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How to Become a Successful Loser
...How To Become A Successful Loser...
This is the rock and roll life story of Kevin K. A true New Yorker. From the beginnings in Buffalo to the twenty plus years of playing the bar scene in Manhattan. To a new life in Europe...
Becoming friends with Dee Dee Ramone, Johnny Thunders, Cheetah Chrome, Jerry Nolan and Sylvain Sylvain. To shows at CBGB from 1980 - 2003...
Drugs, death and failure were a constant in Kevins life. Nothing came easy...This is true. Sometimes pathetic.
With thirty five music cds and over 1,000 shows under his belt.. Kevin is the last of the CBGB musicians still on tour.
How To Become A Successful Loser is a collection of autobiographical stories. Fresh, courageous and evocative. A genuine rock action account from the life of Kevin K.
Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat!!!
Kevin continues to record and tour the world.
...FIRE IT UP...
This is the rock and roll life story of Kevin K. A true New Yorker. From the beginnings in Buffalo to the twenty plus years of playing the bar scene in Manhattan. To a new life in Europe...
Becoming friends with Dee Dee Ramone, Johnny Thunders, Cheetah Chrome, Jerry Nolan and Sylvain Sylvain. To shows at CBGB from 1980 - 2003...
Drugs, death and failure were a constant in Kevins life. Nothing came easy...This is true. Sometimes pathetic.
With thirty five music cds and over 1,000 shows under his belt.. Kevin is the last of the CBGB musicians still on tour.
How To Become A Successful Loser is a collection of autobiographical stories. Fresh, courageous and evocative. A genuine rock action account from the life of Kevin K.
Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat!!!
Kevin continues to record and tour the world.
...FIRE IT UP...
208 pages, Paperback
First published October 18, 2010
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 22, 2021
I can’t remember actually meeting Kevin K. He was just always around, he was just always there. Not part of a scene, more like part of the landscape. It would have been the late 1980s, or it would have been the early 1990s. It would have been in the East Village, the Lower East Side, when the general area was still unsoiled by hedge fund types and wine bars, before the sidewalks were cluttered with slaves to portable cellular technology. It was probably at the counter of Sounds or Venus, on St Mark’s, and it probably was not a conversation about grunge or hip-hop or that week’s underground techno releases. Or maybe it was 11:15pm at The Continental Divide or 1:34am at The Horseshoe Bar. He was always around, always there, long before we knew each other.
By the summer of 1998, my band, Sour Jazz, was up and running and gigging and recording. Our guitar slinger, The World Famous Mr. Ratboy, already shared a history with Kevin through having played guitar on some of Kevin’s earlier studio albums. Sour Jazz may have shared a bill -- or bills -- with Kevin, or maybe Rat convinced Kevin to come to one of our gigs, but it was through Rat’s connection with Kevin that three-quarters of Sour Jazz were invited to Tin Pan Alley Studios in 1999 to play on the sessions for what would become the Bloodied Up album by Freddy Lynxx & The Corner Gang, alongside Kevin, Freddy, Elda Stiletto, as well as Wild Bill Thompson (RIP) and Philippe Marcadé out of The Senders. In other words, a supergroup not likely to trouble the Billboard chart compilers.
Unless Kevin’s been sneaking around behind my back, I’ve been his bass player for every NYC gig he’s played ever since that Tin Pan Alley session -- a working relationship that has now outlived the vast majority of venues that we’ve played together over the years. In a world overly full of bands who think of everything except the song, Kevin has always put the song first. Anything else that comes along for the ride -- attitude, riffs, swagger, whatever -- always rides in the back seat, complementing the song through shade and color. And it’s this skill and discipline as a songwriter, along with his resolute dedication and genuine enthusiasm, that always makes gigging with him a hell of a lot of fun. His songs are sonic comfort food. But scratch beneath the sheen of Thunders and the Stones, and you’ll not only hear bits of Howlin’ Wolf, Jimmy Reed and Lightnin’ Hopkins, but also echoes straight from the corridors of The Brill Building. As Pope Clement XIV remarked in 1773, the man knows his shit.
For now, though, forget everything I’ve written above. My favorite Kevin-shaped memories are of hours and hours of conversation in rehearsal rooms, bars and venues, taxis and sidewalks, bodegas and late-night street corners. Sometimes enlightening, sometimes entertaining, always engaging. Kevin has spent a lifetime collecting experiences and filing observations -- not all light, not all dark, but all worth the retelling. This book should do the job of putting you on the stool next to his, as he tells his tales.
By the summer of 1998, my band, Sour Jazz, was up and running and gigging and recording. Our guitar slinger, The World Famous Mr. Ratboy, already shared a history with Kevin through having played guitar on some of Kevin’s earlier studio albums. Sour Jazz may have shared a bill -- or bills -- with Kevin, or maybe Rat convinced Kevin to come to one of our gigs, but it was through Rat’s connection with Kevin that three-quarters of Sour Jazz were invited to Tin Pan Alley Studios in 1999 to play on the sessions for what would become the Bloodied Up album by Freddy Lynxx & The Corner Gang, alongside Kevin, Freddy, Elda Stiletto, as well as Wild Bill Thompson (RIP) and Philippe Marcadé out of The Senders. In other words, a supergroup not likely to trouble the Billboard chart compilers.
Unless Kevin’s been sneaking around behind my back, I’ve been his bass player for every NYC gig he’s played ever since that Tin Pan Alley session -- a working relationship that has now outlived the vast majority of venues that we’ve played together over the years. In a world overly full of bands who think of everything except the song, Kevin has always put the song first. Anything else that comes along for the ride -- attitude, riffs, swagger, whatever -- always rides in the back seat, complementing the song through shade and color. And it’s this skill and discipline as a songwriter, along with his resolute dedication and genuine enthusiasm, that always makes gigging with him a hell of a lot of fun. His songs are sonic comfort food. But scratch beneath the sheen of Thunders and the Stones, and you’ll not only hear bits of Howlin’ Wolf, Jimmy Reed and Lightnin’ Hopkins, but also echoes straight from the corridors of The Brill Building. As Pope Clement XIV remarked in 1773, the man knows his shit.
For now, though, forget everything I’ve written above. My favorite Kevin-shaped memories are of hours and hours of conversation in rehearsal rooms, bars and venues, taxis and sidewalks, bodegas and late-night street corners. Sometimes enlightening, sometimes entertaining, always engaging. Kevin has spent a lifetime collecting experiences and filing observations -- not all light, not all dark, but all worth the retelling. This book should do the job of putting you on the stool next to his, as he tells his tales.
Displaying 1 of 1 review