d'OPEN KITCHEN, eh?
This is Hank Wedel - born in Dayton, Ohio in 1963, raised in Queens, New York City 'til age 11...and then moved to MALLOW, Co. Cork...and having been bouncing back and forth and elsewhere between Cork City and New York City ever since...I'm here to tell ya b'out d'Open Kitchen...Y'see, I started out in Cork City, Ireland with a band called PRINCES STREET...first busking on Princes Street in 1984....sensational times...huge crowds on the streets every Thursday and Saturday nites...Free music on the streets, man...What abuncha young city Hippies we were!THEN 4 years later, in 1988 right thru to 1990, it was Princes Street as a Rock'n'Roll band - that made records, tapes, played club gigs, toured and did radio and TV...and helped establish The (late, lamented) LOBBY BAR in Cork City as a serious live venue...and played huge concerts in fields... for free... manys the time in that period...What a buncha muso deadhead Hippies!In BETWEEN all that, from mid- '86 thru '87, I got d'Open Kitchen together in New York City with Billy Attridge (school chum from Mallow)...THEN in 1990, when PRINCES STREET stopped functioning, I got together with Billy Attridge AGAIN..but this time in Cork City...and called the band OPEN KITCHEN...THAT version Open Kitchen started up up a three-year residency in The Lobby in Cork '90 - '93...and the band has been evolving and revolving ever since! If you REALLY wanna sense of the history and biography of the band, just glance over at the list of members it has employed over the years...and, to get an idea of where we've played - well, here's proof that I was a Pop Idol in Azerbijan once upon a Time...If you wanna know 'bout the band and it's music, tho', then just listen to the tracks that are available here on myspace...The songs "You and I Would Surely Meet" and "Sad Beauty" are the latest additions to our tack listing here. There's a video of "Sad Beauty" here, too, shot by students of St. John's college here in Cork and directed by Aoife O'Callaghan. The song "New Yorkers" was performed live on top of The Empire State Building in New York City on St. Patrick's Day in 2002 and there's a video of that here on Myspace - "Double Parking on Music Row" details a trip to Nashville undertaken by meself and longtime Open Kitchen guitarist, Shane Scanlan in 1996...and "Global America" is all around us, of course...and thanks to it being on MySpace, "Global America" reached No. 40 on Neil Young's "Living with War Today " song chart- THANX to all of you who voted for it...Here's a piece on Global America
and, just to keep up to speed with THIS year's events, here's something for y'all to look at and remember the next time you hear a "McCain vs. Obama" debate on TV or down the pub...AND just in case you think I don't like The USA...THINK AGAIN!KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR THE GIGS, ALL YOU HIPPIES! I'll be posting them up as they happen...If anyone reading this want to join the emailing list for updates on new releases and HAPPENINGS! - get in touch via myspace or email me at [email protected] and remember...There is No Hope but to try to have No Fear ...Hank
Hope and Fear Alive in '95
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