When we saw a barefooted guy in overalls tuning an acoustic guitar before the Bow-Legged Gorilla's set, we thought we had a good idea of what to expect from the last act of the night. Then, after a couple minutes of sitting at the bar and listening to a ridiculously fleet human beatbox routine, we realized that it wasn't the soundman throwing on a weird choice of background music, but the barefooted guitarist himself making music with his mouth. We've always thought of Shodekeh as having the title of Baltimore's best beatboxer sewn up, but he might have some serious competition; this guy was fucking amazing.
Combining acoustic guitar with an art form as inextricably tied to hip-hop as beatboxing seems like an odd match; at worst, it conjures up the terrible blues-rap of Everlast's career. But the Bow-Legged Gorilla has found a way to fuse two divergent skill sets into an original sound that works on a purely musical level, instead of predicating itself on a culture-clash gimmick. He'd sing or rap, all while incredibly beatboxing between syllables, and then go off on long instrumental tangents in which his fretwork and oral percussion would meld into complex arrangements of rhythm and melody. When he announced plans to play one last song, then changed his mind a second later and decided that was the end of his brief set, we were left only wanting to hear more of his bizarre, brilliant sound.
Bringing an urban slant to the one-man band, the Bow Legged Gorilla brings his considerable beatboxing chops into a mix that includes acoustic guitar, foot operated accordion, singing and song writing. The interplay of words and vocal percussion adds a dimension to his groove-laden sound that allows occasional glimpses of poetry to emerge between the cracks. The restless creative energy keeps things fresh as he stubbornly avoids folding the beats or the guitar parts into a supporting role. Such restlessness occasionally lapsed into unfocused playing, but the hint of focus behind this sound showed enormous promise as the Gorilla hits his stride. This was a good set that felt like an early glimpse of an emerging phenomenon.
The night was christened with a six-minute set from rapper/beat-boxer/multi-instrumentalist The Bow-Legged Gorilla. For about the first two minutes I looked around for a laptop, or a mixer, or a pedal, but to my amazement all the rapid-fire beat projections were emanating from the mouth of a rather unlikely rhythm machine, a white guy who looks to be in his mid-20s, sporting a tan, tiedyed T-shirt, and named Kenny. Now, I’ve seen a good share of beat-boxers for a dude who was once in an R.E.M. cover band, and let me tell you, this guy is good. After creepily following him to find out more, The Bow-Legged Gorilla graciously responded to my nagging: “I’ve been doing this for nine years.” All I can think is, “Why isn’t this guy on the front cover of the City Paper?” His CD release party is June 20 at SCarey Studios. Go.
my best friends father accused me of looking like a bowlegged gorilla eight years ago, he saw me walking down the street and said, "that boy kenny, he looks like a Bow Legged Gorilla", and ever since then thats what i've bin called.
when i play music i see colors
