About Me
"...possess a genuinely irresistible arsenal of bumptious anthems which sound like Rod Stewart whipping Jagger with a wet Bay City Rollers scarf" Scotland on Sunday, Jan 05.Kain, latterly known as Raising Kain, were a Glasgow-based rock n' roll band formed in 1998 by guitarist Jon Yuill and bassist Andrew 'Cloudy' MacLeod, later augmented by rhythm guitarist Gordon 'Wilf' Wyper, drummer Neil Crystal and finally, vocalist Ian Crawford. Drawing comparisons to classic bands like The Rolling Stones, The Faces, The Beatles and AC/DC, they are generally regarded as one of the most influential Glaswegian bands of recent times, despite never having achieved anything approaching commercial success.
The band played their first gigs under the name Castillo (after a particularly cheap brand of wine they were fond of) but later elected to change their name to Kain. The band steadily built up a following around Glasgow, which led to the creation in March 2003 of 'The Hit! Club' in the city's run-down Vale Bar. Run by Crawford and longtime friend and local DJ David Stone, the event, held every Friday night, acted as a showcase for new Glasgow talent as well as cementing the band's reputation as one of the city's top live draws.
Local Glaswegian label Hijacked Records released the band's first limited edition single - 'Baby, Am Amazed', backed with 'Daddy Daddy' (both written by Yuill) and 'Satellite' (written by Wyper) - on December 1st, 2003, which quickly sold out in record shops across the city. This in turn led to a burgeoning interest in the band, not least from music magazine NME, who gave the band an unprecedented new bands feature despite their not having a record deal, and regularly featured them on the NME stereo. After a proposed deal with Fiction Records fell through, the band eventually signed with Rushmore Records, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Records.
However, the signing of the deal coincided with the departure of Crystal, who was replaced for brief spells by longtime fan and Soledad Brothers drummer Ben Swank, as well as Wyper's friend David Johnstone. The vacant drum stool was eventually filled by Malcolm 'Malky' Shields, a veteran of many local bands, but inertia seemed to have set in at the label, who were reluctant to let the band record any material. It was around this time the band were forced to changed their name to Raising Kain, due to a legal matter involving a band from the Netherlands.
Things took a turn for the worse in January 2005 when disagreements within the band led to Wyper's departure. After a number of gigs as a four piece, Richard Anderson, a former driver and guitar tech for the band, took on rhythm guitar duties. Despite their record company's apparent lack of interest, the band continued writing and playing regularly, with Yuill delivering some of his best songs in this rather trying period.
In late 2005, however, the band were finally dropped from Warner Bros. without having released a note of music. Despite an initial period of optimism, it soon became apparent that the band had run its course and they finally called it a day in January 2006. Their last ever gig was at the Barfly in Glasgow on December 16th, 2005, with the last song they ever played being 'All My Heroes', widely acknowledged to be their greatest moment.
Despite their lack of commercial success, the band are still lauded as one of the city's most influential, winning fans as far afield as Japan and Canada, and have been mentioned favorably by more successful acts such as Franz Ferdinand and The Fratellis.This turned up on the internet...did you write it?
