Kiss History

UNDERGROUND KISS – 22 YEARS AND COUNTING 13 June 2008

From fish and chip shops to the best in grime, here’s a round-up of Kiss’ celebrated specialist side over the years

In 1985 Kiss began broadcasting as a pirate station, with its transmitter hidden inside the chimney of a fish and chip shop. It played soul, house, hip-hop, jazz and the early dance music championed by the likes of Coldcut – and by 1989 was coming second to the mainstream Capital FM in the Evening Standard’s Most Listened To… poll. DJs included Norman Jay and his brother Joey, Trevor Nelson, Gilles Peterson, Danny Rampling and Judge Jules.

Kiss was the primo station for ‘rare groove’, mostly thanks to Norman Jay’s Original Rare Groove Show, where he played lost classics and dragged now-classics by Patrice Rushen and Faze-O into the ears of a generation of Londoners. He was eventually awarded an MBE for his services to the groove. 

The authorities locate the transmitter and use a fire engine to remove it. There are many battles with the law. Kiss continues to broadcast until they go off-air in order to apply for a legal licence – which is then awarded to Jazz FM…

In 1990, Kiss are finally awarded a licence to broadcast as the UK’s first 24 hour dance music station. It had, as founder Gordon Mac said in the first minutes of legal broadcast, taken 59 months and 465,720 working hours, plus £3.5m to reach that moment. The station was split into two halves: the AMFM newsletter from the launch describes daytimes ‘to bring in the listeners’ and evenings and weekends ‘more like the old Kiss, with specialist shows hand-crafted by individual presenters.’

David Rodigan joins Kiss in its launch year. The reggae legend began with a midday show called The Lunchtime Boogaloo, did the breakfast show in the mid 1990s and has twice helmed Kiss’s Drivetime show. Rodigan remains a key part of the Kiss line-up.

In the early 1990s Kiss’s many specialist shows helped curate and build Britain’s home-grown sounds. In the pre-internet age, expert DJs beamed out the best music in their area – Colin Dale’s Abstrakt Dance show doing for Detroit techno what Manassah did for dub, and what Danny Rampling did for house music.  On Christmas Eve 1991, Coldcut roped in The Orb for a special one-off, playing Brian Eno, Mr Fingers, Primal Scream and a preview of The Orb’s forthcoming album.

Long mixes and showcase slots for the best American DJs were another defining feature of Kiss in the early to mid 1990s. Paul ‘Trouble’ Anderson’s guest mixes from NYC legend Tony Humphries from June 1992 are still much downloaded on the internet as, are one-off shows from Masters At Work, Kenny Carpenter and house original Larry Heard.

At the beginning of April 1997 Kiss launched their website. In the same year. Future Sound Of London ran an epic one-off titled A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding In Your Mind.

Kiss' support of street-up British sounds, particularly drum ‘n’ bass laid the groundwork for a new generation of specialist shows that continue until today. In the late ‘90s Andy C was playing sets that still sound like they were beamed in from the future and garage don EZ (who had two shows a week at some points) both documented what was happening in UK garage and laid the groundwork for grime and dubstep.

In 2005 Kiss launched the UK’s first legal grime show, hosted by Logan Sama. By the end of 2005 dubstep don Hatcha had been requisitioned for a weekly show with MC Crazy D.

Kiss now allows listeners to playback any shows via the radio player including Shortee Blitz on the finest unsigned hip-hop and EZ with new garage styles. And of course there are the specialist shows, including those hosted by Shortee Blitz, Ray Keith, Sinden, Buzzing Fly, Crazy D and Hatcha – and original Kiss DJ Patrick Forge, who along with Rodigan create a link back to the station’s origins.