The Milk Carton Kids are a duo hailing from Eagle Rock, California, United States who formed in 2011. The band have released three albums of delicate, close harmony Americana and have toured with everyone from The Lumineers to Old Crow Medicine Show as a result.
Proving that two heads are indeed better than one, The Milk Carton Kids are made up of two singer songwriters who joined forces after failing to find fortune as solo acts. Kenneth Pattengale met Joey Ryan at one of his solo shows, and after becoming firm friends, the duo decided to start writing songs together. The songs that wrote together proved better than a lot of what they came up with solo, so they decided to form a band and take them on tour very soon afterwards. Their first record came out in March 2011, and “Retrospect” was a live record recorded in Ventura, California before the nascent duo had even decided on a name. Shortly before joining the bill of that years SXSW Festival, Pattengale and Ryan decided on the name The Milk Carton Kids and were soon afterwards hitting the road full time, first as the opening act and backing band for fellow folk singer and songwriter Joe Purdy.
The shows with Purdy spread their name far and wide, and shortly after the tour the duo self-released their second album and first professionally recorded record “Prologue”. Ever since then, they’ve become the one of the most acclaimed acts in Americana, continuing to write and record massively acclaimed albums while touring with acts as prestigious as The Punch Brothers and the aforementioned Lumineers. 2013 saw the release of their second album “The Ash & Clay”, and it doesn’t seem like anything will be able to stop these phenomenal young songwriters any time soon. For that, they come highly recommended.
Rob de Boer
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