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Kingmaker were a British
indie rock group, founded in
Kingston upon Hull
Kingston upon Hull, usually abbreviated to Hull, is a port city and unitary authority in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England.
It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, inland from the North Sea and south-east ...
in 1990.
The group was formed during their gap year by school friends Loz Hardy and Myles Howell. They placed an advertisement for a drummer, and recruited John Andrew who was an ex-travelling
puppeteer
A puppeteer is a person who manipulates an inanimate object, called a puppet, to create the illusion that the puppet is alive. The puppet is often shaped like a human, animal, or legendary creature. The puppeteer may be visible to or hidden from ...
.
Early recording career
The band began playing and touring, before making their
recording
A record, recording or records may refer to:
An item or collection of data Computing
* Record (computer science), a data structure
** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity
** Boot sector or boot record, ...
debut with ''The Celebrated Working Man''
EP. After this they signed up to
Chrysalis Records
Chrysalis Records () is a British record label that was founded in 1968. The name is both a reference to the pupal stage of a butterfly and a combination of its founders' names, Chris Wright and Terry Ellis. It started as the Ellis-Wright Ag ...
and released a second EP, entitled ''Waterproof'', in 1991.
Their debut album ''Eat Yourself Whole'' was released on 7 October 1991. It was well received, and spent three weeks in the
UK Albums Chart
The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...
, reaching a high of No. 29 in October 1991. In addition they released the single "Eat Yourself Whole", which, despite sharing the name of their album, did not appear on the original UK version. It reached the top twenty of the
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
.
During 1992, Kingmaker were supported on tour by
Radiohead
Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (lead guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Greenwood (bass) ...
, who had not yet released ''
Pablo Honey
''Pablo Honey'' is the debut studio album by the English rock band Radiohead, released on 22 February 1993 in the UK by Parlophone and on 20 April in the US by Capitol Records. It was produced by Sean Slade, Paul Q. Kolderie and Radiohead's co-m ...
'', and by
Suede
Suede (pronounced ) is a type of leather with a fuzzy, napped finish, commonly used for jackets, shoes, fabrics, purses, furniture, and other items. The term comes from the French , which literally means "gloves from Sweden". The term was fir ...
, who were on the verge of releasing their first single "
The Drowners
"The Drowners" is the debut single of English rock band Suede, released on 11 May 1992 on Nude Records. It was later included on the band's debut album, ''Suede'' (1993). "The Drowners" charted at number 49 on the UK Singles Chart.
Background
T ...
". On 29 August that year, they appeared on the bill alongside
Babes in Toyland,
Beastie Boys
Beastie Boys were an American rap rock group from New York City, formed in 1978. The group was composed of Mike D, Michael "Mike D" Diamond (vocals, drums), Adam Yauch, Adam "MCA" Yauch (vocals, bass), and Ad-Rock, Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz (voca ...
and
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are an Australian rock music, rock band formed in 1983 by vocalist Nick Cave, multi-instrumentalist Mick Harvey and guitarist-vocalist Blixa Bargeld. The band has featured international personnel throughout its care ...
at the
Pukkelpop
Pukkelpop is an annual music festival that takes place near the city of Hasselt, Belgium, in mid- to late August. It is held within a large enclosure of fields and woodland—adjacent to a dual carriageway called ''Kempische Steenweg''—in the ...
festival
A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival c ...
near
Hasselt
Hasselt (, , ; la, Hasseletum, Hasselatum) is a Belgian city and municipality, and capital and largest city of the province of Limburg in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is known for its former branding as "the city of taste", as well as its ...
, Belgium.
They then landed an American
recording contract
A recording contract (commonly called a record contract or record deal) is a legal agreement between a record label and a recording artist (or group), where the artist makes a record (or series of records) for the label to sell and promote. Artists ...
with Chrysalis. Their second album, ''Sleepwalking'', was released on 17 May 1993.
Animosity with record label
Speaking to ''Hybrid'' magazine in 2000, Hardy explained that when "Armchair Anarchist", the first single taken from ''Sleepwalking'', failed to break into the
Top 40
In the music industry, the Top 40 is the current, 40 most-popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "Top 40" or " con ...
, executives at their
record label
A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produ ...
made several changes that Hardy felt were to the detriment of the band.
These changes included re-writing ''Sleepwalking'', to include more commercial-sounding tunes and moving all the publicity in-house. One more aspect that Hardy felt destroyed the band as a creative unit was the record label's decision to introduce formatting of their singles.
"I dunno if you have that over Stateside but
ormattingbasically means there would be different b-sides on the 12-inch (2), cassette (1), CD 1 and CD 2 (3 on each). So if the album has, say, 13 songs on it and with three singles that means you're gonna need 40 songs. 40 fucking songs! So the workload is near impossible and plus the fans get ripped left, right and centre to boot. What was also happening was that you did songs for the album and then b-sides but really fucking excellent songs were ending up tucked away third song on CD 2 and no one heard them."
Band's split up
The band rapidly fell out of favour. Their third album ''To Hell with Humdrum'' had only a few new songs, and half of the tracks were
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
sessions from ''Sleepwalking''.
Hardy believed the failure of the fourth and final album ''In the Best Possible Taste'' was as much a result of the formatting method as it was the changing tides of musical culture.
"By the time we got to our last album we decided that we wanted to do all 40 songs up front and pick the best for the album, but this meant we needed to take a long timeout to write and record. A year and a half it took us. In that time
Britpop
Britpop was a mid-1990s British-based music culture movement that emphasised Britishness. It produced brighter, catchier alternative rock, partly in reaction to the popularity of the darker lyrical themes of the US-led grunge music and to the ...
really happened and blew us out of the water. By the time we got to releasing ''In The Best Possible Taste'' we knew we were well past our sell-by date, and I didn't want to keep playing and playing scaling down to smaller and smaller clubs, I found it a depressing notion."
''In the Best Possible Taste'' was released on 17 April 1995. Whilst tracks such as "One False Move" revealed a subtle shift towards urban
rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music. It dates back to the early 1950s in the United States, especially the Southern United States, South. As a genre it blends the sound of Western music (North America), Western music ...
, the band called it quits after touring later the same year.
Reformation
In 2010 the band reformed, minus Hardy, as Kingmaker MMX after re-recording their hit "Armchair Anarchist" for an anti-politics
compilation album
A compilation album comprises Album#Tracks, tracks, which may be previously released or unreleased, usually from several separate recordings by either one or several Performing arts#Performers, performers. If by one artist, then generally the tr ...
called ''Electio Pop'' on Helen Llewelyn Product 19 Records. The new Kingmaker line-up featured Michael Wright (vocals) Jonee Kemp (lead guitar) and Phil Keech (keyboards), all Hull-based musicians.
Band members
*Loz Hardy (born Lawrence Paul Hardy, 14 September 1970,
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
) — vocals, guitar
*Myles Howell (born 23 January 1971,
Rugby, Warwickshire
Rugby is a market town in eastern Warwickshire, England, close to the River Avon. In the 2021 census its population was 78,125, making it the second-largest town in Warwickshire. It is the main settlement within the larger Borough of Rugby whi ...
) — bass guitar
*John Andrew (born John Richard Andrew, 27 May 1963,
Kingston upon Hull
Kingston upon Hull, usually abbreviated to Hull, is a port city and unitary authority in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England.
It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, inland from the North Sea and south-east ...
) — drums.
UK discography
Albums
;Studio albums
*''Eat Yourself Whole'' (1991) –
UK Number 29
*''Sleepwalking'' (1993) – UK Number 15
*''In the Best Possible Taste'' (1995) – UK Number 79
;Compilations
*''To Hell with Humdrum'' (1993)
*''Bloodshot and Fancy Free: The Best And Rest Of'' (1997)
*''Piss Up A Rope'' (1999)
*''Coming Up For Air'' (2000)
*''Ersatz Love'' (2000)
*''Missing In Action'' (2000)
*''Everything Changed 1991 - 1995'' (2020) - 5-CD box set of the three studio albums and singles b-sides
Singles and EPs
*"The Celebrated Working Man" (1991) EP
*"Waterproof EP" (1991) EP
*"Two Headed EP" (1991) EP
*"Idiots at the Wheel" (1992) EP –
UK Number 30
*"The Killjoy Was Here EP" (1992) EP – UK Number 15
*"Armchair Anarchist" (1992) – UK Number 47
*"10 Years Asleep" (1993) – UK Number 15
*"Queen Jane" (1993) – UK Number 29
*"Saturday's Not What It Used to Be" (1993) – UK Number 63
*"You and I Will Never See Things Eye to Eye" (1995) – UK Number 33
*"In the Best Possible Taste (Part 2)" (1995) – UK Number 41
References
External links
*
Kingmaker biography – AMG website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kingmaker (Band)
English rock music groups
English indie rock groups
Musical groups from Kingston upon Hull
Musical groups established in 1990
Musical groups disestablished in 1995