Here’s more proof of the impossibility of keeping up with 90%+ of what’s happening in contemporary music.
Until I picked up the C88 box set a few years back, I hadn’t ever heard of or come across King of the Slums. Here’s what the booklet with the box set had to offer:-
Salford’s King of the Slums hit the ground running with 1986’s extraordinary ‘Spider Psychiatry’ – a demented and thrilling offering that showcased the band’s experimental blend of distorted violin, raw guitar and almost impenetrable vocals. Contributing a track to a 1987 Debris fanzine flexi ‘Haemophiliacs On Tacks’), they then moved to Play Hard (set up by Dave Haslam and Nathan McGough) for a string of releases, starting with the EP, England’s Finest Hopes, which featured the scratchy and raucous ‘The Pennine Spitter’. (the track included in the C88 box set).
KOS’s uncompromising style left little hope of commercial breakthrough, but tracks such as ‘Fanciable Headcase’ (once performed on TV’s Snub) won them many fans in the North West.
But that’s nowhere near the full story. Wiki (I know……!!) informs that KOS disbanded in 1991 after the release of their second studio album, Blowzy Weirdos, but that 2009 saw an album of new material credited to (1991) both King of the Slums and Slum Cathedral User, which was the original name of the group. There then followed another period of inactivity before three more albums Manco Diablo (2017), Artgod Dogs (2018) and Encrypted Contemporary Narratives (2020) were issued, while there were also a number of live dates.
Sadly, frontman Charley Keigher died in 2021. I am assuming, although I may well be wrong, that this will be the end of things, musically.
Here’s the song from the C88 box set
mp3: King of The Slums – The Pennine Spitter
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 