Celia Kipp & The Last Ditch

In the fall of 1997 I was playing open mics in Baltimore as a solo artist. Some nights I had random friends fill out the stage and we would play under the name Honey. Within the early months of 1998 I had met a woman who would change my life completely. At an open mic at a Fells Point coffee house I met Misty Letts. Misty Letts was also a solo artist on the Baltimore scene at the time. She was just coming off a full time gig as the front woman for the popular country cover band Misty & The Midnight Blues. She had landed the unfortunate role of entertainment coordinator of a large spring festival and needed bands. She called me one evening in May of 1998 and asked me to play the show. There were just two things - one being I had to have a band and the other being the show was in just three weeks. I, of course, did not have a band though I told her I did. Later she would claim she knew I was lying, but knew I would make it happen.

Anyway, I put out some calls. I had a friend commit to bass and he knew a guy from his previous band who would more likely than not play drums for one gig. I sent a tape (yes, I said "tape") of some songs to drummer Josh Almoney. He dug it and we set up a practice. Two weeks later we played the festival to great applause and joy. We decided to join forces and play another show as Hot Honey Magnet. During the winter 1999, we recorded the full length album "The Story of C" which won a few awards, including alternative album of the year from Just Plain Folks in 2000. In 2001 we added a lead guitarist and recorded our second album "Sparklingly Few." We spent the next two years doing mini tours and entering contests. The song "Arizona" was deemed good enough to earn us a slot in the very first Pantene Pro-Voice competition. The show was filmed in Central Park for a live audience of 10,000 and later aired nationwide on Comcast. We lost the overall competition. Whoohooo!!! Riding the national exposure wave we were able to land Mhz Presents on Mhz Networks. "MHz NETWORKS is an independent, noncommercial, television network delivering international, educational and arts programming. MHz provides diverse cultural perspectives for a globally minded audience. Serving the Washington, DC area's 4.9 million residents." - www.mhznetworks.org

Mhz went national by way of the Colours channel on Dish Network after that taping and guess what folks...we were the debut band. Pretty much at that point it all fell to shit and by 2003 I was miserable. I wanted to be a solo artist and not have to hear the higher-ups tell me my hair and weight were not up to par and that I needed more plastic clothing. So I left HHM and started playing solo up and down the east coast. Wouldn't you know it, within three months I was bored with being alone and missed the band atmosphere. Two weeks or so later I was at the first practice with my new band, The Last Ditch. With Josh on drums and Misty on bass, we began rehearsing the songs that would be come our debut album "Emotional Amputation" - released in the fall of 2004.
One year later in the fall of 2005, Kristen Zow joined the band as the lead guitarist. Zow was also a solo singer/songwriter on the Baltimore scene before joining forces with Celia Kipp & The Last Ditch. We are currently playing mid-sized venues from DC to Boston and rehearsing songs for our forthcoming album "Giving up the Ghost."

p.s. we are an acoustic based rock band - with the emphasis on the "rock" part.