Get Konked!

“'Cause we're The Konks, yeah yeah yeah yeah
Yeah, we're The Konks and we don't care"

The Konks are rock and roll primitives and you should care and be glad. They hang out with other rock and roll primitive bands like The Curses, The Tamp Offs, Triple Thick, the Coffin Lids, and the mesmerizing Mr. Airplane Man. They won the first Little Steven Battle Of The Bands in Boston throwing a personal beat down on Triple Thick and The DownBeat 5. Bob plays guitar and harmonica. Jon plays bass. Kurt plays two lousy drums and sings. Rest assured that the guitars are also cheap.

Their new self-titled release for Bomp contains 12 songs played with such abandon they’ll make your head spin or maybe it’s the contact carbon monoxide poisoning from The Konks hanging out in the garage for so long. It doesn’t take but a few seconds to see why Bomp would want to sign The Konks. “Outta My Mind” explodes out of the speakers with Kurt yelping all the way. We’re talking screaming tribal thump and super fuzz stammer done with just the right amount of destructo guitar solos and bass guitar beserker bottom. “King Kong” stomps through the reverb chamber with analog biplane smashing style. The song “Out Of My Mind” has a nifty bass line loping around the opening guitar riff which just calls for a rooftop concert – I can’t quite explain my reasoning here, but it was in my personal notes so it must be true. Other tasty treats: “Break My Back” is a blues infected raunchy mess with a bass and drums only bridge that shows why all one needs is a beat, there’s the minor chord “96 Tears” sweep of “What I Came Here For” which shows that The Konks can play nice when they want to, “Honey” has a cool guitar lick that sounds a Canned Heat on crystal meth, and their cover of fellow Boston band, Aerosmith’s “Toys In The Attic” which brings me to tears because it makes me remember when Aerosmith was actually good.

Some interesting tidbits about The Konks: They don’t get their name from The Kinks who of course have a studio named Konk. They are not related to the John Dunbar led Konks of power pop fame. The name comes from the hair straightening treatment congoline. This album was reviewed by bmarkey earlier for blogcritics and the review was so well written it made the Bomp website. This album will probably show up in my best of 2005 list. So go out and get konked.