The Skins at the Bowery Electric

Left to right: Daisy Spencer, Bayli Mckeithan, Kaya Nico Mckeithan

Three teenaged siblings, all students at the School of Rock, began jamming in their basement in Brooklyn, New York. The oldest of the three, Bayli Mckeithan, was interested in guitar but wound up singing, Kaya Nico Mckeithan, took to the bass, and baby brother Keef Cole Mckeithan played the drums. Schoolmate Daisy Spencer, a guitarist, saw a video of the Mckeithans covering Wolfmother and the Rolling Stones, and asked if she could jam. She brought schoolmate and guitarist Russell Chell. As the Skins in 2011, the School of Rock quintet played at school events and local gigs and released a three-song self-titled EP in 2012. Over time, the Skins scored opening slots on festival dates and national tours. The Skins' second EP, the five-song Still Sleep, was released on December 16, 2016.

The five musicians in the Skins are still quite young, aged 18 to 25, but they made a big, mature sound at the Bowery Electric tonight as part of the mondo.nyc festival. Perhaps due to the Skins' recent collaborations with producer Rick Rudin and rapper D.R.A.M., the band showed that it is drifting beyond its classic blues rock origins and closing in on more urban sounds, indulging now in a stronger taste for rhythm and blues, funk, and hip hop. The musicians grafted these sounds well for an intoxicating blend hard rock and smooth soul. The Skins' enthusiastic and effervescent spirit was very alive and enrapturing, as the audience chanted back lyric phrases to these newer songs. The combustion was hot; this ultramodern-sounding multi-genre quintet was on fire, and given the right window, the Skins will burst into the mainstream in a massive flame.

Visit the Skins at www.theskins.com.

Setlist:

1. Intro
2. Or Whatever
3. Go Off
4. I
5. Runaway
6. Bury Me
7. FWM Heavy (?)
8. Friends
9. Kid
10. Underneath
11. Out for Love
12. With My People