Bugbear is proud to welcome The King Cheetah to The Dublin Castle for an all too rare London performance Friday 2nd December…Look on it as an early Christmas present to yerself…GET CHEAP TICKETS

Formed by Robert Paul Mune and Simon Hancock in a Britpop overdosed London circa 1996 The King Cheetah set out to generate an anti-Britpop backlash, doing so most beatifically by creating the mixed-gay Kitsch Bitch club night which deliberately championed music that transgressed what our fine young Cheetah Kings considered to be Britpop’s narrow and bigoted perspective.

With interest building from a myriad of respected British and U.S  artists including The Prodigy’s Maxim, The White Stripes and none other than her Madgeship, Madonna, The King Cheetah went for the curve ball… a new game was afoot …America beckoned.

Morrissey chanced upon the band playing a show at a small venue in Hollywood. He approached the band after the show whispering: ”I love all of your songs, they’re fantastic!”.

A few months later the band joined him as support for his entire US tour; which saw them spending nights sleeping out in the desert, in the woods, and on haystacks (so Mozza’s rep as a bit of a tight wad seems to be intact!)

Shortly after the tour finished King Cheetah lost bass player Gavin Jay to London and the newly formed Jim Jones Revue. Undaunted they signed to Queercore label Spitshine in 2005, releasing the “>‘Six Inch Killaz’ EP. A tribute to the notorious ‘drag wall-of noise’ band of the same name, firm friends from London days.

TKC –being seasoned studio designers/builders – built their own temporary recording facility in an abandoned warehouse in the Los Angeles industrial suburb of Vernon (population 21, apparently including Banksy!)

There they self-recorded and produced their debut album ‘The King Cheetah LP‘. During this period The King Cheetah also became one of the keystones of the nascent ‘Kiss or Kill’ scene. This scene has now been documented in the indie movie ‘In Heaven there is No Beer‘, which features performance, soundtrack and interviews with The King Cheetah.

“It’s a gritty, dirty Brit sound; imagine standing on stage in a pile of broken beer bottles two feet thick, trying to sing as a leather sofa burns in front of the stage. That is the sound of The King Cheetah.”
(Indie-Music.com)

Now joined by Ray Piller, who fuses melodic feedback on the bass whilst Rob chugs bass-lines on the guitar, they have surpassed themselves, swapping the traditional roles of their instruments and exploring new concepts in audio dynamics…now Clearcut Recs stars (new EP ‘Museum Of Tolerance’ about to drop..), King Cheetah are a fantastic Californian ‘raw power trio’..yes, but with beatsy, quirky art rock/post punk element demonstrating something of The Fall (if they used jazz chords a little more often) meets Beck via Sonic Youth- live they rip it up big time a la The Who Live At Leeds. Come along and see for yerselves…