10 Milestones In The History Of Wilde Life
How I Grew Up With My Kim Wilde Website
Wilde Life, or www.wilde-life.com as it is commonly known, is a website dedicated to the life and career of Kim Wilde. The domain is relatively new, because between 1999 and 2006 that same website was located at kimwilde.com (more about that later). The website has been mine since its very first version, and has gone through remarkable changes. But there are 10 milestones that have made me proud. Here they are, in chronological order.
1. Buying the domain name kimwilde.com
The website started off in 1996 as a one page advert for a fan meeting which I’d organised with Martin Zandstra. We had met at a record fair a few years before, shared our interest in Kim’s music and thought it would be nice to meet likeminded people. After contacting the official fanclub (which was still very much alive back then) we’d secured some great items for an auction as well as the “celebrity” involvement of the fanclub president and Kim’s sister Roxanne. Having just started making web pages in simple html, I thought it would be nice to create a web page which would maybe attract more visitors. I uploaded a page to a Compuserve address (remember those?) and who knows, someone may have seen it. The fan meeting attracted people from various European countries.
After the fan meeting, I continued the Kim Wilde page on Compuserve and started to add a simple discography and song lyrics. This gradually grew into a more serious website, with news items (Kim released a single in September 1996 and some record companies released compilation cd’s), pictures (scanned in with a very fragile lo-fi flatbed scanner) and so on. The website moved a couple of times, until I thought that it would be nice to have a real domain name instead of a difficult address with lots of / and ~ , which used to be the norm for individuals.
It was September 1999, and I didn’t know how to contact Kim (who had turned her back on the music business and was starting a family) or her management (which seemed to have disappeared after the fanclub folded in December 1997). So I registered kimwilde.com and figured they would probably contact me if they objected. I heard nothing, while I worked on the website which, with its new domain name, suddenly attracted a lot of new visitors.
2. Kim Wilde’s “comeback concert”
Thanks to the new domain name, I got some interesting e-mails during the year 2000. Someone close to Kim or living in the same village gave me some information about her activities during the year. That’s how I could report about her appearance during a Village Fun Day in the summer. Even more interesting, however, was an e-mail I received in December 2000: Kim was going to appear during a live concert in Welwyn Garden City, together with the Abba cover band Fabba. When I called the venue (remember, these were the days when not every venue had a booking website) there were only a few tickets left. I booked mine, and spent a couple of weeks looking forward to this rather unique Kim Wilde concert.
Kim appeared at the Campus West Theatre in Welwyn Garden City on January 13, 2001. Fabba did a full two-part set of Abba songs, with Kim appearing on stage at the start of the second part, singing “The Name Of The Game”, “Rage To Love” and “You Keep Me Hangin’ On”. At the very end, Kim reappeared to sing “Kids In America” and an acapella version of “Thank You For The Music”. The audience consisted almost entirely of citizens from the countryside village where Kim was living and surrounding villages. Hal Fowler, Kim’s husband since 1996, probably saw Kim appear as a ‘pop star’ for the very first time. A handful of European visitors were also there, witnessing a one-off event.
Reporting on this live gig was a pleasure. I’d had a chance to speak with Kim after the concert, as she was signing photos and merchandise for everyone there, had a brief chat with her manager (who was still very much alive and well, I found out!), and even someone who’d organised the gig. I wrote a report of the concert, as well as a review and decided that this was a good way to fill a website. The chances of Kim performing live again weren’t that big, but if she would, I would do my best to be there.
3. Kim writes a message for the website
Making a website dedicated to an artist can be a lonely experience. More often than not, you will feel like a geek who is obsessing over a person, even stalking them — even if you’re not doing that. In the course of 2001, that feeling of loneliness disappeared, as Kim made a gradual comeback. She started appearing in the BBC television programme ‘Garden Invaders’ (which I duly started posting small screenshots from on the website) and did a few TV appearances in the UK. Fans were kind enough to send me VHS videos of those appearances (sending video files over like we would do now was not an option in those days) and one fan even sent me a photo of Kim on the set of “Open House With Gloria Hunniford”, where she appeared in July 2001.
And then, in September, it was announced that Kim would do the Here & Now Tour in the UK! And that she would release “The Very Best Of Kim Wilde” coinciding with that tour! And that a new track called “Loved” was to appear on that compilation album! They were exciting days indeed. On October 28, I got the opportunity to post a 30 second clip of “Loved”, an exclusive audio fragment that was sure to delight fans. The song and the album were released a week later, at the start of the Here & Now Tour.
With eight dates all over the UK, I thought seeing all of the concerts would be problematic, so I settled on visiting just a few of them. It gave me an opportunity to see what the Here & Now Tour was all about (it was quite spectacular!) and I did get a chance to see Kim and her manager after the show on one occasion. When Kim did one more live appearance at a nightclub in Brussels in December, I spoke to Kim’s manager who wanted me to publish “a message” on my website. I was a bit surprised (What could this be about?). He’d be sending me the message via e-mail soon.
And so, on December 10, 2001, I published A message from Kim on my website. This was a major milestone: it was the first time Kim herself wrote something for my website, my creation! The message wasn’t entirely frivolous: it came with a more serious message that her home was not open to visitors. An important message, because some people seemed to think so at the time and there had been a few ‘incidents’.
Meanwhile, four years after her official fanclub had stopped, it felt like I had ‘taken over’. Even if I hadn’t, really, of course.
4. Making it big: the website in print
Back in those days, Wilde Life was still kimwilde.com, so seeing that URL in print would mean a lot. I never spent a penny on advertising, but I did end up seeing the URL in print pretty soon after the previous milestone. The first time it happened, I didn’t actually know about it! I was contacted by a Scandinavian fan after Kim’s appearance in Fashion Night in Finland on January 25, 2002. She sent me a video of that performance — and a promotional poster of ‘The Very Best Of Kim Wilde’, which had been used in Sweden and the Swedish-speaking part of Finland.
Announcing Kim Wilde’s new compilation album, it singled out a few tracks of the album and the new song ‘Loved’. And then, there it was, in big bold letters at the bottom of this huge poster: www.kimwilde.com. I never found out just how this came about, probably the Swedish record company just thought it was the official website managed in the UK and decided to refer to it, but of course it was just my ‘fansite’ with the official-sounding URL.
It made me happy for obvious reasons. Between 2003 and 2007, this poster was on a wall in my new apartment, which I moved into in early 2003.
And then there was the rare promotional 7" single of ‘Dancing In The Dark’, made in Australia, and reported by an Australian fan, who supplied me with scans. I’d never seen this sleeve before and I was sure no-one else had either. I even doubted for a while whether this was real, but it looked real enough and so I had the feeling this was a very exciting piece of news for the Kim Wilde record collector. On January 3, 2002 I wrote the story (Rare promo 7" for “Dancing in the dark” unearthed) and quickly decided that this was worthy of inclusion in the UK magazine Record Collector. They responded quickly and asked for better scans, which I duly got from my Australian contact. After a period of silence, the article appeared in their March 2002 issue… And so, www.kimwilde.com appeared in print one more time.
5. Backstage photo session in Brighton
Somewhere in 2001, I had met Katrien Vercaigne. She contacted me via the website, because she wanted to dispose of parts of her Kim Wilde collection and thought I could use (especially) the articles from various magazine that she was getting rid of. Now, Katrien had been collecting Kim Wilde items for a long time, and some of the things she was giving me were very special and very worthwhile additions to the website. We got along well and decided to stay in contact.
And, as fate would have it, Kim resumed her music career. Katrien was (and is) a professional photographer and besides meeting ‘privately’, we started going to Kim Wilde gigs where she would do some photographing from the audience. This is how photographs from Minehead (2001), Brussels (2001) and Antwerp (2002) appeared on my website as “exclusives”. Sometimes we’d try and get hold of photo passes, which in the case of Antwerp was a success: we even got the full VIP treatment, which I found rather surprising and very pleasant.
The next step for us was to try and get backstage access. Not for us, mind you, but for something no-one had done before: a photo gallery of what happens behind the scenes before a Kim Wilde concert. Having known Kim’s manager for a few years by then, I was still pleasantly surprised to actually get what I asked for. And so, on December 13, 2003, we were granted access to the backstage area for a quick photo session in Kim’s dressing room. We were quite nervous and didn’t know what to expect: we spent the better part of the afternoon waiting in our hotel (which was near to the venue) until we were invited in, just an hour before the concert started. We had no idea things went much faster than we’d always thought.
Lots of things happened in the short time we spent in the dressing room: several people were there, plus the official tour dog. Kim showed us her stage clothes and discovered that part of last night’s suit had gone missing, and of course Katrien made some stunning photographs of Kim doing her make-up and of those nervous last moments just before stage time…
We said our goodbyes, enjoyed a very good concert and while Katrien headed home I spent a glorious week following the Here & Now Tour all over the UK. After the tour, Katrien and I designed a web presentation of the photographs which was presented on my website in early 2004. It looks a bit primitive now, perhaps, but it is still a lovingly crafted virtual photo album of a special evening. (See it here: Brighton behind the scenes)
6. RHS Chelsea Flower Show and Cumbrian Fellside Garden
Kim has often said in interviews that winning a gold medal in the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2005 was the best moment of her life. Being there at the time, I can almost say the same. They were magical days, on the grounds of Chelsea, even from a bystander’s point of view. Katrien and I had become ‘partners in crime’ after that night in Brighton, and we’d seen some concerts during 2004, but when we found out Kim was going to compete in the ‘courtyard garden’ category at the famous RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2005, we did what we could to get access.
It’s quite hard to describe the feeling I had when Katrien and I entered the Chelsea Flower Show grounds early in the morning, way before it would be open to the public, past many beautiful show gardens right to the Cumbrian Fellside Garden created by Kim and Richard Lucas. The latter was there, taking care of the garden, making sure everything looked just right for the audience that was due to arrive in 90 minutes or so. We were here for a job: every single detail, every corner and every angle of the garden was to be photographed. Katrien worked hard while I did what I could to help out as her assistant.
There was also a photographer from the RHS present, and it was interesting to see how the two were making photographs while avoiding to spoil one another’s photos. Starting at 8am, visitors were coming in, and while Katrien was still clicking away until 9am, the lane where the Courtyard Gardens could be seen became ever more busy.
I will always remember this garden, and thanks to our hard work, so will everyone else. On my website there’s still a digital representation of the Cumbrian Fellside Garden, put together by Katrien and myself with ample help from Kim and Richard. And although obviously nothing beats the real thing, it is quite stunning to see this garden with all its attention to detail (such as the wool on one of the fences of the garden, pictured here), the beautiful plants and how it evokes the Lake District.
7. Becoming Wilde Life
Kim Wilde signed a contract with EMI and released a new cd in 2006. It caused a complication with regard to her web presence: the record company wanted to use the domain name kimwilde.com. I found out when I met Kim’s manager in London in May. Truth be told, it depressed me. I’d spend such a long time creating a good website on that domain, only to have it replaced by one of those corporate websites where nothing much ever happens. On the up side, however, my work was not for nothing. I’d simply move to another domain and have kimwilde.com link to there. But a name would have to be decided upon. That wasn’t easy, because some of the names we came up with were already taken. The most obvious one, www.wildelife.com, you can see even now as a website that has seen its last update in June 2006. There were some other names, but eventually we settled on www.wilde-life.com.
The design originally made for kimwilde.com, that was presented on January 1, 2006, moved to the new domain in August 2006, as EMI presented “their” kimwilde.com (which fortunately I had a hand in as well: adding news stories and other bits and bobs). Wilde Life continued to thrive after a short dip in the statistics. Fortunately, most fans found their way back to the website, partly thanks to a prominent link on kimwilde.com.
But why was this a milestone, exactly? Oh, I almost forgot: until August 2006, there was nothing even remotely ‘official’ or ‘approved’ about my website. Kim knew about the website, her management knew about it, but there was never any indication to the outside world that what I was doing was good in their eyes (although obviously they made it clear to me on numerous occasions). When Wilde Life was launched, it immediately got the subtitle ‘The official Kim Wilde fansite’, a stamp of approval that made this very clear to everyone.
By the way: in 2006, I also launched the relatively short-lived website kimwildegardens.com, dedicated to Kim’s gardening work. Like Wilde Life, this website was designed together with Katrien and while it wasn’t a completely conscious choice, I still feel the use of mainly black and white photographs on a website dedicated to gardening was daring and worked surprisingly well. The website stopped after a few years, mostly because Kim’s professional gardening career stopped when her music career took off for the second time.
8. Compiling Kim Wilde cd’s… No, really…
When I found out about yet another Kim Wilde compilation cd (yes, there have been many) in January 2006, I wrote a brief news item about it on my website (EMI Gold releases ‘Hits collection’). No tracklisting was known at the time, so I tried to contact EMI Gold for more details. Within a couple of days, I got them: the new cd was to be a repackaging of many previous compilation albums, starting in 1996 with ‘The gold collection’, a cd containing 20 tracks from Kim’s first two albums with EMI. I boldly replied that this was surely a mistake and they could do better.
Promptly, something happened that the most cynical followers of the record industry would never believe: they asked me to give it a shot. Within an hour, I sent them my ideal compilation: all of the singles released by Kim for EMI beween 1981 and 1983 (well, this was an EMI compilation after all), including their B-sides plus three bonus tracks, one of which had never been released on cd in Europe at all. They agreed, and so the new ‘Hits collection’ was born.
I was stunned. If you’d told me in the Eighties I would one day compile a cd that would be released by a record company and shipped to shops all over Europe, I would have thought you’d lost your mind. But there I was in March 2006, holding my own copies of that cd, thanking me in the liner notes.
And that was not all, either: when Cherry Red Records made their remastered and expanded editions of Kim’s first five albums, I got involved too. And when the mighty Universal re-released ‘Close’ in 2013, I gave them the perfect track listing. They added two previously unreleased tracks, and so this became yet another perfectly compiled re-release.
So was this a milestone for Wilde Life? Well, no, not really, because in all of these cd’s, wilde-life.com was never mentioned. But I was very proud to be involved in all of these releases, and it was thanks to the website after all.
9. Building a social media network
This milestone is one that has become commonplace for most websites these days. Having a website alone is not enough: you have to “push” your content everywhere. Since social media have become ever more important, Wilde Life has branched out, so to speak, to Facebook, Flickr, Pinterest, Twitter and YouTube.
Personally, I think the social media are just a way to get more people to the website. It seems to work: Wilde Life’s Facebook page has 745 followers (at the time of writing), Wilde Life’s Twitter account @kimwildenews has 1041 followers and @wildelife has 854. All these figures are higher than Wilde Life itself, which gets about 500 unique visitors each day, with a percentage of those coming from the aforementioned networks.
10. Connecting with ‘virtual people’
I wondered for a while how I would describe this particular milestone, as I wasn’t exactly able to pinpoint this one. But then I thought of one incident.
When Kim started presenting a radio show on the London radio station Magic 105.4 FM in September 2008, I was faced with a problem: how to record a weekly show of 3, and later 4 hours, in order to archive every episode on my website? I reached out on the Kim Wilde forum and quickly got the help from Mike. I already knew Mike from various interactions on the forum and via e-mail, but I was still pretty impressed when he offered to record these shows for me. A lack of certain equipment meant that he did his recordings on DVD’s and send those off to me.
Every two or three months, I would receive a stack of discs. I would then edit the audio on those discs and use that on my website. This was a slightly weird but still very successful way of working: Mike recorded each and every show (never missed one!) and even went to great lengths when there were technical mishaps with his DVD recorder.
Then, in early May 2012, I suddenly received a letter from his sister, informing me that Mike had passed away. I was dumbstruck. I remember walking around the rest of the day just thinking about how totally surprised I was about this. And how this message affected me. It was as if I’d lost a close friend, or a relative. The odd thing was: I only ever ‘met’ him via e-mail and online communication. My only recollections of Mike were virtual; his words, his expressions and all the things he’d done for me, and the Kim Wilde community of course.
That same week I found an online radio recording service, something I’d searched for since 2008, but never found. How come it suddenly appeared? How did this cross my path all of a sudden? It felt very weird. I have been using this service ever since, and usually when I edit radio shows I think about Mike.
This is the one thing I learned: that you didn’t necessarily have to have a physical connection in order to connect with people. And sure, some will say that living online won’t ever compare to ‘real’ contact with people, but online contact with people can still be real. And realising that, in itself, was a milestone.
This website, which caters to the need of a specific group of people, may not have mass appeal, but it does make a difference for those who enjoy it. And that, in turn, makes me happy. And I hope it will keep all of us happy for many years to come.
