No Filler Music Podcast - Kitchens of Distinction: Happy, Tragic Euphoria

Episode Date: October 28, 2024

Greatly underrated and appreciated, Kitchens of Distinction were painted with a broad brush by critics at the time. Critics at the time pigeonholed the group as a "gay band" due to frontman Patrick Fitzgerald being publicly out at the time, and his lyrics that didn't shy from the subject matter. But the band was much more than that, and today we dive into the soaring, shimmering soundscapes and deep, haunting, poetic lyrics. Tracklist Kitchens of Distinction - In A Cave Kitchens of Distinction - He Holds Her, He Needs Her Kitchens of Distinction - Aspray Kitchens of Distinction - Smiling Kitchens of Distinction - Blue Pedal Kitchens of Distinction - Sand On Fire Kitchens of Distinction - Cowboys and Aliens This show is part of the Pantheon Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Hi, I'm Weird Al Yankovic, and you're listening to the Pantheon Network. And welcome to No Filler. The music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gyms that fill the space between the singles on our favorite records. My name is Travis. I got my brother Quentin with me, of course. So, Q, today we're talking about, we're reaching into the bottomless pit of amazing 90s bands, as we always talk about. And we're returning to the well.

Q, the Shoe gaze well. You know, shoegaze, as we've talked about, is a very, very large, encompassing genre that incorporates a lot of different styles. So these guys, I would not classify as traditional shoe. Like, when you think of shoegays and you think of Loveless by My Bloody Valentine, right, that this band does not fall under that umbrella. They're a little bit softer, but they do the wall of sound very well. And I think that's probably why they got that label turned onto them.

It might be good to mention the name of the band, dude. I haven't said it yet. Okay. It's a funny name. It's a really funny name. It is. They're called Kitchens of Distinction. What is that in reference to?

So they took their name from a company of the same name that specialized in home decor and kitchen and plumbing fixtures. So they probably just thought, you know, saw it, thought it was a funny name and just went with it. But they are from Tooting, England. Ah, Tooting. South London. Yeah, good old tooting. Formed in 1986, it is a trio. We love trios right here.

Consist of lead singer and bassist Patrick Fitzgerald. That's pretty cool. Lead singer plays bass. You don't see that very often. Sting. Sting. You see it. You do see it.

Just not often. Guitarist Julian Swales and drummer Daniel Goodwin. Some interesting things about this group that I'll get to as we play some tunes. But this is going to be a tune-heavy episode. The intro that played us in was a song off of their debut record, Love is Hell.

So you mentioned this is a 90s band. Yeah, so Love As Hell, Love as Hell was 89. 89, right. But the other music we're listening to is 90s, early 90s. Yeah. So everything we're listening to today is going to span their 1991 record, Strange Free World, their 92 record, The Deaths, of cool and then their 94 record cowboys and aliens.

I'm excited, man. I haven't really dove into this group. I know they show up on that on that shoe gaze map. They do. That coveted shoe gaze map that we've referenced many times on this podcast. Yeah. So here's where they, here's where they fall on the map, the shoe gaze map. And this is a, you can find it if you just search like shoe gaze, a guide to shoe gaze, if you

search that. it's a it's a post on the shoegays subreddit so yeah the starting point according to this map you've got actually three starting points and this makes sense loveless by my bellity valentine suvlocki by slow dive and nowhere by ride so anyway so it's a triangle in the center and then it kind of goes from there so kitchens of distinction is sort of off of the um the side of the triangle that spans between My Bloody Valentine and Ride. So it goes off that way in the top right corner here. And it's basically you follow the map.

And if you want happier and softer, then you make your way to Kitchens of Distinction. And if you follow that all the way to the tippy top, you know, from Kitchens of Distinction, you have bands like lush. Which we've covered before. Yeah, Sunny Day in Glasgow. Still so many bands I haven't even checked into on this.

We're going to go Death Star right there. So it's, it's, you know, going softer and happier. Now, I will say that the lyrics are sometimes not very happy. And there's an interesting reason for that. So something that makes this band unique is that the lead singer slash bass player, Patrick Fitzgerald, was openly gay at the time. And according to their Wikipedia here, they did not attain the commercial success or widespread recognition of other shoe gays contemporaries and the press

coverage at least to pigeonholed the band's image as a result of his sexuality labeled them a gay band this is the 90s dude you know there's a different time but a lot of people attribute that to a possibility because he like some of his gays were yeah that's some of his lyrics are very like openly like sort of like dealing with like the struggle of being you know, openly gay and stuff like that. Anyway. Okay. So I don't doubt that that probably did play a role.

But anyway. Yeah. But to that end, like the lyrics are very like deep and sort of like, you know, sometimes like very poetic and stuff like that. And there's a song that we're going to play. Basically the entire reason for doing this episode is for this one song that we're going to play toward the middle of the episode that I can tell you right now is probably one of my favorite songs that I discovered in the last decade.

Decade, dude. Wow. So let's just dive right in here. Yeah, I'm curious what you think, dude. His voice is very interesting, and the music kind of falls. It definitely has the 80s, like, post-punk, almost new wave quality to it at times. And it has elements of shoegaze, but I wouldn't call them a shorthy-gunk. a shoegaze band. But here we go. Let's just dive right on in Q. So, we're going to start

with their 1991 record Strange Free World. We're going to start with a song called He Holds Her, He Needs Her. I'm getting some, like some pale saints, cocktail twins. Bingo. Really good, dude. I like the guitar. Definitely. So the guitar, you know, drenched in reverb. Definitely. like you said, Cocktoe Twins, so Robin Guthrie has that kind of reverb-drenched guitar sound. And it is confirmed that Cocteau Twins was an influence. He being Patrick Fitzgerald in an interview talked about the record treasure by Cocktoe Twins as being an inspiration for the band.

as this review from this website Sick Magazine said, and here we go, dude, we've heard this name several times. Their sound was original but could be best compared to AR-Kane and their heavy, dub-heavy atmospherics tacked onto the dreamy soundscapes pioneered by Cocteau Twins. So, because of the Coctaw Twins' influence and like similarities, they have the Dream Pop label, thrown onto them. So let's go back to the Shugay's Map Q because where does Dream Pop play into this

thing? You know, obviously you've got Cocteau Twins on this map. Let's see here. So where is Cocktoe Twins show up? They have to show up. Yeah, it's in the bottom left corner. So if you, if you shoot off of the triangle from the other direction, basically, so like, according to this map, Kitchen of Distinction is up and to the right, Cocktoe Twins is down into the left, which is interesting. It goes, I like it dreamy and then to dreamier and dreamier and dreamer. So Cocktaught Twins is just, just keep going. And if you want to get dreamier and dreamier, you'll land at Havener Las Vegas by Cocktaught Twin. And that's where that ends. Definitely the dreamiest, man, the dreamiest of dreams. So and dude, and that's where the arrow

ends. And it says, just listen to Dream Pop. Yeah, that's funny. So if you just want to listen to dream pop, it's Cocktow Twins. Which is funny, because I would definitely say, The elements of Kitchen of Distinction would fall under dream pop. Yeah, well, let's talk about his lyrics, man. Very poetic. Pretty raw, dude. Like, to stuff, the subject matter. It definitely seems like it's coming from the eyes and mind of someone who had to deal with a lot of prejudice.

And then, you know, 80s and 90s, if he was out at that time, you know? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Okay, so I purposely chose. five songs to kind of give us a good, you know, mix of what they do really well. So this next song is going to be kind of the other side of them. So remember I said that some of their lyrics are kind of dark, almost angry sounding. This next song is awesome, dude. And it's going to be kind of the other side, the other side of this band.

So here we go. Again, this is, we're still on Strange Free World, their 1991 record. and we're going to jump down to a track called A Spray. Devolved into chaos. And that was that wall of sound that I was talking about that they do really well. Especially for a three piece, right? Dude, man, that last line that he repeated over and over, beach burned nausea. Yeah, it's kind of like a little sea shanty, the song.

It's about, you know, kind of getting tossed around in the ocean. I mean, if you do, if you're spending all your time out, on the beach and the sun getting baked, you're going to get pretty nauseous, I think. You're not going to feel great by yourself, especially if you're not, you know, keeping hydrated. No, you're not. My guess is that this is probably a metaphor, cute, but. The imagery that came to mind, dude, you know. Yeah.

Well, yeah, it just, again, it's very, it's a metaphor for something. Twisted Mountain Min flowing a spray. What does a spray mean? That spray just makes me think of like a whale. A whale, yeah, sure. Shooting out water out of their blowhole. I wanted to shed my skin into the ocean suck. Into the oceans suck.

So the ocean to the oceans suck. Yeah, so I'd like the ocean pulling you down. We'll never know. Okay. I think you might be seeing about a bunch of semen, you know what I'm saying? Maybe. Seamen, give it. Maybe.

EQ. So I'm, and Travis, you're a much bigger fan of this band than me. Michael Stipe. I was getting some Michael Stipe. Yeah, okay. Well, it's interesting. And maybe a little bit of Morrissey. Okay.

Yeah. I like that. Yes. So, and I think this is why I don't see them as a shoegaze band because I always, to me, shoegaze is typically going to have more, you know, soft, breathy, dreamy vocals. But according to the shoe gaze map, that's because I guess I'm, I think of shoe gaze more in the bottom left quadrant. If you go dreamier and dreamer, you know, off of like, loveless.

But, you know, we've talked about in the past bands like Catherine Wheel, right? They're like incorporated shoegaze but also had elements of grunge in them. And so like, you know, let's consult the map queue. Where does Catherine wheel sit? Catherine will sit. There they are. They're down here. They're down here.

So they are more intense. They're going down from rides nowhere to chapter house, pale saints. But that's it though, dude. More intense, more alternative. And that, like to me, like you just said, right, Michael Stipe of R.M., Morrissey, yeah, his vocals are nowhere near dreamy, right? but their guitar playing is definitely shoegaze adjacent you know dream pop adjacent

which is why they're they get the label turn onto them but they did have a college radio number one hit when you think college rock REM is like the band that you kind of think of the alternative rock jingle jangle rock whatever you want to call it yeah so yeah they're in that realm as well

okay we're going to jump to their next record came out the following year, 1992, and this is kind of the record that I think is their most beloved record. It's called The Death of Cool. We're going to do a little pallet cleanser before we switch to the song that stopped me in my tracks, Q, and blew me out of the ocean suck, you know? I was blown out of it.

You like what I just did. All right. All right, so let's hop to the death of cool. again, this came out in 1992, and we are going to play a song called Smiling. What's not to like about it? Yeah, really good. Catchy as hell.

You know, these guys know how to write a good melody, you know? You know how to write a good hook, a good riff. And so you might wonder, you know, why didn't they have much success, you know? Besides maybe getting pigeonholed, yeah, maybe besides getting pigeonholed as a gay band, And some... That's a shame, dude. You know, now, now here's another explanation. And, you know, I'm going to credit the author of this review on beetopolis.orgepardpress.com

wrote a review in 2019, of this record, and said this. Now, this is probably pretty accurate. You know, when Death of the Cool came out, it was ignored by the mainstream alternative rock audience. despite the traction strange free world had made the release of death of the cool corresponded with a flood of grunge releases in America and the so-called Manchester movement or Mad Chester movement I guess is the term

in England captured the imagination of disassociated youth in this climate it seemed very unlikely that a band fronted by a gay man had any chance of succeeding in the butch flannel shirt environment grunge fostered in America So he's saying it maybe a little bit of both, right?

The fact that, you know, because Grunge, we've talked about this, dude, was so, like, aggressive male testosterone-driven lyrics and just the distortion. You look at footage from, what was it Woodstock? Wasn't it Woodstock, 92, or was it 94? 99. All right. So a few years later. Anyway, that shit was, you know, a sausage fest, let's just say.

You know what I mean? You should watch that documentary if you haven't. the documentary on Netflix about Woodstock 99. That shit was wild, man. Manchester, let's get down to it. Just real quick, dude. Because I'm curious now. Manchester artists.

It was a musical and cultural scene that developed in the English city of Manchester. Closely associated with the indie dance scene, bands like the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, In Spiral Carpets, the Charlottons, James, and 808 state. The only band that I recognize there is the Stone Roses. James, I think, is the band that they had that song. They had that one song that I think was on American Pie, Laid. Yeah, you know this song, dude.

You know Laid. Okay. Let me just remind you of the lyrics. This bed is on fire with passionate love. The neighbors complain about the noises above, but she only comes when she's on top. You know that song, right, cute? I'm sure I do, but. All right. Well, that's the lyrics.

Anyway, that's James. That's what they're known for. And that song in particular, dude, I was getting some psychedelic furs vibes. Like the vocalist at least. Yeah. No, I think it's the accent, dude. Yeah. No, but for real, though.

I hear you. I hear you. You didn't get that? Probably the voice. The voice isn't. Yeah. The pitch. Yeah.

Yeah. I hear you. But that's, I think that's the new wave post. punk kind of flare that they have. But yeah, I hear what you're saying. All right, Q. Let me see one more thing here. So from, this is a quote from Fitzgerald again, talking about this record. He says, I was very keen to have more low end as I felt the bass was lacking on the previous record. That may account for the Merck and Julian wanted to take the guitar effects even further, hence the swirl.

So that tees up. This next song, perfectly, dude. And just get ready to get ready, dude. This is the one? This is the one. This song has this amazing buildup to a climax, you know, the kind that James was singing about

in that song late. Where the neighbors are going to be concerned or whatever. Okay. So this is going to be broken up into two parts because it's 7 minute and 35 second track and man dude song is amazing if I haven't hyped it up enough

I have full faith that it lives up to the hype I don't think I'm ready dude no I'm ready I'm ready all right shout out to the bass player and the drummer dude as in Patrick the lead singer and who was the drummer

Daniel because the drums are great no one cares about the drummer right you're right you're right you're right. All right, here we go. So this song

is called blue pedal. Just over and over. Killer baseline. Very, that's like the perfect example of like simple done right. Oh my God, yeah.

And dude, I loved, I don't know if you caught, there was that moment where the guitar had this kind of like very metallic kind of like

what he's doing is like taking the pick and like going like right either like above kind of where the like the headstock is or like kind of below the bridge like it makes it yeah i know you should yeah i know what you're talking about yeah and he's got a ton of like delay and like reverb on it doesn't interpole do that at the beginning of one of the songs they do yeah turn on the bright lights yeah they do i don't remember which one but uh yeah but like timed perfectly with uh this this moment the song where he sort of like hits this high note when he's saying the word blue um man the lyrics dude holy crap is he talking about like reincarnation i don't know man he says all that was gold has

lost its shine all that was sure has become obscured yes there was autumn burnished and sleek fit for smiling winged gliding and now it's tarnished silver fading fading fading fading fading fading fading fading fading metal rusting hearts press the cooling pedal of blue freeze it's it sounds like it's talking about like life you know like yeah you talked about in between death yeah become butter or something like that like fading metal like you you know this new shiny thing is now sort of like fading and stuff like that yeah between deaths we are butter soft believing melting butter well fed and well spread I think he's talking about like in between deaths when you're born again, you're this malleable thing that's like well taken care of.

Yeah. Good fed on these deaths of our kind. Wow. Anyway, deep. Right. Strap in, dude. Because we're about to take off. All right, here we go.

And pick us back up where we left off. Again, this song is called Blue Petal. We get this whole time. thing figured out in 1994. 92. In 1992. Yeah. Can you imagine?

That was amazing, man. Yeah, that's it right there, dude. Doesn't get any better. That's that wall of sound. I mean, just relentless, like, distortion and fuzziness and just all right there. And just that crescendo, you know, that this, it just leads up to this big release, you know, where, and lyrically, it's sort of like, in line with the lyrics and stuff. But yeah, I think you're right.

It's about like reincarnation and stuff. Talking about between births. Yeah, so that's the part when you're on your deathbed. Hard gurgling, snarling, fear. Yeah. Still fed on these deaths of our kind. Wow, man. Is that, no, was that right in the middle of the album?

I feel like that would be like, is that the end? That's toward the end. That's the second, the last track. Okay. So that eats up, that eats up, that's got to be a, that's got to be like a two-disc. Probably, yeah. That eats up side. Yeah. So I will say another song that kind of has a similar journey that it takes you on, track seven, Mad as Snow.

It's another seven-minute track, Gone World Gone and Eight Minute track. So like these are, they're writing these very epic songs on this record, which I think is why it gets a lot of love. But yeah, Mad as Snow is another great record. or another great track, I should say. But man, like when it's done right, dude, like there's nothing beats a buildup, a good buildup, and like a release. And, yeah, that song just takes you on a journey, man.

I know that's a cliche, but, like, that one really does. And you have to, like I said, it's one of those songs where, like, you kind of have to stop it and listen to it because it's so compelling. Yeah, really good. I do have one more thing to say about it. But yeah, we're going to transition. Our last track is going to be a little bit of a pallet cleanser.

Because again, that was kind of, that was an intense song. That was pretty intense. So we're going to jump to 1994. The record, Cowboys and Aliens. I'm just going to play the very first track on the record. So, worth noting, this record, Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood, as in the guitar player for Radiohead, cites this record as an inspiration for subterranean homobeyedewood. homesick alien. That's pretty big, dude. Off of O.K. Computer. Now, are you sure he's not,

he's not so exciting the actual song off of this record? Possibly. Possibly. But his guitar tone and style throughout the record. Yeah, off of this record was an influence on Johnny Greenwood. That's all you got to know. That's, dude, I love that, that song, Subterranean. All right, so here you go. Again, this is off of Cowboys and Aliens in 1994. Here's the opening track to the record this song is called Sand on Fire Great opening track for a record Oh yeah Very cool effect on that guitar

His pedal board seems to be You know growing with each record You know in terms of like Yeah yeah The amount of effects he's got What's interesting is like When it gets to the lyrics Or the verse

The guitar is just kind of more of a classic Just like rock strum Kind of guitar line Riff I don't know if you picked up on it And then it just like picks up the, you know, that's another, not necessarily a wall of sound, but definitely a very reverb, distorted, loud guitar sound, right? And again, interesting lyrics here.

I've been trying, ever since I heard the song, I'm trying to figure out what he means by stained glass laughter. Look through the window, stained glass laughter peering through. Oh, maybe you're on the other side looking through a stained glass window and somebody is laughing on the other side of it? I don't know. Your guess is as good as mine. Now this I like. When we were young, we were careful and prudish.

Now we are creased. We're trivial and foolish. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. Very good. Very poetic lyricist. Oh, yeah.

Definitely. So that was it. Citchens of Distinction. Goofy name. But very, I don't know, very light. joyful, I think, and sometimes, and then also intense and sort of like, freaking make you question your existence, some of the songs. But that's what I like about it.

I would say a bit happier and maybe even a little bit more happier from my bloody Valentine. Oh, yeah. According to the map, which I don't know, dude. I mean, it's a good reference. I mean, that last song sounded pretty damn happy. Stained glass laughter Sounds like a good time to me

Dude Look at this album name Pink shiny Ultrablast Happy Songs for Happy Zombies That's what you're talking about happy That album is fucking awesome dude We've done an episode on them Yeah yeah

And I played a track from that I played a track from that record Now we All right dude We focus mostly on Their album Everything else matters It's one of my

Favorite Shugace records dude It's amazing We did a whole episode On I go back and find it And I will say that that EP that's on the map, Happy Songs for Happy Zombies, Honeybee is one of my favorite songs, dude. So there you go. All right, well, let's, for the outro cue, let's see if perhaps your interpretation of that sentence that I read is accurate.

So we'll play this self-title track off of Cowboys and Aliens as the outro and see if it sounds anything like subterranean homesick aliens. All right. So that is Kitchens of Distinction. Check them out. Their albums will take you on Journey, Q. And this is, I think we have one more deep dive, one more deep dive left, Q of the year for November. Really? Oh, I guess so, yeah.

Yep. This will be October's deep dive. So also, because this is October, we will be dropping an Halloween episode. I've already got, I got my ideas. I'm moving on some ideas, so we'll have to figure out when to record that one. But it's going to be hard at Todd last year. That was a great episode on Goblin. Everybody can listen to last year's episode if you missed it.

Go back in time and listen to all of the Halloween episodes throughout October. I'm still – my favorite one is still the first one we did with the undoing of David Wright. That's just a – that's a classic. That's kind of almost like a – episode. you know, just sort of a nostalgic thing for you and me because of good of that group. But, and it's even nostalgic now for like the big, the early years of this podcast. I can say that now because we've been doing it for so long.

Yeah, so to recap, we've done undoing a David Wright. We then did an episode on John Carpenter and just talked about some of his tracks from his many different soundtracks, right? His synth wave soundtracks. and then we did I guess it was probably Uncle Acid in the Deadbeats after that and then it was

White Zombie and then it was That was a fun one dude I was pleasantly surprised And then I think it was Last year was Goblin I feel like we've done another one Did we do a full episode on Ghost?

Yeah Okay so Ghost was another one That's right ghost bc i think is their their actual name but um anyway so this year we'll see i got i got a couple little ideas all right well that's going to do it for us today find us on instagram if you want to get in touch with us that's the best place to send us a message and of course you can find us on the pantheon podcast network if you want to find other music-related You can follow the Pantheon podcast feed on any podcast player that you're going to use.

So you'll get our episodes and then everybody else's episodes. And that's it. So next time we do this, we'll be doing another What You Heard. And then we're just getting ever closer to our best of 2024 episodes, which will be all throughout December. I got so many good more so many great songs that I'm excited to share dude for the end of year no I've got some work to do you cook I'm still building their list down here I'm adding like every week I'm adding more dude it's coming together it's coming together all right well until next time my name is Travis

and I'm Quentin and here is kitchens of distinction with their songs Cowboys and Aliens to close us out. We'll see y'all next week. Wrap holiday magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you. From festive and cozy fashion to Lux Beauty and Fragrance Suts. Our special selection has something for every style and price point. Visit our Holt's holiday shop and store or online at Holtrenfrew.com.