mostly david ephgrave

It was great to finally cross off watching Kim Wilde sing Kids in America in a church from my bucket list today.  She was performing alongside her brother Ricky at St Mary's in Hitchin, as part of a scaled down version of the town's annual music festival Rhythms of the World, which celebrates its 25th birthday this year - but then, who isn't? Theirs was the shortest set of the night, but the most anticipated; not least by me, who last saw Ricky Wilde when my old band Big Day Out recorded a demo at his studio in Knebworth eighteen years ago (I think I've got the numbers right). He championed us at the time, having judged us the winners of a local Battle of the Bands, and swore he'd get us a record deal, yet for some bizare reason we decided to opt for one of my dad's friends from work as a manager instead; recording our best songs at a different studio before going to Wilde's, where we worked on lesser material. It's fair to say that we were idiots.  K...

When it comes to pop music everyone has a guilty pleasure - and yesterday afternoon I was listening to the radio when they happened to play one of mine: Kim Wilde's 'Kids in America'. I should probably be ashamed, but I’m not. ‘Kids in America’ was first released in 1981; a couple of months before I was born, so I was too young to be aware of it. My main interests back then were crying and soiling myself; nothing much has changed in the intervening years. A couple of years ago I played bass on a short tour of the Netherlands as part of a 70s & 80s show - and both this and 'Come on, Eileen' were setlist highlights; neither song has much credibility, but they both have enjoyable bass parts. (Not a euphemism.) Arriving at a Dutch venue. My enjoyment of this song wasn’t strictly professional: everything bar the guitarist, drummer and myself was on click-track – and me and the lead guitarist, Tim , would be in stiches watching D...