What the Critics Are Saying:

GUITAR NOISE
release title: kitko
(2003)

Kitko’s newest effort shows what one can do with only a guitar and a (pretty) voice.
This may be a short album, with only six songs, but she’s sure to get a hold of you
with her sometimes smooth, sometimes energetic folk-rock sounds.

The very first track, Row Your Boat, very energetic, is also very catching and
certainly has the makings of a hit. The rest of the album, keeps you going all the way.

She has no reason to envy anyone else’s talents. I’d much rather listen to Kitko for a
day than to most of what the radio plays. As far as comparing her to other female
solo performers, she should be considered with the Alanis Morissettes and Arica
Roses of this world.

A very nice effort, well-written, well-performed and well-produced. Remember her
name as Kitko is one who will be going far.


CHICAGO TRIBUNE:
"...Kitko is an easygoing performer who charms her audience with an eclectic set.
She displays several superpowers, including some astounding picking skills. Her
fingers fly across the guitar faster than a hummingbird. In the time-honored folk
tradition, she's got her share of songs with a political edge, but she combines them
with her disarming sense of humor. Kitko has considerable talent..."


WINDY CITY TIMES:
"Easily the most promising debut in 2002 is the self-titled six-song EP by Kristin
Kitko (www.kitko.org). Kitko turns childhood songs into the most amorous invitation
of the season on 'Row Your Boat.' She turns confession into an art form with
acoustic guitar and harmonica folk flair on 'No One Knew.' 'The Bitch Song,' has
anthem written all over it. And finally 'Alphabet Soup' is an instant classic."


BISMARCK TRIBUNE:
"About a year ago, Kris Kitko was still based in Chicago, a classroom teacher by day,
playing guitar by night and turning the heads of music critics.

'She displays several superpowers,' a Chicago Tribune review said.

'... She should be considered with the Alanis Morissettes and Arica Roses of this
world," wrote A-J Charron in a 2003 review for Guitar Noise Newsletter. "Remember
her name as Kitko is one who will be going far.'

Kitko, 37, left her inner-city Chicago elementary school teaching job last fall to come
home to Bismarck to teach music at Stringbean Music and Coffee Shop (514 E. Main
Ave.) and to continue a music career that has produced two CDs, one a children's
CD titled Who Let the Fly In.

About her life in Bismarck, Kitko -- who has shared the stage with such performers
as Ferron, Rhiannon and Sarah Douger -- said 'I'm the happiest I've ever been.'

Other people are happy, too.

'She's one of the most incredible musicians around here,' said Brad Stockert, 36, of
Bismarck, who has taught jazz and percussion at the college level and now teaches
on his own. 'She is the total package.'

She dreamed for decades of achieving music stardom -- something that started at
about age 7, when, already a songwriter, she called a recording studio to get prices
and other information about recording her work.

Kitko wasn't always familiar with North Dakota. Life started out in a rural area, small-
town Monroe, Conn., where her pianist mother would play Beatles songs. Kitko
started dreaming about the days when she'd make her living traveling the world,
making music like what she heard on the radio.

But in sixth grade she moved to Valley City. Her dad wanted to live out West and he
found a job as a school principal there.

Tthe music kept coming along. An ad she posted in a local music store got her
plenty of young musicians wanting to start a band -- too many. The band had two
drummers, for example, because it didn't want to turn people away. Kitko, playing
bass guitar at the time, said the 1980s rock band's best cover tune was 'Hit Me With
Your Best Shot.'

After high school graduation, and a year at Bismarck State College, she dropped out
to join a band called 'Out of Line.' The band performed throughout the state and in
a couple of other states. But life on the road wasn't what she expected and she quit
to write music and get discovered, and earned her pay in a new way. She got a
janitorial job. It lasted about nine months.

She ended up at University of North Dakota, getting an elementary education
degree. She taught first grade in Florida and later taught on Chicago's West Side. At
her school there, a school counselor was grazed by a bullet and Kitko was attacked
by a troubled fifth-grade boy. She knew of kids whose parents would leave them
alone for days, forcing older siblings to care and cook for them.

'I feel like I owe a lot to those kids,' she said.

She learned much more about patience and kindness, and said she doesn't think
she could ever judge anyone again after seeing what those kids went through.

Here in Bismarck, the vegetarian has a vegetable garden and time to think about the
things the writer of hundreds of songs likes to think about -- music. And she has
time to do what she has discovered is more important than stardom: She said she
wants to help people have a positive relationship with music ... and help the
countless people who gave up playing instruments years ago and have regretted it
ever since.

Kitko to the rescue.

And maybe that has given her some stardom, after all."