The Germantown Performing Arts Center is excited to announce the upcoming performance of Grammy-nominated folk duo the Milk Carton Kids.
Singer-guitarists Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan will perform in the Duncan-Williams Performance Hall on Saturday, January 21, 2023 at 8:00 p.m.
Listening to The Milk Carton Kids talk about their creative process, it’s easy to imagine them running in opposite directions even while yoked together. “Joey and I famously have an adversarial relationship,” Pattengale says. They have been known to argue about everything from song choices and wardrobe to geography and grammar. They dig at each other in interviews and on stage, where Joey plays his own straight man while Kenneth tunes his guitar.
Their singing is the place where they make room for each other and the shared identity that rises out of their combined voices. Defying the conventions of melody and harmony is a strategy The Milk Carton Kids have consciously embraced. “Sometimes we’ll switch parts for a beat or a bar or a note,” Joey says. “And that starts to obfuscate what is the melody and what is the supporting part because we think of both of them being strong enough to stand alone.”
The Milk Carton Kids have been nominated for three Grammy Awards for Best Folk Album, Best American Roots Performance, and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. Together since 2011, the band has released six albums: Retrospect, Prologue, The Ash & Clay, Monterey, All the Things That I Did and All the Things That I Didn’t Do, and The Only Ones. As their most recent release, The Only Ones showcases the core of what they are about musically – the duo – as the pair performs a stripped-down acoustic set without a backing band.
“It is always a fun evening when this musically harmonious – if a bit humorously adversarial – duo take the stage,” said Paul Chandler, Executive Director of GPAC. “We are delighted to welcome the Milk Carton Kids to the GPAC Main Stage.”
Tickets are on sale now at the GPAC website or by calling the box office at (901)751-7500.
Check out their 2012 performance on NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert: