"Creating with Jason Cropper has been an absolute joy...." 

Brian's new album "TOPICAL TUNES FOR TROUBLED TIMES" will be released in early November 2018. TTFTT is the first album to have been recorded, mixed, and mastered entirely at Studio C, a recording space launched by Jason Cropper and Brian Kenny in 2017. Executive Producer David Skaff stressed the importance of taking the time necessary to make the best possible record. "It was very much against nature to take 18 months to make a record," Kenny explains, "but I let go with this one and gave the reins to my Executive Producer (David Skaff) and to Louis and Cropsky (producers Jason Cropper and Dominic Dutra) and they helped me create a fully-realized vision."

Kenny and Cropper met through Skaff in July of 2016 at a 4th of July party where Kenny was performing. Cropper, who had not played live in over 10 years, joined Kenny for an extended impromptu set. Kenny explains:

"Dave had told me about his friend Jason who I should really meet. Dave also had this sweet Suhr Stratocaster and a Fender 75 on the stage. I was playing when I felt this presence enter the yard, I looked over and there was this guy standing in the gate looking at us intently. He made his way to the center of the yard and was taking it in. I motioned to the Suhr anf the Fender amp. He had this kids with him who came up and played the Suhr and absolutely shredded. I dont remember what we were playing when he came up but when it was his turn to call the tune he called Red House. He went straight behind his back on his first solo: Epic rock-n-roll! That was Dominic Dutra (Louis). After a few songs, the guy with the energy came up and took the guitar and we just went off. After we finished the set, we talked and it turns out he was Dave's friend Jason. We jammed a few weeks later and he said he wanted to make my next record."

TTFTT is that record. Kenny is tight-lipped about the details of the record. He did say that it went through two iterations, an acoustic version and an electric version. "We are releasing the electric version," he says, "we took long enough making it that the final mixes were still fresh to me. It is the best thing I have done so far."

When asked what the record is about, Kenny replies that it is a reflection on the times in an-apolitical, truthful voice. "This is my op-ed piece about where we are now.Look at the lyrics to 'Savages,' I don't see them as being political, they are just true." 

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Savages

Kenny

 

Do you think they care about culture?

Do you think they care about art? 

Do you think they care about history?

Do you think they care about heart?

 

Do you think they care about freedom?

Do you think they want to foster liberty?

When was the last time you heard them say

That you're living in the land of the free?

 

My America is a melting pot 

A harbor from tyranny

Where folks can seek refuge 

Regardless of the race, their credo, or their creed

 

 I was once called a race traitor 

And it very nearly made me spit my teeth

And now that the codes are mainstreamed 

There's a twinge of fear in me

(And I'm a white male So they don’t think that could be)

 

But I strive to keep my mind open

And my heart full of empathy

But the ugliness of these times

Makes me feel the ugliness in me

Hear the contempt for fact and rational thought

And truth and morality 

It’s dragging me down and breaking my will

And taxing my sanity

 

And that's what makes them savages

See the hatred that they breed 

They've awoken a beast gestating within the guts of civility

You can live in the land of the brave because it serves them

In attaining their destiny

Don't look now the deportees are digging the grave for what America used to be

 

Bullies lie and they intimidate 

By bludgeoning those they can

And thugs, well they do crazier things 

Than the decent would think they can 

And leadership is disappointing a constituency at a rate that can understand

And disappointed folks often make decisions that they eventually regret

 

And that's what makes them savages 

They fed on that distemperment

And they built a fire with fear and hate 

And they called it a movement

And it was powered by birtherism 

And hatred for immigrants

and the disabled and refugees too

And fed it with Comet Pizzagate crunch

Instead of Rainbow stew

 

Try to love one another

Or savages we will be

Treat the other as your brother

Or savages we will be

We're not the enemy,

 the enemy is on top

They want us to hate each other,

they want the love to stop

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BJK LIVE: NORTHSTATE FOLK FESTIVAL, REDDING, CALIFORNIA 2004