Lemon Kittens

Lemon Kittens was an avant-garde project that remained a collaborative effort between Karl Blake and others, including Danielle Dax. Lemon Kittens material is often described as avant-garde, tribal and psychedelic. Lemon Kittens were formed by Karl Blake and Gary Thatcher (the latter ex-of local hard rock band Nightporter) on the 5th of April, 1978 whilst Blake was still in the group Maggots (Peter Fallowells group, and also featured future Shock Headed Peter, John Duffy) - a group that also previously briefly featured Gary Thatcher on bass. Thatcher and Blake recruited Thatchers work-colleague Julia Casson as singer and clarinettist. GT and KB then embarked on a series of recording sessions in Blakes bedroom on tuesday and thursday nights, whilst going through the attached list of musicians. They used Blakes Akai 4000DS to capture the sounds they made with the help of a vast array of percussion, guitars and effects - some modified or devised from scratch from the mind and skill of Nick Mercer in conjunction with a wish-list of Blakes. The duo would recruit potential members from amongst friends or by at times casting the net wider by answering ads in local shops or the Melody Maker music magazine (on one noteable occasion both going to London to attempt to get Laura Logic of Essential Logic to join Lemon Kittens when having replied to her advert for musicians to join her band!).(Tracey Carroll was one such recruit, who used to trek for a short while from East Ham to Reading and back). The group continued roughly in this way until a chance meeting of Blake and sometime Faulty Products/Step Forward a & R man and sniffin' glue/ Alternative T.V. leader Mark Perry at a concert in Acklam Hall, Ladbrooke Grove (latterly Bay 63, Subterrania), engineered by the 'outgoing personality' of keyboardist Phil Forster; who tried to argue the importance of Ian Dury and the Blockheads with Perry, until the latter was rescued by Blake. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.