THE MIDNIGHT COMMANDER WAS HERE
Master singer-songwriter brings new myths to Las Vegas to tilt at 21st century windmills.

Kray Van Kirk, who will be playing two shows on 6 & 12-string guitar at the Clark County Library Theater (1 p.m.) and the West Charleston Library Lecture Hall (6 p.m.) on Wednesday, April 26th, left a career in the sciences to write songs in which everyone, of any identity or history or creed, can know that they are on the Hero’s Journey. A fine finger-style guitarist with a precise baritone and roots in the Celtic tradition, Van Kirk obtained his doctorate in quantitative modeling from the University of Alaska. Coming off five years of living in his van and playing music across the US and Canada, he thought that a career in the sciences might be a bit more secure than playing music for a living, especially as a single parent. Eventually, however, he realized that healing the world was primarily a matter of the heart, not the head, and he put aside his computer, picked up his guitar, and set out again.

 "The evening’s act was Kray Van Kirk, whose 12-string guitar and soaring vocals were spellbinding. The Alaskan singer-songwriter, in his Edinburgh debut, was not the reason I arrived early, but was certainly why I stayed late."   
Daily Fringe Review, Edinburgh, Scotland

Van Kirk, however, is not your average crying-in-your-coffee singer-songwriter. "Stories define how we see the world," he says, “and we need new myths and new stories for the 21st century to make it clear that humanity is all of us. Heroes are not the domain of straight white men. Queer, trans, straight, black, brown and everything else - all of us have a verse in the shouted poetry of dawn.”

“Magical would be my word to describe it."
Portland Folk Music Society, Portland, Oregon

Thus his songs: Thunderbird resurrects the Phoenix in an empty desert diner in the American Southwest (yes, the Phoenix drives a Thunderbird), The Queen of Elfland plucks Thomas the Rhymer from the English-Scottish border in 1250 and drops him and the Queen into a subway car, The Library Song has Superman moonlighting among the stacks, and The Midnight Commander celebrates an insane old man leading the city of New York to take up arms (and underwear) against hatred.

Of this charming, Quixotic, and decidedly eclectic performer, the Borderline Folk Club in New York wrote “...it is what every singer-songwriter should aspire to.”