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Story by SIAN PATTENDEN Photos (that you may of noticed aren't actually here - Katie) by HARRY BORDEN
The North East wind whistels with the ferocity of a particulry vindictive typhoon. The sky is best described as 'forboding'. Four youngsters stand by the railway ticket office, wearing fluffy coats, high heels and glittery make-up (apart from the bloke). They are, rather creditably, suffering for their admirably glam-inused art - and, by way of reward, there's a small crowd around them. You can hear the girls shriek a mile off.
This is Kenickie, back home the day after their first Top Of The Pops appearence. They keep bumping into old friends who congratulate them on their success, and new fans approach them in the manner of flies attracted to discarded ice cream.
"That's the second autograph I've signed today," says Emmy-Kate Montrose, the bassist who's suffering from a nasty bout of flu. "All this is great."
Kenickie's third single on EMIDisc, 'In Your Car' has gone Top 30 and they are distinctly pleased. They're back home for the weekend and - better still - they've already met their favourite Sunderland band, unknown bloke duo Domini.
"They're the best band in the world!" shouts Lauren Laverne, the 'Nick's angel-faced lead singer. "They used to sing to backing tapes of other bands, and they dance along."
"They're not Domini anymore, though," laments Marie Du Santiago, the North's own Marilyn Monroe, except with a louder voice. "They're called Innocence, but they still mime to Clock records."
Drummer Johhny X, or Pete, as he's generally known, attempts to ape the cur-razy Domini dance. He finds it impossible, and goes to the adjacent Burger King to get some chips for breakfast (it is 2pm).
It's time for us to enter Kenickie's world - to share the memories of their formative years, growing up in Europe's largest town.
"It was alright until the Queen turned it into a city," says Marie. "After she got her aristocratic, do-nothing hands on the place, we couldn't boast about it anymore".
SOME SIMPLE FACTS, WHILE WE'RE ABOUT IT. There are few pop groups around at the moment as enthralling as Kenickie. Bring most of their so-called peers into any kind of comparative dust-up, and Lauren, Emmy-Kate, Marie and Johnny X end up looking like invincible bruisers. As evidenced by 'Punka' - their debut single for EMIDisc, featuring a razor-like attack on the lo-fi, go-nowhere likes o Bis and Dweeb - and the aforementioned 'In Your Car', precious few people are equalling their combination of squirrel-eyed intelligence and trashy pop suss.
Better still, being with them is like channel-hopping TV stations. All four members do not shut up. They rarely desist from impromptu out-breaks of singing ('Walk On By' is Marie's particular favourite), they perform a sets of bijou dance moves, and they relate anecdotes about bishops and detail how their comparative sho-sizes have kept the band together.
It goes on. They perform cruel impressions of Kenneth Williams, Dickon from Orlando and St Etienne chap/label boss Bob Stanley. They reapply their lipstick after fish and chips, squirt hairspray everywhere and have to dash to Boots before it closes to get thights for the evening out. They are glamour: Bet Lynch, Liza Minnelli and Bart Simpson scrunched into one dazzling bundle.
They've always been performers, or tried to be at any rate. Emmy-Kate used to croon songs from My Fair Lady for the beneit of anyone within earshot. Marie used to sing songs on the heart rug to members of her family ("I wanted to be Shirley Bassy"). She and Lauren have been friends since primary school ("we had a mutual love of Supergran") and when Emmy-Kate joined Catholic girl's school St Anthony's at the age of 12, the three teamd up.
In keeping with the pleasentries of hardcore Christianity, the nuns showed them videos of aborted foetuses and hit them if they giggled in class. Marie and Lauren would bunk off to write the Panky Boy Daily - a fanzine of sorts, which they gave up because they couldn't be bothered.
By the time they were 15, their Saturday mornings were spent at Sunderland's Mowberry Park, drinking lager. Not entirely suprisingly, Emmy-Kate's promise as an actress - she was in Byker Grove - was cut short by her youthfull high spirits.
"I realised that on Saturday, instead of going to my drama class, I could be doing good stuff like going out with my friends." she admits, in her butter-wouldn't melt manner.
"I think you're giving a twisted version," says Lauren.
"You'd be too drunk to go to your class," says Marie.
"You'd have one Heineken and you'd be going 'Noooooo, noooo!" concludes Lauren.
KENICKIE STARTED JUST OVER two years ago. By accident.
One afternoon, in the Laverne family pad, Lauren, Emmy-Kate and Marie (who, back then, were known by more bog standard names, which they refuse to divulge) would work out what they would do if they were to form a band, although they hadn't officialy started one. "The bands around at the time were mostly terrible," says Lauren. "We just thought, we could do this if we want."
Given commonly-shared expectations of ine university years spent punting down rivers with people who looked like Neil Codling, they'd only got down to writng their names on a piece of paper and deciding who should do what. Lauren would sing and play guitar, Marie knew one chord, o she'd also do the six-string thing, and Emmy-Kate couldn't play keyboards, so she took the bass. Lauren's brother, Pete, knew drums so he could fill that role. They'd be called Kenickie, after the smooth but acne-scared hunk in Grease.
Emmy-Kate wrote a song called 'Walrus' (named after a petulant dinner-lady), and they left it at that. A week or so later, the girls were watching a Sunderland band Pete was drumming for. They were attempting to do a cover of 'Speeding Motorcycle' by American indie icon Daniel Johnston, but the singer didn't know the words.
"I got really pissed at this thing right," says Lauren, sipping a Diet Coke in the Forte Posthouse in Newcastle. "Being drunk, I went on stage and I was singing it. After it, the head of a label called Slampt came up to me and said, 'You're really good,' and I said slurring. 'I've got a band and they're called Kenickie and my friends are in it.' I was lying but we got a gig."
So, they wrote a ramshackle set of songs and played at a Sunderland boozer called The Broken Doll. Soon after, they sped down the A1 toward London for their inaugural capital performance (they did a gig with a new Creation signing who they refer to as "Three Colours Fred", who were'nt very nice to them). Everyone had been to London a couple of times before, bar Marie, who was so excited that she nearly cried. She was told to sit at the back of the coach, because she was screaming so much.
"Our driver got lost on the way down," recalls Lauren. "So it meant that we drove through Piccadilly Circus at about ten to eleven. I just remeber going, 'Look at the size of that Top Shop! Amazing!"
At this point, the fact that Kenickie "lead charmed lives" (as Lauren said in last month's Select) became blindingly clear. No sooner was the home-made Kenickie banner folded up and placed alongside their Marlboro Mediums, than A&R geezers would start barging their way backstage.
They couldn't be blamed, really. Elastica were in the midst of their ever-extended hiatus. Kaagoul-wrapped boy-rock - though at the height of its omnipresence - would soon start to smell distinctly stale. Besides, Kenickie were a shinig proposition - so any record company with properly functioning synapses got in the Garlic Bread. With cheese."We went to Pizza Hut with a man from a record company," says Lauren. "And I remember he spent £50 on us. I remember thinking £50 was so much money. We said after, 'I can't belive he's just wasted that on pizzas.' Why didn't he just give u the money to but clothes?"
"It was weird, because we were living this Eric Bananaman existence," says Emmy-Kate. "We were at college, coming down to London and playing at the Brixton Academy. The next day we were back in class."
"I was reading my diary from January 1996," muses Marie, "and it said in it, 'Friday: exam, two hours must revise such and such topics', then 'Saturday: Awards Ceremony'."
Despite being offered deals rom every label of note (including the lad-rock bastion that is Creation), Kenickie signed to Bob Stanley's EMIDisc label last pring. He'd shown an interest in the group right from the release of their 'Catsuit City' EP on the aforementioned Slampt Records. He came up to Sunderland to meet them an their home turf and they dragged him to the fun fair. He wouldn't go on any of the rides, but he held everyone's coats for them as they were flung upside down.
"We were selfish in those days," says Lauren. "We did what we wanted."
What Stanley saw was a superlative mix of pop verve and rock 'n' roll ethics. Kenickie embrace a music culture that is neither particularly masculine or feminine - their references are Iggy Pop, the Manics, Blondie, Nirvana and Kylie. They don't sing about tampons or make spurious references to some sort of Girl Power. They might sing "We dress cheap/We dress tacky...Wear high heels/Get a record deal" ('Come Out 2Nite'), but it's never without a sense of humour."
"We never had a manifesto," growls Ms Laverne. "All that, 'This is a girl band' thing:it's all part of the concept that if you're born a girl that's all you have to do to be cool. That's laughable. I hate the idea that all boys are rubbish. It's not true."
"I would marry Bernard Butler now," adds Marie.,p>FOR ALL THEIR ALLURE, THERE ARE THOSE who have Kenickie marked down as one-tricksters, capable of adrenalised bubblegum and little else. Rubbish: their first album - to be released in Spring - is admirably diverse. It ranges from the chirpalong 'Classy' (written by Marie, who's prone to writing songs about how great everyone is) to the maudlin 'People We Want'. 'In Your Car' and 'Punka' fend the pop corner, while thrashy chord pandemonium bundles in on 'PVC', which sounds not unlike Nirvana.
The most interesting song by far is 'Robot Song'. Written from the point of view of a creature without feelings, you might well expect it to sound like something from a 'Make Your Own Music' Children's BBC programme. However, the song is genuinely disturbing. Electronic, sparse and with much raw-flesh imagery, it puts some of the lighter material in the shade. It would be safe to assume this will be the starting point for the future Kenickie.
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