Fresh Talent: Salon Kingsadore
Author: Dominic Blaazer
"Fresh?" splutters Rickenbacker player John Howell over the phone. "I'm not fresh, I'm 30!" Fresh talent? A breath of fresh air at least. The four other Salonaires are Billy Squire, a Rhodes-playing New Yorker; Matt Sandford who beats a hellacious combination of weary Ludwigs-with-sizzle cymbal; Hayden Sinclair out of Alexandra who plays a more-than-adequate three-string bass, and Marco. Marco wears desert boots and a Burns guitar.
Welcome to Salon Kingsadore, an Auckland five-piece whose home base is a vacant and haunted knitting factory. In place of the usual band-room Pammy poster, they have two wide-eyed and open mouthed faded faces staring out - Twiggy and Ian Curtis. Beginning as a trio three years ago, John, Matt and Marco set to work writing a soundtrack to a play about a K' Road face named Boney. They missed the deadline, but whatever. Rock 'n' roll. Enter Billy with his blond fringe and a self-released solo album under his belt, followed by Hayden, back from London where he was playing in Spa with ex-Pasher, Ronnie Growler. A band is born.
Nights at the factory and mixing at Earwig led to their EP 'The Capucci Tapes', and Marco's 'Italian film connections' have the band currently working on more soundtracks. Soundtracks? Yes, the Kingsadores are an instrumental band.
Instrumental like who? Like bands that recognise the joy in texture. Think Skeptics, Subliminals, Phelps and Munro, and HDU. Think textural wunderkinder Lanky. Think pulsing Stereolab meeting twanging Shadows at the milk bar. Art school, not nu-skool. You could surf to them, but they're more like classical music. No, make that classic music. Ennio Morricone loves them. He just hasn't met them yet.
Salon Kingsadore recently supported Mr. Dinosaur Jr., J.Mascis to a room full of people. Heads bowed onstage, their precise fretting produces a fully-formed sound. They sound like no-one else and the feeling's mutual. The songs are fully formed, verse/chorus, whatever you like, but no waffle, seemingly little effort, just glorious melodies working much harder than lazy lyricists. Faces and Places smiles along in a major key but it's the change to minor halfway in that really lifts the song. Not everyone can achieve take-off using a minor chord change. I am moved, and I guess Ben Howe at Arch Hill Records is too: Salon Kingsadore's song Harrison will feature on AHR's second compilation due out 'soon', and for the record that's George, not Ford. The debut album is making healthy progress. Look out for it towards the end of this year.
