Telegraph Canyon Wins the Award for Most Ingenious Band in the World

On Friday night Kissing Cousins played a show in Riverside, California with the band Telegraph Canyon from Forth Worth, Texas and they are the most ingenious band in the world. A quick note about Riverside if you haven't been there: people get wasted and they get wasted early. Upon finishing their set a herd of drunk frat boy wanna-bes bombarded the Cousins with this phrase over and over: if you wanna make it in rock and roll you need to learn the first rule of rock and roll--don't have boyfriends. Class acts these dudes. To be fair to Riverside this kind of behavior is evident in bars and clubs all across America, but seemed more apparent on this night due to the continual close proximity these boys held to the stage.

Earlier in the evening we pulled up to the venue at the same time as Telegraph Canyon. They travel in a giant Four Winds motor home, which is reason one why they are the most ingenious band in the world. They have no need to procure hotel rooms, driving around a foreign city drunk at 2 am searching for a place to stay. They are always at home. Genius.

They then proceeded to fit a full size Hammond B3 organ, a full cabinet sized Leslie speaker, a 6 piece drum set, two guitar amps, a bass amp, a separate kick drum, no less than 8 guitars plus a banjo and a mandolin, and six people including a violin player onto a stage that could not have been more than 15x15 feet! To top it off, they sounded incredible. To pull off this life size Rubik's Cube and make it sound good are reasons two and three why they are the most ingenious band in the world.

Lastly, they are nice. Oh god how many bands have we all come across over the years that may not necessarily be flat out assholes but are either pretentious or self deprecating, awkward socially or smelly, overly gracious or completely self serving? They were normal, they were nice, they were good but didn't stick it to you. They sold vinyl. All huge pluses. So next time they come through think about checking them out. Here's a sample of the music from their album The Tide and the Current out now on Velvet Blue Music. The song is called "Into the Woods" and is in parts beautiful, sorrowful, stirring and finally joyful.