The Detroit Cobras' "Stay Down" b/w Kenny Tudrick's "Lightning Byrd" is the first release from Black River House Records.
Both songs, written and recorded by long-time drummer Kenny Tudrick, are greasy, shakin'-in-your-boots groovers!

Detroit Cobras pride themselves on finding obscure b-side gems and making them exciting for new generations.

The Detroit Cobras' "Stay Down" b/w Kenny Tudrick's "Lightning Byrd" is the first release from Black River House Records.
Both songs, written and recorded by long-time drummer Kenny Tudrick, are greasy, shakin'-in-your-boots groovers!

Detroit Cobras pride themselves on finding obscure b-side gems and making them exciting for new generations. This new source material arrives straight from their own long-time drummer, Kenny Tudrick, who wrote, produced, performed on and recorded the songs. He has been the drummer of the band since the early days, but he also has a solo career as an artist and producer. Playing and rearranging those forgotten rock’n’roll, r'n'b and soul songs for all these years, absorbing their feeling and groove, highly influenced his songwriting.

"Stay Down" is a groover, a spaghetti western influenced song originally written from a drum beat and vocals. "As soon as the song hit me I ran to the drums. I knew it was a Cobras tune" Kenny says, "Band even thought it was an obscure old song when I presented it to them"

"'Lightning Byrd' had a similar approach in the writing, and it felt like the perfect flipside. As Jerry Wexler would say, I concentrated on the 'impact scenario', when the needle drops on the record"

Both tracks are the first to come out of the Black River House recording studio, personally built by Kenny and his friend, Al Sutton over two painstaking years. They refurbished an old RCA tube console by hand, similar to the one that was used in Sun Studios. This release is the first of many to come from The Black River House and on his new label, Black River House Records.

KENNY TUDRICK
KT

This Michigan songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has done a lot in little time. He drummed with The Detroit Cobras and King Tuff, backed Rodriguez, reluctantly played guitar and wrote with Kid Rock and The Go, and fronted popular Detroit combos—all while tussling with his own addictions. Then he quit everything and in early

KENNY TUDRICK
KT

This Michigan songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has done a lot in little time. He drummed with The Detroit Cobras and King Tuff, backed Rodriguez, reluctantly played guitar and wrote with Kid Rock and The Go, and fronted popular Detroit combos—all while tussling with his own addictions. Then he quit everything and in early 2012 wrote and recorded this solo debut: a double-album stunner so rich with restraint and earned wisdom that there isn’t a song here that Steve Earle or Chris Robinson wouldn’t have been ecstatic to write. Tudrick distills the essence of classic Laurel Canyon—Graham Nash, Neil Young, and The Band’s brown album—into spine-tinglers that tell of a life filled with the small redemptions that could’ve only been written after one overcomes a life-threatening war with himself. Tudrick handles the instrumentation here too, with occasional low-key musical support from Detroit stars such as Patti Smith’s guitarist son, Jackson. The songs ache (“Lightening Lights the Way,” "Bird That Flew”), lift (“Angel’s Pass”), rock (“Can’t Be Saved”), mellow out (“Moonshine”), and drone (“Colorblind”). One of 2012’s best.

Singer/songwriter Kenny Tudrick struts country-soul–tinged rock ’n’ rollers as well as mournful ballads that resonate far beyond their melancholy chord changes and Neil Young–style folk beats. What’s more, this Tudrick kid (who's played with everyone from King Tuff to Kid Rock to Rodriguez to The Go, and who resembles a young Gram Parsons) could

Singer/songwriter Kenny Tudrick struts country-soul–tinged rock ’n’ rollers as well as mournful ballads that resonate far beyond their melancholy chord changes and Neil Young–style folk beats. What’s more, this Tudrick kid (who's played with everyone from King Tuff to Kid Rock to Rodriguez to The Go, and who resembles a young Gram Parsons) could inform another half-dozen albums based on his own tough life experiences. Here, he achingly sings of good old-fashioned heartbreak (“Just a Knife in the Back”), exceeding his own limitations (“Crash and Burn”), and living alone in trail-dust country (“South Dakota Sad Eye”). There’s some Nashville shuffle (“Shelter”), a loner anthem (“Badlands”), and Lennonesque rock debauchery (“Blinded”). And damn if “Firefly” isn’t the most beautiful song you’ve never heard. This beautifully executed 11-song stunner feels like a dusty stroll through Topanga Canyon in 1971. (It was first released in 2004 and features Black Crowes organist Eddie Harsch and unsung pedal steel player Pete Ballard.) Old guys like Young and David Crosby could do well to phone up Tudrick for new songs. No joke.