Based in San Francisco, Kevin Dickerson is a guitarist, singer and songwriter who makes meandering and sometimes meta- songs that offer a memoirist’s dedication to the documentation of everyday life. Dickerson writes in a stream-of-consciousness style, songs full of mundane details and stray thoughts and small asides, songs often about writing songs, about breaking for lunch or stopping at the store or watching a news report on TV. But in Dickerson’s hands these mundane details sparkle with gentle light, a poignancy we all recognise but would struggle to describe.
The latest Kevin Dickerson single, Guadalupe Rivera Marín, follows a similar blueprint, beginning as he struggles to hang curtain poles and take out the recycling, before following as he attends an event to hear the title character (daughter of Diego Rivera and step-daughter of Frida Kahlo) speak on Father’s Day. There, Marín emotionally recalls the death of her father, something which has a profound effect on Dickerson. “I went into the studio to record, and came out with a song about the experience,” he describes. “Like most of my songs, I don’t know what they’re going to be.”
The result is a track that combines guitars, bass and piano, as well as percussion from Jeff Sauer, to explore thoughts on family relationships and what Dickerson describes as the “vicious news cycle” we live in. He ruminates on everything from the death of Anthony Bourdain to the beaming of Stephen Hawking’s voice into space, but the central image is the simple joy of a brief conversation between Dickerson and his dad on Father’s Day.
The world has less patience than it used to doesn’t it?
I just called my dad and wished him “happy Father’s Day”
He was picking up a lawnmower that was out for repairs
He said he’s gotta keep the conversation short – it’s four o’clock, and the place closes at five
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Guadalupe Rivera Marín is available now via the Kevin Dickerson Bandcamp page.