The madness of ballad, the chosen action of a scene as it barks from the depths of the woods "The toothless men are silent this evening." Kevin Kelly bludgeons the automatons, nursing watered down cocktails in search for the sub-genre cartoon caricatures of American music and fragments of a performance. Kelly pounds and shakes the stage into some skim milk Hell, sweat pouring, hands convulsing ov
er everyone's guitar chord in that place called now. The "Far Way Star" may it be Brando, “Boggie”, Cagney, and with them; Woody Guthrie in tiny glimpses of outrage or Dylan when peering into an emotional musical scene choice that resonates with all human conditions and experiences. Kevin Kelly's awareness that theater and a live
performance of rock or “folk” are only separated by lack of movement and decision, are present at all times. Mere enthusiasm or a simple wanting, have no time up on his stage. Connecting to that intimate, naked place of vulnerability can frighten those who avoid risk and want an overly defined self to return to. Those "Cracks In The Modern World" may nurture those phobias and if Dylan bolting out "Idiot Wind", Robert Johnson "Hellhound On My Trail" or Anthony Quinn's feral yet lonely beast in La Strada scare you from that needed look inward, you'll miss The Kevin Kelly Show. That manic monkey on Avenue B, and 10th in NYC all the way to the all night diners in Hollywood in search of another poem, an unwritten play, or one last song before crash time, is the real action of an artist amidst mankind on its unattended axis. Kevin Kelly will always go there instinctively through that series of choices. The hunger for that honesty is returning again through that cathartic process of delving face first into terror and dread of higher ownership and surrender to the simplicity of joy and laughter. It's=2 0all right there in Kevin Kelly and like he proclaims in his song; "It's All Good."
* International Review of Music, Devon Wendell, also legendary guitarist/engineer for Steely Dan, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, Otis Rush, Albert Collins, George Clinton, and countless of others.
