Despite being a cavernous hole for Justin Timberlake to toss his money in while he should be busy putting out another record, MySpace isn't good for much. But the rickety old site still serves some use -- when I read the lineup for the River Jones Songwriter Showcase on Saturday, August 27 at Modified Arts, one name stuck out: Kingfathand.
I figured the band would either be great or awful with a name like that. Luckily, the former is the case, as I discovered on the band's official MySpace page.
Kingfathand is the current project of Christopher Kennedy, who played in Trunk Federation back in the '90s, and currently plays with in Letdownright. Kingfathand is just him on record, but live, he's joined by bassist Jake Sevier and drummer Matt Birmingham.
The band's songs are supremely laid back, recalling a dustier version of Vetiver or Fruit Bats.
Kennedy took some time out of his busy day to explain the band's best song, "Pile of Sunshine."
Christopher Kennedy: The "inspirado" for this song came from the death of an old friend of mine who was hit on a motorized scooter a couple of years ago.
It got me thinking about how we had lost touch due to differing lifestyles namely heavy partying and such. Hence the recurring line "how was I to know... you wouldn't make it back."
The song really, though, came to be more generally about growing up in the Arizona desert, and about those friends who didn't make it through unscathed. We used to go to a place called Castle Rock (somewhere I believe on the Verde river) and jump off the top of it (some 60 feet or so) into sometimes shallow, sometimes deep, water completely heedless of any danger as we thought we were invincible and already knew everything there was to know.
During this time I discovered love, freedom, drugs and alcohol, and a sense (false, maybe) of adulthood. I look back fondly on these memories but there were some who lost parts of themselves during those years. Normally I dislike too much nostalgia in my lyrics but in this case it felt right.
"Pile of Sunshine:"
Do you remember seventeen
When all we thought we knew was everything
The cliff was high, the water deep
How was I to know, you wouldn't make it back
A pile of sunshine on a bed of leaves
And you said you wanted me to be
Yours forever, carved in a tree
How was I to know, you wouldn't make it back
Oh you know... you know...
Still I've got a few years to go
Was our intention to have a ball
Mixing teenage love and alcohol
What the hell, let's drink it all
How was I to know, you wouldn't make it back
Oh you know... you know...
Still I've got a few years to go
Kingoffathad: Pile of Sunshine by Obscuro @PHXMusic
