Anyone who records a CD in Berkeley, Dublin, and Portland, Ore., should be called adventurous - and unique. And the CD itself is unique: mostly short excerpts of songs. Thirty seconds here, a minute there, a radio interview about playing benefits for kids without basketball hoops over there.
You can tell Kellogg is a heck of a finger-picking guitarist, who claims Captain Beefheart as an influence. I'm just not sure he writes beginnings or endings to his songs. The only full song is the instrumental "Poor Boy", an old Bukka White blues song. It's only two minutes, but it's obvious that Kellogg's acoustic slide playing is rich and full enough to sound at times like two guys playing.
So despite being the most cutting-edge music writer in the Western hemisphere who insists on delivering only the latest music news, I'm forced to go back to 1998. That was when Kellogg released "Passive-Aggressive", on his own Hands Solo Records. There are real songs and real parts and everything. It's full of big chunky trips up and down the fretboard, seemingly Kellogg's forte. Adding slide and well-placed harmonics to the mix make it a little mind-bending.
Kellogg almost sounds like a Hawaiian slack-key player playing the blues. He's quite good - plus he named a song "The Song I Played at my Wedding". I wish I'd thought of that. For most of us, that would mean spending a long time at the Ramada Inn on a "Brick House" binge.
Where Kellogg can capture the airiness of slack-key, he frequently turns a nasty blues riff on a musical dime. He can obviously cover a wide range of moods (the CD is called "Passive-Aggressive", after all).
Most of his songs are original instrumentals, but he does at times sing stream-of-consciousness lyrics with with an occasional sneer that would sound right at home at a poetry reading.
Kellogg is just getting back on the live music train, after hand and arm trouble kept him from playing for nearly a year. (Hands and arms are important to guitarists.) The problems started when he made the transition from sit-down player to a stand-up player - which reinforces the idea that it's better to sit around whenever possible.
"I kind of played it to death," Kellogg said. "It caused a nerve in my shoulder to go freaky. My whole arm and fingers went numb for about five months. I'm just getting back."
Kellogg's stuff is clearly geared toward a live audience. Check out how
the rehabilitation is going at (an upcoming show). Or go to philkellogg.com."