Joe runs through every album on his iPod, mostly in alphabetical order, and offers some brief thoughts. Check out previous columns HERE. Obviously, King Tuff does not fall in line alphabetically, but as previously explained, I'm also using this column to talk about the best albums of the 2010s. This is the next album I am discussing. Come back in December to find out where it falls in the rankings.
King Tuff
King Tuff
2012
It's been over two months since I've written anything for this column. A few excuses I could throw out there include: I'm burned out from writing about albums with no firm purpose (they aren't reviews, per se, so that's not the purpose); or perhaps that it's overwhelming to think about writing so many of these before the end of the year; or maybe I've just been too busy with other blog projects. But really, I think it's just that I couldn't come up with a good hook for King Tuff.
Which is a fucking shame, because this album fucking rocks. You can draw a direct lineage between the godfather of garage rock (the Nuggets compilation) and this 2012 album. It's mostly simple rock 'n' roll with some strange flourishes (Wikipedia doesn't include the genre tag "neo-psychedelica" for nothing). And so many hooks. Every song has a hook, in the simplest definition of the term—it hooks you in, and stays in your head all day.
Wikipedia also makes sense of King Tuff's style by giving a very brief musical biography. Two points. The first is that he was part of the Muggers, Ty Segall's backing band. If you can't see the similarities between King Tuff and Ty Segall, then you haven't listened to either one.
Second point, which I found weirdly heartwarming, was the simple line that he "grew up around music; his father was a big music fan so he would hear all of his dad's music," and, I mean, it's pretty clear what type of music his dad listened to. I think it was heartwarming to me because of that dumb parent thing where everything that has anything remotely to do with children is now heartwarming to me. Like I can picture a future with Little Willow and her siblings dancing around to King Tuff, ya know? How music is passed down from one generation to the next, it's fucking great, man.
But yeah, you can dance to this shit, I wasn't making that part of the daydream up. "Alone & Stoned," "Baby Just Break," and especially album closer "Hit & Run," are absolutely blistering garage rock, you can't help but get up and move around. I mean, this album has a song ("Keep Movin'") that is literally about getting up and dancing using your best, weirdest moves, and THAT song is a great song to actually do the dances to. Meta-dancing at its finest since "The Monster Mash."
I didn't discover King Tuff until well after 2012. In fact, the first time I ever heard it, I was driving errands for Pam's baby shower (the second one, i.e. the fun keg party one). So yeah, my thoughts while listening to this album often return to that scary/exciting time in our lives. But King Tuff is one of those rare albums that doesn't even need that type of nostalgia boost to get it to the top of my personal charts. It's a good enough album on its own.
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If this album sounds interesting, try this song: "Alone and Stoned"
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Stray Observations
- ALBUM COVER: It's some type of cartoon bat with a skull for a head, who is holding a guitar and a magic wand. I don't think there's anything deeper here than it just being a badass picture. King Tuff has other albums called Black Moon Spell (his next LP), Hex Dispensers (his first EP), and Screaming Skull (another EP), so while the music doesn't necessarily reflect the dark imagery, the aesthetic choices seem to more often than not.
- Never got around to saying King Tuff's actual name above. It's Kyle Thomas. "King Tuff" is definitely more memorable.
- No Grammys for King Tuff, obviously. Not even close. This album did peak at #2 on the "CMJ" charts, whatever the fuck they are?
- One of those aforementioned errands I was running was going to Czerw's for some Port Richmond kielbasa. My brain is so weird that every time I pass the damn storefront, "Hit & Run" plays in my head.
- I can't say enough about that closing track, "Hit & Run" (had I started the column a year earlier, it absolutely would've been the Song of the Week the week I first heard it). The way it escalates at the end is my own ASMR trigger.
- King Tuff released a new album last year, The Other. While more mellow and less danceable, it's still totally great and totally underrated.
NEXT TIME: Bark Your Head Off, Dog by Hop Along
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