All I Need Is A Road Out: Cruisin' with the KBB
By Diane Roka
So long, the outland is callin'
So long to the old days
Tradin' the gold I was savin'
And leavin' all my old ways
- "Outlander", Outland*Disco
There is a look to the trees when you pass them at night. They are darker than
the sky, and they loom and crash by your car window. The moon is ahead, staying
with you, urging you on like a troublemaking friend.
Even in the bright sunshine, in a golden meadow, it's the dark trees at the
end of the clearing that your eye keeps going back to.
Outland*Disco has that yearning, a romance of something
that is just over the next hill. With Rob and Rich Kwait taking turns
on the vocals, a single voice emerges. A weathered, but hopeful sound.
With a wistful, rueful smile.
There's a lot of Rick Danko's plaintiveness in that shared voice. J.J. Cale's
laconic groove. The Dead's shambling shuffle, and their celebration of a better
way.
*****************
As it is with most people who revere the country, the Kwait brothers aren't
from there. Just the suburbs, outside of Philadelphia.
The wanderlust came from their time in college. Rich stayed in town - Penn.
Rob was in upstate New York - Ithaca. And that was when the driving began.
Long road trips to visit each other meant riding through some deep country.
Already a soundtrack was starting.
Well the deep and darkest place I ever lay
Is a high rise city on a bright hot sunny day
And the saddest thing my eyes have ever seen
Is a man caught down in the middle of an in-between.
So I'm going through
- "Going Through", Outland*Disco
Today, Rob and Rich live in the fourth largest city in America. There they
go, down the street. Grinning, as usual, hands shoved down in pockets. Heading
off to work, the smile is what sets them apart from the early morning rush.
Affable. Amiable. These are the words that come to mind as they stroll up to
you - and they seem to be strolling even when they are moving down the street
at a clip.
There they are again, sitting on Rob's stoop on a staid Rittenhouse street,
playing the banjo and git-ar, singin' out. Passersby slow their walk a bit,
can't help but smile back at them. A musician stops and chats, runs home to
get his guitar and sit in. A pug on his evening walk sits in front of them
expectantly.
They're not from here either. Not really.
*****************
They are 32 years old, and twins - looking a little bit like the actor Dylan
McDermott from The Practice except for the cool black-rimmed glasses and the
silly muppet grins.
There are things that they don't really like to talk about, and that writers
can't help but latch onto. They are twins! They live across the street from
each other! They each had a bassett hound, and yes, the dogs were brothers!
The dogs they will talk about, a little bit. Cornelius, Rob's dog, is 13 now
- too old to negotiate the four flights to the walk-up, so lately Rob's been
carrying him. Rich's dog, Leonardo, passed on recently. "He died of a rotten
brain." Rich smiles ruefully. "Young Frankenstein," Rob murmurs, when he sees
the worried expression on my face. "But he did have a dark side."
They don't talk about it, but there is a buzz that is starting to form around
the band. WXPN just selected Outland*Disco as the "Philly Local Pick
of the Week."
When asked what will happen with their lives if the band really takes off,
there is a moment of silence.
Rob clears his throat. "We're in this period of limbo. Which way to go?"
Believe I'm ready
Yeah I'm ready to go
And bid adieu to the moon and the friends I know
- "Blue Star", Outland*Disco
It's the moon that gets you into all of that trouble in the first place, though.
*****************
I go to see them at a small club called The Fire in Philadelphia. Their opening
band starts late and ends late, but the Kwaits wait patiently at one of the
small tables in the audience. They are unobtrusive, clapping appreciatively
after each song.
When the first band has finally exited, the KBB launches into action. They
quickly, quietly and professionally make the stage their own. This involves
hanging a large black banner with the letters KBB emblazoned in white behind
the stage. It also involves setting up a petite stained glass Tiffany lamp
with a red rose engraved on the shade.
I scribble a small note to myself for later. "Find out the significance of
the lamp."
The rest of the band troops on, and sets up. Jay Levin: keyboards and backing
vocals. Ira Race, Rich and Rob's cousin, is on lead guitar. Stephen Divencenzo:
drums. Tania Habernicht, a small girl with a big voice, is singing back-up
and playing various percussive instruments from her "bag of tricks". Rob and
Rich trade off on lead and harmony vocals. Rob plays bass and banjo, Rich plays
rhythm and some lead guitar.
This is a tight band, musically and otherwise. Although friends with each other
through various shared acquaintances, the individual members are all professional
musicians, mostly in their thirties, who have done their share of session work.
Tania, a promising singer songwriter who is about to release her own CD, tones
down her soaring soprano so as not to overpower. Each player looks to the Kwaits
expectantly, as they are unequivocally the leaders of this band. However laid-back
and affable the brothers may be, they are also exacting - they know precisely
how they want this to sound.
Live, the band sounds tremendously full and clear. The energy is high, and
the harmonies are almost stylized into a wall of sound. There is a jam band
good-time vibe with less noodling and more structure.
At one point during the set, one of Rich's guitar strings break. With a tight
smile, he jumps down from the stage, and goes about stringing another in a
business-like way. Rob steps up to Rich's microphone at the center of the stage,
grinning ear to ear, enjoying his brother's misfortune immensely. "Hey, Rich," Rob
says softly, kindly, into the mic. "You're fired."
*****************
They laugh, later, when I bring up the lamp. "It adds a nice light to the stage.
The next band on the bill always asks about it, 'cause when we shut it off,
it's a buzzkill."
Now we are at Rob's apartment, at the aforementioned tony address near Rittenhouse
Square. Although the downstairs entrance lobby is grand, the apartment itself
is large but cozy and rustic, with exposed red brick walls, wood beamed ceilings
and rich wide planked wood floors. The aforementioned lamp sits pertly near
the sofa, red rose aglow. Various instruments are set up in the corner of the
front room - this is where the band practices on Sunday nights. It feels like
we are in a large cabin, miles away from the city street below.
I sit on a wooden rocker, trying to work my tape recorder. The brothers take
this opportunity to grab their banjos and come back to where we are seated
around a beautifully hand-crafted coffee table.
"I think we talk better with the instruments."
"Yeah, 'cause you know what? Our kind of mantra is that we don't really talk
that much." They begin strumming, launching into a kind of Smothers Brothers
routine. "We like to get other people to talk for us."
"We let the music do the talking" Strum, strum. Jangle, jangle.
"Really. We just provide the music." Blam blam.
Diane Roka is a free-lance writer based in Philadelphia.
