Music Blogs

What will today sound like tomorrow? That question comes to mind courtesy of King Tuff. Though the name seems like it belongs to a dub reggae toaster, King Tuff is actually singer-guitarist Kyle Thomas, who's best known (if he's known at all) as the frontman in J. Mascis's stoner-metal side-project Witch. Given those admittedly meager credentials, it's a bit of a surprise that Thomas' debut effort under the King Tuff name, Was Dead (The Colonel Records), is the best retro-rock album I've heard since I put my Edsel in hock.

Was Dead doesn't drop until October, but a bunch of its tracks can be found online in all the usual places. Take a listen: The album is awash in Chuck Berry rhythms, fuzzy rubber band guitar solos, and lyrical shout outs to pinball and girls named Ruthie. Now and then a garage-rock riff will jump in and give a Nuggets-y kick to things, but generally, King Tuff sounds like the kind of thing James Dean would've been happy to hear blasting from his transistor radio.

But if the days of malt shops and sock hops can be so easily summoned by a few sonic signifiers, which of today's sounds will mean the ‘00s in the future? Other eras have their rock n' roll trademarks: Sneering vocals and buzz-saw guitars conjure up late '70s punk; the psychedelic '60s were all about Eastern-influenced guitar lines and hippie-informed lyrics; studio sheen and high-pitched hair-metal wailing say ‘80s. WHAT ABOUT THE ‘90s? The ‘00s? Who knows?

I'm certainly not lamenting the demise of the kind of one-size-fits-all monoculture that could spawn a Frampton Comes Alive, but the fact that the new millennium has yet to see a chart-busting rock monster a la Pearl Jam's Ten or U2's The Joshua Tree makes it difficult to peg our time period to any particular sound. What's the closest we could come up with? Something that combines Arcade Fire and Fall Out Boy? A mix of Coldplay and Daughtry? I don't have the brainpower to imagine what those mutts would sound like. Maybe we need to put King Tuff on ice for a few decades, then thaw him out and put him to work. If Was Dead is any indication, he'll make our nostalgia sound pretty good. Just so long as he ignores the Pussycat Dolls.