After being welcomed into the Hellcat family in 2005, the group released their debut full-length, the ska-punk classic “Lonely Starts and Broken Hearts”, then followed it up with their diverse sophomore LP “Dead American Radio”. Sights set on a more cohesive third album, the band began working on and practicing the first incarnations of what would become the self-titled effort, then time off from their touring and rehearsing schedule.
“The band had been touring constantly, but after our January tour we took a long break, which is something I’ve never gotten to do before,” says front man and founder Elvis Cortez.
Cortez occupied his time off with a stint filling in on bass for several Unseen tours, after which he looked at the songs with fresh eyes, helping the direction of the album come together before ever entering the studio.
“I got to come home and start putting things together, and wrote all these songs specifically for this album. I didn’t want to rehash old songs, or play songs we’ve been playing forever. I wanted music for the moment.”
The time away worked towards the band’s advantage and helped make the record the most cohesive group of songs to date. While Dead American Radio offered fans a large variety of styles to choose from, the latest effort has meshed into one polished and progressive sound, with personal lyrics and a commitment to give the fans something to salivate over, and silence the critics they care so little about.
The break from touring also gave Cortez time to finalize the new lineup, adding Kiel Gesicki on drums and Nick Danger on bass, tightening up the group’s sound.
The first single off the record, “3 Bottles of Wine”, represents the new dynamic of the group and the album, with an addictive sing along chorus, still in the tradition of the band’s previous fan favorites but on a new, higher level.
Fans of Left Alone’s distinct ska sound need not fear, the band hasn’t forgotten their old signature and features it on the made-for-skanking romp “Sad Story”, dealing with true life events living within the confines of gang-infested Wilmington.
Radically changing the personal tones of the album is the politically charged “Bombs Away”, dealing with the rampant destabilization of Western civilization. The song is a stark departure for Cortez lyrically, and deals with subject matter usually non-existent for Left Alone.
“The album to me sounds like one full project, each song compliments the others,” summarizes Cortez. “I feel like these are the best I’ve written and have the best production value, and a lot of that comes from going and living in the studio.”
The group left Wilmington for almost a month to head to a studio in Fontana, a rural town in the Inland Empire, with limited distractions and a complete focus on recording the album with the same audio engineer who worked with the band on Dead American Radio.
With solid months of touring lined up, and their new album slated for a March release, the band shows no signs of slowing down or letting grass grow under their TUK-clad feet. Left Alone has always walked the road less traveled by, and without a doubt, it’s a road with no end in sight.
Portland songwriter Kory Quinn, a DIY contemporary hobo intellectual, has a refreshingly homespun take on Americana, a very welcome sigh of relief in today’s contemporary market. After spending over 270 Self-Booked Dates on the road, spanning 7 countries, on three Continents and another 90 plus shows already booked for early next year throughout the Good Ol’ USA, Quinn still finds time to write and record new material. The just released second full-length album, At The End of The Bar, boils down red-dirt basics in a freewheeling roadhouse stew. Quinn’s songwriting is adroit and surefooted, offering sturdily constructed country, folk, and Cajun-tinged songs for his ensemble to really sink their fangs into on this instant jukebox classic. The songs are short and sweet but packed with clever lines, sentimental harmonies and twangy fills. All that makes them the kind of songs that hang around your brain like honky-tonk regulars. Between road-worn self-penned material, old-time drinking songs and heart rending country standards The Mighty Quinn is the next one to watch out for.
Kristen Ford was born in April 1987 in Ohio. She has since lived in 6 states, most recently in Chicago, Illinois and Boston, Massachusetts. Playing out and about for the past 4 years, Kristen has written slews of songs, performed across the globe and released 2 full length records, “Filthy Nasty” in 2009 on Many Doors Records, produced by June Millington and Lee Madeloni, and a double EP album “Alone, Together” released independently and the EP “ Alone “ produced by the one woman band phenom, Audrey Ryan.
KRISTEN FORD BAND
Yearly moves, changes in geography and a personality “like talking to a child with ADHD”, Kristen has been hailed as having “no easy way to categorize the music, the real deal” and a “musical cuisinart”, Kristen plays everything from Reggae to Country to Folk to Pop on a handful of instruments, guitar, ukulele, piano and beatbox. Energy binds her eclectic tastes together and makes the live show a must see.
Over the past 3 years the Kristen Ford Band has changed membership but consists of Drums, Upright Bass, dueling guitars and violin. Band members add to vocal harmonies and fill up the stage with grooves. While each show is a little different, you can be sure the songs will shine as bright or brighter than the record, with energy bursting at the seams.
Since this Savannah, Georgia quintet first formed in early 2001, worrying about genre limitations has never been a priority. Taking musical chances, however, always has been. While KYLESA are as heavy as any band out there, they are beholden to no one scene and no preconceived notions of what heavy music should be.
“Lots of people like to stick to one kind of music,” guitarist/vocalist Philip Cope elaborates, “and even with the underground, lots of people segregate themselves into small little categories and place lots of imaginary rules on these scenes.”
“We just like playing heavy music and we’ve always liked playing it regardless of what is popular or trendy,” guitarist/vocalist Laura Pleasants adds. “It’s most rewarding for us to try and push our own boundaries of what we can to do with our music and hopefully, in the end, offer something that is at least original.”
Kylesa’s third full-length, Time Will Fuse Its Worth, is the eagerly-awaited follow-up to 2005’s To Walk A Middle Course, which topped many year end lists and landed the band in metal and mainstream press alike. After grabbing ink in Spin, the New York Times, and metal mainstays Revolver alike, Time Will Fuse Its Worth again showcases the band as the ultimate definition of do-it-yourself dedication. With Cope lending his ears and hands for production duties at The Jam Room, and featuring comprehensive artistic layout and packaging from Pleasants, the KYLESA of current day continues to put the band’s future in their own hands by touring Europe and North America alike.
Time Will Fuse Its Worth sees the band continuing to evolve upon KYLESA’s signature sound, seamlessly flowing from track to track encompassing listeners with sounds far and wide and an utter disregard for musical boundaries. Bringing together avant-garde experimentalism with the pure fury of dirty, sludgy riffs and raw, coexisting male and female vocals, KYLESA’s ambient noise interludes, grimy rock riffs and impassioned, gruff vocals portray the doom-inspired punishment they are capable of dishing out through the power of the band’s music.
Now adding to KYLESA’s signature sound and trademark triple vocal attack is the recent addition of a second drummer. “When we first started the band, we had planned on having two drummers but it didn’t work out, so now it feels like everything is coming together,” Pleasants says. “There is definitely a new level of intensity to Kylesa now. Since the new lineup has gotten together we have felt the strongest creative spark yet.”
The band’s reluctance to attach itself to one sound or scene and to not play by conventional rules, along with that strong creative spark, has ultimately made KYLESA that much more versatile. With a constantly heavy touring schedule has found the band crossing boundaries, sharing bills with bands as diverse as High On Fire, Circle Takes the Square, Coliseum, Torche, Red Sparowes, Big Business, Baroness, The Sword, Disfear, and Darkest Hour both at home and abroad, as well as playing to enthusiastic crowds throughout Europe. “While we are no kings of one scene,” says Cope, “we have, in a sense, just developed our own thing.”
Rarely has a new band ever felt so righteously real; Kink Ador is the offbeat moody child of rock and roll, ecstatic like the Police and freeform like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Kink Ador has a huge rock sound like the Talking Heads that moves with a worldly drive and spirit. Kink Ador has rock for your head and a tight pulse for your hips. The live show is captivating.
KJ Johnson is a one woman, folk-rocking machine — this June saw the independent release of her debut album, Natural Progression. Having written her first song at nine years old to comfort the restless baby in her aunt’s belly, she now shudders at the “singer-songwriter” label. At 18 she traded her home in New York for the Midwest. Now KJ is student at Columbia College Chicago, where she is constantly pushing herself to learn new techniques and refine her own natural style as a vocal performance major. As part of The Little Giants, a student pop-rock ensemble, KJ has shared the stage with Joan Osborne and Nash Kato (Urge Overkill). .. .. Natural Progression is the culmination of six years worth of poetry and self-exploration. The album’s quirkier moments are reminiscent of a sunny day spent laying in the grass or an off-beat conversation with your best friend. Darker tracks reveal a fascination with human nature and the psychological motivations behind action. The album follows KJ’s search for honesty, intimacy, and coping mechanisms. What has she discovered in the process? “Happiness. I believe that’s the ultimate goal and if you’re not happy, then you’re doing something wrong.” .. .. Natural Progression available for listen/download at ..kjjohnson.bancamp.com..
KJ JOHNSON
KK RAMPAGE
KKRUSTY
KNIFE OF SIMPSON
KNIFE THE GLITTER
KNIGHTS OF THE ABYSS
KNOCK OUT
KOFFIN KATS
The groundwork for what has become the relentlessly-touring sonic assault known as The Koffin Kats was laid near Detroit, Michigan when Vic Victor (Lead Vocalist, Upright Bass) joined forces with long-time friend Tommy Koffin (Guitar). After adding Damian Detroit (Drums) the band kicked off in June 2003, stopping for nothing. Now, with over ten years of touring internationally and over two thousand live shows, the touring trio’s current home is out on the open road.
The Koffin Kats began by putting together songs with such subjects as dealing with the horrors of the real world, as well as Science Fiction. The band started in small local bars playing for beer, hoping for gas money, and eventually made their way out of the Midwest. The next couple of years contained positives including numerous North American tours, and negatives concerning changes at the drumming position. During this time they released their first three albums: Koffin Kats (2003), Inhumane (2005), and Straying From The Pack (2006).
The three album releases and their supporting tours gained attention for The Koffin Kats and helped get the band noticed in the wide world of punk and psychobilly. In 2007 Vic and Tommy connected with drummer Eric “E-Ball” Walls to record the band’s fourth studio album, Drunk In The Daylight (2008), and catalyzed what the band is now known for: love for their fans and the road, and playing everywhere for everyone willing to watch and listen.
In the years following the release of Drunk In The Daylight, The Koffin Kats have established their name performing in Europe, and have also been included on tours with some of the tops acts in psychobilly, including, but not limited to, Mad Sin, Nekromantix, and The Meteors. In 2009 the trio released their fifth studio album, Forever For Hire, and Tommy departed at the year’s end to pursue a normal life. Shortly thereafter, “EZ” Ian Jarrell took over the guitarist position and joined the band on tour. While on the road they worked on the material that would become featured on their split album with fellow psychobilly act 12 Step Rebels, From Our Hands To Yours (2011).
The Koffin Kats signed with Sailor’s Grave Records in late 2011, and released Our Way & The Highway in January 2012. The trio supported their sixth studio album’s release with non-stop international touring, finally ending in summer of 2013. In autumn of the same year, they released another full-length album with Sailor’s Grave Records, Born Of The Motor. Sales and reviews have proven Born Of The Motor, the band’s seventh studio album, to be their most successful release to date.
Early 2014 brought another change to The Koffin Kats’ member roster; Ian Jarrell left the band to handle personal business at home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Not wanting to bring someone too far removed from The Koffin Kats family into the fold, Vic and Eric enlisted John Kay (Guitar). John was the engineer on numerous recordings.
The founding lineup returned in 2016.
Six years after his departure, Tommy Koffin returned to playing guitar with The Koffin Kats. With Vic Victor on lead vocals and upright bass, and E Ball Walls on drums. In 2017, the trio released their latest album titled “Party Time In The End Times.”
2019 is a year of new music and international touring. KK will be releasing a new song each month while touring throughout North America and Europe.
Kool Keith comes in many forms and many incarnations, but his style is distinctly his own. Just as there’s no mistaking his smooth lyrical delivery, his unparalleled imagination, and searing hip-hop prose with its underlying edgy beats, there’s no denying the incredible force of power that is Kool Keith. Whether as a founding member of the legendary Ultramagnetic MCs, or in the guises of his renegade rap personas that include Black Elvis, Dr. Octagon and Dr. Dooom, Keith has established himself as an innovative lyricist whose raps stretch the envelope to the limit while exciting and entertaining the listener. .. Kool Keith, nee Keith Thornton, first emerged as part of the legendary New York crew, the Ultramagnetic MCs. At a time when rap was slowly making the transition from B-Boy braggadocio to a more aggressive, politicized stance, the group quickly established themselves as lyrical innovators with such classics albums as Critical Beatdown, Funk Your Head Up, the Four Horsemen and later The Best Kept Secret. .. Kool Keith launched a solo career and through his various releases he explored his many sides, from the playful to the downright carnal, releasing such independent records as Kool Keith’s Sex Style, Dr. Dooom’s First Come, First Served and the on-going Lost Masters series. Kool Keith was one of the first artists to embrace Independent distribution as a means of creative freedom and personal integrity. In addition to his many rap outings and his infamous Dr. Ultra appearance for Sprite, Keith proved he was not averse to cross-genre experimentation and has collaborated with a wide array of artists, from the Prodigy album Fat Of The Land as the voice of “Smack My Bitch Up” and on the track “Diesel Power” to a recent collaboration with Tom Waits. .. Keith himself is not one to look back at his vast eclectic body of work, “I’m not about nostalgia, I’m not about looking back. If I made a hit, I moved on and never looked back…. the future is what I should be dwelling on right now.” – Kool Keith
KOOL KEITH
An original member of New York’s new-school pioneers the Ultramagnetic MC’s, “Kool” Keith Thornton is best known as a solo rapper. His signature style is stream-of-consciousness lyrical flow and complex vocals, two skills that earn him a perennial nod from the underground hip-hop community. The average Kool Keith album is peppered with bizarre, disjointed, even delusional or disassociated themes, concepts, and references. Nearly all of his albums incorporate a satirical dislike for more commercialized strains of hip-hop, as well as major record labels.
Thornton’s early career and lyrics with the Ultramagnetic MC’s often referenced his time as a patient of Bellevue, a psychiatric hospital, where he was treated for depression. With Ultramagnetic MC’s, his abstract style developed, maturing in songs like Poppa Large. He was probably the first rapper to create an alter ego, and then create an alter ego for that alter ego (Kool Keith v. Moe Luv). After the Ultramagnetic MC’s broke up, he expanded his resume, experimenting with new styles, including his self-described pornocore, known for pornographic imagery and brutal, abstract lyrics. Sex Style released in 1997, was the showcase for this genre.
Teaming up with Dan the Automator Nakamura under the name Dr. Octagon, Thornton again reinvented his image, recording the self-titled Dr. Octagon album (later reissued under the title Dr. Octagonecologyst) which was released by the English trip hop label Mo Wax.
Kepi is a genius. This ex-Groovie Ghoulies frontman is KEEPIN’ IT REAL, with his all new band and solo project. He’s been on tour for like 12 years straight. If you see them play and don’t like them, then you must hate fun. The terrorists win. Buy albums now. Don’t wait.
