Manasota Music Review: Kettle of Fish: Living on Someday

BRADENTON – Only one week after releasing their Live from the Blue Rooster CD, local favorites Kettle of Fish debuted their much-anticipated new studio album at a special CD release party at Ace's Live in West Bradenton on Saturday night.

The CD contains 11 songs, including eight originals, most of which KOF fans will recognize from live shows. It opens with Anywhere With You, an upbeat ballad by founder and sole remaining original member Dana Lawrence that is arguably the best track on the disc, capturing both Lawrence's distinctly-soulful voice and the band's tight musical chemistry. It's followed by Quite Like You, a summer day at the beach sort of love song that Lawrence co-wrote with John Prestia, a popular indie artist who co-wrote the Allman Brothers hit No One to Run With and also carved out a successful second career as a road manager and one of Nashville's most soft after guitar techs, working for big named acts like Tim McGraw and Lucinda Williams.

Over the past decade, Kettle of Fish has become something of a revolving door of the area's best local musicians with everyone from Berry Duane Oakley (Bloodline, OKB, etc.) to Jimmy Faden (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band) and Thorson Moore taking the stage with the band to play everything from original tracks to an endless list of rare and creative covers of songs by The Grateful Dead, The Band, The Allman Brothers, J.J. Kale, John Hiatt and many, many more. The only constant has been Lawrence. In fact, Living on Someday is dedicated in memory of Mason Dunn and Sanderson Poe, both of whom were in the original Siesta Key trio incarnation of the band and have since passed on.

For a solid year and a half, however, Lawrence and his group, the name of which comes from a famous Greenwich Village pub and is inspired by an old British saying (what a fine kettle of fish this is, meaning quite a mess we've gotten ourselves into) have emerged as a distinctly local act, the area's hometown band if you will, playing an impressively steady calendar to packed houses all over Sarasota and Manatee counties–Motorworks, Ace's, Blue Rooster, Marina Jack's, the 5 O'Clock Club, Cortez Kitchen, Clancy's, the list goes on.

During that time, the band's sound has gotten even tighter and the current lineup–former Freddy King guitarist and Venturas frontman Greg Poulos back on lead guitar, backed by 18-year-old SRQ guitar prodigy Kevin Miller, with Chris Guertin on Bass and percussion vet Rick Andre on drums–has emerged as a distinct act with stellar vocal harmonies. True to form, however, they're about to undergo another roster change, as Saturday doubled as the college-bound Miller's going away party.

For the album, which was recorded at Nova Sango Studios in Sarasota, the band is joined by Moore, who lends his original track Keep on Walkin', while adding slide guitar on a few others. Poulos, who himself has an excellent voice that contrasts well with Lawrence's, sings the old blues song Born in Chicago, while Lawrence honors Poulos by covering his Venturas track When the Tears Finally Come, a tender ballad he dedicates to his daughter.

Lawrence soars on the title track, as well as longtime live favorite Little Black Book, but serious Kettle of Fish fans will likely be most excited by the soulful studio version of the band's most notable slow jam, Kissing a Fool, a song Lawrence said he's had for 20 years but was talked into "dusting off" by Poulos. The CD closes out with a live track, the infinitely fun Siesta Key-vibed Making it Up as I Go, which was recorded at the Blue Rooster, where the band plays to full houses twice every month.