Rockin’ the suburbs Getting barefoot with local musicians who love their lawns BY SARA DONNELLY
	Revenge of the Lawn   Darien Brahms believes her lawn is cursed. Singer-songwriter Brahms and her partner own a home on Munjoy Hill. There’s no front lawn to speak of, but she does have a small 20-foot-by-30-foot backyard. Brahms has been trying unsuccessfully for seven years to grow the kind of carpet grass that comes easily to other rockers like Mike Dank and Walt Craven. But, to be fair, Dank and Craven aren’t wrangling with bad mojo. See, Brahms has a tense relationship with the family that used to own her house owing to her low (and successful) bid for the property at auction. In 1998, Brahms says the boy who used to live in the house showed up in her backyard. "The backyard was complete mud when we moved in," she says. "One day, the kid who used to live here saw me working on the lawn and came over here and said, ‘Good luck with that lawn.’ "And I said, ‘What do you mean?’ "He said, ‘You’ll never, ever, ever grow grass in that backyard.’ "He cursed my lawn." Since then, Brahms has tried rototilling, fertilizing, seeding — everything short of buying a can of green spray-paint — to create a uniform lawn. She’s managed to cultivate every part of it except for one brown, dead patch in the center, what she calls her "crop circle," about six feet in diameter. Brahms is not sure where the boy was standing when he visited her seven years ago, but she says it could have been on that circle. How can Brahms battle the curse? "That’s the debate, if there’s a big dead spot do you try to cover it up with the equivalent of a yard throw rug?," she wonders. "My nephew gave me some Astroturf and I’m seriously considering cutting a circle and putting in the middle, but the color doesn’t match." _SD

"Let a man drink or default, cheat on his taxes or cheat on his wife, and the community will find forgiveness in its heart. But let him fail to keep his front lawn mowed, and to be seen doing it, and those hearts will turn to stone."

_William Zinsser, writing in Life magazine, 1969

Kevin Kennie is a local rock star. At 25, Kennie, the lead singer of Headstart!, has made a name for himself as a chaotic and kinetic performer, going so far as to injure himself jumping off of various stage elements. His lyrics are known for their sarcastic bite. "How many times do I have to tell you," one song begins, "nobody cares for where you’ve been or what you’ve done."

But there is another side to Kevin Kennie. The domestic side.

Last year, Kennie and his wife bought their first home, a small ranch-style house near Broadway in South Portland. Among the things Kennie loves in this world of quiet domesticity are his lilac bush, his tool shed, and the single swing hanging from his backyard oak.

All these things are great, sure. And then there’s the lawn.

Kennie, to use his words, has become "obsessed" with his lawn.

Every five days, Kennie heads straight home after working at Olympia Sports in Westbrook to "mow the shit" out of his own patch of property. He’s also been known to sprinkle some lawn seed. And he worries about the crab grass creeping in along the roadside. Crab grass is ugly.

"I don’t think with anything else I would like being sweaty in 80-degree weather," says Kennie one recent evening just after a sweltering mow. "I’m keeping up with the neighbors."

Kennie hasn’t always worried about grooming his lawn to impress the other landed gentry. For about a month after last winter’s final thaw, Kennie’s lawn was dead to him. He didn’t really see what the big deal was — the whole lawn-care industry was a mystery.

"I was like, ‘How do you mow a lawn? Where do you get a lawn mower? What do they cost, like a thousand dollars?’ "

While Kennie ignored his lawn, the inhabitants of the ranch-style and two-story, wood-frame houses all around him snapped uniformly into lawn-care activity. Seed was thrown, sprinklers were dragged out of garages and plugged into hoses, mowers growled out of hibernation. After a few weeks, Kennie began to notice that his grass looked mangy by comparison. The old lady across the street who used to own his home kept pointing out his lawn-care ineptitude. He decided he would not be outdone; he would cut the damn grass.

Of course, by this point, the blades were so high that mowing his lawn was like wading through syrup. Kennie’s secondhand mower kept stalling, sweat poured off of him, and his left arm felt like it was going to fall off. Just when it seemed to be a closed case of one man broken by nature, an angel arrived.

Bob from the next block over, an advanced lawn-care maven who had ascended to the level of riding-mower owner, had watched Kennie struggle all day. Finally, either overcome with pity for Kennie or by the horror of grass defeating man in his own neighborhood, Bob yanked off his shirt, drove his riding mower across the street, and mowed Kennie’s lawn. It was understood that he would mow it only once. The rest was up to Kennie.

Thus began a love affair between man and lawn.

Kennie and other lawn-obsessed rockers like him continue a distinctly American tradition of lawn care which dates back centuries. According to the 1994 book The Lawn: A History of an American Obsession, by Virginia Scott Jenkins, American lawns modeled after the rolling green fields of English villas date back to the late 18th century, although it wasn’t until the invention of the lawn mower in 1830 that your average rocker of old could afford the time and effort to tend to his or her lawn. Prior to the mower, most houses in America were surrounded by well-packed dirt. Grass, if it grew at all, was kept in check by grazing sheep and cows or a swift slice from a scythe. But the mower changed everything. By the 1950s, lawns had become more than a luxury for the wealthy; they had become a status symbol for the middle class.

Today, according to the Professional Lawn Care Association of America, more than 30 million acres of lawn grass grows around American homes, covering more land than any other crop in the country. Americans spend more than $3.3 billion a year on landscape maintenance — including mowing, fertilizing, and weeding.

"In many communities there is enormous peer pressure to have a good lawn," writes Jenkins.

Herbert Bormann, co-author of the book Redesigning the American Lawn and former professor at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University, studied the impact and future of the lawn-care industry, which is notorious among environmentalists for encouraging the use of harsh chemicals.

Bormann says younger homeowners are tempted by the same ad blitz their parents and grandparents were subjected to.

"There are vast forces promoting the lawn," says Bormann. "You pick up any magazine, there are advertisements for lawns and lawn seed and lawn chemicals and lawn this and that. There is a lot of commercial pressure being brought to put lawns on the front burner, so to speak."

Mike Dank, drummer for Harpswell Sound, has wanted a lawn since he was a kid. In 1990, Dank and his wife bought a house in the Ferry Village neighborhood in South Portland. Dank now lords over a .25-acre spread of organic flower and vegetable gardens and rich green grass running all around his house. This season, he avoided chemical lawn fertilizers in favor of the organic version, although he has, in particularly challenging lawn seasons, resorted to chemicals.

Dank loves his lawn because he loves a good mow.

"I really enjoy it," he says. "I have friends in New York City who say they’re glad they don’t have to mow a lawn. But my thought is — I get to cut my lawn! It’s very meditative."

Dank, 43, is an old-school mowing man. Every five days, he pushes around an antique, manual lawnmower that he picked up for free at a friend’s garage sale. There’s no roaring motor and no gasoline exhaust, only Dank and his little slice of ordered earth.

"I always did love mowing a lawn," he says. "There’s really no relation between rock and roll and mowing the lawn. Except maybe attention to detail. You need that in order to make them both work."

Across town in a quiet neighborhood with impeccable lawns the texture of velvet, Walt Craven has surrounded his home with what may be the best rocker lawn in all of Greater Portland. Craven, the frontman for new band Lost on Liftoff and a local hero of sorts for his work with Goud’s Thumb and 6gig, has cultivated a thick, carpet-like lawn which he mows into various designs depending on his mood. Today, the 30-something Craven has mowed a thatch pattern on his front lawn and a triangle design in his backyard. Craven swears he’s not obsessed with his lawn, he just works at a landscaping company and figured he might as well use what he knows.

"I know way more about grass than I’d ever thought I’d know or care to know," he sighs. "It sucks that I know this stuff."

Standing in his backyard, Craven explains a bit about seeding and proper mowing procedure (never cut off more than one third of the blade or you’ll send your lawn "into shock") and then admits that he likes having a lawn he’s proud of.

"I drive up the street and I say, ‘My lawn looks better than that, better than that, and it definitely looks better than that guy’s.’

"I know what to do to make my lawn look good. I’m not always sure how to make a record good. With this you just know — this lawn’s good and this lawn isn’t."

Back at his home off of Broadway, Kevin Kennie says Craven has taught him all he knows about lawn care. He says Craven’s lawn "commands respect"; it’s the kind of property that’ll make you "want to take your shoes off and just frolic." In short, it is a superior lawn.

But Kennie is undaunted. Since his first clumsy foray into mowing a few months back, Kennie has seen notable progress. The grass is a uniform length and color, he’s managed to cut his mowing time by two beers, and the old lady’s lawn across the street has lately been plagued with a couple of nasty brown patches which secretly delight him.

The biggest change is that he now cares enough about his lawn to rush home from work once a week to squeeze in a mow before band practice.

"The only relationship between this and rock and roll," he says, "is the fact that now I have to mow my lawn before I can rock and roll."

Sara Donnelly can be reached at sdonnelly@phx.com