Keven Brennan - The Story
Boston, 1985 – A black ’69 hearse rumbles to a stop outside Chet’s
Last Call, hardscrabble club in downtown Boston. 4 rock ‘n roll thin punks
spill out onto the sidewalk. A club owner growls, “Where’d you get your
start?” 3 punks spit back, “The garage.” The fourth punk confides, “The
library.”
New Orleans, 1989 - A VW bus coasts to a stop outside Tipitina’s, the music
beacon of New Orleans. A rock ‘n roll thin musician slides out of the cab.
No one asks where he got his start, he whispers it anyway, “The library.”
Keven Brennan is the son of Notre Dame Professors and discovered music in
libraries. Sequestered between book stacks he devoured record collections,
drawn especially to the melting pot of Caribbean rhythm, funk and soul he
heard in recordings from New Orleans. It was there that his career was born.
After studying classical saxophone at the New England Conservatory and realizing
it wasn’t for him, he gained experience with deranged punk-rockabilly bands
like The Wandells, Dwarves, and Royal Pimps. Eventually the punk scene’s
‘screw-it’ attitude wore thin and in 1989 he went west.
In Hollywood Keven played rock ‘n roll sax, frequented a recording engineering
program, and found love with a singer/songwriter named Robin. In 1995 he
cut his first album, aptly titled “Beatnik Gumbo”, and spent 2 years touring
and observing a frustrating lack of dedication and vision in the music industry.
He then became the change he wanted to see by combining his musical ingenuity
and recording prowess to launch what is now a successful indie label, f.Boo
Music.
4 solo albums and over 80 other projects later (including albums and music
for film, television, internet and audio books), in 2006 Keven’s love for
New Orleans and it’s music came full circle when he recorded Mardis Gras
icon Big Chief Monk Boudreaux. That same year he was invited to join Monk
on sax at the New Orleans Jazz Fest and has played the Jazz Fest every year
since. Now, in 2010 Keven is producing his second album for the Big Chief
to be released on f.Boo Music.
Keven’s career, company, and life have always been illuminated, and at no
time has that been more apparent than on his 5th album, Stand in the Light.
Retro and futuristic, beatnik and boogie, Stand in the Light fuses musical
genres and echoes life’s symbiotic contradictions. Produced by Keven and
backed by the avant-jazz group Kneebody, Stand in the Light is defiantly
original, yet owes much to the diverse urban landscape of Los Angeles. Perhaps,
Keven explains it best when he says:
“My day might begin producing a New Orleans Mardi Gras Indian tune and
end jamming with an international improv ensemble. And sometimes in the
middle of the night, I paint while listening to conspiracy theories.”