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"Johhny X is dead!" laughs Kenickie guitarist Lauren Laverne of her brother, the band's drummer. "We're doing this tour to raise funds to buy magnets, potions and those little electro pads to bring him back to life from his cryogenic chamber. He's doing a collage course? Oh, they're always starting these mad rumours, aren't they?"
Sadly, Johhny X, sticksman and lookalike of a butler in haunted house, cannot be here due to the demands of his degree cirriculum (he's being temporarily replaced by one Steve, a singulary elusive fella). These hotly-tipped punkers aren't going to admit it, though. With a manifesto dependent on brisk pop thrills, piss-taking and spending cash on looking flash, they are am autonomous entity scorning anything so mundane as facts. Since the god-like 'Punka' single, a feist=pop gem that satirised the defwatist good-to-be-skint indie attitude that's anathema to them, Kenickie have recorded their album and are touring in support of the soon-to-be released 'In Your Car'. Their own lurid success-fantasies seem about to coincide with reality. Over at the other end of the dressing room, bassist Emmy-Kate Montrose is putting on some fabulous gold-strap heels held on by a 60ft Dolls badge. She was wearing black desert boots until a minute ago: "Desert boots?" she rebukes, "Elf shoes to you! Anyway, we've all got bad limps at the moment," she tuts.
"If I'm depressed I read Ideal Home," says Lauren, permitting Select to rifle through her handbag. Within are Elastoplast, passport, a letter from X signed 'Jeff Leppard' and a tape with The Buzzcocks, The Pixes, Duran Duran and Spike Jones and his City Slickers on it. All that remains is to apply more cosmetic glitter from a tube. "I've bought a facial spritzer today, as well," she says dispersing cucumber-flavoured mist into thin air. "Fifty per cent of bing in a band is clothes and image. The other fifty per cent is music and it should be like that for everyone."
Kenickie are so in-your-face with opinions, they don't actually have to do anything to be entertaining. Emmy-Kate calls Peter Andre "a pin-headed fucker". Guitarist Marie Du Santiago vows she will call her child 'Chettah'. They all want couches that match the curtains "in leopard skin and lame". It's almost too much! How long does it take to perfect these routines than, girls? Lauren level a cold stare. "we've always been like this. Me and Marie are the same - it comes from our brains. We're just telling the truth. We're clever. Deal with ie."
Blimey. Sice forming at 16 at school on the principle of "we're bored and other bands are rubbish", the doors swung open or Kenickie. After 'Catsuit City' on a local Sunderland indie, their fast-growing repute saw them playing Brixton Academy with The Ramones brfoe having a deal at all. Fate intervened momentously when Lawrence from Denim - "a little quirky, but a lovely man" says Emmy-Kate - gave Bob and Pete from St Etienne the 'Skillex EP'. Next stop a deal with EMIDisc, the hipper subsidery of the phonographic leviathan, and the fantastic 'Punka' single which proved beyond doubt they were poised for fame. But why didn't they sign to Creation like Alan McGee wanted, and be like Oasis?
"we signed to EMI," says Lauren, as if talking to a half-wit.
The Venue is, in a very real sense, a stop-off on what's known as the toilet circuit. Sci-Fi Steven from Bis lurks in the doorway, and The Specials - the reformed version - are on in two weeks. There's snow and sleet in Edinburgh tonight, so the feather-boa militant-tendency are thin on the ground.
When the limited lightshow dims and the theme from Dallas kicks in, though, Kenickie apper to applause disproportinate to thecrowd-size. "Welcome to style - welcome to grace - welcome to class," Marie announces plugging in, beginning a synchronised Vic and Bob routine that lasts as long as the show does. Emmy-Kate plays bass like Bill Wyman, coolly non-proffesional, while joint rontwomen Lauren nd Marie alternate vocals and show no fear.
Introducing Emmy-Kate, Lauren quips, "She's sleek, she doesn't come for free and she wears fantastic arse-skimming skirts." At about this juncture, the right-thinking person relises this is a band you can do buisness with, and the drummer obliges with a drum roll. The routine is so easeful they've clearly achieved the nirvana-like state of comic psy-cog. When there's bands older than them trading on the youth-exuberance ticket (Teen-C OAP's!), this band of 18-year-olds have instinctive savvy and the knid of satisying songwriting that comes from bold theft. There's 70's rock, punk influences and more peculiarly the hammering guitars of The Pixes and The Fall in here, wedded to tunes like those of a harder, under-30 Sleeper. Ideal jump up and down and be sick music, which one man has already proved, "Break your heart and break your face," sings Marie, pre-empting the waggish picts who shout real witty abuse like, "You look like a man in a woman's dress!"
"Take that shouting guy away," tuts an unpeturbed Lauren. "It's kinder." Then they play 'Cowboy', a twitching Elastica-like grinder with a morose chorus. "This will be bought by anyone with 99p and a fuckin' brain!" says Lauren of the impending 'In Your Car'. The argy-bargy of the Senseless Things doing 'Eton Rifles' by the Jam, with scathing lyrics ("I'm too young to feel this old"), it's what Shampoo are supposed to be as good as, even if X-surrogate drummer Steve twirls his stick, Cozy-Powell-style, between his fingers at the end. With ensuing ritualised ban-introductions, the sense of holiday camp is strong. The Pixes-like 'PVC', with scary infantile voice from Marie, has the stirring chorus; "Cos it's nice and shiny/ Cos it's completely waterproof." @Come Out 2Nite' is a heavy rock steamroller like 'Cruiser's Creek' by The Fall. Denying Edinburgh two encores, they conclude on the rocking 'Punka'. A Buzzcocks-like speed hymn of rejection and comformity in north-east accents, it's an end worthy of the Undertones. Ace value for only 40-odd minutes.
Two diehard Edinburgh Romos, Jamie and Mohid, know the score. "It's what the world and the pop-biz need," smirks Mohid. "More beautiful, intelligent Geordie girls."
Back in the school changing room-style VIP enclosure, Selectis then privileged to hear a track off Kenickie's LP 'At The Club', out in March. 'Robot' is a mixture of New Order and The Chemical Brothers with a soupcon of Garbage, squalling metallic funk that will be well-suited to the big-name remixers the band have got planned. Don't you want to do the drum and bass remixes yourselves? "We don't have the time," Marie says. "We're rocking 24 hours a day..." "...in our stockings," adds Lauren. Then she's on her feet gesticulating at her band mates; "You guys! You're just the best guys! C'mon - group hug!" The three hoot at this nightmare Californa practice, but do it anyway.
Awaiting their limousine from Heathrow airport the following morning, Kenickie are in uncharacteristic mufti. In trainers and Nato parka with only traces of glitter remaining, Lauren gives a final word on the Kenickie phenomenon. "We were stuck in the scum crate at the back of the 'plane," she breezes, "But the attendant still gave us the sweets meant for the nobs in 'Diamond' class. Why? Because we lead charmed lives."
IAN HARRISON Select February 1997
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