Hello, it is kenny, the keyboard player in The Julie Ruin. We have been faithfully recording our first album. 19 songs are mostly done. Don’t be worried; we aren’t going to be releasing a 3 CD concept album, though personally that wouldn’t bother me. We figure we will have enough songs to release an album, a 12 inch single, and still have some songs left over for limited edition 7 inches and stuff like that.
It has been an amazing process. For me this all started when Kathleen emailed me a couple of years ago and asked if I wanted to try and write some country songs together. We got together and worked on a song and then I think we both realized we had no future as Country songwriters unless we moved to Nashville and worked the whole scene
I have known Kathleen for a long time. I once wrote her a fan email and she responded with one back! I still have it printed out and filed away to make me feel better about life. I used to do this act called Kiki and Herb. My performing partner and I played lounge singers in their later later years. Here is a picture Kathleen drew of us back in the Le Tigre days (fun fact: my former performing partner Justin is name-checked in Hot Topic!)
We would do covers of songs like yes, Smells Like Teen Spirit and, for a couple of shows in NYC, we did a cover of Deceptacon. You can always YouTube some clips and stuff. Kathleen had come to see us when she first moved to NY and we once played a show with Le Tigre at the Cat’s Cradle in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The line-up was Tami Hart, us, The Butchies and Le Tigre.
The first time I actually performed with Kathleen was during one of Kiki and Herb’s New Year’s Eve shows at the old Westbeth theater in the West Village here in NYC. The conceit was that it was New Year’s Eve 1967. Kathleen agreed to play Kiki’s daughter who the very next year, in the fictional backstory, would die by falling off a boat whilst Kiki was ‘busy’ down below on the boat. Kathleen sang I Don’t Need Anything But You from the musical Annie with us. (full disclosure: Kathleen is obsessed with the musical Annie). And then at the end of the show she sang Total Eclipse Of The Heart with us. It was a magical New Year’s Eve.
Now years later, I am in a band with Kathleen, Kathi, Carmine and Sara and we are furiously recording our first album and it feels great!
Kenny
