This Thanksgiving Eve you'll need to buy shots for Kyle Knapp and Chris Cusentino. Here's why.
No. 1: Their country-rock-folk band The Turkeys plays at Southgate House. No. 2: The gig is a fundraiser for a public school. And No. 3: They release a new album, "It's Gonna Rain," on the "Biggest Drinking Night of the Year." (How awesomely clever.)
It's gonna rain
Let's jog your memory for a moment: You've seen Knapp and Cusentino. They're fixtures in MainStrasse Village, the Simon and Garfunkel of Covington.
At Zola Bar and Grill, these Turkeys are the Thursday special. Knapp and Cusentino also play solo or as a band at Cosmo's, Fat Shannon's, Village Pub and Cock and Bull.
So why don't they live in the village if they gig there five nights a week?
"I did - that's why I don't," Knapp laughs. "It was great because I could walk to all my gigs ... but I never left."
"The key! He never left," Cusentino adds.
"It was getting to the point where it would take me 15 minutes to walk a block because I had to stop and say hi to everybody," Knapp remembers.
While the duo entertains bar crowds, it's far from a cover band.
It's Gonna Rain reveals the rockin' side of the duo - electric guitars and drums replace the acoustics and violins that dominated its debut album, Every Night's the Same.
"To some degree, it was by design that this album was more pop," Cusentino says. "I definitely wanted to do more rocking, dancing songs."
Says Knapp: "It's funny because the first song on the album, 'Southern Skies,' was as simple of a folk song as you could imagine, and then it got morphed into a cool bit."
Memorial Fund
When Eric Pohlgeers passed away in May at age 38, The Turkeys lost a good friend. That's why they and a few close friends set up the Eric Pohlgeers Memorial Fund, a benefit for alternative learning school Linden Grove School in Blue Ash, where Pohlgeers taught and worked with his sister Lou McKibbin. Proceeds from The Turkeys' Thanksgiving Eve show will benefit the memorial fund.
Knapp and Cusentino considered Pohlgeers a notable personality in MainStrasse Village.
"He would always help us carry our speakers out to our car, always help clean up the bar. He's really missed," Cusentino says.
"If you were ever jonesing for Pez," Knapp says, "he was the guy to see."
