16:16, 29/11/2004

Musings of a Kitsch Bitch

I just posted a bunch of new pictures on my flickr photoblog - some pictures of our recent trip to Venice, which was wonderful but exhausting, and a few new shots of myself.

Venice was a fascinating old place. More of a museum than a living breathing city. They say that at given times in the summer season, the tourists outnumber the actual citizens, which is a sure sign that the place is dying. Immersing ourselves in the romantic notion of a decaying city, we snapped away like the tourists we were, and some of those photos can be seen on flickr, here, here and here.

Cinema X: Kitsch Bitch in RED The top I'm wearing in the new self-pictures is by Cinema X, a really cool label here in London. As you can see here, it bears the slogan "Kitsch Bitch", which is why I bought it.

Kitsch Bitch was a club I used to go to. It was founded and run by Rob Mune, the lead guitarist and singer of the band The Cheetahs, and his partner at the time, Wendy. This is back in the mid to late nineties, when musically, London was in a big shitheap of a doldrums; no one knew if Britpop had finally died a smelly, unloved death. We weren't to know that we'd have to wait five years for a bunch of American bands from Detroit and New York would reignite our passion in guitar based rock n roll, so Rob and Wendy and a bunch of others just went ahead and created their own scene, centred around Kitsch Bitch, which lurched unsteadily around venues all over North and Central London creating a stink wherever it went.

Kitsch Bitch was great. Amid a freewheeling sonic backdrop of the best rock and roll, soul, cabaret, hard rock, punk, whatever, a bunch of people who just didn't give a fuck gathered to have fun and make of themselves whatever they wished. Rob used to say that Kitsch Bitch was never planned. It just happened. There was a looseness about the place. The slogan was "Kitsch Bitch. You won't like it".

The Cheetahs were the "house band". This three piece was the angriest, sexiest, most incendiary sound you'll ever hear in a small room full of drugged, drunken people. If they were around now, they'd be huge, but London just wasn't ready back then, when fucking Toploader was the most 'exciting new band' around. Songs like "No No No", "Business is Business" and "Cruel Britannia" were like anthems to us.

My band, Six Inch Killaz, were shambling from disappointment to disappointment, and Rob and the Cheetahs made us feel welcomed. We found a happy home in the Kitsch Bitch family and played some great gigs to people who weren't frightened of us. If the Cheetahs were the house band, we were the outhouse band. It worked for us and probably gave us a couple more years together.

Inevitably, it all lurched to a halt. Six Inch Killaz fell apart in a mess of drugs, booze, apathy and resentment. Rob, increasingly disillusioned with the British music scene, broke up with Wendy, closed the club and took the band to LA to seek his dream there. After years of struggles, a forced renaming to The King Cheetah, losing Gavin, kid genius and bass player, and ongoing legal battles about his studio back here in London, they're finally releasing stuff and I'm really really chuffed that it's a new recording of "Six Inch Killaz" a great song inspired by my band.

So that's why I bought that top. Probably there's no connection between the edgy, dangerous, sexy glamour of the club and the design on the shirt, but there is for me, and I'm happy.

By the way, Rob has written a great retrospective on Kitsch Bitch on his band's site. It's a good read and really captures the time well, as does Charlotte Cooper's article about Six Inch Killaz.

These days, echoes of the Kitsch Bitch years surround me: the shirt; the new King Cheetah EP; people I bump into around town; and to cap it the venue that most often hosted the club now hosts another great club with great bands week in week out. And my new band often plays there. I guess what goes around comes around.

But I was there first time round, see?