Born late
1. The big shill
2. (Your love came in) stillborn
3. Catheter
4. Waiting for the muse
5. Junkie
6. Homing beacon
7. Pearl onions
8. Existentialism
9. Sweet misanthrope
10. Oh my love
11. Roadside virgin
12. Stagger into am

 What do you think of John Kessel?
Oh my love is for John
Kessel
Born late, born great
Existentialism
I think he is waiting for his
muse
I wish he had been a
kamikaze

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John Kessel
If the authenticity quotient of the Blues relates to the amount of suffering incurred, songwriter John Kessel is entitled to a shrine on the Mississippi Delta. In 1997 alone, he had his job of eight years surreptitiously yanked from him, his bag (master tapes and all) checked and given away by a Staples clerk, and was nearly beaten to death by members of his audience. A boarder in his apartment attacked him, framed him for petty larceny, squatted for six months, sent him to Rikers Island for a week (records lost in computer), left him homeless for three months (Kessel breaks his foot during this period), and robbed him on the way out. John Kessel also released his debut album in June of that year.
13. Born in the summer of love
14. Like a kamikaze
15. O.g.m.9.19.90
If what John Kessel does is the Blues, it is important to note that his music is an educated Blues, morphed through decades of jazz, rock & roll, country, funk, protest songs, Tin Pan Alley, and punk post-modernism. Although primarily a guitarist, his one-man-band application indicates a producer's gift of using the studio as an evocative instrument.
Kessel's songwriting is chock-full of Dylanesque wordplay, satiric humor, unspoken truths, lump-in-the-throat poignancy, venomous indictments, torrid passion, barbed manifestoes and torrential melodies.
"Born Late" is a loose collection of songs John Kessel recorded in New York City between 1987 and 1994. It includes his single "Existentialism", originally released in 1985. The album ranges sonically from an answering machine to 4-track cassette to a 24-track studio, indicating his "do or die" D.I.Y. ethic.
John Kessel has been gigging since 1980. As a sideman he has performed live backing the False Prophets, Corey Glover and Jello Biafra, and with Daniel Johnston on a live WFMU radio broadcast. Some of the groups Kessel has joined and recorded with include Milk, Hope (later D Generation), Huge and the Continuous Cocktail Hour. He has had his poetry published in UHF magazine and hosted the Art Around the Park festival in NYC's Tompkins Square Park in 1995. He can also be heard on the score of the independent film "Channel Surfing", directed by Matt Henderson.
John Kessel moved back into his loft in Brooklyn. His foot healed and he went back to work. And he's making his blues work for him. Either solo or with his band Surplu$, formed in 1994, he continues to play.