Brenda Kahn is a NYC-based singer-songwriter known for her poetic lyrics. Her career began in 1990, when her first album, Goldfish Don't Talk Back, was released to critical acclaim. Her punk-tinged folk music led to a major label deal with the Chaos label at Columbia Records

Columbia Records

Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

, and in 1992, Kahn released Epiphany in Brooklyn

Epiphany in Brooklyn

Epiphany in Brooklyn is singer-songwriter Brenda Kahn's 2nd full length album, released in 1992.-Track listing:#I Don't Sleep, I Drink Coffee Instead#Mojave Winters#She's In Love#Anesthesia#Mint Juleps And Needles#My Lover...

. This album, which featured Kahn's darkly humorous stories of love, confusion, and tragedy in urban America, was heralded by critics and fans throughout the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 (People magazine compared her to the Violent Femmes

Violent Femmes

Violent Femmes were an American alternative rock band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, initially active between 1980 and 1987 and again from 1988 to 2009...

 and Patti Smith

Patti Smith

Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist, who became a highly influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses....

) and Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 (major French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 press heralded the coming of "La Baronne de Brooklyn.") Creem dubbed her "the high priestess of the apocalyptic relationship." Kahn was selected to open up for Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

 and The Kinks

The Kinks

The Kinks were an English rock band formed in Muswell Hill, North London, by brothers Ray and Dave Davies in 1964. Categorised in the United States as a British Invasion band, The Kinks are recognised as one of the most important and influential rock acts of the era. Their music was influenced by a...

, toured the US and Europe, and seemed on the brink of stardom.

Chaos Records folded just two weeks before Kahn's awaited third release, the rock-tinged "Destination Anywhere". Her next two albums, both featuring more electric guitar

Electric guitar

An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...

, were released under the NYC independent label Shanachie Records

Shanachie Records

Shanachie Records was founded in 1976 by Richard Nevins and Dan Collins. According to Harvey Pekar , it is one of the largest independent record labels in the world, and is currently distributed by E1 Music. Starting as a label that specialized in fiddle music, they began releasing work by Celtic...

, and continued to tour Europe (particularly Germany), the east coast and midwest through the late 1990s.
She performed at Lilith Fair

Lilith Fair

Lilith Fair was a concert tour and travelling music festival, founded by Canadian musician Sarah McLachlan, Nettwerk Music Group's Dan Fraser and Terry McBride, and New York talent agent Marty Diamond. It took place during the summers of 1997 to 1999, and was revived in the summer of 2010. It...

 in 1998 and 1999. In 1999, Kahn founded Womanrock.com, Inc, an online magazine and music store designed to unite and empower female artists and give tips on how to navigate through the record industry. That same year, she self-released her 5th album, the acoustic and spoken word Hunger, which was a tribute to her late friend Jeff Buckley

Jeff Buckley

Jeffrey Scott "Jeff" Buckley , raised as Scotty Moorhead, was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He was the son of Tim Buckley, also a musician...

.

Albums

• Goldfish Don't Talk Back (1990, Community 3)
• Epiphany in Brooklyn
  Epiphany in Brooklyn
  Epiphany in Brooklyn is singer-songwriter Brenda Kahn's 2nd full length album, released in 1992.-Track listing:#I Don't Sleep, I Drink Coffee Instead#Mojave Winters#She's In Love#Anesthesia#Mint Juleps And Needles#My Lover...
  
  (1992 Chaos)
• Destination Anywhere (1996 Shanachie)
• Outside the Beauty Salon (1997 Shanachie)
• Hunger (1999 Rocket 99)
• Seven Laws of Gravity (2010 Law of Seven)

EPs & singles

• Hey Romeo (vinyl 7" single)
• 60 Second Critic (with Dave Pirner
  Dave Pirner
  David Anthony "Dave" Pirner is an American songwriter, singer, and producer best known for being the lead vocalist and frontman for the alternative rock/grunge band, Soul Asylum.-Biography:...
  
  )
• Life in the Drug War Trenches (1992 Crackpot) (vinyl 7" single)
• "Anesthesia" (1993 Chaos)
• King of Cairo (1994 Chaos)
• Remington

External links

• Brenda Kahn's new (2006) official site
• Brenda Kahn Tumblr Blog Picture blog, with news and music videos
• BrendaKahn3 YahooGroup News and pic trading group