had Radio 4 pictures on the wall, which made me very happy. So anyway, back to Leftfield which says on its logo “Mixing Pop and Politics” Because of our show times I couldn’t get to any of the talks which included one on austerity by Owen Jones, a journalist in the independent, and another on feminism by UK Feminista. But I did get to see some music there – which had a bit of a political edge. We went to see Dizraeli and the Small Gods – who I had never heard of but my boyfriend loves – and they were fantastic. As stated in the Glasto program they mix “hip-hop and folk” which works really well. They also had one of those keyboard things that you blow through which I really want!! 

Aaanyway. So back to Kate Nash. She was the end to our weekend at Glastonbury, as we needed to travel back on the Friday night, and didn’t feel like battling with the traffic if we waited until after Mumford and Sons. I spotted her in the programme, saw she was on at Leftfield AND they referred to her being feminist, and the timing was perfect. And I had so much fun!! She did three songs from her first album, the two I’ve mentioned plus Mariella(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_amYesTu0M) Some from her second album which I didn’t realise I already knew, and some from her third Girl Talk, which I didn’t even know existed. I’ve spent a significant time since then trying to find my copy of Made of Bricks, which isn’t in the box, and wondering if I can justify buying the other two when I don’t have a huge amount of money and am supposed to be saving to move out. I think I’ll relent eventually. And will keep checking to see the next time she performs down my way 🙂 You can follow her on Twitter @katenash and her website is myignorantyouth.com

I promise I’ll write about Jane Austen on my next post!

Phoebe 🙂