There are still some people who believe in rock ‘n’ roll despite what everyone says about its imminent death, and King Tuff is necessarily one of these people. Or three of these people to be exact, as the band is a trio, who showed up at Amoeba on Tuesday night to deliver a killer set of loud and big rock ‘n’ roller songs. Of course they had a new album, ‘Black Moon Spell’, released the same day and the rest was the usual celebration in the famous store, with die-hard fans in the front, and vinyl signing after the show…
‘Amoeba are small, but this place is big!’, said the bassist, and I must say I really appreciated the nod to biology there, but it was also a good idea of the tone of the show, these guys were very laid back and were joking a lot during the tuning of the guitar. The first song they played (‘Madnesss’ on the setlist) sounded a bit Clash-y, and the rest was loud, rocky-bluesy and delivered with a punchy punk energy. Honestly each of the songs could have been inspired by a series of old classics, while reworked with tough and metal guitars, badass bass, and explosive drums.
King Tuff is on Burger Records (and also Sub Pop) so they are part of Los Angeles big family of garage rock revival (I spotted some Wavves and Growlers t-shirts in the crowd), although they do it with an obvious fascination for classic rock and a loud, heavy, furious sound. Before the show, Amoeba employees had announced everyone should wear earplugs, but I passed as I am very used to it. I know I’ll be deaf at 60,…
Frontman Kyle Thomas said it was their first show in about a year, which can be explained by the fact they were working on this new record during what they described as ‘the hot winter of 2014’… true, LA winters are always a joke but this one was like summer, and this must have had an impact on that hot-to-handle music. In the press release they evoke the devil and many other phenomenons, ‘Dracula landlords, flashes of mysterious light, haunted microphones, songs that mixed themselves, demonic vortexes swirling in coffee cups’,… and even ‘fire’ in the making of this album, which may explain the black magic vibe of the title, ‘Black Moon Spell’…. They want to sell it to us as ‘a heavily weird, heavenly dark, hysterically magical Rock & Roll Sexperience’ whereas I mostly witnessed humor, and guys having a good time while playing.
I also got some 80s heavy metal above hooky chorus, could it even have been a Stooges vibe? The King Tuff men looked like bold, too-cool-for-school guys, playing the false bad boys with dirt on the buzzing distortion pedals, empowering tempos, and solo-crying guitars,… and they didn’t forget the melodies, making sure everyone had a good time.
