Bilinda Butcher
| Bilinda Butcher | |
|---|---|
Bilinda Butcher performing in 2009
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Bilinda Jayne Butcher |
| Born |
16 September 1961 London, England |
| Genres | |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, singer-songwriter |
| Instruments | Vocals, guitar, keyboards |
| Years active | 1987–present |
| Labels | Lazy, Creation, Sony, mbv |
| Associated acts | My Bloody Valentine, Collapsed Lung, Dinosaur Jr |
| Notable instruments | |
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Charvel Surfcaster Fender Jaguar Fender Jazzmaster Fender Mustang |
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Bilinda Jayne Butcher (born 16 September 1961) is an English musician and singer-songwriter, best known as a vocalist and guitarist of the shoegaze band My Bloody Valentine.
Butcher was born and raised in London and later relocated with her family to Golden Valley, Derbyshire. Her forename is an alternate spelling of Belinda and was chosen by her grandfather. According to Butcher, "if I'd been a guy I would have been named Bill, but since I was a girl it became Bilinda". During one of his radio shows, BBC Radio 1 disc jockey John Peel once said Butcher was "being pretentious and tried to be special by spelling [her] name differently".
Butcher has said that growing up in Golden Valley was difficult as it was "very conservative". She has said that she was considered "a weirdo" as she wore clothes based on 1920s fashion and listened to records on a portable gramophone. Butcher stated: "My mother thought I was up in the clouds. I never watched the news or read the papers; it was like I lived in another era. Everybody was into punk and I was living in the [19]20s and [19]30s." At age sixteen, Butcher moved back to London and began studying dance at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, but dropped out after nine months due to developing a case of cystitis caused by a chronic urinary infection. She developed a serious liver disease as a result of mistreatment by doctors.
After dropping out of Trinity Laban, Butcher worked as a nanny for a French family in London for six months and later moved to Paris, France for another six months with her partner. The pair moved back to London, squatting in Brixton, and had a child, Toby. Describing the experience, Butcher said: "it didn't feel that great to stay in the squat, there was a lot of heroin and it's not ideal that a drug user's needle could sting your baby. Toby's dad was flipping out because of all the acid he took and I just wanted to get away from all the madness. We tried to live together but he was in too bad a state so it didn't work".
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Wikipedia