"Me Steve Kirk and Keith"

There used to be this thing called "Anti-Folk". It wasn't really anti-folk the way that, for example, Kraftwerk or Philip Glass are anti-folk, coming from entirely different view of music. It's more like an attempt to reboot folk. It kinda didn't go anywhere. Except Beck.

Anyway, there was a great album on SST (Black Flag's label) by Roger Manning, and another by Kirk Kelly called Go Man Go, with a first verse to die for but I can't quite remember.

 I once had a dream where I came home from school. My parents left a note on the screen door, saying "Dear son, we've moved." 

Anyway, this is very much on the model of Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. A guy with a voice and a guitar. Some clever words, some memorable stuff, a nice energy, but a guitar and a voice.

Roger Manning, "Pearly Blues"


I heard that Cindy Lee Berryhill was in the same scene and was coming out with an album. Naked Movie Star.

We all know some Dylan. We know the early political folksinger stuff. We know the later stuff with Bloomfield and then the Band. Now, imagine picking up an album thinking it's Freewheelin' and playing it to find it's Blood on the Tracks.  That's what it was like for me.

"Me, Steve, Kirk and Keith" was the first song, and Kirk Kelly is the Kirk in question, I'm lead to believe. There's lots of Patti Smith stuff that I didn't know yet that they were referencing. It's just one of the best albums I let fall through my fingers. But it's on Spotify.