Craig Kinsey @ The Continental Club

Saturday, August 9th, brought the triple billing of Craig Kinsey, Ryan Scroggins and the Trenchtown Texans and Clouseaux to the Continental Club for a nice mixture of Houston's local sounds. We walked into the half-full venue just in time to catch the last notes of Ryan Scroggins, who played a fusion of rock, punk, ska, and reggae tones quite similar to one of my old favorites, Operation Ivy. We didn't come to the Continental to see The Trenchtown Texans, however; rather, our intentions were to find out how well the Sideshow Tramps' Craig Kinsey could translate his solo songs to such a large room.

Read the full review after the jump

While BOT is no stranger to Craig Kinsey's work with local favorite Sideshow Tramps, we are new to Kinsey taking center stage for a whole set. The back story to how this project first came along is compelling. After Kinsey had already written most of the songs for his album The Burdener, he and local multi-instrumentalist Mike Whitebread (aka Miguel Pan Blanco) set up some recording equipment and started improvising. Throughout the day many different musicians stopped by the sessions to add whatever they could to the tracks being laid down. At the end of the day, they had several different takes of Kinsey's songs to work on and make better. After SugarHill production guru Steve Christensen got his hands on the recordings, the finished product came out with a nice mix of Americana, gypsy, New Orleans jazz, country and blues songs. With a brilliant marketing strategy of making everybody who wanted to come to his CD release party buy the album to get in, it allowed all of those new to Kinsey's work to get a good taste of what he had to offer outside of the cramped Avant Garden (where the release party took place).

Saturday's show at the Continental Club was quite different from the CD release party in several ways. The first significant disparity is the size of the venues. Avant Garden's indoor room is roughly the size of my living room, while Continental Club is about the size of my whole complex. CC allows their bands to actually be seen while they play as they feature a nice tall stage. AG doesn't even have a stage. CC gives room for people to either dance up front or catch a seat towards the back. AG's dancefloor is also the front vestibule, part of the stage, the bar area, and features a love seat for one lucky couple to take a load off. With that being said, Avant Garden is much better than Continental Club for a Craig Kinsey performance.

While I danced my ass off at the earlier performance, this time I just sat back and took the time to watch the show. The stage was filled with familiar faces, including Sideshow Tramps' Geoffrey Muller on bass, Vibe Committee's Mike Whitebread and Lantz Stevens on guitar and drums respectively, a three piece horn section and a guest vocal from local genre-eschewing singer Kam. Immediately the wall of noise that these players made took over the room. While Kinsey's vocal talents are not the high point of his performance, he makes up for any shortcomings with the passion with which he delivers his lyrics. His songs truly represent Houston as a whole, particularly the off-center, bohemian-style neighborhood of Montrose. The song "Montrose Blvd. Blues" was the highlight of the set for me, as the lyrics speak directly to Cereal and me since we currently claim "the 'Trose" as our home. The addition of the three-piece horn section is what truly makes Kinsey's music stand out over the more scabrous sound of the Tramps. Their crowning moment was on a late-set countrified version of Louis Prima's "Jump, Jive and Wail" that found us singing and dancing along in our seats (I was working all day, and forgot to pack my dancing shoes, otherwise I would have been up front shaking my ass!).

Craig Kinsey - "Montrose Blvd. Blues"

After "Jump, Jive and Wail" we headed towards the door as Kinsey and his band were starting their last song. Kinsey proved that even despite his lack of vocal prowess, he can still put on a hell of a show. I'd have to recommend Sideshow Tramps for their superior live show, but the laid-back, improvised feel of Kinsey's shows are enough to delight any music fan. I hope he continues in this format as he has surrounded himself with some of Houston's finest musicians. The comfort level and compatibility of these musicians has also grown quite a bit since their CD release show. Hopefully the next time I catch them will be in a venue that splits the difference between Continental Club and Avant Garden; Big Top maybe?

For a pretty good short set from some great local musicians I give Craig Kinsey 7.2/10 yolks.

For more pictures (although CC's lighting is absolutely horrible, so they're not our best work), visit our Flickr page.

For some more videos, visit our YouTube page

-Eggs