THE HARDEST WORKING GARAGE BAND IN NEW YORK
Kickstart began life as Mortado, in their hometown of Brooklyn back in late
2001. They scored many local hits around the turn of the milennium, and are
unbelievably still together, and still making great music, with the same
line-up—Eric 'Slick' Strickler, guitar and lead vocals; M. Fletcher,
bass; and Mary 'Gun' Gatlin, drums—to this day.
“I think we all started for different reasons,” recalls Gun, of their
distant origins. “Fletcher and Slick moved to Brooklyn from Los Angeles and
Taibei, and were already playing on their own, using samplers and a Nintendo
in the front room, and I was a punk without a cause. Exactly what year that
was may vary depending on who you talk to. Some say ’01, some say ‘02. I
think I have a flyer from March ’01, but before that we had played our first
show at a 'Save Greenpoint' fundraiser—not exactly top of the list for
all-time top garage venues! We strung a rope across the room to keep the
‘crowd’ back and had a moped for a lighting rig. As far as our musical
education goes, I think Slick took music at school, and Fletcher just liked
that you can't spell 'bass' without 'ass'. I don’t know where I got my
‘talent’ from but it seems to run in the family. We all just like to hit
things.
They soon changed their name to Kickstart and became known for their
distinctive almost-too-drunk-to-stand image, which, along with their urgent,
uptempo music and light-hearted lyrics, helped set them very much apart from
the rest of the genre.
“We became Kickstart because Mortado was such a shit name,” deadpans Slick.
“At the early gigs we just used to wear no clothes. After a while though,
black came in, so we started to dress in black to fit in. Giving in to
high-school style peer pressure had been a major influence on us, though not
for the violence, more the teenage angst…”
“And the image is an amalgam of many things. It may have been a conscious
effort to set ourselves in line with the somewhat unimaginative appearance
of late '90s garage bands or just a perception that looking a certain way
might be interesting and entertaining. We took some shit from some of the
self-appointed ‘real’ garage bands for not being garage enough, or whatever,
but I don’t remember anyone really making an issue of the image… other than
some Irish saying I must be a 'poof'!”
But before their debut album, the band spent several years gigging and
building up a strong local following. They even managed, after their very
first New York show, at Tommy's, to secure an—albeit basic, to say the
least—deal with Greenpoint Records, who released the ‘Mello Candy’ EP in
2002. It was a scintillating, cock-sure debut, surprisingly well-executed
for an opening gambit, and featured four songs, two of which remain
constants in the band’s live set even today: the pounding mid-tempo ‘Top of
the World’ and the irresistible ‘Fuck Paul and Dance’.
“We wrote songs about fucking, dancing, and all that happy stuff, but that
was really a conformity with the non-conformists,” remembers Fletcher, of
their early searchings for that little something a bit different. “We just
did what garage bands did until we developed our own style and voice. It
was, and is, all about the band as a concept, not just the music, but the
look, the attitude, the essence of Kickstart, that is not found anywhere
else.
“I remember the early days as a time of discovery, adventure, and
intellectual and artistic awakening. Garage encouraged people from small
towns all over the US to think differently and to take a different path. My
mom wasn’t too pleased when I quit my job and came home with purple hair,
but it was a personal revolution. I may have been a fashion victim, but I
was also a liberated mind ready for anything. The gigs were also a strange
mix of freedom and fear. Garage fans from different towns united together at
shows and vented while the band was on. But as soon as you stepped outside
and went your separate ways, you had to watch your back for drunks looking
for a freak's ass to kick.”
“I was a rather violent youth and spent half the time scrapping with the
neighbours or at school,” admits Gun. “The gigs were a mixture of
curiosity, fun and hate for most of us; ducking ashtrays or beer bottles was
a new skill we soon learned. I once played while having forks thrown at me;
one stuck in my bass drum and another in my tit! Now, that’s not nice, is
it?
“All in all though, it was the most fun anyone could have… because we
weren’t part-time garage; we were true to the cause. We looked forward to
the weekend; we would travel miles to see a show… for instance, I remember
we went to see Live Girls!!! on 99th Street… two cab loads of us… and that’s
ALL who showed up for the gig too! Well, us and a hand full of local Hell’s
Angels—even that turned into a brawl! There was nowhere that was safe, but
the excitement to see Live Girls!!! overruled everything… and we won the
battle as well!”
Within a year, Kickstart unveiled their first long-player, ‘100% Badass Rock & Roll’,
through The Monkey Xing, their ‘own label’ but essentially a division of
Bushwick Records. It took all the unique ingredients that had made the
‘Mello Candy’ EP so memorable, and refined and developed them, producing
several of the band’s greatest moments. Quite contrary to the relentless
thrash that was becoming so popular at the time, Kickstart dared to
incorporate funky melodies and overtly pop overtones into their sound.
Arguably the best song on the album, and certainly the most anthemic, ‘Can't
Do it Without You’, was chosen as a single. Ably backed by ‘Cat and Mouse’ -
it looks to cement Kickstart’s rapidly-growing reputation as one of the most
innovative and popular bands of garage’s new wave.
