Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
To be born in anger is to find that the universe in its infinite wisdom has something truly special waiting up its sleeve for you, to be remembered when the anger has left to be replaced by calm, by the spirit of the times, and if placed in the hands of those who remember your brilliance after you have left for the bigger stages to come, will shout your name from the highest vantage point and demand that the party be continued in your honour.
Aggression is not a state of mind in which to shy away from, it doesn’t mean to give into the bench mark of violent, often destructive, behaviour, it means to stand your ground, to be gently forceful and ferocious, to demand that the statements made as people Locate Your Lips is read and heard with passion and when the final days are passed, all that chanted your name will do so again because they recognise just how incredible you were and they wish for others to know that.
For many this side of the Atlantic, the name of Locate Your Lips will be lost, a conversation that as yet not been had with friends, or been established as a must delve into due to the short but blinding, career, the enigma that tantalised those it touched and the presence of mind to never be solved, answering to no-one, only to each other. It was in such presence of mind that the fusion of the sound of drums created by Milwaukee sensation Kenny Baldwin will be remembered, and to whom in his untimely passing has been lovingly restored for new fans to relish as Otto & The Elevators’ Gary Tanin has digitally edited and mastered the beautiful mystery over the course of two delightfully entrancing and intriguingly rhythmic C.D.s, For Kenny.
The framing of a live gig and the studio entrance may now be the customary practise in an effort to increase awareness, however as For Kenny takes shape what is captured is the difference that flashes brightly between the two sounds, the rawness of the live and the feeling of the frenetically balanced in the studio performances, but the contrast in the two musical explosions is only caught as if by chance. As if it was the moment in which two stars were born in the same solar system, explosive but somehow ritual, a dance of the celestial and as songs such as Alive, I Can’t Take Another Taste of This, Got A Lot of Nice Things, Waiting For You Too Run, Take Off Your Clothes, If You Could Have Anything, This Conversation, You Got No Taste, Cosmopolite, Stethoscope and Dance Or Die play out all that remains is the sombre pull of gravity bringing you down to Earth and the feeling of certainty that is beyond ordinary, it is unexplainable magic.
A magic bookended by the recorded WQFM broadcast in 1985 and the blunt edge of the studio recordings laid down the year before, For Kenny is the result of dedication, of keeping a flame alive and the perseverance of Gary Tanin in making sure that the short-lived but astonishing sound of Locate Your Lips and Kenny Baldwin remains like the astronomer’s gaze, firmly in the stars.
Ian D. Hall