In 2022, In the Red Records released The Great Confrontation, an album of instrumental electronic music by Chip Kinman. It was Chip’s first solo album; his previous recording, This American Blues, by his band Ford Madox Ford, was issued just prior to the 2018 death of his brother Tony. The Kinmans had been partnered musically since they were teens, in a variety of now-legendary projects: the OG California punk band the Dils, the pathfinding cowpunk unit Rank and File, the ear-shattering electro-rock duo Blackbird, and the Western music twosome Cowboy Nation.
In the wake of The Great Confrontation, Chip and In the Red plotted another record. The resultant collection, Chip Kinman, is reflective, soulful, and profoundly affecting, a statement of identity and a look back at life that avoids the pitfalls that could derail an autobiographical work.
"I had to figure out something to write about, and I thought, it’s time to make that record," Chip says. "A long time ago, Tony and I were talking about singer-songwriters, and he said, ‘If you’re going to sing about your life, you better have had a fucking interesting life.’ And I thought, I have. I’ve gotta deep-dive into that. I figured, if I was going to write about what it was like, how was I gonna approach that? How was I going to say that without being nostalgic or without being maudlin or without being over-celebratory? It it was, well, just say it like it was."
The album features several moving, personal new songs: the heartfelt “Me and Tony,” about the Kinmans’ lifelong brotherly pursuit of music; “Goodbye Rock and Roll,” an account of a freshman summer fling with an “older woman”; and “So Young,” a look back at the Kinman crew’s nocturnal prowls of L.A. Looming mortality is touched on in “Brian,” a portrait of an L.A. musician coping with his partner’s death, and the staggering, literally cosmic finale “Forever Shining.”
As its self-declaratory title suggests, Chip Kinman was largely a solo work, with its author producing and also playing most of the instruments (including, for the first time, drums). But some old punk compatriots leant a hand: Alice Bag of the Bags and Juanita and Juan, In the Red’s duo act with Kid Congo, Cliff Roman of the Weirdos, Mike Watt of the Minutemen and Ford Madox Ford’s drummer S. Scott Aguero.
Chip says, “When I was writing I thought, ‘Who am I writing this for? Why am I still making records? Who’s gonna buy this record? Who’s gonna listen to this record?’ And I really wanted to make a record for people like you, people like me. I wanted to make a record for people who went through the same things I did, at the same time I did, who took that same musical journey at the same time I did. That’s really who the record’s for.”—Chris Morris, September 2025
