Who are the Kids of Widney High? – Music to Watch Out For

They’re the world-famous Kids of Widney High (you can check them out on MySpace here). They’ve been covered by the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, the Aquabats, and Osaka Popstar (made up of members of the Misfits, Black Flag, the Voidoids, and the Ramones), they’ve worked with both Mike Patton (of Faith No More and Mr. Bungle) and Jackson Browne, and they’re a favorite underground band of the likes of Fiona Apple, Marilyn Manson, and Spike Jonze.

So, why don’t you know who they are?

Recently featured in the hit comedy THE RINGER, starring Johnny Knoxville and Katherine Heigl (in which the Kids are, coincidentally, the Ramones to the movie’s ROCK ‘N ROLL HIGH SCHOOL), the Kids of Widney High are a group of young adults with developmental disabilities who write, record, and perform their own unique brand of rock music. They are the best of what truly independent American music is offering these days, and they are also probably the last true vestige of incarnate Outsider Music. By this I mean that, following in the footsteps of the likes of Florence Foster Jenkins, Wesley Willis, and Daniel Johnston, the Kids play music not necessarily because they’re the “best damn singers in the world,” but rather because they have a fervent passion and love of the art, an innocent perspective on the world untainted by commonplace ethos or rhetoric, and an inimitable way of articulating how they experience the world in which we live.

Having three albums already out and about, the Kids have just released their latest record, a live album entitled KIDS OF WIDNEY HIGH: LIVE FROM THE KEY CLUB. After recording a number of live concerts at the famed Key Club on Sunset, the album was put together with a brilliant and smooth mix, giving long-time listeners and newbies alike a chance to finally experience the awe-inspiring and effervescent splendor of going to a live Kids of Widney High show–with all their raw power, occasional mess-ups, comical chattering, and truly “singular” epigrams.

It’s a phrase that’s thrown around often these days, but the Kids of Widney High truly are unlike anything else on the scene; and they’re more than simply a colorful gimmick: they have the gift, and through listening you too will become one of their many worshipful fanatics.

So, check out the Kids of Widney High and their new album (available now on their website and MySpace site). You can also catch them at their official CD release party at–where else?–the Key Club on Sunset on November 13th.