“Think About It.” It’s a simple, evocative phrase with the potential to mean just about anything that anyone can project onto the words. Is it meant as a cautionary tale? A prompt to let wisdom from experience sink in? Or is it simply the act of being left alone with one’s thoughts, looking back on a life in songs.
The title for Kevn Kinney’s 10th solo album is only the doorway into a collection of songs that move at a dreamlike pace. Sink a needle into the album’s pearly white-vinyl grooves and the atmosphere grows thick with internal dialogue, self-effacing humor, and lonesome ruminations. For this latest offering, Kinney embraced the solitude of life under quarantine conditions to summon a deeply personal album. Melancholy wit and memories collide in layers of rich string and piano arrangements that coalesce in songs with titles such as “Catching Up To Myself,” “Stop, Look, Listen, Think,” and “Half Mast.”
The A side favors primarily acoustic performances with jazz and folk leanings. Laur Joamets’ longing pedal steel in “Catching Up To Myself” and “Wishes” are matched with David Barbe’s production, which wholly ties together the album’s glowing and introspective tone.
In the opening title track, Kinney slows down the pace to in a devilish aside: “Ask yourself, should I? Could I?” His questions paint an image that hangs in the air long after the album has stopped spinning. It could be an internal narrative coming from the perspective of a beloved family dog who’s eyeballing a piece of food on the kitchen counter. Or it could be an existential quandary between two folks sitting next to each other at a bar, about to make a bad decision. Whatever the case may be, all are mile markers on the road to determining one’s place in the world, and the answers never come easily.
Throughout the album, a coterie of Georgia music royalty, including Peter Buck and Bill Berry (R.E.M.), Laur Joamets (Sturgill Simpson, Drivin’ N’ Cryin’), Brad Morgan (Drive-By Truckers), bass player extraordinaire Kevin Scott, and more play with subtlety and nuance. Their presence on the record demonstrates Kinney’s impeccable taste in selecting sidemen. Peter Buck plays his original R.E.M. 12-string Rickenbacker throughout the album’s B side, picking up a jangle-rock pace. But it’s Kinney’s poetic, lyrical portraits of the situations and the people he’s encountered along the way that bring the music to life. Kinney has long lived something of a troubadour lifestyle, both as a solo artist and performer and while singing and playing guitar with Drivin’ N Cryin.’ His experiences crown the 11 songs that make up Think About It. Each number emerges from a seemingly bottomless wellspring of memories of navigating long drives on the road and the kind of barroom conversations that take place between the soundcheck and showtime.
There is a veiled autobiographical tone swaying between the somber frustrations of “Wishes,” “Half Mast” and the album’s closer, a Southern take on an Irish a cappella ballad called “Never The Twain Shall Meet.” The closing number absolutely pulls the air out of the room. But it’s the sly and confident swing of “Shapeshifter Grifter” that is the heart and soul of Think About It. As the song’s spoken word jazz musings unfold it’s clear that this is the catchiest tribute to Sun Ra, Howlin’ Wolf, and Col. Bruce Hampton the world has witnessed yet. “Think of a number between one and a hundred!” All the answers lie within.
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On Friday, November 18, visual artist Anna Jensen and Kevn Kinney of Drivin N Cryin host the “Trail of Seasons” art opening at 378 Gallery in Candler Park. Kevn will close out Friday evening with a live solo acoustic performance in the basement.
On Saturday November 19, Athens post-punk luminaries Current Rage celebrate the record release party for Propeller Sound Recordings’ 40th anniversary reissue of the group’s Seven Songs 12-inch. The album was remastered by Jason Nesmith from Pylon Reenactment Society at Chase Park Transduction.
Current Rage’s lineup for the evening features original members guitarist John Moore, singer and percussionist Pat Kirkland, and drummer Paul Lenz performing with bass player Bryan Lilje and singer and guitar player Aaron “Oliver” Bewley. The latter is the son of Current Rage’s original guitar player Chris Bewley who died in 2018.
Jensen and Kinney’s painting will be on display through Nov. 20—just three days—and limited edition prints will be available throughout the weekend.
Friday. Free. 1-10 p.m. Saturday night. $10. Music starts at 8 p.m. 378 Gallery, 378 Clifton Rd NE. 404-530-9277.
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Kevn Kinney (left) and Clay Harper. Photo by Chad Radford
Since the early 1980s, Clay Harper and Kevn Kinney have left an indelible mark on Atlanta’s musical landscape. Harper first garnered significant attention as the voice behind the Coolies’ twisted and bombastic second album, 1988’s Doug: A Rock Opera And Comic Book. Over the years, he has released various collaborations with the likes of Wreckless Eric, Moe Tucker of the Velvet Underground, and Ian Dury. He’s also a co-owner of the Fellini’s Pizza and La Fonda Latina restaurant chains.
Over the years, Harper has rolled out a string of solo recordings leading up to his fifth and latest album, They’ll Never Miss A Five, a meticulously paced and quietly grand meditation on growing up near the Georgia and Alabama border.
Kinney, of course, is the frontman for Southern alternative rock juggernaut Drivin N Cryin. He has also released various solo recordings including his 1990 solo debut, MacDougal Blues, The Flower And The Knife (with the Allman Brothers’ guitarist Warren Haynes), and A Good Country Mile with The Golden Palominos.
Together, Harper and Kinney appeared on Not Dogs … Too Simple (A Tale of Two Kitties) and The Slippery Ballerina — both fall somewhere between children’s albums and rock operas. They also collaborated on the original score for a film that does not exist, titled Main Street.
After pairing up for a two-night stand at Gallery 378 in March, Harper and Kinney sat down to talk about their long history together.
Chad Radford: How did the two of you meet?
Clay Harper: We’ve known each other for at least 35 years — through Fellini’s, I guess.
Kevn Kinney: Fellini’s was the first restaurant I ever went to in Atlanta. I came to town in 1982. I was living on a campground in Marietta, in a trailer in someone’s backyard. We came into Atlanta and we were like “Fellini’s Pizza! That looks cool!” It was the first time I ever had pizza by the slice. Why would you want just a slice? In Wisconsin, where I’m from, everyone gets their own pie.
I’m actually one of the few people who never worked at Fellini’s.
CH: Tim Nielsen, Drivin N Cryin’s bass player worked there in the beginning. He was really good and competent. I always liked working with Tim.
When did you start playing music together?
KK: We haven’t ever played music together. Clay would give me some basic demo tracks and I would sing over them. Then when they came out there were all of these instruments and all of these people on them. I didn’t know Moe Tucker was going to be on Not Dogs. And I didn’t know Ian Dury would be on there.
CH: Ian did his parts in London. He already had cancer. And Slippery Ballerina had Ian and Wreckless Eric.
I remember when we were on the way to Ian’s to record. Eric was late, his car was fucking up and running out of gas, and I had him pull over because I had a full on panic attack. We stopped into a pub and the Stranglers were playing there that night. I really wanted to stay for the show!
You mentioned Main Street, which is a soundtrack to a film that doesn’t exist.
CH: When I was a kid, I listened to things like How The West Was Won, and sometimes they had little snippets of dialogue. So I wanted to do a record like that, but there was no movie. I liked the idea of “the original soundtrack” and “motion picture” — I liked using those words. Then I wrote these songs that sort of fit together. You think there must be a story there, but really I was interested in working with Kevn on something that was different for both of us. At that time I wasn’t that far removed from the Coolies, and it was so loud. This was a different story.
KK: We were both getting divorced at the same time, so we were commiserating and we were both staying at the same broken down hotel, the Biltmore Hotel, when it was like a ghost town. They had like eight rooms open.
CH: Kevn got divorced a little before me. So when I had to leave my house and go stay in a hotel, not only did Kevn recommend the Biltmore, he recommended the room with the best water pressure in the shower.
I remember one day seeing Kevin walking down Ponce de Leon, so I picked him up and said “What are you doing?” He said he was getting married the next day, so we went and had a little bachelor party, just me and him!
KK: He took me to the Clermont Lounge at 3 o’clock in the afternoon.
That was the bachelor party.
Kevn, I recently found a CD by your late ’70s/early ‘80s Milwaukee punk band, the Prosecutors.
KK: [He looks at the CD.] Look how cute I was!
That cover photo was taken at a little basement club called The Starship. Everybody played there: X played there, we opened for the Ventures there. It was only there for a few years. That stage is actually where Liberace started, back when it used to be a steak joint. One night, maybe on the night of this photo, Frank Zappa walked in and sat at the bar. There were like four people there that night.
I don’t know if the Prosecutors ever played for more than like 12 people. And that was usually other musicians who were also playing that night [laughs].
Let’s talk about the artwork for They’ll Never Miss A Five. My mind starts connecting the dots when I look at it … The ice machine is a nice touch.
CH: I asked Kosmo Vinyl to do the artwork. He asked, “Is it another record about a fucked up America?”
I said, “Yes, it is.”
There’s a line where I sing, “I found myself in Phoenix, Arizona living next to an ice machine.” I was remembering some shit hotels where I’d stayed, and he picked up on that. He also picked up on another song that says, “She looked up at the clock and said, ‘oh boy.’” He loves lyrics, and he picked up on them.
What about the rest of the artwork?
CH: I’m not sure what in the Hell is going on there, but it’s his vision of a fucked up America, and I think it’s fantastic. It blew my mind when I saw it. He’s a serious artist, and he’s never done anything halfway.
You didn’t give him any other direction on the artwork?
No, you don’t give Kosmo direction, you’re just sorta grateful that he’s working with you.
The music feels like a bit of a departure for you? It is spacious, but also up front — I hear a bit of an Ozark Mountain folk music influence in there.
CH: You don’t want to just recreate what you’ve already done, right? Kevin’s got it right, he says it sounds like “crystal meth music” [laughs].
It reminds me of some Ozark music in how it’s spacious, almost folk music, and it feels like a more ethereal approach.
CH: I’m not quite sure what ethereal means.
I mean it has a rich atmosphere; the sounds are bright and up front, but there’s space between the sounds.
I look for as much space as possible, but I still try to find a groove. In some songs it’s there, and in some songs it’s just kind of implied.
KK: My brother Mick Kinney plays Fiddle and banjo on the record. He’s an established musician — playing music from a different era. He’s five years older than me.
CH: He got what I was going for. The space was premeditated, and I didn’t really have to tell him anything.
KK: Our great grandfather, or our grandfather’s uncle or brother, I don’t know … GC Kinny was a tent preacher in the Missouri area. I wonder if some of that Ozark Mountain sound creeped in through that.
I first noticed it with the album Bleak Beauty, which moves like the opening scene from The Godfather. It tells you right up front, this is going to take some time.
CH: I worked my way up to that, and I’ve been going in that direction. Having a studio in your house and being able to take as much time as I want with it is how I found what I was looking for
KK: And if I could interject, Clay will record an entire album. It’s done. Then he’ll scrap it and start over from scratch.
CH: It’s kind of like a puzzle. Kevn has heard an earlier incarnation of almost every song on the album that’s been recorded and re-recorded and changed. Then I’ll go with the lyrics and a melody, and it just doesn’t sit right when I try to mix it. Then I’ll take it out and find what does sit right. Then I’ll start over again.
KK: It’s something you wish you could do, but you can’t do it with a rock band when you have a record deal. You wind up with an albatros — that one record where the drums were done a month ago. It’s not mixed, and it’s not working. It becomes the song that nobody likes, and you’re never gonna play it live. It could have been great, if only you could go back and record it again.
Have you considered that? Cheetah Chrome did that with the Dead Boys’ Young Loud and Snotty. He took “Hey Little Girl” off of the record entirely. He said he hated that song, and it was never supposed to have been on the record.
KK: If I could actually stop writing I would do that. I have wanted to re-record Fly Me Courageous because it has that ‘80s production. It says “play loud” because you have to … The quieter you play it, the worse it sounds. It sounded great on the radio because they compress it and match it with everything else.
I have never seen Fly Me Courageous on vinyl.
It came out on vinyl with a white sleeve only with a sticker. I drew all of the covers. It’s a very limited edition of maybe 200 of them. I had about 50 of them but I think someone found my storage locker. All of a sudden I was like, “Where are all of my CDs?” Then they all showed up for sale online.
CH: I have listened to Kevn’s upcoming album a million times, and it’s great. You shouldn’t do anything but move forward with that record.
KK: It’s called Think About It. It has two versions of “Think About It,” and neither one has anything to do with the other. It’s gonna come out someday. The first side was recorded three Januarys ago, right before the pandemic started in March. I recorded with Kevin Scott, Darren Stanley, and Peter Buck. We cut a lot of it in Athens over four days, then the pandemic hit. I finished it myself using Brad Morgan from the Drive By Truckers.
I’m singing very low, very quiet, and there’s a lot of spoken word on it.
You’ve been doing spoken word for a long time. There’s a spoken word piece on the Prosecutors CD.
KK: I just read that here in the liner notes, and I’m like, “What is that?” My friend Clancy Carroll put that out on Splunge Communications, Inc. He’s one of the only guys who’s trying to preserve Milwaukee music. One of the reasons that I like to put a lot of stuff out is because I’ve run into people who had a punk band in the ’70s/’80s, they made records, and they’ve got the tapes, but they won’t let you listen to them because they think someone will come along and pay them $20,000. But it’s just gonna wind up in a Goodwill someday. Just let us hear it.
There are so many great freaking records underneath people’s beds. Clancy has wrestled some great stuff away for that label.
My new record definitely has a side one and a side two side. Side one is Kevin Scott, me, and Darren Stanley. Side two is me, David Barbe, and Laur Joamets.The string section will make you laugh and it will make me cry. It’s Kevn Kenny, but presented in a different way.
Peter Buck plays his original R.E.M. Rickenbacker on it. He also does some e-bow stuff and puts a lot of atmosphere on the record.
Tommy Dean from Thermos Greenwood plays bass on Clay’s new record.
CH: I really love that guy, and to me, that’s what the record is about, being Southern. He’s a Southern gentleman. Super talented, super gracious, and has a style that’s halfway between upright and electric.
Can we talk about the song called “One More Lie And Cry About Everything?”
CH: That’s one of my favorite songs on the record, and it really means the most to me. And it has a big, heavy hip-hop beat that’s implied.
That’s one of the songs that I scrapped completely at least three times, and then recorded it again with a completely different set of lyrics and a different melody, and decided I didn’t like it and started over and found this version.
It means so much to me because I stuck with it enough to find it. I didn’t give up on it, so it’s like the dog that got away in the campground in Colorado and somehow made its way back home.
I like the song “They’ll Never Miss A Five” as well. When I was 16 years old, I worked at a Magic Market in Newnan, Georgia. The songs is loosely about a woman who worked there with me.
She was a victim of smalltown, Georgia, and she got through it the best she could. We worked in a Magic Market — later called Quickie Food Store. The song starts off: “She was selling head and day-old bread,” and that’s exactly what she was doing.
I was a drunk kid,16 at most, and I worked at several Quickies. They’d just leave you in there alone all day and then threaten you with inventory. It was a vague threat, like inventory is gonna show everything I’ve done, and all of my shoplifting is gonna come to light, and my manager would walk in with the cops.
The song is about that. “I ain’t lived this life to be some nobody’s ex-wife.” That’s her. “I’m gonna take what mama leaves and I’ll be gone.” It’s an endless, fruitless struggle to escape your shit reality in a convenience store in Noonan, Georgia.
So “They’ll Never Miss A Five” is about stealing a $5 dollar bill from the register.
She stole five bucks, and she figured they’ll never miss a $5. She skimmed a bit. I went a little further.
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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Cracker, Gurufish, Zangaro, Kurt Wheeler, Ralph Roddenberry & Donna Hopkins, Buckshot George, Morgan Rowe, and Dynagroove also perform. $60-$150. 6 p.m.
After taking a few weeks off to play some Drivin’ N Cryin’ shows in real life Kevn Kinney is back on the internet—back in the attic—this Tuesday, June 22, to perform a round of solo acoustic numbers, tell some stories, and maybe play a cover or two, maybe some new songs. Maybe some guests. … There are no rules here.
It’s free to watch, donations are accepted. Music starts at 8 p.m. Eastern and goes till about 10 p.m. Tune in via Drivin’ N ‘Cryin’s Facebook page and leave a whole bunch of ❤️ 👍 😂 ❤️ 👍 🤑 ❤️ in the comments.
If the virtual experience leaves you wanting more, and your up for a day trip, Kevn has some solo shows coming up in July.
JUNGLELAND: Original artwork by Paul Frick. Graphic art by Willem Kaiser
There’s a jungle inside the mind of singer and guitar player Andy Browne, and it’s teeming with life. The five songs that make up Lynx Deluxe’s Jungleland EP take shape as an enigmatic reckoning of the self, the spirit, and Southern identity. Heavy rhythms, subtle brass filigree, and percolating keys are pushed forward by arty rock leanings powered by enough muscle and confidence to uphold the group’s ambitions.
Opening number “Jane Goodall” puts a face on part of the music’s veiled metaphors, beginning with the sounds of a screaming chimpanzee in an ecstatic state. The closing song, “Steppin’ On Gold,” brings an even deeper allegory—steeped in the imagery of The Wizard Of Oz—to an intriguing point. Along the way, the musical journey from inner chaos to contentment reveals itself to be an exercise in catharsis, driven by evocative lyrical imagery and compositions that are as thick as English Ivy.
“Jane Goodall,” “The Struggle,” and “Mercy” are bound by a barreling spaciousness and momentum that falls into place with musical unity. Browne’s strained yet soaring and impressionistic voice is accentuated by the ambiance created by bass player Lucy Theodora, drummer Brad Mattson, keyboard player Billy Fields, and guitarist Greg Di Gesu weaving an intense musical web that matches the power of lyrics such as “It’s a struggle to break the chains / It’s a struggle to take the blame / It’s a struggle to let it go / To sit like Buddha in a perfect flow” in “The Struggle.”
Browne’s songwriting resonates with a deeply buried and universally shared note that rings out in all of our minds. In “Saints” and “Steppin’ On Gold,” that note shifts to bolster the uplifting and undeniably catchy essence of each number as they rise out of some vast and mysterious part of the imagination, giving rise to a sense of calmness that’s achieved equally through Browne’s words and the group’s long, interweaving instrumental chemistry. This alone makes Jungleland an engaging chapter for Browne, whose songwriting first left a mark in the mid ‘80s while he fronted Atlanta’s Southern post-punk rockers the Nightporters, a band that also featured bass player Tim Nielsen and drummer Paul Lenz of Drivin N Cryin. In more recent years, his songs fronting the Andy Browne Troupe have revealed themselves to be stepping stones leading to the baroque and Southern alternative rock and pop that Lynx Deluxe brings to life. Jungleland is a true band effort without allegiance to the past, present, or the future. The songs are open-hearted, complete, and flourishing with redemptive fodder for the imagination that’s mysteriously timeless.
Rad/ATL 