The headline is total bullshit, what is this Spin magazine? Well, naw. This is KLYAM – KIDS LIKE YOU and ME – and if you’re just joining in now, welcome. See we’ve been kicking for coming up on 7 years. Ya true we started as teens around the whole garage revolution, sure. We’ve gotten flak for it. But the story of going from the big stuff – we’re talking Middle East Downstairs, Paradise, kind of stuff – to Grandma’s House and still having fun, maybe even more fun, that’s just life. Being a bit outsider to what may have manifested itself as the Boston underground, we’ve played by our own rules. Seeing NOBUNNY in 2009 for the first time open for Jay Reatard, writing on here about that mighty inspirational show, and then five short years later co-presenting an easily sold out NOBUNNY show. This is what we do. Not for local fame cred hype, no just to have fun, have a good time, enjoy the music. The turning point for the site came around 2011/2012 when we started venturing to basement shows. The thing is when we were seeing our heroes for the first time – Black Lips, King Khan & BBQ Show, Jay – we were going to shows that we could take for granted in terms of the production itself. I didn’t realize these bands came from the underground, the basement / DIY spaces , of their own homegrown communities – Atlanta, Montreal, Memphis. Artistically inclined people binding themselves together on the basis of playing music for one another, hanging out, having a good time. Realistically some other, more damaging aspects might come out of the whole thing, but what looks like what happened with the bands I just mentioned is they started touring, probably with somewhat narrow, initial national fanfare, captured people’s attention with their wild and loose, early rock ‘n roll colliding at punk speed style endeavors.
For me, the primitiveness of it all, the real shun of modern technicality, this is what I like, what I connect with. The fact that there are plenty a ways and takes on the stuff. Anyone can do it, anyone can write about it. No one reads this, nice, punk. I think we dissected a lot of shit a couple years ago with our reviews – damn, you see that Nice Guy, he went into a hallway IN a basement. And it can be real fun, writing about music. Oh it is definitely nerdy, weird, and give offs a sense of wanting to be heard about something nobody cares to read about online. But there you are, maybe you aren’t there. You’re watching Front Row Poster YouTube videos. It’s 2016. You can do whatever, whatever does you. Making amends with the time you have. Maybe you used to have more. You have more now.
There’s plenty out there and it is not only raw rock ‘n roll. Still our favorite of course, but with unifying forces, there’s going to be some more noisier stuff in the mix, maybe some gentler stuff. We’re trying to contribute – throw the shows we want to throw, release the records we want to release, write about whatever is interesting to us. With how much we appreciate everything we are fortunate to orchestrate events and releases… us KLYAM like to pass along what we can, when we can. If you’re checking this out, cool and thanks, we want to have a good time, and we want you to have a good time. Nothing real fancy about that.
Kids Like You & Me (KLYAM) 