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From 1964 to 1968, the top teen band in North Texas was
a five piece combo called Kenny and the Kasuals.
To earn the distinction of being number one was no easy task
in those days as the competition was fierce. They were the kings
of the proms, frat parties and dances, drawing full houses and demanding top dollar. more history...
From 1964 to 1968, the top teen band in North Texas was
a five piece combo called Kenny and the Kasuals.
To earn the distinction of being number one was no easy task
in those days as the competition was fierce. They were the kings
of the proms, frat parties and dances, drawing full houses and demanding top dollar. more history...
TEXAS MONTHLY is showcasing KENNY & THE KASUALS at the SXSW Music Festival this year. They will be at the CONTINENTAL CLUB, March 20 at MIDNIGHT!
Kenny will be speaking March 20 at 3:30 at the Austin Convention Center.
Topic: GARAGE ROCK N ROLL!
Kenny will be speaking March 20 at 3:30 at the Austin Convention Center.
Topic: GARAGE ROCK N ROLL!
Now in its 24th year, the SXSW Music and Media Conference has grown into the must-attend networking event for the 21st century music industry. Showcasing nearly 2,000 musical acts from around the globe at over 80 stages in downtown Austin, SXSW registrants have a first-look at tomorrow's stars. By day, managers, labels, promoters, press, internet media outlets, artists and other business professionals conduct business in the SXSW Trade Show. Conference registrants also partake in a full agenda of provocative, informative panel discussions and celebrity interviews featuring hundreds of speakers of international stature.
Rising out of the same East Dallas garage scene that birthed bands such
as Jimmy Vaughan’s Chessmen and younger brother Stevie Ray’s The Cast
Of Thousands—not to mention the Briks, the Novas, the Five Americans
and so many more—Kenny and the Kasuals started out playing for chips
and soda under the name The Illusions Combo in 1964 and were quickly
breaking attendance records at Dallas’s premiere teen spot, the Studio
Club. Slick high school hustler Mark Lee took the group under his wing,
dressing them in silk suits and two-tone saddle oxfords (which one
local department store were soon displaying as “Kenny’s Kasuals”!!) and
hyping them relentlessly, resulting in their first record “Nothin’
Better To Do” c/w the instrumental “Floatin.’” Several 45s later they
made a daring move when they decided to go all the way and issue an
independently produced LP, Impact, which would be recorded live at the
Studio Club. Fellow Dallas favorites the Nightcaps had successfully done it with their Wine, Wine, Wine LP so why not? The album was an immediate success. Like the Wailers’ Live At The Castle, Impact is both a high water mark for the band that produced it—perfectly capturing, as it does, their high energy mixture of punked-up R&B delivered with British Invasion attitude and Lone Star musical chops—but is also the ultimate musical snap shot of a specific time and place. Like the best albums, Impact goes far beyond just capturing music, it captures atmosphere, standout tracks being possibly the best version of “Money” ever recorded and a reading of fellow Texan Barbara Lynn’s “Oh Baby (We Got A Good Thing Goin’)” that single-handedly puts the Rolling Stones famed rendition to utter shame. Next up, they pioneered psychedelia with their 1966 single “Journey To Tyme” which featured the unforgettably desperate line “Is it my destiny…to be trapped within the walls of time?!” In actuality, “Tyme” was a town in England, but you’d never guess that from the Kasuals’ other worldly performance.
Check out www.kennyandthekasuals.com for scads of hilarious tales of hair straightening disasters, hearse races with the Chessmen, being escorted out of Houston by the Texas Rangers and told never to return, seeing Jimi Hendrix at the Nite Owl in New York City, a lot of drunken hotel streaking, going head-to-head with a holier-than-thou Bob Geldof and much, much more…
