Back to the summer of 96 (Woah yeah! back in the summer of 96... Cease, halt, begone foul shade of Brian Adams, and never darken this page with your noxious presense again! especially considering it was actually late spring) I went on holiday to Scotland to climb some mountains with a friend. That is not important. What is, is that we split the trip home into two lumps, stopping over night with a old friend of my mum's just outside Newcastle. It had been a long and hard day, as driving through the highlands is tiring to say the least, and all my friend Iain and I wanted to do was nip out for a few pints and paint the town red. However, we didn't know our way round Geordieland. Helen (my mum's friend) has a son called John. He was fifteen and a bit of an indie kid. He had been planning to go and see some local band or other in some pub somewhere in Newcastle or something. His friends had changed their minds because this band had "sold out" but he had a handful of tickets. Iain and I decided to go and see this band and even gave John a lift to the pub too, 'cos we're decent chaps like that.
The band where called Kenickie, and I thought they were rather good, but as it was Iain's turn to drive the next day, I was much more interested in getting pissed, and we were at the back too so I didn't pay much attention. The gig was quite full, but John explained that his friends thought they had sold out because they had just signed to a major label from some piddly little one. I said,
"Bollocks to that, it sounds like a good idea to me, and the lead singer is a bit of alright too."
We had a good night out, laughed at the jokes they told, then drove home the next day and didn't think about them again.
Fast forward in time to December 96. Whilst trawling the shops after a hard morning at work, I chanced to glance in the window of the local Our Price. There, on the floor as is their habit, was an advert for the new Kenickie single. It was called In Your Car, and so - remembering them from that spring - I nipped in and bought one of the copies, the one with Private Buchowski on it I think. When I got home a played it, I was so impressed I bought the other version When I returned to work that evening. And so my love affair with the 'Nicks began. I watched them on TOTP and was amazed. I nipped into a dodgey Idie shop a month or so later and as easily as ABC, I returned home with a copy of Millionaire Sweeper and PUNKA. After a tip off from a friend, I paid a visit to a shop in Canterbury and got a copy of Catsuit City, and at the end of March, I chanced across a CD copy of Skillex in Maidstone. It was all to easy.
The very day after I'd bought Skillex, disaster struck. My house was burgled and every single CD in the house (and, much to my guile, my bloody vinyl copy of Catsuit City) was stolen, except Brahms 1st symphony - although that wasn't much consolation. The house insurance was able to replace most of the stolen music, but not my Kenix singles (or my Morcheeba stuff either). For a number of reasons, I hadn't even listened to Skillex yet, and I'd never got round to recording the other onto tape. Dammit! I thought, I'll just have to gird up my loins and go and find them again. Easier said than done. Not one of those early releases was obtainable in my home town in any way for the best part of a year, Until j03, regular visiter of this page, responded to my plee for help and guided me to a CD copy of PUNKA and vinyl versions of Skillex and Millionaire Sweeper. I'm still looking for Catsuit City, however.
Wa-hay, Life goes on anyhow so when Nightlife was released I nipped out and nabbed a copy. I also watched them on their second outing to TOTP as well as seeing both Lauren and Marie's appearances on NMTB. I snapped up At The Club the day after it was released and soon my family were complaining that it was the only thing I EVER played, and that it was getting on their tits. A-Levels came and went, I flunked them and bought both copies of the PUNKA rerelease, I was more upset that it didn't make the top ten than that I failed my chemistry exam. Well, I didn't expect to pass it anyway, but PUNKA should have done better! Now what, oh yes, I secured a place at this fine and esteemed place of learning - The University of Hertfordshire - and was soon introduced to the dubious pleasures of the Internet (and I'm a student - so it's FREE!). Well, it was pretty well inevitable that sooner or later I'd investigate the 'Nicks on the net and when I did whole new broad vistas of the Kenickdom spread out before me. I was hooked, created this webpage and finally had some sucess finding some old Kenickie stuff.
I suppose that just about brings us up to date with the present, but with the new singles, album and tour all imminent, very soon there'll be far, far more for us to discuss...