“Music is about the feeling you get when listening to good music. It comes from an emotional place in the performer and creates a succession of feeling states in the listener,” Steve explains. “The mystery of this art, the paradox, and duality of its realization, lie in the translation between its creation as a unique and deeply personal statement from the performer, and its perception as common, universally held emotions by the listener.”
Like many people, Kimock at first, fell under the spell of The Beatles, but he also had an aunt, Dorothy Siftar, who played the Philadelphia Folk Festival with Pete Seeger, so his musical horizons were broadened at a young age. When a cousin came home from the service with a gold Les Paul, Kimock was hooked. He got a guitar and played it 12 hours a day, every day. He still does. “I occasionally put it down to take a shower or eat some food,” he jokes, but he’s still in love with the guitar and all its stringed relations.
After the usual high school bands, Kimock joined the Goodman Brothers Band. The group moved to California in 1976. Kimock’s first home was a cabin in Marin, directly behind the Ali Akbar Khan School of Music. Every morning he woke to the sound of sarods and sitars, inspiring the interest in the music of other cultures that still colors his own compositions. “I like music of cultures that predate the keyboard. I enjoy the natural temperament more than the 12 equal divisions of the octave. That’s why I like the blues.”
For the rest of his career Kimock has balanced his own bands with freelance session and touring work. After a stint with Martin Fierro in The Underdogs, he joined The Heart of Gold Band with Grateful Dead members Keith and Donna Godchaux and drummer Greg Anton. Kimock and Anton split to start Zero, a project that lasted 15 years. “The music was eclectic, instrumental but not jazz fusion, mostly with a folk/Americana flavor, but open to anything.”
Steve Kimock & Friends was both more focused and less formal than Zero. “We were R&B and blues based, more likely to cover old tunes than create new ones. A bar band without a bar.”
KVHW was collaboration with Bobby Vega, Alan Hertz and Ray White, a brilliant, but short-lived band with a set list of great covers and original compositions. Unfortunately, all the players became so busy that the band couldn’t survive.
Six years ago, Kimock put together the Steve Kimock Band. When Rodney Holmes joined five years ago, everything clicked into place. Following the release of the critically acclaimed Eudemonic CD, the Steve Kimock Band toured for two years with Rodney Holmes, Reed Mathis and Robert Walter.
Throughout 2006 and 2007, Kimock has been enjoying exploring new projects performing in various configurations with The Rhythm Devils, Banyan, New Monsoon, George Porter, Jr. and PBS, The Everyone Orchestra, ALO as well as reunion performances with ZERO and Bobby Vega (KVMW – with John Molo, and Ray White) as well as his current stint sitting in for Mark Karan in Bob Weir and Ratdog.
