Kingmaker

I don't think I ever saw these guys live (except maybe at Glastonbury?) but they were part of the whole indie scene around the time of the Neds, Stuffies, Mega City 4, Poppies etc. and they had some great tunes. I think they originally came into a lot of people's consciousness with their sleeve artwork which was created by a pre-Gorillaz' Jamie Hewlett.

"High octane guitar pop" is probably one way of describing their sounds which undoubtably woill have reached my ears courtesy of Gary Crowley on his Sunday afternoon show on GLR (now called Radio London I think) which I used to listen to whilst I did my homework on a Sunday afternoon - oh the memories! Anyway, their debut album (depending on whether you regard 'Postcard CV' as a short album or long EP) had some great catchy tunes and stunning artwork. Catchiest of the lot was 'Got It At The Delmar' which was a classic indie disco tune. One might say they were fairly 'disposable' tunes but things were about to get a bit more grown up.

The next album 'Empire Of The Senseless' was darker and had more of a conscious. Starting with the album tracks first off there were some crackers such as 'Counting Friends', 'Tempting Kate' and 'Just One Reason' were quality tunes. But when it came to the singles there were some classics which included some social comments too. 'Homophobic Asshole' was a brave statement about some of the things they were seeing from some of their colleagues in the industry and other 'homophobes' in general however with a title like that and a tune that was perhaps less bubblegum than some of their previous stuff it was always going to struggle to dent charts. 'Primary Instinct' and 'Hold It Down' had more commercial success (although their Wiki entry doesn't have any chart placings to I don't remember the details). They did have some great 7" single colour vinyls that I still have in my collection.

Final album 'Taking Care Of Business' was less successful and I only remember getting the 'Christine Keeler' single (renamed from an obviously radio un-friendly 'Christian Killer') and not the album. The band went their separate ways and the main offshoot from this was when Morgan Nicholls joined Mile Hunt and Pete Howard in 'Vent 414'. Morgan then went on to play with Muse live doing all their keyboard wiardry out on tour. Cass create Delakota who released the acclaimed 'C'mon Cincinnati'.

For more information:
Kingmaker on Wikipedia
Kingmaker on MySpace

Essential Listening:
Eat Yourself Whole
Bloodshot and Fancy Free: the Best of & the Rest of Kingmaker