Based in the humid indie-rock haven of Athens, Georgia, Dan Nettles has supplied the world with his own unique blend of modern-jazz-meets-college-radio for well over a decade as guitarist and composer for the genre-bending ensemble, Kenosha Kid. Starting in 2004, he built the band on these principles: build a scene, write for people you know, and listen to your creative heart regardless of music idiom.
A steady string of remarkable content has followed, in a variety or formations and flavors. From the ten-piece silent film score Steamboat (2008), the sci-fi future music of Fahrenheit (2009), the raw trio of Land of Obey (2010), to the companion releases featuring trio and three horns, Inside Voices (2015) and Outside Choices (2017) his music continues to delightfully defy expectations and expertly serve jazz purists, noise-rock hipsters, and funk loving jam fans alike.
Most recently 2019's Missing Pieces showcases a striking two-guitar incarnation augmented by three-piece string section. The record is beautifully layered, with a sense of melodic longing, expressionistic, undefinable and ecstatic. It is instrumental music drawing from the gutters and ditches of many legitimate musical traditions including, and defying, jazz, rock and modern classical genres.
"Missing Pieces resonates… a cycle of broken quietude that’s gently settling into place… Throughout Kenosha Kid’s nearly 15-year existence, Nettles has written hundreds of songs, yet few resonate as profoundly as anything on Missing Pieces… as he shows in his own impenetrable and postmodern way, the only way out is through.” -Flagpole Magazine
Guitarist Dan Nettles may still make his home where he grew up in Athens, Georgia, but musically he knows no bounds--geographical or otherwise. Neither, it seems, do the members of his far-flung collective; his Kenosha Kids, as it were. Listening to, among others, Athens' killing rhythm section of Jeff Reilly on drums and Neal Fountain on electric bass, as well as Seattle's tenor man Greg Sinibaldi, Berlin's (by way of Canada) altoist Peter VanHuffel, New York's transplanted Georgian Dave Nelson ...
Groove-based rock... wide, open-spaces Americana... melodically uplifting anthems... and delicate balladry... Kenosha
Kid doesn't fit easily into any category, but rather straddles genres without inhibitions. It's this openness to music's
possibilities that best defines Kenosha Kid and that makes for such a rewarding live experience"
- All About Jazz
"...somewhere in the Schrödinger’s nexus of jazz, post-rock and improvised music... marked by an erudite rhythmic
vocabulary and a sapient harmonic language."
- Free Times
"A mash-up between contemporary jazz, alt-rock and jam-band ethos, Kenosha Kid cast a wicked spell..
Groove-based rock... wide, open-spaces Americana... melodically uplifting anthems... and delicate balladry... Kenosha
Kid doesn't fit easily into any category, but rather straddles genres without inhibitions. It's this openness to music's
possibilities that best defines Kenosha Kid and that makes for such a rewarding live experience"
- All About Jazz
"...somewhere in the Schrödinger’s nexus of jazz, post-rock and improvised music... marked by an erudite rhythmic
vocabulary and a sapient harmonic language."
- Free Times
"A mash-up between contemporary jazz, alt-rock and jam-band ethos, Kenosha Kid cast a wicked spell... Nettles... is an
understated yet arresting guitarist and an accomplished composer with an ear for a good hook... Kenosha Kid would
grace just about any festival stage."
- All About Jazz
"The Irish chapter of US guitarist Dan Nettles’ Kenosha Kid franchise blew the doors off the Bray Jazz Festival with
their winning blend of killer grooves and loud guitars... artfully blends surf rock and contemporary jazz with college
radio and a country twang,"
-Irish Times
"...very considered, and well composed... a cathartic and empowering album."
-Creative Loafing
"...free from labels and genre...the Athens, Georgia quartet is out with their strongest release yet... [a] heady journey of
rock, prog, jazz and funk"
- JamBase
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