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Last Updated : 17-Feb-99

Contributed Articles

Gregory Nicoll contributed the original (and uncut) version of his January 1996 interview with the Rock*A*Teens.

Bobby Reed contributed his interview with Kelly Hogan from early 1998, and a review of her Rudy & GoGo kiddie show.

Borrowed Mini-reviews

From NewCity.net, around 2/23/98, announcing the Rudy and Gogos Rockin' Kiddie Caravan show :

: SEE MUSIC, DON'T STOP: Saturday represents one of the finest days in recent history for live music, beginning in the afternoon at the Empty Bottle with Rudy and the Gogo's Rockin' Kiddie Caravan Kids Show. The show will feature all children's songs performed by Moonshine Willy's lead singer Kim Doctor (who is pregnant) and a couple more of the Willys, Ms. Mekon Sally Timms, Kelly Hogan performing with John Forbes, and Split Lip Rayfield (actually a couple members of Scroat Belly doing an acoustic take on high-speed bluegrass). The same lineup will perform that night at the Bottle as well, sans kiddies. Special mention should go to Kelly Hogan, who has been performing on the local circuit for about four months now. The last time she took to the stage was at Lounge Ax opening for the Handsome Family, and the nearly sold-out house couldn't have been given a better treat than the best voice I've heard in Chicago. Hogan mixes jazz, country and rock covers along with some originals, and when she belts into a song, the crowd zips their lips. Hogan alone would be worth seeing twice in one day. The Double Door also brings in one of the most punk-rock, hardcore Mississippi Delta bluesmen, T-Model Ford. T-Model is around 75 (he doesn't know for sure); according to the liner notes of his disc "Pee-Wee Get My Gun" (Fat Possum), he has spent time in prison, gets into fistfights with his female companion, and to top it off, sings the rawest, raunchiest blues around. When T-Model sings "I'll put my foot in yo' ass," you feel the urge to watch your back. (For more on T-Model, read James Porter's Blues Tip of the Week.) If you're not down with the blues, then go see Gaunt at Lounge Ax. Just enough punk rock to keep the kids interested, and just enough melody to attract everybody else, this Columbus, Ohio quartet has made the leap from independent record labels to Warner Bros., to relatively strong success. And even jazz is well-represented by means of post-bop pianist Mose Allison, another Mississippi man. Renowned storytelling style akin to his Delta blues cousins, Allison brings his tongue-in-cheek sense of humor to the Jazz Showcase Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Here's the play: Since Mose Allison plays the entire weekend, set aside Friday or Sunday for him. Start early Saturday at the Bottle with the kids show, or if that doesn't appeal to you, hit the Bottle early enough for Splitlip Rayfield's nighttime set to check out opener Hogan. Then hightail it to the Double Door, because T-Model Ford should not be missed. Since he's the opening act, you should have time to see some of R.L. Burnside before departing to Lounge Ax, where you should be just in time to catch roughly half of Gaunt.
And if paying three cover charges in one night will put you in Ramen-eating hell for a week, screw everybody else and just go see T-Model. The rest should be back, but T-Model's getting up in years.

The Chicago Tribun had a snippet about Kelly in the May 15, 1998 issue, announcing a show :

: KELLY HOGAN HAPPY TO BE BACK IN A BAND By Kevin McKeough After spending the '90s singing in the Jody Grind, Rock*A*Teens and as a solo artist, Kelly Hogan decided she needed a change. A year ago, the lifelong Atlantan, in her words, "came up here to shut up and not work out at all." It didn't last. "I didn't like not having a band," Hogan says. "It got to where I'd see a band and want to ambush the singer in the bathroom and put on her clothes and come back out, `Hel-Lo!' So I had to get my own band before somebody got hurt." Even before Hogan put together her new group in January, her bright, warm soprano had her popping up around Chicago. She's been a guest vocalist at concerts by the likes of the Indigo Girls, John Wesley Harding, Dale Watson and Jon Langford. "I like that a lot," she says of these duets. "I like all different kinds of music." And Hogan's wide-ranging tastes have been reflected in her own work, which has incorporated jazz, rock, R&B, folk and country. Her new band is more single-minded but still idiosyncratic. Hogan recruited John Forbes and Jason Benson, the guitarist and drummer from local avant-rockers Mt. Shasta, but instead of mimicking Mt. Shasta's concussive assault, the trio plays torch songs that flare up into three-alarm fires. "I like dynamics, I like lots of drama," Hogan says of her approach, "lots of R&B ballads with lots of stops." The music's abrupt mood swings match Hogan's bemused accounts of love and loss, which are more likely to emphasize how a person screwed things up than articulate post break-up melancholy. "That's the story of my life," Hogan ruefully admits. "I'm constantly shooting muself in the foot . . . trying so hard, meaning well, but . . . love, it doesn't seem to make any sense." Rather than despair over her missteps, Hogan finds the humor in them, bringing a light, playful delivery to her droll lyrics. "I try not to take things too seriously, (to address) a serious subject with a better perspective," she says. "The horrible stuff happens to everybody," Hogan points out, but as her grandmother likes to say, "I'm still vertical."

From the New City Chicago web site, announcing a 5/15/98 show :

: Kelly Hogan is an interesting case. This Atlanta native is rooted in the current country-rock climate. She's got that sweet Southern tang to her voice, as anybody who's ever heard her harmonize in concert behind Neko Case or Rudy Day can testify. Since a lot of the female "insurgent" country singers all sound like either Joan Baez or Ellie Mae Clampett, Hogan's velvet tones are worth hearing. She covers songs by Oscar Brown Jr. and such fringe jazz singers as Lou Rawls and Nancy Wilson (not the Heart guitarist!) without sounding ironic or out of her element. She's backed up by a guitarist and drummer who sound incredible, although some of the faster numbers scream for a whiplash bassline. An album is not forthcoming, at least not yet, but she's starting to pop up in the clubs often, so there's no excuse to miss her. (James Porter)