From: musicdish@gmail.com   
      
   Time is a fickle mistress. One minute you're the new guy in town, anxious to   
   get "up to speed" with whichever 'scene' you've opted to become a part of -   
   the next, you're remembering the "good old days" and wondering where the time   
   went.   
      
   Back in the early 1990's, New York City's The Baghdaddios were the new kids on   
   the block.........or more apropos, the new punkers on The Bowery. Playing   
   their third-ever show at hallowed punk birthplace C.B.G.B., they carved out a   
   slight but meaningful    
   niche in the Big Apple's indie community, playing nearly anywhere at anytime   
   for anything, be it a paying gig, the door, pass the hat, free drinks or even   
   just for "the hell of it", as front man and founding member Kenn Rowell   
   recalled the other day    
   during a break from shooting his latest music video. The group released a   
   couple of CDs, a "whole mess"of videos and internet singles, played - in   
   Rowell's estimate - "thousands" of shows, did hundreds of interviews and   
   trekking to countless cities in    
   various locales across the U.S., Canada and the UK. Every now and then they'd   
   get word that their music was airing either here or overseas and on a few   
   occasions their songs would end up finding exposure on a national TV network   
   in any one of those    
   aforementioned places. They've frequently received fan mail from random   
   corners of the globe. And, yes, along the way, they started their own Benefit   
   to help NYC's homeless - a Benefit which has spread to several metropolitan   
   areas in America and abroad    
   over the last two decades - called Blank-Fest.   
      
   "Yeah, it's been a fun journey", Rowell smiled as the videographer downloaded   
   the latest files from the shoot to his laptop. "I can't believe the band is   
   coming up on it's 25th Anniversary, in November! I mean, I don't feel   
   old........."   
      
   True, he doesn't impress one as an "old man", although he does come across as   
   someone who's 'been there and done that'. Still, after a quarter century he   
   appears to have that boundless enthusiasm that earmarks most of the YouTube   
   videos in circulation    
   from past Baghdaddios performances over the years. Early in 2017 the group   
   released a grainy-but-still-must-see performance from that storied   
   third-show-ever at CB's, where they eviscerated the time-honored Beatles   
   classic "Hey Jude" to conclude the    
   evening's proceedings. If anything, a boyish Kenn actually comes across a   
   little tentative, almost apologetic - certainly not the whirlwind we would see   
   in later performances at the same venue within a couple of years. When asked   
   about the ongoing    
   evolution of the group's sound and image, Rowell just sighs and then admits "I   
   was a bit out of my mind at the time - might even still be". Refusing to give   
   his age (other than saying "over 40" or "buzz off, man") he appears naturally   
   younger (we're    
   guessing mid-to-late 40s) and only addresses the subject once, when asked if   
   the new album's style change had anything to do with him getting older.   
      
   "I never thought I'd be doing this, at this age. Actually I never really   
   thought I'd make it past my 40th birthday. You know, when I was younger, I   
   thought of 40 as being so old - but now that I'm well past it, it's not that   
   bad. I mean, I still feel the    
   same as I've always felt. The same things still piss me off. The same things   
   still float my boat. If anything, the shift in style isn't a reflection of my   
   getting older as much as it's just that I wanted to do something different for   
   a change. I've been    
   angry and full of attitude since I was in high school - but how many times can   
   you yell F-bombs into a live mic? So THAT part of me hasn't changed a bit,   
   that yearning to do something different. Besides, I always said that I like to   
   keep 'em guessing."   
      
   As the years peeled off the calendar and various members of the group quit -   
   some coming back and then leaving again - he's been the one constant in the   
   band's timeline. So when word reached us of the imminent release of his first   
   solo album (ironically    
   titled "Instant Solo Album" because, as Kenn puts it, it took almost a full   
   decade to put out) we had to ask one question.   
      
   "Why?".   
      
   If anything, he seemed to bristle when we brought up the subject. "Yeah, yeah,   
   I know the whole rep", Kenn explains: "I'm the guy writing the songs and doing   
   the singing and talking to the crowd all through the history of The   
   Baghdaddios - so what makes    
   this new album a 'solo'? I guess it's two-fold, the reason I slapped my name   
   and mug on the front of this one. First, the whole style of the material has a   
   completely different feel from anything The Baghdaddios usually do. Oh, sure   
   we have slower tunes    
   like "Let It Shine" (which gets the acoustic treatment on this release) and   
   "Abbie Hoffman", which to me always sounded like a 60s-era anthem. But we've   
   always described The Baghdaddios style as "three chords and punt" - we just   
   couldn't help ourselves    
   from playing everything bigger, and faster and louder".   
      
   True, past reviews on AllMusic.com compared the band to one of their biggest   
   influences, The Ramones; while a quick listen of Instant Solo Album belies a   
   decided acoustic folk and classic rock feel. Just hearing the opening guitar   
   strums on the    
   collection's first number, "Good To Be Back", one can't help but picture a   
   group of college students sitting around a dorm room, singing along between   
   sips of grain alcohol punch on a Friday night. Furthering the feel for this   
   mood is the harmonica solo -   
    done flawlessly by Rowell - augmented by a strong cello underpinning, before   
   both cello and harmonica take the listener with them as the song fades out (no   
   Baghdaddios song - to date - has ever faded out). The follow-up to this sounds   
   almost like an    
   outtake from a 1970's Neil Young session in the form of another Rowell   
   original, "I Guess I'll Never Fall In Love". Mind you, this is the same "I   
   Guess I'll Never Fall In Love" that consistently pushed the V.U. meters into   
   the red from the band's 2006    
   release, Autopsy-Turvy - but all the grunge vitriol and punk swagger has been   
   stripped away. If anything, Rowell's solo version chugs along almost joyously.   
   In fact, it's so airy that the listener doesn't even notice that it clocks in   
   a little shy of 5    
   minutes in length!   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)