Drivin N Cryin, The Madison Square Gardeners

I Played Guitar on a Chain Gang
or, things you might want to know about my f~~kin' rock band
by kevn kinney
We are a band that's like your record collection.
--That's a quote from me in one of the first articles ever written about drivin' n' cryin' back in the Eighties.
We released our first album Scarred But Smarter in 1986 on 688 Records. 688 was the center of the underground Atlanta rock scene in the 1980's. Bands as diverse as Hüsker Dü, Rank and File, Lords of the New Church, The Residents and a week-long stint by Iggy Pop graced the hallowed walls of that now-defunct night club. If you drive down Spring Street today, there's just a doc-in-a-box where the punk rock used to be.
I met Tim Nielsen just after I moved to Atlanta from Milwaukee. One night I was playing in a pickup band with Die Kreuzen, my good friends from back home.(Check out their Touch and Go records produced by Butch Vig.) They were staying on my floor, just passing through on tour. We played a lot of shows together a couple of years back when I was in a punk band called The Prosecutors, so we figured what the f~~k? Let's see what happens.
Tim was there that night. He played in the big 688 band The Nightporters and was a rock star in Atlanta. He pulled me aside after the show and asked me if I lived down here. I told him that I had just moved to town and was working at the sewage plant, retired from the music world for good at age 24.
Tim stopped by my apartment one afternoon a couple of weeks later and Told me he was gonna find me a band to be in. My music was on the folk side of Dylan at the time but I decided I was up to playing just for the fun of it. He got me practicing with a few guys but it wasn't really happening, so eventually he decided we'd just start our own damn band.
Tim quit The Nightporters and stole their drummer and we played our first drivin' n' cryin' show at 688 in October 1985. A little over a year later, I'm sitting in my living room with an album, a real, freakin' 12-inch vinyl LP record called Scarred But Smarter.
I wanted to be in a band that would be unafraid of changing genres, mostly because I'm easily distracted and change subjects mid-sentence. "Needs help with self control," read every report card after fifth grade....smartass...underground comic-readin' journalistic wannabe...too lazy to write a complete story....I settled on the song format...it's perfect...a short poem...with its own soundtrack. At 24, I wrote:
"Nobody said it would be fair
They warned you before you went out there
There's always a chance to get restarted
To a new world, new life
Scarred but smarter"
At that time, I had restarted myself. I come from an industrial land of things that used to be: Milwaukee, Wisconsin, class of 79...a town, back then, that encouraged you to leave high school, get a job in a factory, get injured and then get workers compensation while picking up a side job at a liquor store or record shop where you got paid under the table.
Great American Bubble Factory is the perfect crescendo to a long twenty-plus year career of drivin' n' cryin'. I think we've found the true essence of what we started to build back in1985. It's the truth as we see it set to a soundtrack fueled by music we love, everyone from The Ramones, The Clash, The Seeds, Iggy, Dylan, Patti Smith Group, R.E.M., Thin Lizzy, The Rolling Stones. You get the point.
The song title for "(Whatever Happened to the) Great American Bubble Factory?" hit me one afternoon when I was at the dollar store getting some bubbles for the neighborhood kids. As I was standing in line, I looked down at the "made in" label and noticed that those bubbles were made in China.....China!! That's a long way for a bottle of freakin' soap to travel. Come on, maybe we can't make TVs or refrigerators or cars here anymore, but bubbles?
In my world, the first step to a renewed America and our deliverance from an unspeakable disrespect of the American workforce would be the opening of The Great American Bubble Factory. They would come from miles around to see the Willie Wonka of the New Deal....There's hope again!!! If you can make it here, why don't you make it here.....
We started demos for this record back in 2001 on September 10th. The next day the world was upside down and traitors were everywhere, underneath every coffee cup. Joe McCarthy was back and I just didn't feel like I was ready to tell the story of the blue-collared optimist...
"She said, 'Son, you're dreamin'
Well, ma, if I'm dreamin'
Just don't you wake me"
This record weaves in and out of the "Midwestern Blues" to the Flannery O'Connor South of "This Town" to the industrial grind of "Detroit City" to the optimistic anthem (and Dictators cover!!) "I Stand Tall" to the genuine pining for home in "I See Georgia."
I want you settled in, riled up, loaded for bear and somewhere out there on the road in search of the great American dream.....