Craig Kinsey

Craig Kinsey once sought the marrow form a life as an ascetic monk in the great silence of a Catholic monastery in the Ozark Mountains.

He received an education via a moonshiner’s daughter in Kentucky where the kitchen table was filled with “money, playing cards, and knives” and southern folklore filled the air. This family influence instilled in Kinsey a fascination with medicine shows, saints, outlaws, and the dynamic of hobos and traveling revival tents. A voyager at heart, he train hopped, walked, and drove across the country in search of “the old days of Guthrie, Kerouac, and John Lee Hooker.”

Kinsey’s focus on spiritual and sociological pursuits showed him hesitant to occupy the musician’s lifestyle; yet, his emergence on the Americana Music scene is a direct result of said pursuits.

Forming the band the Sideshow Tramps with fellow classmates, developed skills gleaned from this study and orchestrated the ecstatic and now historic shows. It was an era and the beginning of a music scene that Kinsey still holds near and dear to his heart as it was birthed from live performances.

“It’s important for me to use psychology and music to produce the kind of ecstasy spoken of in ancient Greece, the writings of Nietzsche, worldwide tribal rituals” Kinsey states. “The education was crucial as the Sideshow Tramps incited such enthusiasm from the large crowds.

“It’s rock and roll, naked blues, apocalyptic choirs, a township chanting just at the edge of our awareness.