Fact #171001
When:
Short story:
King Kurt enter the UK pop singles chart with Destination Zululand, which will peak at No36, the highest of their five chart singles.
Full article:
THE STORY OF KING KURT – as told to Johnny Black
Formed in 1983, this crazed psychobilly sextet immediately hit paydirt with the Top 40 single Destination Zululand, propelled by notorious live shows in which audiences were regularly doused in flour, water and, if they were really lucky, animal innards. Two lesser hits, Mack The Knife and Banana Banana, followed, but by 1987 they could barely limp to No67 for one week with their final chart-botherer, Land Of Ring Dang Do. Then the Mounties got them.
Paul Laventhol aka Thwack (guitar) : We had a crazed existence and by the time Ring Dang Do came out, we were imploding. The membership changed, new people coming and going, but King Kurt was laid to rest towards the end of the 80s. I moved to LA, produced an album by The Dave Howard Singers, played with Eddie Tenpole, had a band called Holy Shit which was like Motorhead meets Gary Glitter.
We re-formed in 1992 but we were sick of the sight of each other by 1996. I was about to become a dad, so I moved to Toronto and ran a bar, Ted’s Wrecking Yard. I started another couple of bands, Texas Dirtfuckers and Jack Cadillac, played with Dee Dee Ramone, Chris Spedding, Robert Gordon … and now I’m back in London again, about to launch my newest project, Swung Dash, with a single in early May.
Alan Power aka Maggot (sax) : Even though we’d stopped selling records, we had such a great live reputation that we could keep playing through the 90s as King Kurt and under other names, like Fishtank Gravel, doing different types of music.
After Thwack moved to Toronto he booked us to play at Ted’s Wrecking Yard and when we came over in November 1997, me and Smeg ended up staying. I’m now a naturalised Canadian, married, and working as an interior decorator.
Gary Cayton aka Smeg (vocals) : We were always running foul of The Police . One night in Austria, we went out and asked some people if they had any coke and, because we’d fucked their girlfriends the previous time we were there, they told The Police we were selling the stuff. So these cops came busting into the hotel room with big shiny guns. Like Maggot, I met a girl when we came to play in Toronto, and ended up staying. In fact, three of us ended up marrying Canadians. Now, I divide my time between working in bands and doing corporate audio-visual presentations.
Rory Lyons (drums) : The first two years was the wildest, most degenerate thing you could imagine, smashing hotels, getting arrested, absolute bedlam. I remember banging on hotel bedroom doors offering groupies to other residents because we had too many, and being dragged out of bed at gunpoint by Spanish police. If you smashed up a room, the hotels loved it, because they’d get their place redecorated for free. We never made any money because we’d get £500 for a gig, but it would cost £2,000 to bail us out. I remember at the end of one year being told by Stiff Records that we’d made £100,000, but none of us saw any of it. We looked at the accounts and most of the money had gone to lawyers and road managers, so I decided that’s what I’d do.
I did loads of dodgy roadying to learn the job, got a gig as stage manager at the University of London Union, where I pulled the plugs on the Verve because they played far too long and wouldn’t come off. The guitarist threw his pedals at me.
I tour-managed The Manics, M-People, Public Image, which was great. We did get an offer in 2000 for Banana Banana to be used as a Fyffes Bananas tv commercial theme, but it never happened. My last royalty statement was for 9p, to be split between seven people.
I’m living in Bermondsey now and, as well as tour managing, I sell fruit and veg in Spittalfields Market on Sundays. I got married on 10 January to a wonderful Thai girl, and I’m going out to live with her in Donsawan as a rice farmer. Out there, I’m a real novelty, they never see Westerners.
Robert Boustead aka Bert (bass) : “Robert left in about 1985,” says Maggot. “He was always a quiet kind of bloke, so you won’t get much out of him, but he’s still in England, working in publishing, on the computer side.”
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Guitarist John Reddington declined the offer of being interviewed, but according to the others, he left in 1985, went to law school, and became a lawyer, specialising in trade marks.
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Formed in 1983, this crazed psychobilly sextet immediately hit paydirt with the Top 40 single Destination Zululand, propelled by notorious live shows in which audiences were regularly doused in flour, water and, if they were really lucky, animal innards. Two lesser hits, Mack The Knife and Banana Banana, followed, but by 1987 they could barely limp to No67 for one week with their final chart-botherer, Land Of Ring Dang Do. Then the Mounties got them.
Paul Laventhol aka Thwack (guitar) : We had a crazed existence and by the time Ring Dang Do came out, we were imploding. The membership changed, new people coming and going, but King Kurt was laid to rest towards the end of the 80s. I moved to LA, produced an album by The Dave Howard Singers, played with Eddie Tenpole, had a band called Holy Shit which was like Motorhead meets Gary Glitter.
We re-formed in 1992 but we were sick of the sight of each other by 1996. I was about to become a dad, so I moved to Toronto and ran a bar, Ted’s Wrecking Yard. I started another couple of bands, Texas Dirtfuckers and Jack Cadillac, played with Dee Dee Ramone, Chris Spedding, Robert Gordon … and now I’m back in London again, about to launch my newest project, Swung Dash, with a single in early May.
Alan Power aka Maggot (sax) : Even though we’d stopped selling records, we had such a great live reputation that we could keep playing through the 90s as King Kurt and under other names, like Fishtank Gravel, doing different types of music.
After Thwack moved to Toronto he booked us to play at Ted’s Wrecking Yard and when we came over in November 1997, me and Smeg ended up staying. I’m now a naturalised Canadian, married, and working as an interior decorator.
Gary Cayton aka Smeg (vocals) : We were always running foul of The Police . One night in Austria, we went out and asked some people if they had any coke and, because we’d fucked their girlfriends the previous time we were there, they told The Police we were selling the stuff. So these cops came busting into the hotel room with big shiny guns. Like Maggot, I met a girl when we came to play in Toronto, and ended up staying. In fact, three of us ended up marrying Canadians. Now, I divide my time between working in bands and doing corporate audio-visual presentations.
Rory Lyons (drums) : The first two years was the wildest, most degenerate thing you could imagine, smashing hotels, getting arrested, absolute bedlam. I remember banging on hotel bedroom doors offering groupies to other residents because we had too many, and being dragged out of bed at gunpoint by Spanish police. If you smashed up a room, the hotels loved it, because they’d get their place redecorated for free. We never made any money because we’d get £500 for a gig, but it would cost £2,000 to bail us out. I remember at the end of one year being told by Stiff Records that we’d made £100,000, but none of us saw any of it. We looked at the accounts and most of the money had gone to lawyers and road managers, so I decided that’s what I’d do.
I did loads of dodgy roadying to learn the job, got a gig as stage manager at the University of London Union, where I pulled the plugs on the Verve because they played far too long and wouldn’t come off. The guitarist threw his pedals at me.
I tour-managed The Manics, M-People, Public Image, which was great. We did get an offer in 2000 for Banana Banana to be used as a Fyffes Bananas tv commercial theme, but it never happened. My last royalty statement was for 9p, to be split between seven people.
I’m living in Bermondsey now and, as well as tour managing, I sell fruit and veg in Spittalfields Market on Sundays. I got married on 10 January to a wonderful Thai girl, and I’m going out to live with her in Donsawan as a rice farmer. Out there, I’m a real novelty, they never see Westerners.
Robert Boustead aka Bert (bass) : “Robert left in about 1985,” says Maggot. “He was always a quiet kind of bloke, so you won’t get much out of him, but he’s still in England, working in publishing, on the computer side.”
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Guitarist John Reddington declined the offer of being interviewed, but according to the others, he left in 1985, went to law school, and became a lawyer, specialising in trade marks.