Darren Gaines & The Key Party profile picture

Darren Gaines & The Key Party

My Blacks Don't Match

About Me

DARREN GAINES & THE KEY PARTY... THE FIRST SUBVERSIVE LOUNGE BAND EVER…The Key Party came to Darren Gaines like someone else’s wife at 3am on a Friday night. Bingo, Sigourney Weaver (The Ice Storm) had a hand in the bowl for him. Musicians showed up, reached their hand into a bowl and pulled out the instrument they were going to sleep with that night. They picked pots and pans, toy airplanes, and a washtub bass made solely from parts found within a block of his West Village apartment, they picked anything broken, borrowed or stolen. That late night affair became a manifesto that was a goodbye to boredom, a goodnight to bands born of drums and guitars and bass. It became “15 songs of rock and roll poetry celebrating the debauched, the broken, the drunken and the misfitting” (PopMatters 2007). Gaines’ songs of “heartbreak and unemployment (sung) with complete conviction… there is no posing here.” (itsnotthebandihateitstheirfans.blogspot.com) propelled TKP’s debut CD, Hit or Miss, onto CMJs album of the Day, the SF Chronicle’s Pink Section Download of the Week and numerous CORE College and Specialty Radio Charts.But even sleeping around gets boring… enter the Pink Panther and please Mr. Mancini, meet the three Johns (no, not that John, but Prine, Cash and Rotten). The new songs are not your father’s lounge or hipster kitsch, sure there’s a jazz horn section, but that junkyard kitchen sink still clanks like a factory pipe and the punk by way of Deano still screams DIY. The bittersweet séance, the iconoclastic brew, the orgiastic noises still chill. But it’s Darren Gaines’ voice of “tattered velvet…” that continues, “his croon oozing around and through cigarette smoke“ (PopMatters) that again define these new songs. One part manifesto, one part punk-a-rock, one part Gaines “just woke up from that joyous get-together, only to find his head aching and his house wrecked” (CMJ 2007), these new songs are all parts conviction.To quote Darren Gaines, “Thank you and good night.” Cheers To contact email: [email protected] / To purchase: http://cdbaby.com/cd/keyparty

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 8/3/2006
Band Website: thekeypartynyc.com
Band Members: Darren Gaines (Vox, Guitars, Percussion, Wash Tub Bass, Noise and Songs) and The Key Party (which has and may include): Sara Syms (The 3Vs - Vocals, Violin, Vibraslap), Mark Rapp (Trumpet), Rick Parker (Trombone), Derek Lee Bronston (Harmonica, Dobro), James Reynolds (Piano-Organ), Jarrod Ruby (Drums), Matt Beck (Lap Steel), Andy Mazo (Bass, Guitar, Toy Piano Shaker), Ken Rich (Mixes and More Noises), Josh Keithley (Kitchen Sink and more)... Please be advised that in no way is their participation an endorsement of the product... Thanks
Influences: John Prine, Billy Bragg, Johnny Cash, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Pink Martini, The Clash, Paris Combo, Esquivel, Underworld, David Bowie, Nick Cave and Dean Martin and of course Henry Mancini.
Sounds Like: “A Tom Waits-style one man junkyard army from New York” (LA Weekly)... “Nick Cave meets No-Wave” (SF Chronicle)... “A house party of unusual artistic coterie” (CMJ 2007)... "The kitchen sink with guitars" (DG 2006)
Type of Label: None

My Blog

Muse-Sick and Record Making

We just started tracking our new full length MY BLACKS DON'T MATCH. Some of the songs originally done on the 5 song EP from last fall and currently up on myspace will appear on the record in new and c...
Posted by Darren Gaines & The Key Party on Tue, 13 May 2008 01:01:00 PST

It’s Not the Band I hate, It’s Their Fans

Another nice set of words from Canada...Darren Gaines and the Key Party (whom I raved about last year) is in the process of putting some other stuff together and it sounds like it's going to be more l...
Posted by Darren Gaines & The Key Party on Fri, 22 Feb 2008 11:29:00 PST

My Guitars and Sound

I have, for the last year or so, been asked numerous times about both my guitars and my guitar sound. Since I'm one to wear my heart on my sleeves and not keep secrets... Here we go:My primary guitars...
Posted by Darren Gaines & The Key Party on Fri, 01 Feb 2008 10:16:00 PST

3 Stars to the Moon, Children

Thanks to the Fire Note for their kind words on our demo 2007...http://thefirenote.blogspot.com/2008/01/darren-gaines -key-party-demo-ep.htmlShhhh... Pass it on. Cheers. Darren. TKP>
Posted by Darren Gaines & The Key Party on Mon, 21 Jan 2008 08:43:00 PST

Baby You Got A Stew Goin

The first Blog Words have appeared on our yet to be released EP but available for download and well, from a man who just called The National's Boxer his Album of the Year, we will take it as high prai...
Posted by Darren Gaines & The Key Party on Tue, 18 Dec 2007 07:48:00 PST

Tom, Murdochspace and Anarchy

Myspace spends money and time shutting down "spammers" but then allows the bands they signed to either use a similar friend adding robot or multitudes of human robots to send us messages about how the...
Posted by Darren Gaines & The Key Party on Wed, 03 Oct 2007 02:03:00 PST

Interview Tonight July 11th 7:30PM

I'll be interviewed live on Polskie Radio 910FM in NYC, Tonight, Wednesday, July 11th at 7:30 PM...http://www.polskieradio.com/radio910.asxThanks. Cheerios. Darren. TKP>
Posted by Darren Gaines & The Key Party on Wed, 11 Jul 2007 01:17:00 PST

Rock n Roll Coaster Review

"The Key Party's Darren Gaines gave me full permission to use his CD as a coaster if I found that it doesn't meet my pretentious rock snob standards. Well, he needn't worry because it looks like the b...
Posted by Darren Gaines & The Key Party on Fri, 06 Jul 2007 06:11:00 PST

WVCW Radio sez

"Good Tom Waits-ish southern junk rock out of NYC"
Posted by Darren Gaines & The Key Party on Mon, 02 Jul 2007 10:45:00 PST

"A Tom Waits-style one-man junkyard army from New York."  LA WEEKLY

Yup that's it... Nothing more, nothing less. Can't complain."A Tom Waits-style one-man junkyard army from New York."  LA WEEKLYThe Key Party liveTuesday, June 26th 8:30PM Silverlake Lounge, LAWednesd...
Posted by Darren Gaines & The Key Party on Wed, 20 Jun 2007 01:32:00 PST