Stephen Kellogg And The Sixers

On Gift Horse, their second album for Vanguard and fifth studio effort overall, Stephen Kellogg and his bandmates - Kit "Goose" Karlson (keys, bass, vocals), Brian "Boots" Factor (drums, vocals) and Sam "Steamer" Getz (guitars, vocals) - bring the rich legacy of American rock & roll into the present tense. This is thrilling music, muscular, immediate and life-embracing, steeped in tradition but addressing the present moment boldly and eloquently. What's particularly striking about Kellogg's aesthetic in general and this group of songs in particular is the very normalcy they project. He's a guy with his feet on the ground, as he directly acknowledges in "Gravity," the first single and opening track. "By way of the journey w've been on as a band," he explains, "we've now come to this place where we can ask the rhetorical question, is it OK to be the guy next door and rock & roll? We don't need to be bad boys, or say things we don't mean, or try to be cool in order to be accepted. This kind of music is the meat of this country. What I care about is feeding my family, living a life that I can feel proud of and doing an honest day's work. Those are the motivating factors in our music. StephenKellogg.com - Listen