[FLCC News] The Kennedys Perform at Fair Lawn Community Center

[Fair Lawn Community Center News]

THIS FRIDAY!!! 

“Byrdsy jangle, boy-girl harmonies...irresistible.” - Rolling Stone

“This is classic stuff, the type of music you ache to hear again and again
on your radio.” - Wired

“Unabashed hook-laden pop.”- The Village Voice

The Kennedys Perform at Fair Lawn Community Center on June 1

Exciting folk-rockers, recording artists and SIRIUS radio hosts The Kennedys
will most likely bring the audience to its feet when they perform at the
Fair Lawn Community Center on Friday, June 1, 2007 at 8pm.  Tickets are $20
per person and are on sale now at the Fair Lawn Community Center at 10-10
20th Street in Fair Lawn.  For show and ticket information call 201-794-5372
or go to www.fairlawncommunitycenter.org. 

If you haven't seen The Kennedys, you're in for a treat this Friday. They're
great songwriters, instrumentalists and performers. They put on an exciting
show, with folks usually dancing in the aisles at the end. Pete Kennedy is a
multi-instrumentalist and ace studio player who has served a lead guitarist
for Mary Chapin Carpenter, Nanci Griffith, Eric Anderson and many others. To
this show he's bringing not only his trusty acoustic Gretsch, but also his
12-string electric Rickenbacker (a la McGuinn), electric sitar and ukulele
(which he plays like a lead guitar, moving effortlessly from rock riffs to
interpretations of Rhapsody in Blue and other surprising musical tangents).
His artfulness and virtuosity will wow you. And the songs are great.....! 

Celebrate summer and c'mon down on Friday night for a great show -- the last
one of the season.

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A LITTLE HISTORY: Pete and Maura Kennedy first met in 1993 at the
Continental Club, a roots rock mecca on the South side of Austin, Texas.
Maura lived just a few blocks away, and was gigging all around town as a
rhythm guitarist and singer with an unusually wide pallet of influences.
She was already a seasoned veteran of the upstate NY club circuit, having
played in bands that focused on Ramones-style punk, British folk/rock a la
Fairport Convention, and Everly-influenced rock 'n' roll.  In Austin, she
was looking for something that could combine her diverse tastes, especially
under the friendly umbrella of jangly, guitar-based pop. 

Virtuoso guitarist Pete cites "Eight Miles High" as his formative tune.  “It
combines Merseybeat pop, hardcore modal folk, Coltrane-style jazz, Indian
raga, and great harmonies all in one song,” he notes.  “Plus it's got a
killer guitar solo!” After a number of early years under the casual tutelage
of his late friend and mentor, Danny Gatton, Pete graduated from the DC club
scene and hit the road, as lead guitarist for Mary Chapin Carpenter and
Nanci Griffith, and on his own, writing songs and doing solo gigs wherever
the road led. 

When they met in Austin, the duo “instantly connected on a soul level, or
maybe even something deeper,” according to Pete. They wrote their first song
together the following day before Pete returned to the road, and met one
another ten days later at mutual hero Buddy Holly’s grave in Lubbock, Tex.,
500 miles equidistant between them. And that’s how it started . . . 

When Nanci Griffith needed a harmony singer on short notice for a British
tour in Spring ’93, Maura was the obvious choice, and her touring life
alongside Pete began. While boarding the plane to England, Nanci informed
the duo that they would serve as the opening act for many of the shows on
her tour, as well as performing in her backing band. With a need for
material to fill their set, Pete and Maura wrote an inspired set of songs in
Dublin that would become the basis for their first album, 1995’s River of
Fallen Stars, which earned an “Indie” award as “Best Adult Contemporary CD”
by the National Association of Independent Record Distributors. 

Several years on the road hardened The Kennedys into a more organic, rocking
unit--a change reflected on their next CD, Life is Large, which established
them as a hard-touring road act with a respectable cult following.   This
time around their love of guitar-heavy power pop was front and center, with
album guest appearances from the likes of Roger McGuinn, Steve Earle, Nils
Lofgren, Peter Holsapple, and others. 

Their ninth album, last year’s Half a Million Miles, celebrated Pete and
Maura Kennedy’s first decade of life together and their first 500,000 tour
miles as increasingly beloved purveyors of an exuberant blend of folk, rock,
country, and pop, with philosophical underpinnings. 

The Kennedys continue to tour constantly, to record (they have three new
projects already on tape), to host their “Dharma Café” show on SIRIUS
Satellite radio, and to spread their exhilarating, inclusive and meaningful
music across a polarized country that needs to hear it now more than ever.
Their large catalog of highly memorable original tunes, superb musicianship
and exciting stage presence earns them acclaim and dancing in the aisles
wherever they perform.