Music
The best kept secret in music
Press
"If the other end of Alice In Wonderland's rabbit hole needed a house band Kennedy could plug in and play right now"
[CMJ New Music Monthly] - CMJ
"Chucking tired post-modernism for a spunky garage-rock ethos that arcs from the Kinks, the Who, and the Yardbirds at their snottiest to the artsy phlegm of Bowie and Warhol's Lower Manhattan, Kennedy dares comparison between lo-fi dining and necrophilia, while thumping the snooty Lilliputianism of L.A.'s Silverlake scene and offering frank personal insights. Its three-chord crunch alternates with jangly wedges of banjo, Hammond, mouth harp, and whizzo production touches, all of it in service of a successful effort to bypass decorum and Kennedy's conscious mind; free your id and great rock will follow"
[Jerry McCully] - All Music
"With smart-ass honest lyrics and heartfelt classic rock allusions, this is kind of like an indie-rock version of Andrew W.K."
[Giant Robot] - Giant Robot
There's talent behind the tastelessness, enough that it's impossible to dismiss Kennedy as just another lo-fi solo-jack"
"...it sounds like someone's taken a can opener to his skull and spilled his fevered brains onto a CD-R." - LA Weekly
Stylistic aloofness reigns comfortably on Kennedy’s Pink Afros. Paying no heed to a conclusive theme, Kennedy paints from an infectious postmodern palette. Here is disregard for musical formality that can, at the same time, allow for potential sacks of money labeled “hipster’s medium to low range paychecks” or “catchy Beck-esque radio anthems” to be thrown at their feet. And occassionally, a well-constructed EP can evolve into an incredible experience that belies its brief running time. Kennedy explodes the format on Pink Afros in a joyful and pure climatic pop explosion from beginning to end. - junkmedia
Regardless of your favored musical genres, there is no dispute that one of life’s great, infrequent treasures is hearing a song for the first time that instantly compels you to dance. When it’s by someone you’ve never heard of, much less heard, the sheer joy is ever greater. Such is the case with Kennedy. Pink Afros, the stylistically diverse Los Angelino’s latest EP, opens with one of the finest dance songs in many years. “Mama Made Me a Pimp” shifts from 16 somber seconds to the best disco-touched black pop song by a white guy from 1980 that you never heard, because Kennedy didn’t record the song until 2003.
“Mama Made Me a Pimp” benefits from a dreamy combination of vibrant keyboards, disco wails, thumping bass lines, high R&B vocals, and sleazy, cheesy lyrics: “Step out of the Caddy onto the street / Checkin’ the bitches, checkin’ the heat / I don’t want to go out, but / Mama made me a pimp from the very first day.” Kennedy’s EP opener is undoubtedly the catchiest, most invigorating floor-filler heard in a long time. It perfectly balances humor with melody. “Heavy Metal” finds Kennedy in more pervasive Vocoder territory that frustrates only to the extent that it sucks to be the last person to hear that Daft Punk has recruited Duran Duran’s Simon LeBon as its new lead vocalist. Seriously, “Heavy Metal” is a fun electro track, and Kennedy sounds theatrically worried on the chorus: “Monday morning meet my face with a cold embrace / The heavy metal in my brain keeps me strange.”
“Big Drag” takes Pink Afros on a different route, with Kennedy playing the acoustic troubadour. The song has a quirky Spanish appeal with its marches, bells, and synchronous guitars. Kennedy then takes a more folky, rural, laid-back approach with “You Were Gone.” The heavily percussive background would have been more pleasant had Kennedy buried it deeper in the final mix – it’s overbearing – but that’s a fault most listeners will tolerate. The funny narrative lyrics make this loud track amusing for a few listens, if nothing else. Unfortunately, even Kennedy’s atmospheric echoes and instrumental tricks near the end of his fifth track can’t save “Canada” from its boredom. This is the only disappointment on Pink Afros, ever more so because the first half of the EP is so strong. Pink Afros concludes with Kennedy’s hallucinogenic, tempered cover of “Heliotrope” by Robyn Hitchcock. One wonders what the English singer/songwriter and former Egyptians leader would think of Kennedy’s performance. It’s gentle, engrossing, and deserves to start and end a lazy, hazy summer weekend mix CD.
Kennedy has crafted a fun, constantly changing and genre-bending EP with a sweetness that makes up for its freakish stylistic schizophrenia. There’s nothing too deep and contemplative on Pink Afros, but almost every note is unexpected and spot on. The words are often funny, and Kennedy radically bounces across genres with ease and much success. This is an ideal EP for funky, twisted background music at a party or for post-party 4 a.m. discussions with friends who’ve decided to stay. Even the one miss on the album is compensated for by the five other knockouts, especially “Mama Made Me a Pimp.” Ignore Pink Afros and you may go musically bald or lose your color.
- Delusions Of Adequecy
Discography
Kennedy-Self Titled LP Sea Level Records
Pink Afros EP- Sea Level Records
Wake Up Single UK only- Setanta Records
Roll Wit You Single- Wild Hotels Of The Sea
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
I once saw Kennedy play at Spaceland during his Maharishi, fire-eating, diet Red Bull and Ketamine phase. He snorted PCP on stage off of some hipster’s mesh trucker hat and then shot up cars in the parking lot!
-The Wall Street Journal
Born Jack Kennedy to a father named John Wayne, Kennedy is a true American. After Kennedy dropped out of college, he got really into speed. We should go back earlier. Growing up in Thousand Oaks, California is the equivalent of Meursault’s imprisonment in Camus’ The Stranger. Clawing his way out of this abyss was Kennedy; singer, songwriter, rock star, motherfucker. Equal parts raconteur and provocateur, Kennedy is the consummate showman, a bit of PT Barnum, a dash of Rodney Dangerfield, a spoonful of Mark Mothersbaugh and a whole heaping helping of Benny Hill.
Kennedy moved to Hollywood, CA where he spent many formative years working at the fabled Cherokee Recording Studios under the tutelage of rock greats Nick Venet (Bobby Darin, Beach Boys, Gene Vincent) and Andy Johns (Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Mott the Hoople). He learned every aspect of the recording business, from how to mic a snare to how to score coke at 3:00 a.m.
The years rolled on and Kennedy found himself living ocean side in the bourgeois hamlet of Santa Barbara. Here he was further able to apply his audio skills as the producer for a morning radio show. Kennedy became something of a local celebrity in Santa Barbara and enjoyed great quantities of white drugs and loose women. However, years of watching others with far less talent and far fewer ho’s "make it" in the music world was enough to rock Kennedy out of his meth-fueled and mammary-filled cave.
Returning to the City of Angels began almost instantly to pay huge dividends for Kennedy. For one, he was able to found the Kennedy Space Station. More a laboratory than a recording studio, it was here that Kennedy yielded his self titled debut; one hell of a brilliant record. Playing nearly every instrument on every song on the record is an impressive feat, but it did not translate well in live situations. Kennedy knew he needed a band. A good band. A great band. A straight up rock and roll powerhouse that would leave the men jealous and the women soaking wet.
This band, the self-monikered Kennedy is far more than your garden-variety derivative retro-rock outfit, it is fresh and vital, well studied, yet innovative. More importantly, it bowls the assembled audience right off of their feet. Think The Stooges meet The Stones with just a touch of KISS style showmanship. In Los Angeles, Kennedy can be found sharing the stage with Fiona Apple, Jon Brion, Elliot Smith, Tenacious D, Ozomatli, The Black Keys, Juliana Hatfield, Jimmy Eat World, and many other somewhat talented artists.
Kennedy has quickly become a favorite among LA’s hipster illuminati. Crowd favorites include "Cold Pussy", an everyman anthem about going down to the morgue to fuck dead chicks, "Wake Up Motherfucker", a song so strikingly powerful that it can be used as both the show opener and closer, the oddly haunting "Brain In A Room", and Kennedy’s latest, simply titled, "Bitches". And who could forget the sheer brilliance of "Cocaine Junkie O.D.","I Love Me" or "Roll WitH You".
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