Kevn Kinney (left) and Clay Harper. Photo by Chad Radford
On Tuesday, March 22 and Wednesday, March23, Kevn Kinney and Clay Harper will co-headline two nights of music, art, and conversation at Gallery 378, pushing beyond what a traditional live show experience can be.
On both nights, Clay Harper will be joined on stage by long-time collaborators Marshall Ruffin (guitarist and vocalist) and Chris Case (keys). On Wednesday night they’ll be joined by Mark Harper (guitar) and Alex McGill (drums) to perform a handful of songs from They’ll Never Miss A Five, a meticulously paced and quietly grand meditation on growing up near the Georgia and Alabama border.
Kevn Kinney will be accompanied by keyboard player Billy Fields (W8ing4UFOs, Lynx Deluxe, Antagonizers ATL) for a set of spoken-word performances, improvisation, and songs that aren’t typical of Kevn’s solo shows.
Tuesday, March 22
6:30-7:30 p.m. Ice cream truck 7 p.m. Doors open Visual art in the gallery curated by Tom Patterson: “New Lamps For Old,” art from early ‘80s Atlanta: 7:30-8 p.m. Richard Taylor, Anger Management Consultant 8:10-8:40 p.m. Artifactual String Unit 8:45-9:15 p.m. Clay Harper 9:15-9:25 p.m. Dramatic performance by Dennis Coburn 9:25-10 p.m. Kevn Kinney
Wednesday, March 23
6:30-7:30 p.m. Ice Cream Truck 7 p.m. Doors open Visual art in the gallery curated by Tom Patterson: “New Lamps For Old,” art from early ‘80s Atlanta: 7:30- 8 p.m. Meet The Convicts pt. II “When Criminals Are Criminalized,” with Daniel Kane 8:10-8:40 p.m. Clay Reed (of the Subsonics) 8:45-9:15 p.m. Clay Harper & friends 9:15-9:20 p.m. Tap dancing by the queen of L5P 9:20-10 p.m. Kevn Kinney
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Circle Jerks: Zander Schloss (left), Greg Hetson, Keith Morris, and Joey Castillo. Photo by Atiba Jefferson
Southern California hardcore punk icons Circle Jerks are celebrating the 40th anniversaries of their first two albums, Group Sex and Wild In the Streets — both albums were recently reissued by Trust Records.
On Friday, July 22, the group’s current tour with 7 Seconds and Negative Approach stops at the Masquerade, marking the Circle Jerks first Atlanta show in over 16 years. Before heading out, vocalist Keith Morris took a few minutes to talk about revisiting the songs, drummer Joey Castillo playing them even fast, and what’s in store with his other band, Off!
Chad Radford: Have you had any new realizations about the Circle Jerks songs now that you’re singing them again after so many years?
Sometimes I question some of the lyrics. Why did I write that?
I wrote “Paid Vacation” about Vietnam. When I graduated from high school, I was almost 17 and-a-half. You don’t get drafted until you’re 18. I’d go to parties and at the end of the night the police would be outside questioning all the guys: “How old are you? Have you registered for the draft? I had a handful of friends spend the weekend in jail because they hadn’t registered.
When they filled out your paperwork in jail they automatically registered you for the draft.
I had a few friends that went to Canada. I had a few friends that actually went to Vietnam. I was fortunate because the draft ended maybe six months after I graduated.
One day, my dad said: “You’re not going to Vietnam, are you?” My dad was a staunch Republican. I don’t know if he was “a bomb those fuckers into oblivion” Republican, but he was a Republican on a business level. We didn’t converse much. He was basically telling me, “If I was your age, I wouldn’t register for the draft. I wouldn’t go to Vietnam.” Maybe my dad had the wherewithal to understand what was going on at the time.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a Republican or a Democrat in office. I think there’s a scenario where the incoming president gets pulled aside by all of the military and mighty industrialists who say, “You’re gonna continue doing what your predecessor did, who continued doing what the president before him did, just like the president before him. You’re gonna keep greasing our wheels. You’re gonna keep making us bigger and fatter and even more horrible than what we are right now. If you go against us, we, along with the CIA, will do to you the same thing that we did to JFK.
So, I look at “Paid Vacation” and think to myself, that is still as relevant today as it was when I wrote it.
The last time that you and I spoke was when I was writing a story about Bob Glassley (R.I.P.) who had recently revived his old band the Cheifs, with an all new lineup.
Yes, that’s when they came out here and played some shows. It was great seeing Bob. And that band was great. No one can ever take anything away from them. They had their shit together, musically speaking, and it was totally happening.
You know, Bob apologized to me, and I said, “Bob, it is not necessary.”
Why did he apologize to you?
At one point there was competition between our bands. I know there’s not supposed to be competition amongst us. We’re all supposed to be supportive of each other, unless you’re a dick. We could say it was a friendly competition, but at times it was a competition. And he apologized to me stating: “We were all friends. We were all growing up together. We were all drinking beer together, going to shows, and hanging out. For us to be snobby and say, “We were here before you. We should be playing before the headliners instead of you. And just all of that kind of stuff. … It never mattered to me. We’re just supposed to be alive and excited about it, and we’re supposed to be happy that we’re playing, and we don’t care where we are on the bill.
Just hanging out with Bob was great.
But he apologized and was so cool about the whole thing, and it was totally unnecessary. We were younger, and we were all aggressive and overly excited about some of these things.
What has playing with drummer Joey Castillo brought out of the Circle Jerks?
We wouldn’t be the band that we’re supposed to be if we didn’t have him adding his energy. He wants to play the songs even faster than what we’re playing them, and it’s like, come on Joey! We’re older guys!
Sometimes I find myself trying to catch up with my lyrics, which I don’t mind because it’s like a train coming down the tracks and it’s rambling and shaking and it’s gonna jump the rails. There should be a sense of danger with punk rock. There’s chaos, and that’s good.
Our bass player Zander will say, “This song has to groove, the bass and the kick pedal need to be doing the same thing.” But I’m like, “You figure that out.” I can’t worry about stuff like that. I’m 66 years old, and I’m gonna have points in the set where I need to take a break to catch my breath and have a couple of swigs of water.
Joey brings something that’s much needed, and he loves us! He grew up with us, he’s in South Bay, a couple of cities east of where Greg Hetson grew up in Hawthorne. He knows our songs better than we do.
He asked, “Do you want me to play the song the way that Lucky Lehrer played it on the first album, or do you want me to play it how Kevin Fitzgerald played it? It’s like, wow, thank you for doing your homework.
At this point, you’ve also logged a ton of hours playing shows with Negative Approach on this tour.
Yeah, and the John Brannon scenario: He comes out on stage, and all he wants to do is sandblast your face off, and make your ears bleed. They do an amazing version of Sham 69’s “Borstal Breakout.”
I saw the show at the 40 Watt in Athens — and I’ve seen Negative Approach every chance that I get — his scowl, when he looks at the crowd … Who know what kind of primal rage he’s gonna bring out of the person standing next to you? But at the end of the night, when he is at the merch table, he’s like the nicest guy on the planet.
He’s working class sweetheart. And when they come out on these tours — they’ve also toured with Off! — they, they can’t be a nicer group of guys. They can’t be more appreciative. Their whole outlook is like: We are honored to be able to do this, and it keeps us busy. We’re working and we’re doing something that we wanna do.
What’s the latest with Off!?
Off! is releasing our new album in September. We’ve recorded all of the songs, and for me it sounds amazing. We’re stepping out of our punk rock and hardcore box to do something different that’s gonna make the cavemen of our genre say, “I don’t like this. They’re not supposed to do this.”
Are you taking a more avant-garde approach with the songs?
We listened to a lot of Throbbing Gristle, Hunting Lodge, Can, Einstürzende Neubauten, Herbie Hancock’s Head Hunters, Miles Davis. We spent time with a character named Enid Snarb who was in Bastard Noise and Man Is the Bastard. He turned us on to some of George Harrison’s work after he visited India.
Our engineer mixer guy worked with Kyuss and he mixed over half of Spiritualized’s Ladies and Gentlemen We’re Floating In Space. We went to a lot of different places, rather than the Bad Brains, Blue Öyster Cult, and Stiff Little Fingers.
Autry Fulbright is playing bass, and he co-manages Thundercat. Our drummer Justin Brown plays drums with Thundercat, so now we’ve got a jazz drummer playing rock, and you’ll hear it. There are times when he’s all over the place, and we really have to pay attention to what he’s doing to play what we’re playing.
If your mind is free enough, and you’re able to see all of the different colors that we’re using, you’ll get it. There’ll be a lot of people that don’t, but we have no control over that.
What’s the label experience like now that Circle Jerks are working with Trust Records vs. what you experienced with record labels in the ‘80s?
The scenario with Trust is that we love them. Have you seen the Group Sex reissue?
Yes, I have a copy that came with the zine signed by you and Greg.
They’re willing to go to that length, where a lot of record labels won’t. Their sales pitch was: “We’re willing to bet that your royalties from all of the recorded work with all of those labels is probably so minimal that you could hold it in one hand. We want to change that.” They gave us an advance that was beyond ridiculous for a band of our stature.
They’ve been on time and they’ve done everything. The Wild In the Streets reissue is just as cool as the Group Sex reissue, and that’s one of the reasons why we’re playing shows. It was originally to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Group Sex. Now we’re also celebrating the 40th anniversary of Wild In the Streets.
As for all the labels we were on in the ‘80s, it was all a crapshoot. We weren’t getting hit up by any major labels, and being opportunistic, when somebody makes you an offer you could sit around with your thumb up your ass waiting to hear what the other offers will be. But your thumb could be up your ass for quite a while. We dealt with some really cool people and we dealt with some really horrible people. I could get into details, but I won’t because I don’t believe that any of these labels exist anymore.
Gang of Four drummer Hugo Burnham recalls reading a quote from his former bandmate, guitarist Andy Gill some years ago. Burnham had parted ways with the group in 1982, only to return for a brief stint between 2004 and 2006.
Fast forward to 2012 — Gill and Gang of Four vocalist Jon King announced that they would no longer work together, leaving Gill as the only remaining original member still performing with the iconic Leeds, U.K. post-punk outfit.
During an interview around that time, a writer asked Gill about moving forward with a new lineup. His reply, as Burnham recalls, was that Gang of Four is more than a band, it’s an attitude and it’s about ideas. “I don’t even need to be in the band for it to be Gang of Four,” Gill told the writer.
“I had never really thought about what that meant,” Burnham says.
Gill died suddenly in February of 2020. Since then, the gravity of his words has taken on new depth for Burnham, as he reconnects with the band’s legacy, and its incendiary attitude and ideas.
A recently released box set, titled 77-81 (Matador) makes clear its assertion that despite nearly 40 years spent releasing dozens of albums, Gang of Four turned out its most commanding works between 1977 and 1981. Those first five years encompass the group’s first three albums: Entertainment!, Solid Gold, and Songs of the Free. Throughout each of these albums, Burnham, King, Gill, and bass player Dave Allen — the latter of whom was replaced by Sara Lee for Songs of the Free — crafted terse anthems that sharpen their teeth and claws on everything from Marxist philosophy and the dangers of materialism to the trappings of love and maximum entropy.
Songs bearing titles such as “To Hell With Poverty,” “Not Great Men,” “Damaged Goods,” and “I Love A Man In A Uniform” are propelled by muscular rhythms, avant-garde grooves, and the jagged energy and freedom that their British punk rock forefathers in the Clash and the Sex Pistols had exposed.
Alongside British counterparts such as the band Wire, and American band Mission of Burma, Gang of Four’s first three albums have come to define the post-punk canon.
Following Gill’s death, Burnham and King have reconvened under Gang of Four’s banner to bring the group back to the stage. But who could fill Gill’s shoes playing guitar and bring the songs back to life?
They had their eye on a handful of potential candidates. Marissa Paternoster of New Brunswick, NJ trio Screaming Females was in the running, but the pandemic complicated the group’s early efforts. Then, in the midst of their search for Gang of Four’s next guitar player, Burnham’s friend Patrick Ferguson, a drummer with Athens, GA’s indie rock band 5/8, got in touch.
Ferguson hosts the Crash and Ride podcast, which had recently featured David Pajo as a guest. “Patrick said, ‘My god, I’ve just interviewed David Pajo!’ I hope that David forgives me for this, but I said, ‘Who’s that?’” Burnham laughs. “‘Cause you know, he’s a youngster!”
Pajo’s resume boasts of playing and writing with dozens of seminal early ‘90s indie rock luminaries such as Slint, Papa M, The For Carnation, Tortoise, Stereolab, and dozens of other acts.
“So I started digging and listening, and thought, oh god, this guy is good,” Burnham says.
As a founding member of Slint, Pajo is aligned with the early beginnings of math rock in the ‘90s. Semantics aside, his musical DNA blends quite well with Gang of Four’s rigid, angular songwriting style.
Ferguson introduced them to each other via email. After exchanging a few messages, Pajo recorded videos of himself playing guitar along to three of the group’s signature numbers, “Natural’s Not In It,” “To Hell With Poverty,” and “What We All Want.”
“It was chronically, cripplingly obvious that this was the only choice to make,” Burnham says. “We really didn’t want to have just another boring or predictable old white guy in the band,” he adds. “David is neither boring, nor predictable.”
Pajo instinctively adapted to Gill’s percussive style, and how the guitar parts intertwined with the group’s fast-paced rhythmic presence. “He was digging deep into the recordings, alternate versions, and different live things, trying to get [Andy]’s take on everything,” Burnham says. “I said, great! Learn the songs as [Andy] would play them, but make them your own. We are not a Gang of Four tribute band,” he stresses. “This is Gang of Four, here and now. David is in the band, and it’s as simple as that.”
Burnham, King, and Pajo were in place, but bass player Dave Allen opted out of rejoining the group for a round of North American tour dates.
Former bass player Sara Lee was the obvious choice to complete the lineup. After leaving Gang of Four circa ‘84, Lee had gone on to perform as a member of Robert Fripp’s band the League of Gentlemen, and has played with everyone from Robyn Hitchcock to the Thompson Twins, as well as with Georgia acts, the B-52’s and the Indigo Girls. Her 2000 solo debut, Make It Beautiful, was also released by Ani DiFrancos’ Righteous Babe label.
“When I called Sara, I didn’t quite know how to get to the point. Finally she says, ‘I’ve been sitting here on the phone, waiting for you to ask me if I’ll play!” Burnham laughs.
Gang of Four. Clockwise from top left, Jon King, Sara Lee, Hugo Burnham, and David Pajo.
With Lee in place, Gang of Four took on a new configuration, and started breathing new life into the music. On their current tour, the group is sticking mostly to the classic material from those first three albums, but they’ll pull out a few numbers from later albums as well, including “I Parade Myself” from ‘95’s Shrinkwrapped LP. “We’re not being assholic about any of this,” Burnham says, “We’re playing that song because it’s such a great song. But there is such a breadth of stuff that we can dive into from those first three albums, which is more like ‘77-’83.”
The million dollar question: Will Gang of Four record new material with its new lineup? Burnham pauses with a sheepish, tight-lipped smile before joking that for a million dollars he’d record with any lineup. “I hate to hyperbolise, but this has been a lot of fun,” he says. “There is no stress, no anger, no overwhelming control issues. David is a versatile and disciplined player who has done seriously great work leading up to joining us,” he adds. “It would be silly not to make the most of this lineup, even if it’s just for ourselves. We’re not kidding ourselves into thinking that the world is waiting for new stuff — but we’re waiting for it.”
Cracker, Gurufish, Zangaro, Kurt Wheeler, Ralph Roddenberry & Donna Hopkins, Buckshot George, Morgan Rowe, and Dynagroove also perform. $60-$150. 6 p.m.
For this run of North American shows, they’re performing songs from Gang of Four’s first three albums, 1979’s Entertainment!, Solid Gold (’81), and Songs of the Free (’82).
Guitarist and co-founding member Andy Gill died in February of 2020, and bass player Dave Allen is sitting out this round of touring.
In the meantime, the group’s lineup features fellow co-founders vocalist Jon King and drummer Hugo Burnham, joined by bass player Sara Lee, who joined Gang of Four’s line up from 1980 to 1984 (circa Songs of the Free), and David Pajo of Slint, Papa M, The For Carnation, Tortoise, et. al., which is awesome.
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REST IN PEACE: Tom Smith (on the far left, with Frank “Rat Bastard” Falestra). Photo by Chad Radford. Jon Kincaid (center) photo courtesy Amy Potter. Robert Cheatham (right) photo by Tara-Lynne Pixley.
There’s an old African proverb that says: “When a person dies, a library burns to the ground.”
Point being, when someone dies a lifetime of knowledge, experience, and context is lost forever, and the world is left a poorer place in their absence.
In January, Atlanta music quietly suffered through three profound deaths: First, news spread that Jon Kincaid, longtime 91.1 FM / WREK DJ and host of Sunday nights’ “Personality Crisis” radio show had died on January 4. He was 57 years old.
A week later, On Jan. 11, word spread across social media that former Eyedrum Art & Music Gallery Executive Director and avant-garde music and art scenes fixture Robert Cheatham had died at the age of 73.
Another week later, post-punk journeyman and noise music provocateur Tom Smith died as well. He was 66 years old. All three men represented somewhat different but primary eras and enclaves of Atlanta music. And while it may not be immediately obvious, each of their respective influences played an indelible role in shaping the city’s musical identity.
For more than 30 years, Kincaid hosted “Personality Crisis,” giving a platform to countless fledgling alternative rock, post-punk, underground, and Southern rock luminaries. In the early days of their careers, Atlanta-based acts the Indigo Girls, Drivin’ N Cryin’, and countless others benefitted from his steadfast dedication to music, and his encyclopedic knowledge.
Check out the backside of Mission of Burma’s 1988 LP Forget, and you’ll see bass player Roger Miller sporting a WREK T-shirt. It’s a good bet that Jon had a hand in Roger owning that shirt.
Jon explored every type of music known to humankind through his work as a WREK music director, and by creating his own experimental music under the name Sequence 3.
Cheatham led Eyedrum through its defining eras; he was Executive Director when the venerable arts institution was awarded a $30,000 grant from the Warhol Foundation in 2006. Cheatham also hosted Eyedrum’s long-running open improv nights, which became an institution for outsider and experimental arts. His band Tinnitus was well known for cranking out squelching, heavily-amplified noise and feedback created with the expressed intention of driving everyone out of the room.
His Brahvar Large Ensemble would often corral as many musicians together as possible — once even crowding more than 20 performers onto the tiny stage in the basement of Eyedrum’s original Trinity Ave. location for a massive improv blowout. Connections were made, new ensembles were formed, and wholly new configurations of musicians perpetuated the community. Cheatham’s brilliance lied in his merger of skronking, careening free jazz, and untethered exploration of sound as art without restraint.
Tom Smith reveled in a more confrontational aesthetic. With his groups To Live and Shave in LA, Peach of Immortality, and Boat Of, he placed elements of noise, the avant-garde, and sleazy rock ‘n’ roll on a level playing field. He wove them together seamlessly, while hopping around the globe — from Atlanta to Washington D.C. and finally Hanover, Germany. Along the way, he amassed collaborations with everyone from Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, Andrew WK, Harry Pussy, Bill Orcutt, and more.
Kincaid, Cheatham, and Smith were all driven to create by exploring, not just rest on the past. Their sense of creativity, their dynamism, and their willingness to open up to the new — and the old — left a lasting mark on the city. Atlanta was made richer by their presence and their contributions, and the world suffers a tremendous loss with each of their passing.
On Fri., Feb. 18 (3-9 p.m.) and Sat., Feb. 19 (1-9 p.m.) Gallery 378 (378 Clifton Rd. in Candler Park) will host a two-day celebration of Jon Kincaid’s life and history at WREK. Video installations featuring broadcasts from “Personality Crisis” and more from the WREK archives will be playing throughout the gallery. On Saturday night, several acts including the Nightporters, the Chant, Kevn Kinney and friends, Current Rage, Will Rogers, and more will take turns playing songs on the stage downstairs.
Daniel DeSimone (left) and Willow Goldstein of the Bakery. Photo by Chad Radford.
Inside the dilapidated remains of a Chosewood Park warehouse that, in the distant past, was home to the offices of the Yellow Cab Company of Atlanta, Willow Goldstein and Daniel DeSimone point toward a concrete riser emerging from the shadows. “This is where the stage will be for The Bakery’s new venue,” DeSimone says.
As he looks up, rays of sunlight catch clouds of dust, shining through a long gap where the wall and the ceiling don’t quite meet.
“Of course, there will be a build out,” he adds. “We’ll seal up the wall, and do quite a lot of work in this room.”
DeSimone is the venue manager for the Bakery, a multi-purpose DIY gallery and venue space that Goldstein launched with her mother Olive Hagemeier in the Fall of 2017. Over the years DeSimone has run sound for live shows, worked the door, and booked shows under his Face Of Knives Productions company, all while performing various other roles there.
When asked about her title, Goldstein ponders several possible descriptions before settling on “owner, operator, and creative director.”
She has final say in pretty much all aspects of the Bakery’s business, although she gives a lot of freedom to DeSimone and Amanda Norris, who handles much of their press and public relations. The Bakery also works with teams of volunteers.
Gyan Riley at The Bakery in 2018. Photo by Chad Radford
Everyone involved wears many hats when it comes to the full-time endeavor of running the DIY institution that has hosted countless art openings, workshops, film screenings, dance parties, Southern Fried Queer Pride events, and live concerts. Guitarist Gyan Riley (son of minimalist composer Terry Riley) played there while supporting his 2018 album, Sprig. Guitarist Nels Cline of Wilco (performing in a free jazz trio with percussionist Gerald Cleaver and sax player Larry Ochs) played there.
Scores of younger indie rock, hip-hop, electronic, hardcore and post-punk acts including Upchuck, Misanthropic Aggression, and DeSimone’s blackened metal outfit Malevich also graced the stage there.
On June 30, 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was coming to a head, The Bakery’s three-year lease on the warehouse space at 825 Warner St. ended and was not renewed.
Soon after, the building was demolished, making way for a new Trees Atlanta facility.
Since then, the Bakery has carried on, settling into a gallery space at 92 Peachtree St., a block away from the Five Points MARTA station in South Downtown. There’s also the Bakery’s private artist studio spaces inside the BuggyWorks complex near downtown East Point.
The latest endeavor, though, is the multi-purpose venue at 249 Milton Ave., in a development that is tentatively being called Yellow Studios.
For now, the Bakery’s performance room is a 5,000 square-foot space filled with dozens of dust-covered office chairs, toppled empty filing cabinets, broken glass, and other bits of debris — remnants of what was once a thriving taxi cab headquarters, now in ruins. Still, the potential the space holds is undeniable.
Outside, the sounds of a chainsaw cutting through an old fence, the beeps of heavy machinery, and a chorus of hammers and nail guns hitting the roof fill the air.
Just down the road, more construction can be heard as towering condominiums are being constructed along the BeltLine.
Both Goldstein and DeSimone talk at length about partnering with fellow DIY arts venue Mammal Gallery co-founder Chris Yonker who found the location and is spearheading the project. Yonker plans to open a Morning Mouth Tattoo studio as well as a recording studio in the building. Mammal will also be promoting live performances and other events there. Kyle Swick of Irrelevant Music will book shows in the Bakery’s new venue. There’s talk of various other collaborations as well, including the possibility of working with their kindred spirit at Eyedrum Art & Music Gallery, with whom Goldstein is a former board member.
There are also plans for a coffee shop, and a second, more intimate performance space, and other businesses will utilize office spaces elsewhere in the building.
The plan is to have the new space open and hosting live performances by Spring 2022.
Willow Goldstein (left) and Daniel DeSimone of the Bakery. Photo by Chad Radford.
“Ultimately, the goal is to bring the most professional level of production as possible to nontraditional events, non-traditional curators, and provide a space where people who want to challenge the status quo, or show what an event or a concert could be, have a space where feel like they can stretch out,” DeSimone says. “It’s a space for musicians who might not feel like they jive with the status quo of Atlanta’s music scene.”
DeSimone goes on to describe their vision for the room as being more than a bar, while keeping its activities art-focused, across disciplines.
“Intersectional artistry! We encourage people to incorporate non-musical components to their musical performances, or musical components to their non-musical events,” DeSimone adds. “Bring a DJ to your art show, bring an aerialist to your concert. If something’s happening at the Bakery, there is an understanding that it will be something more than what you could get somewhere else. We want to build our own niche while not chasing the tail of de rigueur — doors open at 8 p.m. and you’re out at 11 p.m. We can’t do that. We don’t want to do that. And the city doesn’t need another of that.”
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