"Check out my Benny Hill figure in my Tommy Hilfiger / See you in your clamdiggers listening to Rah Digga..."
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I came up with the name KID ACNE in 1995 when I started making music with my dick-head mates in the East Midlands and formed INVISIBLE SPIES as a kind of umbrella heading for our creative output. At the time this consisted of disorganized pub gigs, some fanzines and a bunch of Super 8 films. Along with BENJAMIN HATTON (my live show DJ) I began a group called MONGRELS and from the ashes of BRIAN & THE TEENAGERS (my brother's first band) recorded under the name TOAH DYNAMIC with the rest of the Spies, which consisted of; SUPREME VAGABOND CRAFTSMAN, BE MY TWIN, CHIPS FOR THE POOR, 64 COUSINS, THE KNOWLEDGE, MO' MUMMY and EARL SHILTON.
We released a Mongrels 7" called 'Slingshots' at the start of '97, shortly followed by an 8 track 7" EP as Toah Dynamic titled 'Hip Hop Gymkhana'. As Mongrels we recorded in Leicester's Southfields College (where Formation Records' YESS & D CRIME put down their first 12"s) and as Toah Dynamic we opted for 64 Cousin's garden shed, some PZM's and a 4-track. Mongrels fell by the waste side and the next couple of years were spent making sporadic Toah recordings. These became our first album, 'Movement', which we released in 2000 to inaugurate Invisible Spies Records (we all decided 'C U Next Tuesday' was so last millennium and a little embarrassing as a label name).
By this time I'd been living in Sheffield for a few years and had set up a recording studio in the flat I shared with SVC. We signed on the dole and recorded another LP with the Toah Dingles ('Cops Hate Our Love') a couple more EPs ('Son of a Copper' and Harvest Festival'), which we decided to release on the same day at the end of 2002 and are pretty much all sat in the box we lovingly put them in after folding and bagging the sleeves ourselves. The back covers consisted of line drawings 64 Cousin's did by tracing round his own left and right hand while my brother and I drew a front cover each. SVC recorded a bunch of solo stuff, which formed an EP for Twisted Nerve followed by his debut LP on Spies. I recorded my first two rap albums as Kid Acne ('Rap Traffic' in 2001 and 'Council Pop' in 2003) followed by an EP ('Reality Raps') in 2004 with the help of Brighton's nocturnal beat conductor and elder statesman of British graffiti, REQ ONE. Following this prolific period of Spies activity, SVC and I finally decided to move out of our dilapidated flat. I moved up the road and SVC went down to London with all his equipment.
As the Toah Dynamic era disbanded we began releasing new material on Spies with additions to the roster; Chips for the Poor, Earl Shilton, METHODIST CENTRE and continue to do so.
With no immediate set up myself I took a little break from recording and pursued my artwork more forthright and hosted weekly jump-offs ‘Raw Teeth’ and ‘Wet House’ with my friends OLD FASHIONED ROMANTICS before embarking on my 3rd Kid Acne long player. Req once again handled beat programming with his ever trusty Fruity Loops and I drafted in ROSS ORTON to handle production, who kindly did so by whacking the rhythm tracks through his bad-boy compressors and turned them up to 11. ROB GORDON took care of mastering and cut the lacquers on his lathe set up round the corner to complete the cottage industry set up, despite us being on a major label this time round.
'Romance Ain't Dead' was released in Autumn 2007 on LEX/EMI.
Since then I've been playing live shows with my crew; Benjamin, CLEV CLEVERLEY and CHASE ROCKWELL touring the UK and Europe supporting the likes of EL-P, BLACK LIPS, THE LONG BLONDES, BEANS, FLYING LOTUS and am currently writing new material for the next outing including collaborations with SEBASTIAN LAWS, INFINITE LIVEZ and JUNIOR DISPROL... Word!
Ackers. x
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New album 'ROMANCE AIN'T DEAD' out now!!! LP/CD/Download. www.kidacne.com
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