Chicago’s Devon Kay and the Solutions are one of my favorite new band discoveries this year, and their EP Never Punt still gets a lot of play over at the Punks in Vegas household. The band is unfortunately too far away to make coming in for an acoustic session possible, and since they thought my suggestion of investing in a DK & the S jet was economically irresponsible, they did the next best thing and sent over a brand new Holiday song for our Holiday Stripped Down series.
The song is called Decemeberween, and you can stream it here now and download it December 20th on our compilation to benefit the Manilow Music Project’s efforts to keep music education in public schools.
Kay hopes you’ll donate to the Manilow Music Project this holiday season because, “Our time in high school, whether we like to admit it or not, helps shape the kind of person we become in the future. Regardless if you study your ass off and get into the school of your choosing, pave your own path by taking the road less traveled, or hang out and smoke pot behind the bleachers, high school helps us develop and grow into the adults that we are today. I know for a fact if I wasn’t cutting class and playing music or making dumb videos I wouldn’t be fighting for my dream today. As much as I’d like to say it’s so, I didn’t do it by myself. My choral director, musical theater instructor and other music faculty helped nurture and shape my ideas for the future. The unfortunate truth is, music and arts are almost always cut first from school’s curriculums. Had I not lived in my school’s music department, I’d probably be a mixed up loser offering handies underneath the El tracks for my next fix. I urge everyone to maintain music and arts within the schools so we can continue shaping the minds of tomorrow’s visionaries. Don’t let something as precious as the arts go away in our public school systems, I fear it will make the world a little more gray and unsettling.”
If you’re feeling extra generous, you can also head over to the Devon Kay and the Solutions Kickstarter page and pledge money towards the recording of a new split with The Ambulance Review. Benefits for donating range from vinyl and t-shirts to a personally recorded acoustic song by Devon.
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