Dancing To Her Own Tune

By Joe Kavanagh

And so the revolution continues. The advent of the internet has arguably been the single biggest breakthrough in the world of music since the phonogram, increasingly allowing artists around the globe to wrest back control of their destinies from the record industry. The tail is no longer wagging the dog and the machinations of record companies are no longer the key element in the 'breaking' of an act. With the worldwide web offering unprecedented access to different musical acts and genres, consumers are increasingly likely to choose the music they purchase based solely on personal taste. In other words; it's all about the music. Thanks to the established apparatus surrounding the music industry, marketing, money and nepotism were often as crucial to an artist's career as the music itself, but the internet is turning this notion on it's head, as upcoming acts increasingly surf to public consciousness on a wave generated in cyberspace. Lily Allen and the Arctic Monkeys are the most sensational of these stories and now another name can be added to that list.

Kate Walsh grew up in the small southern English town of Burnham-on-Crouch, of which she once claimed: "It's like any small town. It's not that I dislike the place, I just didn't fit in, and I couldn't hide the fact that I was frustrated being there." Her sense of alienation made her a troublesome teenager and with her grades falling off by the week, she was sent to boarding school in an effort to turn her life around. The ploy worked as she now admits that the experience was the making of her in many crucial ways. The other great escape of her youth was provided by music, her sonic world shaped by brothers who loved club music, a prog-rock and classical loving father, and a mother who played piano and listened to everything from Hendrix to Steeleye Span. Encouraged by her parents, she began taking weekly piano lessons at just five-years-old, a schedule she would keep for the next 11 years, becoming one of the most prominent young pianists in the UK, known for her original interpretations of works by composers such as Debussy and Ravel. It was not until she picked up the guitar in her early teens, however, that she felt compelled to writer her own music but it would be the piano that would offer Walsh her first break in music.

In 2001, the 17-year-old Walsh was about to accept a place in the London College of Music and Media, when she was approached by a representative of Kitchenware Records, who had heard one of her high school piano compositions. He and the label believed that they had a prodigy on their hands, and persuaded Walsh to postpone her third level education in favor of a recording contract. The reality did not quite match her dream, as the teenager soon found herself totally out of her depth, and much of the decision-making was done without even consulting her, resulting in a record, Clocktower Park, that was high on style but virtually redundant in substance, as it faltered under the weight of the label's interference and expectations. Even Walsh now admits: "it's not like anything I listen to." Additionally, the whole process between recording and release took two years, but poor sales saw the axe inevitably fall on her relationship with Kitchenware, as she was unceremoniously dumped in 2004. The experience would sour her taste with the industry but not with music and it would inevitably be the making of her.