Biography
Project Kate emerged as a fleeting New York venture built around Kate Reddy, the former guitarist in the Hare Krishna-inspired hardcore outfit 108, drawing in numerous figures from the East Coast hardcore community. Its material consisted of acoustically driven, laid-back ballads that conveyed Reddy’s intimate reflections on her parents, marriage, spirituality, and love. She captured the recordings while eight months pregnant, with the evident warmth, love, and affection for her growing family suffusing the straightforward yet sincere performances. Reddy first picked up acoustic guitar alongside her friend Shannon inside Shannon’s father’s basement in 1987. The Project Kate idea only took concrete shape in 1991, however, once she started collaborating with the Quicksand rhythm section of the period—drummer Alan Cage and bassist Sergio Vega, the latter of whom would issue solo work in 2000. The three participants casually labeled their basement rehearsals “Kate.” In July 1991 the trio laid down three tracks gratis at Centerfield Studio. Later that autumn Reddy returned alone to the same facility to record the song “California.” Quicksand’s subsequent major-label signing and intensified touring and recording schedule caused the project to dissolve. Reddy entered the Hare Krishna organization, joined 108, wed Equal Vision Records proprietor Steve Reddy, and began co-operating the label alongside him. The couple resolved to issue the original Project Kate demo, yet the tape had vanished. Engineer Mike Maineiri later recovered it from behind a dresser while relocating, but prior to that discovery Reddy had already convened a fresh incarnation of Project Kate. Between December 1995 and January 1996 she re-recorded three of the earlier songs together with five new compositions, produced by Ray Martin; these sessions appeared as the album …The Way Birds Fly in 1996, bearing a liner-note dedication to newborn Kaulini Reddy. Additional contributors included then-Texas Is the Reason and later New End Original guitarist Norman Arenas, who performed on “Simon Says,” along with bassist Vega, drummer John K., and violinist Ida Pearle. Texas Is the Reason and New Rising Sons vocalist Garret Klahn participated in a supporting capacity.
Albums