August 31, 2005
* "It's always nice to see an old friend again..."
Some of you may recognize that quote as the first line of the chorus to Kevn Kinney's song "Trail Of Seasons", an ode to those familiar faces who keep coming around over the years. It seems to sum up my experiences with Kinney in the past couple of decades; somewhere or other, our paths cross every once in awhile, and he always seems to leave memorable moments behind.
That was the case this past week when he played a couple of late-night shows in the back room at Hattie's Hat in Ballard, a Seattle neighborhood that is in many ways No Depression's home base. Down the block is the Tractor Tavern, where the only No Depression neon sign in existence hangs in the window. Up the street is the Sunset Tavern, where we'll bring our 10th-anniversary celebrations to a close with a four-night stand in September. Hattie's holds ground inbetween as Ballard Avenue's main meeting place, whether for a drink at the bar up-front or for dinner at the restaurant in back. In recent years they've been doing occasional shows in the back room as well; it's a small space, lending itself well to intimate acoustic performances like the two that Kinney delivered on Wednesday and Thursday.
Many of the experiences I've had with Kinney's music over the years have been in small rooms, which seems a shame given the recognition he deserves as a songwriter, but is rewarding for those who go see him repeatedly. I've always felt he's far better solo and acoustic than with his hard-driving rock band Drivin N Cryin, though I suspect he'd be the first to say he gets something equally valuable from both approaches. I've seen DNC probably two or three times, but I've seen Kinney at least a dozen, and in general I'd not miss an opportunity to hear him play on his own. Here are a few of the most memorable of those moments, with a little help from the logs I've kept over the years:
1) April 19, 2001, Local 506, Chapel Hill, NC -- Kevn invites his opening act, Johnny Irion & Sarah Lee Guthrie, to sit in with him during his set, along with local fiddler John Teer. The accompaniment and the harmonies are so perfectly sympathetic to Kinney's songs that I feel sure they must've been touring in tandem for months. Turns out it's the first time they've ever played together. It leaves a mark on Kevn too, though; he recognizes the magic enough to include Irion & Guthrie on his next record, Broken Hearts & Auto Parts (which, by the way, was #14 on my own list of Top 20 records of the last 10 years in the ballot I submitted for the ND poll in our 10th-anniversary issue).
2) October 21, 2001, Mercury Lounge, New York City, NY -- Maybe 30-40 people turn out on a Sunday night a few weeks after New York's fateful day. I'd gone up to see the city in the wake of the tragedy, feeling a need to be there, to understand, and to show my support for the city's pledge to revive its tourist reputation. Kevn could've gone through the motions on such a slow evening, but instead he ends his set by coming down in the audience and having everyone sit with him on the floor, campfire-style, while he plays another half-dozen songs or so -- most memorably his trademark segue of "Straight To Hell" into "On The Road Again". (Someone spills a shot of Makers into the circle we've formed on the floor, and he observes, "Well, there's the Whiskey River!") The night doesn't end until many hours later, after another extended round of stories and songs with his friends Tom Clark and Lenny Kaye at the nearby 2-A Bar. Just like that, New York City feels alive again, for me.
3) July 1, 1992, Crocodile Cafe, Seattle, WA -- The local scene has been abuzz in recent weeks on account of R.E.M.'s presence a couple blocks up the street at Bad Animals Studio, where they've been putting the finishing touches on their Automatic For The People album. Peter Buck has become a frequent visitor to the Crocodile, so it's no surprise that when Kevn takes the stage for an acoustic show on a Wednesday summer night, he's joined by the guy who had produced his solo debut MacDougal Blues. They spend an hour or two captivating a spellbound audience, marking the first of what would become a series of early-'90s shows they'd play together at the Croc. (Kinney later paid his respects to the venue by changing a line in "Trail Of Seasons" from the original "I met you at the Uptown" to "I met you at the Crocodile.")
4) September 5, 1999, Tractor Tavern, Seattle, WA -- Kevn had played a set at Seattle's Bumbershoot festival earlier in the day, and agreed to come down to the Tractor that night to play at No Depression's 4th Anniversary party, along with Buddy Miller (who had been at Bumbershoot playing guitar with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt). The line-down-the-block crowd that shows up is there mainly to see Buddy, as they've heard the rumor that Emmylou may show up too (indeed, she sings three songs with Miller); but it's packed during Kevn's show too, and deservedly so. Sometimes it's just nice to be able to get a capacity crowd into a room to hear someone who really deserves it. That night was something special for both our magazine and for me, and I was really glad Kevn was a part of it.
5) November 21, 1993, Jeremy's house, Athens, GA -- The ultimate be-all and end-all musical experience for me, though for some of the participants it was probably the kind of thing they've done dozens of times. If you've ever seen the movie Heartworn Highways and remember that scene near the end where Guy Clark and a bunch of his songwriting buddies are sitting around a room in the wee hours of the morning at a classic mid-70s Nashville pickin' party, well, that was what this night was like. Alejandro Escovedo had played a gig at a little place called Lulu's; maybe 50-60 people had shown up, but many of them were among Athens' finest musicians, and nobody seemed to want to call it a night at the end of the show. So about a dozen of us ended up in this guy Jeremy's living room well past midnight, and eventually the instruments came out. Alejandro got things started along with his violinist Susan Voelz and cellist Frank Kammerdiener; Armistead Wellford from Love Tractor took a turn with a couple songs; Syd Straw joined in on harmonies and did a few of her own; Vic Chesnutt's noted benefactor finally cajoled Vic into playing one for us... and there, of course, was Kevn, filling the room with his keening Southern twang and his tales of travels down the long road. I think, in fact, that night was the first time I ever heard him play "Trail Of Seasons".
It's always nice to see an old friend again....
adios,
peter
Posted by Peter at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)