Are Kitchens Of Distinction a forgotten band? It's of course how you see it, you rather adore them or have never heard from them, but I dare you to walk on the street and stop 100 strangers and ask them who Kitchens Of Distinction are and it'd be a wonder if one could tell you that they're a band, let alone that they can answer how they're sounding like. Having said that, I agree that this counts for almost all artists who appear in my blog but I don't care as today I decided I want to write about Kitchens Of Distinction. Why? Cos I love them....
I always thought it was a rather dumb name for a band but I recently found at that it was just the name of an existing firm that was specialized in plumbing which made an advert on the bus, and the story wants that guitarist Julian Swales saw that bus...
Julian Swales, Dan Goodwin and Patrick Fitzergald were the kind of band who were there at the right time cos their self released debutsingle made it single of the week in the NME and it got them a contract with One Little Indian.
Due to The Sugarcubes, I was a collector from everything that got released on One Little Indian (I know, I collect a lot) so with pride I can say I was a fan from the first hour.
From the moment I got their debut "Love is hell" and listened to the openingtrack "The third time we opened the capsule", I couldn't believe my ears when they started these crazy dreamguitarsolos in the middle of the song! It was a song I played to death in my DJ-years and even if I never saw someone dancing on it, I never saw someone complaining about it either, so I guess it worked.
Unfortunately, "Love is hell" was like so many One Little Indian-records...in fact, I mean that no one cared about it.
The big thing had to come when I saw on Snub TV that video and that song..."Drive that fast"...it was like the ultimate shoegazepopsong of my generation. How many times do I have danced on that song??? And it was soon confirmed on their 2nd album "Strange Free World" which is in my eyes one of the most underrated albums...ever!!! I was so lucky to see them on stage in Brussels but luck didn't last that long as two hours after the show I stood at the highway with a car that was down....but at least I saw Kitchens Of Distinction.
"Strange Free World" always played a strange role in my life, for personal reasons which I don't want to share in private (but the cause starts with the letter l and there are 3 other letters left). I am not the kind of person who sits with a lyricsheet in his hand when hearing an album, but this album I know word per word as it were all fairytales of life that were oh so real in my life....but we're talking about Kitchens Of Distinction, not about me!
I guess "Strange Free World" must have been their famemoment as later followed three albums "The death of cool" (renamed after the album by Miles Davis) and "Cowboys and aliens". It was an other sound, especially with "Cowboys and aliens", and even as a fan I must admit that it took time before I got into it.
It was clear that the band were no longer, even if there was a short reincarnation as Kitchens OD with a release on the Fierce Panda-label.
Patrick returned later with Fruit and even if the singletrack "What is fruit?" wasn't the strongest choice as a single, once again I must tell that their album was an underrated indieclassic, and no...I didn't bought it because Miki from Lush appeared on the album.
Since some years Patrick is known as Stephen Hero and you can follow his musical adventures on his blog http://stephenheroband.wordpress.com/.
Somewhere it's a painful thing to classify them under the category of forgotten music (at least not everyone did), a category like worldwide superstars would have been more deserved...but at least thank you Patrick, Julian and Dan.
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