It’s been said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture. The idea is that some things are just what they are and it’s nearly impossible to define using any outside criteria.
For singer songwriter Kevin Johansen and cartoonist Liniers, the lines are a little less defined even when they’re drawn in dark ink. They perform, each in their own way, simultaneously, together, yet apart. They played last week at Sony Hall in Midtown Manhattan - a grand, elegant looking room just beneath Times Square.
Johansen was born in Alaska to an Argentine mother and an American father. During the nearly ten years that he lived in New York in the 1990s he developed a musical concept that blends languages and genres. He sings in English and Spanish and combines elements of rock, folk and South American folklore.
He says, “I had accumulated an audience in New York and I was hammering at it. So that was really like my school, you know, it kind of came to fruition toward the end of the 90s. I had been able to get close to what I wanted to be on stage, and my persona.”
Kevin showcased that persona, a kind of clever, happy go lucky regular guy who just happens to be fluent in multiple languages and styles, on his album The Nada, which he recorded at CBGBs. The album included his now beloved anthem “Mc Guevara’s o Che Donalds” which raises the question of how Che Guevara would feel about seeing his image printed on t-shirts and posters for sale in America.
Although The Nada was recorded in New York, Kevin released it in Argentina and soon he was playing for audiences of thousands in South America. His success in the south was both understandable to him and a bit confounding as well.
“I kind of laugh at myself because I’m like this ‘slash songwriter’ ‘slash world music’ guy with a gringo name,” he muses.
Despite his gringo name, Kevin’s music started to reach a wider audience, including a well-known cartoonist named Ricardo Liniers Siri who goes simply by “Liniers”. The two developed an attachment which endures over two decades later.
Kevin says, “I love the guy. He’s someone that I recommend you become friends with. He’s very generous.”
Liniers, who moved from Argentina to Vermont eight years ago, jokes that he had to leave South America to get away from his friend.
“We really don’t like each other so we could stand living in the same country only for like 10 years and then one of us [had to] get out.”
This playful banter is at the heart of their duo performances, which quite literally draw on their mutual appreciation for one another. While Kevin sings and plays guitar Liniers creates live works of art inspired by the songs, which are projected onto a screen behind them. And although the two know the material intimately, they maintain a flexible attitude in their show.
“There is always something that happens in the show or that someone brings, like ‘I’m gonna do this today’” explains Liniers.
For Liniers, the project is especially meaningful because it gets him out of the house. “I’m alone in a room all day drawing,” he says.
For Johansen, it’s a question of complementary forms of creative expression. “Liniers does something that you can’t hear, and you can’t see what I do - music is invisible, it’s intangible,” he says.
Listening to a cartoon, watching a song, dancing about architecture, flirting with disaster, whatever you call it, Kevin Johansen and Liniers are enjoying themselves and it’s contagious.
