5/15/12

June 12 is going to be a hectic new release day in the music biz, and expect Drivin’ N’ Cryin’ to be part of the mix via a brand-new EP titled Songs From the Laundromat, on their own New! label. But wait, as the man on the television said, there’s more.

According to frontman Kevn Kinney, it’s to be the first in a series of four EPs that he wants to release roughly on a quarterly basis because, in his words, “I don’t have the patience anymore for a two year recording project,” and to that end, he and the band are aiming for the immediacy effect, get the songs down and roll ‘em out while they’re still fresh, and without a ton of futzing around.

But don’t take our word for it – here’s the official statement from Kinney:

“A couple months ago I was writing in the morning and my wife was listening to a record. She said I should record that song and I said ‘well, I did.’ It was the last song on the last record! It dawned on me then that most people that listen to records don’t usually listen past five or six songs, so I’m going to make a record with only five or six songs on it. In fact, I’m going to do four… Or five… Or maybe the rest of them this way!!!!

“This solves a lot of problems for drivin n cryin. I love the fact that we have never shied away from the fact we are influenced by so many different sounds. But sometimes combining them on one record can be somewhat disconcerting to a particular group of fans. I love that. I love the psychedelic element of challenging the listener. I mean it’s all based on a library of music from our past…  THE KINKS and THE WHO meet the RAMONES and THE COUNT FIVE at a little bar owned by BOB DYLAN and JOHNNY CASH… But the opportunity to focus on a specific genre or subject is exciting to me…. Also an opportunity to record with all the people we have been looking forward to working with is almost limitless… We would love to work all over the country with our friends and the five song format means we only need a few days of their time…

“I think people will be excited when they own a few and can contrast the different sounds and producers… We’ve completed number one, SONGS FROM THE LAUNDROMAT. PAUL EBERSOLD is producing number two: SONG ABOUT CARS, SPACE AND THE RAMONES …  I don’t have the patience anymore for a two year recording project, a big build up as if you’re JD SALINGER, a tour and then reality again… I don’t like hype… I just want to offer up my art for the fans or soon-to-be-fans. A five or six song recording every three months like a magazine subscription…

“I want it now!!! And I want it NEW!”

by Dennis Cook for Dirty Impound

Kevn Kinney can look at people and really see them. His songs, both as a solo artist and as the helmsman of Drivin’ ‘N’ Cryin’ for the past 27 years, are filled with bloody knuckled truthfulness, real deal streetwise stories of the overlooked and overworked, the scrapers and Dust Bowl dreamers wondering if even a paycheck to paycheck existence is long for this world.

Kinney has produced a body of work that should have long ago put him in the same pantheon with kindred spirits like Drive-By Truckers and Steve Earle, but there’s something unruly and just plain ol’ ornery about Kinney that keeps him just outside polite company. His punk rock roots in his childhood hometown of Milwaukee remain part of his basic makeup even as he’s explored folk, classic rock and more. There’s an intrinsic toughness to Kinney and his blue collar, beautifully bruising brand of rock, and this has never been clearer than his latest offering, A Good Country Mile (released February 21), a slow burning, frequently rowdy bit of heartfelt American music, patriotic in the finest, truest sense and swinging at the bullies out to push around the hurtin’ and needy. Produced by Anton Fier, the album finds Kinney backed by The Golden Palominos, who mine his unique mixture of kickin’ Southern rock and sharp-bladed NYC attack with hard-nosed grace and exposed tenderness. It’s an especially timely work arriving at a moment when folks are wondering what America, even in the very near future, will be like down the line – a country that endlessly tilts the odds in favor of the rich and powerful or one that actually cares for the poor, the sick, the children, the “least among us,” as Jesus used to say. Compassion runs hand in hand with a realist’s understanding on A Good Country Mile, leading us to truths that hold one tight after the album comes to a close.

As fine as his catalogue has been, Kinney’s latest offering may be the best solo record he’s ever produced, a mature set that hums with relevance and electricity, grabbing at understanding that endures even if so much feels just out of reach and ultimately unknowable. It’s the kind of album Dirty Impound just had to pick the author’s brain about, and Kevn was kind enough to give us a chunk of his time.

One thing the new album makes clear is you are not going quietly into this good night. You seem rowdier than ever, as if you’ve never let go of the rocker energy you had when you came out of the gate.

As far as energy goes, I’m just glad to be alive [laughs].

It’s hard to make a record sometimes that has that energy. When you get into the studio you often just feel like chillin’. But Anton is not like that. He’s very intense and very serious about being honest to the songs and things like that. There was a lot of experimentation and we rehearsed a lot. We played every Monday night for weeks at this place called the Truckstop with different bass players like Andy Hess and my friend Brent Bass, and we had different guitar players and kinda grew this thing.

Then, we went into the studio with it a couple years ago. It’s intense but Anton’s intense. He loves Led Zeppelin as much as he loves John Coltrane. We made our first record together back in the 80s. It was a Drivin’ ‘N’ Cryin’ record [Whisper Tames The Lion (1988)], and then he produced Drivin’ ‘N’ Cryin’s The Great American Bubble Factory (2009) album.

He seems to be able to bring out a lot of different sides of you as a collaborator.

Oh yeah, he’s always, “Come on, man, come on!”

There’s some really tasty guitar on Good Country Mile, which reminded me what a good guitar player you are, which you don’t always get credit for.

Well, I have a compressor on myself and I kind of have my own style. I’m learning to play louder without playing louder, if you know what I mean. I draw from Davie Allen & The Arrows and The Seeds maybe, and Neil Young. I picture myself as a Southern Neil Young guitar player. You don’t see Neil Young doing any tapping or jazz licks. My goal is just to be the best Kevn there is.

You’re also a singer-songwriter, so you’re playing to your melodies and lyric lines, which changes how you play guitar.

And my solos are usually counter melodies to something I’d be singing. It’s like when Dylan plays a guitar solo it’s basically what he would play on harmonica [laughs].

That expression of emotional truth instrumentally is an element that’s attracted me to your work for a long time. There’s a human cry in your music even when you’re not using your voice.

Well, thank you! I could always hire a guitar slinger but I never wanted to. Of course, we’ve had guitar players in Drivin’ ‘n’ Cryin’, and the new guy [Sadler Vaden] is just stunning. And we had a rehearsal not long ago where we added Audley Freed, and that was a whole new level! I just played an acoustic basically because what am I gonna do?

Another thing I appreciate aboutBubble Factory and Good Country Mile is how you continue to be a chronicler of the American Experience as it really is, not just waving a flag and wallowing in false nostalgia. It’s right there in titles like “In The Land (Of Things That Used To Be).” Before you’ve heard a note, that should give you pause.

That came from growing up in Milwaukee in the 70s, which was a really hard life – five children in a 500 square foot house, seven people living in that tiny house during the Recession. All the companies were leaving and it was grim era. I remember my father driving me to see my grandmother in this high rise, old age thing, and just driving there and back with her my dad would point out all the things that used to be – “That used to be a pastry shop. That was a factory. And that was where they used to make submarine parts.” Eventually I came to think of Milwaukee as the Land of Things That Used To Be. It came back but the same way Pittsburgh came back. It didn’t come back physically or job-wise. It reinvented itself as a vacation location with a fake Dutch and German heritage…which is true but would have been even cooler if they hadn’t torn down 50-percent of everything. Pittsburgh is beautiful now but there are no jobs.

Sadly, it’s a glimpse of what America has to look forward to. These cities are the tip of the iceberg for the economic and social set-up the wealthy and powerful have been working on for decades – arguably the greatest long grift in human history. This country is going to have to figure out what to do with itself when it becomes the Land of Used To Be.

That’s why it’s important to live in the underground, which I’ve been a part of for years. I’ve tried to be frugal and tried not to get my expectations up too high. I don’t want to live in a mansion. Col. Bruce [Hampton] taught me you never want to play a place bigger than a 1000 people because then it’s just people watching people watching people…unless you’re U2 or something and pull it off like it’s church. I’m really satisfied to playing to 45-50 people.

I think parents should teach their children to never have a credit card. Credit is going to go back to the way it was in the 20s. It’s going to be hard to buy anything you want when you want it. You don’t need it. I used to say at my shows, “All you really need in life is a couple friends, a full tank of gas, and a good cup of coffee.”

We’re not a culture that’s comfortable with the notion of enough-ness. That’s not something that’s been an American ideal for a really long time.

You’re just making somebody else rich. I think what comes across in my songs is the idea that you are what you need to be happy – right as you are, sitting in your chair, holding your wife’s hand. You could go anywhere in the world, and you don’t need the double pane glass windows. You don’t need to spend money on a deck [laughs]. If I saved my money to buy a deck that’s fine, but I wouldn’t borrow it from Visa.

People often get hopeless about this stuff, but you’re able to avoid despondency. Even if people get pissed off it seems to stop at anger without any positive action following it. I’m an old punk rocker and the bands that always touched me were the ones that wanted to do something with that pissed-off energy.

My whole thing on punk rock – and something that I learned in the couple semesters I went to journalism school – was a good editorial not only brings something to light but offers some solutions to problems. It isn’t just bitching about something. There has to be some sort of resolve at the end. On Great American Bubble Factory, we ask manufacturers, “If you can make it here then why don’t you make it here?” My next record I’ll probably have something on there about trains. In the Northeast you can go to Boston without a car. In Atlanta you can’t go to Chattanooga without a car.

I live out near San Francisco and you can’t get a whole bunch of places without a car. And if we don’t fix up the rail system in America soon it’s gonna be bad.

And it can’t just be the one train from San Francisco that goes to Seattle once a day. It’s gotta be once an hour like in Holland. It’s gotta be every two hours a train is going a bunch of places.

Your challenge as a songwriter is how do you make infrastructure sexy?

You start with heading West on the rails. It was a revolutionary idea when they connected the East Coast to the West Coast, but have they really done that much since then? They kind of stopped in the 50s. They’ve been talking about this train to Athens, Georgia or Macon and they’ve never done it.

The mythology of trains is still floating around in our collective psyche.

They’re so efficient in Belgium and Holland and Italy and Germany. It’s just so much more efficient to get somewhere. You have to share your space but it’s part of being a family.

There’s a greater sense of connectivity to European culture. It’s just a little more adult in general over there. I dig how people don’t steer around the Red Light District in Amsterdam if they’re out walking with their children. That’s just part of what people do, kids.

You need to teach your kids about sex and learning how to drink. In the South especially, there’s this Baptist Bible Belt where it’s all just forbidden, forbidden, forbidden, forbidden! Oh, you’re a freshman in college and you’re suddenly getting hammered! They don’t know how to drink. Let ‘em start at 16 and learn properly.

If I’m honest with myself about when I started dabbling in weed and booze, then it makes me want to be less of hypocrite with my own kid.

I’m from Milwaukee and we were encouraged to drink beer in Little League…but we were encouraged to drink smart [laughs].

One thing that’s long amused me about much of what’s written about you is how everyone thinks you’re Southern through and through but you grew up in Wisconsin, and that’s a big part of your sound, attitude, etc. AND then you moved to the South. Your music is an intersection between these two forces.

I’m like the opposite of O. Henry. I grew up in Milwaukee. I was a punk rocker. My roommate was in his thirties and had the largest punk rock collection in the world along with avant-garde jazz. I grew up on a lot of jazz but unfortunately in the 70s it was all fusion. But I was drawn to stuff that didn’t have weird pedals on it like Art Ensemble of Chicago, Sun Ra and Ornette Coleman. I was a writer and reporter for this super underground magazine, and I founded a magazine in Milwaukee called The Express, which is the longest running underground paper in Milwaukee. Every ten years they give me credit for starting it. Then, I met a band and decided I wanted to be a roadie instead of a writer. And ever since then I’ve been an observer.

I had this whole other life in Milwaukee – punk rock, the avant-garde, black & white filmmaking, degenerate art. Then when I moved down South I had to make a living and became a construction worker. So, I wandered into the local punk rock club, of course, to get my footing. Then, I started meeting musicians and got a much fuller vision of the South. Having never grown up there, I didn’t know about the mountains and the ocean and the trees and the way people communicated. To sell a car in the South is a daylong thing where they get to know you. They don’t want to just give you their car. It’s not just about the money, it’s about who’s going to drive MY car. You sit and have some tea and walk around the car, and maybe you come back tomorrow and buy the car. It’s never, “$450? How about $350? Bang!” and you’re driving it in an hour. That shit never happens down there.

It’s a really different world to where you grew up but you’ve always had a knack for picking up on the nuances of Southern culture not unlike John Fogerty in the Creedence years. He was another guy writing about this culture who grew up in a way different world – El Cerrito, California is not Biloxi, Mississippi.

Something I learned to love about it is that in the Midwest there was a little more competition between bands – or a fatalism that says, “Fuck it, we’re never gonna make it out of here” – but in the South people like R.E.M. were inspiring to me. Meeting and befriending Peter Buck was just an epiphany. There was a lot more sharing going on. Bands would hang out and encourage each other. It was like the early punk rock days where bands like mine and Die Kreuzen were really tight.

I’m still kind of a voyeur. I liken myself a bit to Kerouac. We were born on the same day, so I have this affinity for him. I totally identify with him. He’s a voyeur, too, like Ginsberg and Neal Cassady, but Jack was a baseball card collector kind of guy, a gawk who was really good at watching what was going on and writing about it, always putting a bit of himself into it.

Your songwriting reflects this observational gaze, where you capture these moments of ache in simple things like someone standing on a street corner looking confused. You somehow know how to put that into verse. The title tune on the new album is a prime example of this, where one finds themselves “just outside of Heaven” but it’s still a good country mile away.

“They’re bouncing off the walls and they’re eating off the streets.” It’s just like New York [City], bouncing around the subways. The hardest part for me of living [in NYC] is getting people to say, “Good morning.” And I’m going to keep doing it for as many years as I live here. I’m determined to make people look at each other and say, “Good morning.” It’s so weird to return to Atlanta or Milwaukee and I look down at the ground. I have to force myself to look up and maybe say, “Good morning.” Here, you just don’t do it. It’s very rare you’d walk out of the subway and say, “Good morning, everybody!” I’ve never seen it, and I don’t have the balls to just get on a subway car and say, “Good morning, good people!” Maybe if I was with one or two other people. There’s power in numbers.

http://www.dirtyimpound.com/2012/04/omg-interview-kevn-kinney/

by Jud Cost, for Magnet

Kevn Kinney’s music has always been lurking in the cobwebbed corners of your mind, even if you weren’t aware of it. After making the big move from Milwaukee to Atlanta back in the ’80s, he happened to be close to Athens, Ga., the birthplace of R.E.M., when that band was really catching fire. He caught the always-open ear of Peter Buck, who produced some material by Kinney’s band, Drivin N Cryin, which would latch onto a support slot for an R.E.M. tour. Fast forward to the new millennium, and Kinney has moved to Brooklyn, where he’s cut a fine solo record, A Good Country Mile, with Anton Fier and the Golden Palominos. The new disc somehow manages to fit Bob Dylan, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Van Morrison under the same tiny leopard-skin pill-box hat. Kinney spoke to MAGNET from the East River Ferry. He will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.

MAGNET: I can hear water rushing below you. Was that Kramer swimming in the East River or just another floating stiff?
Kinney: I have very spotty phone coverage. I may have to climb a pole, like in Green Acres. I can see the Empire State Building from here.

You were raised in Milwaukee, not too far from Hüsker Dü and the Replacements, and then moved to Atlanta. Was that a shock to the nervous system?
Yeah, I was in Milwaukee until I was 20. I watched Macon County Line the night before I left. But moving to Atlanta wasn’t as bad as I might have thought. I moved down there with a couple of my friends, a gay couple. So, immediately, Atlanta was this never-ending disco, rock ‘n’ roll kinda thing. It wasn’t anything like I thought it would be. It wasn’t all chitlings and corn bread. The thing about Atlanta back then was they had jobs. My brother called and told me they had a lot of construction jobs down there. I was an apprentice form-builder, built a lot of sewage-treatment plants. I put the re-bar in the forms, a lot of concrete work. I haven’t done any of that for 25 years. Once I got into the music biz and made a hundred dollars for a show, I was like, “Woo hoo.”

I saw Drivin N Cryin play twice, at the Oasis in San Jose in 1988, and I saw you open for Neil Young & Crazy Horse and Sonic Youth at the Cow Palace in San Francisco in 1991.
I think that was our first or second show on that tour. The band we took the place of was Social Distortion, who had just quit the tour. We were the replacement act. We were excited: free tickets to see Neil Young. By then, it was just the West Coast. By the end of the tour we played Seattle, and they were making Singles, this grunge movie with Matt Dillon.

Did you play music before you moved to Atlanta?
I did. I was a roadie for a band called the Haskels. I had a punk-rock band called the Prosecutors, and one of our song titles was “Drivin N Cryin.’ [Singing] “Why did you leave me?/Why did you go?/Tears on my radio/Tears on my steering wheel.”

When I think of Drivin N Cryin, I always think of Guadalcanal Diary also, as opening acts for R.E.M. Did you play with those guys much?
Guadalcanal was from Athens, so we opened for them at our first big record-release show in ’87. And we did the New Music Seminar in New York City with them. We opened the Green tour for R.E.M., the Northeast quadrant, from Maine to Miami. Peter Buck was our first fan in Athens. He produced some demos for us. He wanted to produce our first major-label album, but our A&R person didn’t think he was seasoned enough. We just did a series of shows with Peter down in Mexico, in Todos Santos, 50 miles north of Cabo San Lucas in Baja, Calif. The first week was Peter with Steve Wynn and the Baseball Project. Then it was Peter with Robyn Hitchcock, and then it was Peter with Scott McCaughey and Minus 5. And finally it was Peter with me and Chuck Prophet. We played at the Hotel California.

Wow, where you check in but you don’t check out. Or is that the Roach Motel?
It was amazing. You should come down next year. And it’s perfectly safe.

Yeah, that is a problem with some parts of Mexico. Maybe you could hide, but I imagine Baja is just about impossible to escape from.
There’s not really any place to hide. It’s mostly desert.

Tell me something about your solo stuff. Love the new album with the Golden Palominos. It has some of that Southern-rock kind of thing going on.
I’ve been working on that for about a year. It was produced by Anton Fier, the drummer for the Feelies and he played with John Lurie’s band, the Lounge Lizards, those guys who wore suits and ties. Anton’s main thing was the Golden Palominos.

The opening track for your new album, with these lush chords, I half-expected to hear one of my favorite singers ever step into the spotlight, Sal Valentino of the Beau Brummels. Have you ever heard of him?
Wow, yeah, that was one of my key bands, one of favorite bands ever. They did something called “Cry Just A Little.” I bought both those first two Beau Brummels records at the Goodwill store. They were amazing. You don’t hear people referencing the Beau Brummels a lot, as influences. Did they come before Byrds, or what?

Yep, they had two hits in 1964, doing folk/rock before the Byrds released “Mr. Tambourine Man.” I think they inspired the Byrds.
And they have the honor of being on an episode of The Flintstones.

Hey, before I forget, I have to ask you about the unique spelling of your first name. Did you always spell it that way, with only one vowel?
I did not. I used to do these paintings, these crazy watercolors, and I would sign with just my first name. But the “I” always looked like I was still in eighth grade. At that time, the gas company sent me a bill without the “I” in my first name. And that looked cool. So I decided to leave it like that.

Yeah, good for you. I talked to Andy Shernoff recently from the Dictators.
Oh sure, Andy’s my neighbor here in Brooklyn, one of my best friends. He lives just two streets over. Keith Streng from the Fleshtones, we’re all in the same neighborhood.

Wow, small world! Andy told me when he was writing for Creem magazine, 40 years ago, someone typoed his first name as “Adny.” And he kept it that way just to make his record reviews stood out.
I know. Andy just played “I Stand Tall,” a Dictators song, for my wife’s birthday party.

I hear just a wee bit of Lynyrd Skynyrd in your music, the Southern-rock thing, which I always liked, the Allman Brothers.
Well I lived down there for 25 years, and I still perform down there. The South has some really great musicians. For one thing, there’s a lot more space down there, so it’s easier to practice. In the South, it’s more like joining a family when you play in a band. You have a house you practice in. In New York, you have to rent a practice space and share it with three other bands. In New York, you get a slot, but in the South you’re supposed to play for three or four hours a night. I’m really good friends with Warren Haynes from the Allman Brothers. I had never heard much Allman Brothers or Skynyrd until I moved down South. But when you’re sitting out on the porch on a warm summer night, just a little bit tipsy, the Allman Brothers really make a lot more sense.

http://www.magnetmagazine.com/2012/03/26/qa-with-kevn-kinney/

by John B. Moore

March 2012

Born out of friendship between Drivin’ N’ Cryin’s Kevn Kinney and The Golden Palominos drummer Anton Fier (who’s also worked with the Feelies, Bob Mould, etc.), A Good Country Mile takes the best influences from both and a slew of 60’s and 70’s rockers resulting in an unforgettable slab of Blues-soaked Americana, punctuated beautifully with plenty of harmonica and Hammond organ. The record includes some new material, some inspired covers (like Seven Mary Three’s “Southwestern State” and Drive-By Truckers’ “Never Gonna Change”), but more importantly some great re-workings of Drivin’ N’ Cryin’ and Kinney solo songs. The slowed down version of “Gotta Move Along (Again)” and “Wild Dog Moon (Pt. 2)” sound almost as exciting as when they were first released decades ago. Kinney and Fier go back years, with the latter having produced and played drums on the classic Drivn’ N’ Cryin’ album Whisper Tames the Lion. A Good Country Mile is a fantastic concept that was executed even better than fans could’ve imagined. It’s an album not written for mass appeal or with hit singles in mind, but simply composed by talented musicians that clearly love playing music together. It just so happens that the result is better than just about anything that’s currently being played on the radio.

http://www.insiteatlanta.com/music.asp

by Lee Zimmerman

March 7, 2012

Kevn Kinney has followed a tangled path ever since his days with Drivin’ N’ Cryin’, veering from plaintive folk to Dylanesque deliberation, without ever fully grasping that which was needed to reclaim his former glories.

That’s all remedied with A Good Country Mile, a collaboration with the Golden Palominos’ Anton Fier, and his first solo effort since 2002’s Broken Hearts and Auto Parts. Having evolved into a seasoned Southern troubadour, Kinney has embraced the authority that comes with that distinction, and on songs such as the rampaging “Gotta Move On (Again),” the unmistakably assertive “Challenge,” the blistering “Hurricane” and the riff-heavy “Wild Dog Moon Pt. 2,” he’s clearly comfortable occupying that role. Even so, the second half of the record is where Kinney finds his voice, a high plaintive musing that brings to mind to mind the fragility of Jayhawks’ Mark Olson and the tender trappings of the Avett Brothers. At nine minutes, the title track might initially seem overlong, but its bittersweet reflection makes it as affecting and endearing as anything heard from either Kinney or his alt-country brethren in many a moon. Likewise, a searing “Bird,” clocking in at nearly as long, ranks as not only one of the album’s highlights, but another indelible imprint at that, its resounding refrain boosting it to standards status. “Set in Stone” falls neatly into Jayhawks territory, but it also captures that anthemic ring that distinguished “Drivin’ N’ Cryin’ early on. For that matter, the same could be said of the mournful “Southwestern State.”. Given this abundance of riches, Kinney’s time off was clearly well spent.

Having regrouped and refocused, and at the risk of evoking one pun too many, suffice it to say A Good Country Mile extends well beyond anything he’s managed before.

DOWNLOAD: “A Good Country Mile,” “A Southwestern State,” “Bird”

http://blurt-online.com/reviews/view/3695

Listen to the interview and performance here: http://www.npr.org/2012/02/29/147669937/kevn-kinney-and-golden-palominos-on-world-cafe

Kevn Kinney of Drivin N Cryin and Anton Fier of The Golden Palominos combine the twangy side of their respective rock bands for an album aptly titled A Good Country Mile. Through the ’80s rock scene, Kinney and Fier became friends and collaborators, and the trend continues more than 20 years later.

The sound of A Good Country Mile is unexpected, especially for Fier — it’s a heavy, robust country album. Driven by the Palominos’ addictive melodicism and Kinney’s husky Southern vocals, the album rocks with pedal-steel guitar, ample harmonica and covers of country classics.

Hear the pair perform tracks from A Good Country Mile on today’s episode of World Cafe.

by Rhetta Akamatsu

March 1, 2012

If you are familiar with Kevn Kinney from his work with Atlanta rock band Drivin’ and Cryin’, you will immediately recognize and appreciate this CD. If not, A Good Country Mile will be a great introduction to his roots-rock style, given a special kick by his collaboration with Anton Fier’s group, The Golden Palominos.

As producer, Fier has done a great job of adding a forceful, yet surprisingly light-handed touch to Kinney’s music, so that the sound is bolstered but not overwhelmed. Kinney’s harp still wails, and acoustic guitars still feature prominently, mixing with electric in a nicely layered way. The sound maintains Kinney’s trademark rough edge, suited perfectly to his vocal style and lyrics.

Kinney’s voice is like weathered leather, a bit worn and world-weary, with a country tinge to it, and his lyrics reflect that been-around-the-block sound. If you didn’t know he honed his craft in the Deep South, it would not take you long to figure it out.

“Never Gonna Change” is classic Kinney, full of emotion and lots of twang, while “Gotta Move On (Again)” is a hard-rocking, wake-you-up and shake-you-up number, quite different from its original Drivin’ and Cryin’ incarnation. It is followed by “Challenge,” which begins as a rock ballad and ends in classic Kinney storytelling style, complete with slide guitar. The next cut, “Hurricane” is another great storytelling song which is enhanced by some amazing guitar and harmonica work.

“Wild Dog Moon Part 2″ is a song Kinney did with Drivin’ and Cryin’ and reminds me very much of Bob Dylan’s work on “Tangled Up in Blue.” It has that same rhythmic, street-preacher cadence. This is one of my favorite songs on this CD.

The title song, “A Good Country Mile,” is a very simple, clean tune with great harmonies and beautiful lyrics: “I’m just outside of heaven/About a good country mile.” It’s about those living a life without public distinction but with quiet contentment and a sense of community.

Next is the country-folk ballad, “Set in Stone,” and that leads into the amazing “Bird,” which Kinney originally performed on his solo 1994 CD, Down Out Law. His version is much different from that stark arrangement, with great harmonies, and a nuanced and layered guitar accompaniment that complements the lyrics. Then there’s the break after a few verses that turns the song into a classic Southern style rock jam, and then goes back to the evocative lyrics and to the jam again. It is just a brilliant song altogether.

“In the Land of Used to Be” sounds like you could drop it into any Drivin’ and Cryin’ album and it would be right at home. Nobody does this sort of soul-baring song better than Kinney and it has just the right country/Southern rock ballad sound to spotlight the words.

Closing out the CD is “Southwestern State,” a cover of a Seven Mary Three song that is the perfect ending for this emotional musical journey. It is a sweet, sad, slow ballad perfectly suited to Kinney’s voice and style.

Altogether, this is a brilliant recording. If you have a taste for roots rock, or if you are a fan of Dylan, Tom Petty, Neil Young, or other singer-songwriters of that style, I will predict that you will like it at first listen. With each subsequent hearing, you will like it even more, until you will love it.

Read more: http://blogcritics.org/music/article/music-review-kevn-kinney-a-good1/page-2/#ixzz1nttqE1Hz

by Mary Leary

February 29, 2012

Shucks! This is serious shit-kickin’ fodder. Musical rule-changerAnton Fier (Golden Palominos; Pere Ubu, the Feelies, the Bob Mould Band) and Kevn Kinney of Drivin’ ‘n’ Cryin’ throw such a convincing bucket of sweat and emotion into A Good Country Mile; I yearn to move to Colorado and ride horses (or at least watch folks saddling up prior to flying over creeks, fences, and mini-malls). This is one Brooklyn/East Village/spent-years-in-tour-buses-splattered hoedown. The guitars (by Fier, Kinney, and Tony Scherr) are a potent cocktail of power chords, glistening acoustic runs, and acidic struts. The bass playing (by Andy Hess, who’s also worked with Govt. Mule and Black Crowes) insinuates all the right things; twining masterfully into the mix.

Kinney and Fier’s mutual goal was “…to make a record that had the feel – the looseness, the innocence, and the spontaneity – of some of the late ‘60s/early ‘70s records that we were both fascinated by: The James Gang Rides Again, Terry Reid’s River, The Faces’ The First Step, (and) Marc Benno’s Minnows.”

Those inspirations have yielded new riches. The title track is a classic of gritty-sweet simplicity (with some of the James Gang’s casual jaunt). “In the Land (of Things that used to Be)” has some of the latter, along with the feeling of having been pushed through a classic New Wave sieve. “Set in Stone” is a sublimely souful ballad (that feels something like the Faces, and the Exile-era Stones). A Good Country Mile may also be welcomed by Neil Young/Crazy Horse fans. As Drivin’ n’ Cryin’ devotees know, Kinney’s been trotting in this direction for some time. And in 2010 he joined Dead Confederate for a cover of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World.”

At least parts of A Good Country Mile sound like a Drivin’ ‘n’ Cryin’ release that’s spent several years rollin’ around the mud, sand, and blood of the Southwest (real and/or mythical – as it happens, the closing track, which shimmers with cool tones, is “In a Southwestern State”). For those who like riffs and beats that could cut a tough steak before washing it down with spring-sweet nectar, this is a very good thing. It’s also one of the first 2012 releases I’ve heard that is, for me, a keeper. With all the worthy contenders bobbing around my earspace, that’s saying something.

http://www.myoldkentuckyblog.com/?category_name=Album

by Brian Robbins

February 22, 2012

If A Good Country Mile is your introduction to the music of Kevn Kinney, then nothing more needs to be said. Welcome – you’re going to love this album.

If you’re a longtime fan of Kinney and his band Drivin’ N Cryin’, then it may be worth doling out a word of caution: a quick read of the song titles on A Good Country Mile will reveal tunes you might have heard in one form or another previously (including the title track), but here’s the deal: you’ve never heard them like this. Trust me.

Make no mistake about it – this is a Kevn Kinney album, for sure: as real as real gets, mixed with good storytelling, seasoned with dollops of rock ‘n’ roll grit and dues paid, served with a side order of smarts, and all wrapped up in a well-worn flannel shirt. What skews the setting in the best of ways is the presence of drummer/producer/musical genius Anton Fier.

Kinney and Fier share a history that’s over 20 years old – dating back to Fier’s production work on Drivin’ N Cryin’s Whisper Tames The Lion album in 1987. After traveling separate musical paths for a couple of decades, the two reconnected when Kinney moved to New York City. A 75-week club residency by the pair drew many players into their world, both on stage and in off-hour jam sessions. From that period was born the core band for A Good Country Mile : Kinney, Fier, bassist Andy Hess, and guitarist Tony Scherr – supported by a revolving cast of talent from the NY music scene. The resulting music is raw and lovely and real as hell.

As mentioned, there are reworked Kinney/DNC numbers: “Got To Move On (Again)” is in your face like a vintage Yardbirds rave-up, complete with brainpan-rupturing blues harp blowing by Kinney. “Wild Dog Moon Pt. 2” is a big, fat guitar sandwich with a vocal that can’t help but make you think of Tom Petty. And “In The Land Of Things (That Used To Be)” – a longtime Kinney tune that’s never seen the light of day officially – would be lovely all on its own; Eleanor Masterson’s violin makes it absolutely shimmer.

There are covers of other folks’ tunes: Jason Isbell’s “Never Gonna Change” brings the album in with wailing harp/wailing guitars/wailing emotion. Scherr and Jim Campilongo trade off solos along the way – two different approaches to perfect raggedy-ass twang and crunch. And by the same token, “Southwestern State” (a Seven Mary Three tune) is the perfect outro: a delicate slow waltz down the road featuring Jon Cowherd’s gentle piano.

“Set In Stone” is textbook country soul; “Challenge” starts off sounding like an unplugged Soundgarden and ends up in a slide guitar-driven glide; and “Hurricane” features some more great harp work by Kinney.

The album’s two masterpieces are on opposite ends of the sonic spectrum: “A Good Country Mile” is offered up in a simple setting with Kinney’s vocal and acoustic guitar backed by the lightest of support from Hess, Scherr, and Fier (who can do more with a cymbal sizzle than many could do with a full arsenal of percussion at their disposal). Midway through, all hands join together to support Scherr’s slide guitar – a bit of Duane Allman’s tone; a bit of Sonny Landreth’s phrasing; a whole lot of loveliness. One final verse – and the music drops away completely for a moment before the final chorus, making room for the feelings of the narration. When the full band reenters, it’s with a sound big and full, but Kinney delivers the punch line – “I was just outside of heaven/About a good country mile” – without resorting to an upper-register bellow … and sounds all the more powerful because of it.

And then there’s “Bird”.

On Kinney’s 1994 solo effort Down Out Law, “Bird” was stripped and stark, Nebraska -style. Here, the song is dense with layers of sound, yet Fier’s production allows a place for everything. Big drums; swooping bass; bold piano; and guitars upon guitars: electrics and acoustics chunking out rhythms and fills … a lovely electric 12-string doling out a lush, cascading hook … and Scherr’s slide weaving through it all, his tone liquid and thick – more horn-like than guitar.

Sing, bird, sing
Won’t you sing to me
Bird

Kinney’s lyrics are bone-simple, yet sound majestic against the wall of sound wrapped around him. A couple verses and choruses; then at about the 3:25 mark, the song simply launches into a soaring jam, as much jazz as it is rock and roll. It’s easy to imagine Scherr with eyes shut tight, brow furrowed, and cheeks ballooned – but that’s not a sax he’s blowing the guts out of, channeling Coltrane in a wild-assed modal frenzy; it’s a Gibson and he somehow pulls intricately-articulated phrases out of his slide like a reed-splitting madman while Fier and Hess lay down a foundation of splendid rumble, thrash, and thump. A few short steps and the band reaches a junction; a collective breath is drawn …

And off they go into the Land Of Big Rhythm Chords, a blend of acoustic and clean electric guitars (Kinney, Campilongo, and Aaron Lee Tasjan) in full Pete Townsend-like glory: windmilling, power chugging, hammering on and pulling off suspensions to build the tension (hand in hand with bass/drums/piano) until –WHAM! WHAM! – the entire band lands hard in unison as a high-pitched wail is let loose. For a moment you think it’s a human voice, but no – it’s the joyful noise of Scherr’s slide: milky, hot, and sweet. From there the sound layers exchange places like a constantly-shifting psychedelic phyllo pastry, with the bass and drums remaining the constant beneath it all. One final verse and chorus, churning to the tune’s climactic final seconds, Scherr totally gone into mind-blown jazzbo mode. Fier leans into an extended roll …

Bird!

Kinney calls out in the midst of the beautiful chaos. The whole band – the whole damn band – bellows back at him and Fier unleashes another flurry …

Bird!

Kinney cries out, bent into the Palominos’ sonic gale. Fier challenges him again and just as he reaches the last thump of his roll –

Bird!

And now you know what Kinney has known all along: as big and mighty as this beast is, he has the reins – and all roars/snarls/wumps/breaths/pulses are one as he brings the song to a halt with a final –

Bird!

A chord lingers in the air, gently floating to the ground; then silence, except for your own heartbeat.

It’s nothing short of brilliant.

It’s not too early to start this year’s “Best Of” list. I can tell you with complete and utter confidence that you’ll still be spinning A Good Country Mile in regular rotation come New Year’s Eve. The sum of these parts is scary good.

http://www.jambands.com/reviews/cds/2012/02/22/kevn-kinney-the-golden-palominos-a-good-country-mile

by Jennifer Kelly for Blurt Magazine

February 22, 2012

“Nobody knows who I am in New York,” admits Kevn Kinney, the longtime frontman for Atlanta alt-rockers Drivin N Cryin.’ “To me, a good country mile is all about selling my songs in a bar on a Monday night on the Lower East Side to people who never heard them before.”

Sure, Kinney’s band might have signed with Island Records in the mid-1980s, notched a gold record with Fly Me Courageous in 1991, and shared bills with the Who, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Neil Young, but in the late ‘00s, he was starting over again. He was working with one-time Drivin N Cryin’ producer (and chief Golden Palomino) Anton Fier to reshape old songs in new ways, to rethink beloved covers and to write new material.

The process culminated in a good country mile, Kinney’s first solo album in many years and the first CD to bear the Golden Palominos name since 1996. But it began very casually, with two musicians who first hooked up in a race for commercial success, reconnecting over good songs and mutual respect.

Kinney and Fier met first in Atlanta in the late 1980s, when Fier was called in to produce Drivin N Cryin’s first major label release, Whisper Tames the Lion. Back then, their partnership was arranged by record executives, a strictly business pairing intended to produce hits.  ”Kevn was kind of a kid, very raw,” Fier remembers, “but I was struck, even then, by the quality of his songwriting. My first impression was that he was an important songwriter, or at least potentially an important songwriter.”

On Whisper Tames the Lion, Fier says he worked more like an employee than an equal. “I wasn’t allowed to do it the way I wanted to. You know, I’m being hired to help someone else achieve a vision, and everybody’s got opinions. Record companies have opinions, other band members have opinions,” he says.  ”But this time, it was more like we’re starting something together here from scratch, you know, as equals, out of mutual respect. It was a different relationship.”

A quarter century later, Fier and Kinney met again. Fier was playing with Tony Scherr, a downtown fixture best known for his bass work for Bill Frisell and Nora Jones. He didn’t even know that Kinney had moved to New York until the songwriter turned up at a gig one night with Aaron Lee Tasjan (who ended up playing on the new album). Kinney had been sidelined for years with a growth on his larynx and had only recently had an operation that allowed him to sing again. He and Fier were both looking for people to play music with. They decided to meet, try out some ideas and see where it went.

The two men got together once a week for about eight weeks, slowly developing material and a way of playing together. They began performing their songs at the Shani Ray Truckstop Series, the two of them plus a bass player – sometimes Andy Hess (at the time, a member of Govt. Mule), other times John Popper from Blues Traveler.

Fier had recorded their sessions from the beginning, and as they developed a sound together, he began thinking about an album. “I would listen back, and after a while, I would say, ‘You know this stuff is good, and it doesn’t really sound like anything else.’ It seemed like it should be documented,” says Fier. “That became the priority. How to get it documented.”

The recording started in a drafty armory-turned-studio in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where Kinney and Fier laid down drums, bass and guitar onto two-inch tape. “What I love about how Anton works is that he still records in an old-fashioned way,” says Kinney. “Now, with digital technology, you can have an almost infinite number of tracks. You can use hundreds of tracks, whatever. But Anton does it like we used to in the old days, like he would do one really good track, or punch in as he goes, like, it was great up to here, let’s pick it up from there. And so there’s not a lot of clutter.”

Kinney gave Fier near total autonomy over how the record would sound. “Anton has a really fine ear, and he has an engineer that he really loves,” says Kinney. “I was like, I’d really like to see what he does. He usually produces things for people or is hired to play on other people’s records. I didn’t want to make him explain himself. So I wanted this record just to be his record. ”

“My goal here was to create the ultimate Kevn Kinney solo record, according to me,” says Fier. “It was my idea of Kevn. Who I thought Kevn Kinney was as an artist. I wanted to create that, that vision.”

Fier says that one of his goals was to make Kinney’s songs sound timeless, like the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield records he had grown up with in the 1960s and 1970s. “I wanted to make a record that wasn’t modern sounding, but wasn’t retro either,” he explains. “I wanted to make a record that sounded like it could have been recorded in the 1960s, the 1970s or yesterday. Or tomorrow. And I believe I did that.”

Many of the song titles on a good country mile will be familiar to Kinney fans. There are two Drivin N Cryin’ songs and a few more from Kinney’s earlier solo albums. Yet the songs on this new record are very different from their original versions, intentionally so. Kinney says he hates the Drivin N Cryin’ version of “Wild Dog Blues,” here revisited as “Wild Dog Blues Part 2″.

“I was listening to too much Aerosmith the week I wrote that song,” he says, ruefully. “If you listen to it, you can see…that’s me trying to be Steven Tyler.” Yet even then, the song had a very pretty coda to it, the only part of the original arrangement that Kinney retained. The rest, a Creedence-ish guitar vamp, came through practice sessions with Fier.

The title track, too, is an older composition, originally written about ten years ago when Kinney’s friend Allen Woody, of Gov’t Mule, passed away. (Kinney is part of the Mule extended family and a permanent fixture at Mule frontman Warren Haynes’ annual Christmas Jam concert.) “Bird,” the album’s triumphant, multi-guitared centerpiece started life as a simple little folk song, that is, before Fier turned it symphonic.

“I cut one guitar track on there that me and Anton recorded a long time ago. It was the last thing we did back in the cold, cold basement of Martin Bisi’s studio,” says Kinney. “We started off doing it kind of pretty and Anton got frustrated, and it just came off really aggressive and built from there.”

Fier says that the original tune, a modal melody without much harmonic embellishment, reminded him of the Byrds “Eight Miles High.”  He opened it up by bringing in four different guitar players, and putting on layer on layer of guitar sound. The track mostly developed through jamming, rather than premeditation, he adds. “I did have a vision, but the vision was being further defined at each moment in the process of creating it. The vision changed.”

Kinney says that that song, along with “Set In Stone,” one of the new ones for this album, are his favorite parts of the new album, but Fier, though he calls “Bird” the instrumental high point, can’t single out any favorites. Fier says he loves every moment on the album, and if he hadn’t believed in it, he would have had ample opportunity to quit. In fact, he and Kinney took a break mid-way through when they ran out of money. In the midst of recording a good country mile, they both decamped to Atlanta to make another Drivin N Cryin’ record, 2009’s highly-regarded (Whatever Happened to the) Great American Bubble Factory.  (Dormant since the late 1990s, Drivin N Cryin’ had been reactivated; Kinney and his fellow band members are currently working on an EP of new material.) But despite all the interruptions and financial pressures, both of them finally felt that the music was too good to go unheard.

“Everything else that Kevn and myself do in our lives we get paid for, but unfortunately, on this one, it’s nearly broken us financially,” he says. “But ultimately, we both believe that …It might be the best record that either one of us ever makes.”

“It was made for all the right reasons,” Fier says. “Out of love and respect for each other, and love and respect for music, love and respect for a certain era of music, for our feelings when we were younger about the way that ‘rock music’ offered hope and possibility. We wanted to make a record that had an innocence to it and wasn’t calculated in any way. We were making a record to please ourselves.”

Adds Kinney, “The Drivin N Cryin’ experience in the early days, it was kind of like a competition. It was like a sporting event. Who are you opening for? Who’s paying attention to you? The hierarchy. The flavor of the month kind of thing. Whereas now we just make records as art, I guess.”