Brothers Chip and Tony Kinman may not be household names, but their activities helped to build the foundation for American punk and independent rock. Their first band, The Dils, came to be during the fertile late 1970s California scene. Their second band, Rank & File, was a roots-rock affair that featured a young Alejandro Escovedo, and is still highly regarded to date. After that band broke up, they would form other bands, most notably a more industrial-minded group, Blackbird. This Friday Omnivore Recordings will be releasing Sounds Like Music, a superb compilation that features a twenty-two unheard tracks from the aforementioned bands, as well as later group Cowboy Nation. The album also serves as a tribute to brother Tony, who passed away in 2018 after battling cancer.
Today we are happy to present you with an exclusive first listen to a superb and humorous track from their group Blackbird. We’ll let Chip tell you more about it below.
Chip Kinman: “We wrote and recorded ‘Blue Hair’ to create an aural experience of what it was like to be a punk in the late seventies. It was more than a little risky to walk down the street in Carlsbad with black trousers, blue hair and Docs. People would yell ‘Devo,‘ ‘Fag!’ and sometimes stop and give chase. We knew what we were doing. Revolution! That’s what.”
The Recoup 
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