Ken Kase

Ken Kase was born in Bridgeport, CT and raised in the nearby suburb of Trumbull. He moved to St. Charles, MO in 1985 while still in high school and has called the city of St. Louis his home since 1995. By the time he was eighteen he could play guitar, bass, keyboards and drums and sing passably enough to begin working as a musician in 1988, playing in several bar bands in the St. Louis area and gaining experience. In 1992 he founded The Groupers as a vehicle for original songs, fronting the band on guitar. They played together until 1994 when Kase briefly joined the Sun Sawed in 1/2, but left the power pop band the following year to form his own group. Between 1995 and 2008, the Ken Kase Group would form and reform, releasing three critically acclaimed CDs and playing for audiences in St. Louis, Chicago, Memphis, Kansas City and Philadelphia. Kase rejoined the Sun Sawed in 1/2 in 1999 to record the band's fifth album, Bewilderbeest. He has been involved with the band's subsequent albums ever since, creating vocal arrangements and singing. Kase received a camera as a gift in 2011 and started taking pictures. This was a surprising development, given that he is legally blind. Kase has a congenital condition called achromatopsia which is characterized by a lack of color vision and sensitivity to light. This brings a unique perspective to his photos. He has exhibited his work and two of his photos can be seen on the album covers for Dark Signal and the upcoming Birthday People album Welcome to the Poorhouse. See Ken's photos here. Read An Achromat's Tale, Ken's essay about living with achromatopsia. In 2012, he published a book of poems called Seven Sonnets in a limited edition that was illustrated by the cartoonist John Blair Moore. In 2014, he created the musical entity Corpus Alienum as an outlet for his instrumental music, releasing three sometimes funky, always experimental albums featuring Kase playing multiple instruments. Kase is also part of The Birthday People, a duo with musician and songwriter Mike Schrand that has released three albums since 2014. The songs are written by Schrand with Kase providing support as co-producer, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist. Their third album, Welcome to the Poorhouse, will be released on August 10th, 2021. Kase is currently working on the Sun Sawed in 1/2's seventh album, Triptych, which will be released later in 2021.