The stack of CD's and the backlog of mp3's sent our way sometimes gets overwhelming, but being junkies for our newest fix, the daily listening sessions can be both exhilarating and disappointing, but it's always interesting. Just by looking at the cover art of KING TUFF's 'Was Dead', I had a gut feeling that this disc was for me. Instantly upon spinning it, everyone here started bobbing their heads and we knew this was a winner. "Sun Medallion" immediately jumped out, then "Just Strut", then song after song. I had to know more, flipped over the disc only to find out this disc was released by THE COLONEL RECORDS, the same label that put out one of our other favorite records of '08, THE WEIGHT, and we realized we had to know more about The Colonel himself.
KING TUFF, from Brattleboro, Vermont, are based around frontman Kyle Thomas, whom some of you may recognize from TeePee Records' band WITCH (J MASCIS' heavy side project). It's not often anymore that a label captures my imagination like The Colonel has, using my imagination against me in fact, creating an image of King Tuff in my head that's larger than life. Holding the 'Was Dead' CD in my hands takes me back to riding my bike down to the local independent record store, flipping through the vinyl until I come across an album with some insane cover art, with an exotic name and that feeling of desperation running over me that I HAD to own this record, and I had to get home to my record player as quickly as possible to release the magic and fall under the spell.
All that being said, we were lucky enough to have THE COLONEL call into our Future Sounds radio show yesterday and do a short interview with us, and we transcribed it for you so that we can share more about what's going on with this little label with great taste.
INTRODUCING……KING TUFF
From: Brattleboro, Vermont
Label: Colonel Records
Q: How the hell did you find this gem of a band from Vermont? Describe your situation with them - you have them on your label, you manage them, what's up?
COLONEL: The Colonel Records met King Tuff through The Weight. Fletcher (guitar/vocals) from The Weight grew up with King in Brattleboro VT. They played in a band together before fletcher split home. Kyle stayed in VT and started writing songs (among doing other projects, Witch and Feathers) on his own which turned into King Tuff. I mean thats the long and short of it, to get the real history you'd have to talk to Kyle. An interesting fact, since Kyle plays everything on the King Tuff records, when they do play shows, 3 members of The Weight act as his backing band. Its a tight family we have over here at the Colonel Records.
Q: This record taps into all the things we like - Nuggets box set meets the best garage bands of all time. Since you know this band personally, tell us a bit about their influences?
COLONEL: I don't really thing I can speak for Kyle as far as his influences go, I don't want to misrepresent him. But I will say this, he likes black coffee, swimming in lakes, his car that doesn't run and being the tuffest king in Brattleboro.
Q: We see the album just came out, what's the plan for this release and where can people get the record?
COLONEL: Our good friend Tony of Tee Pee Records picked The Colonel Records up as a subsidiary, he saw the first couple releases we were doing and he thought that we were onto something. Fortunately, this alleviated a lot of the stress that comes with new labels finding distribution, so the LP will be in stores all over this great country on October 7th.
Q: What do you have coming up for the band? CMJ? Touring? You coming out West?
COLONEL: King Tuff will be playing CMJ along with The Weight. I'm not sure about any touring after that. Keep your fingers crossed.
Q: What else do you have coming up for us at Colonel Records? How are things going with THE WEIGHT?
COLONEL: Our next release after King Tuff is Atlanta's All Night Drug Prowling Wolves. Let's just call their sound rock and roll. In the new year we will have two new full lengths, one from West Virginia's The Fox Hunt and one from NYC's The Goddamn Rattlesnake. And a handful of 7" from various amazing artists around the country in our 7" lovers club. Things with The Weight are going swimmingly. They have a new record written and ready to go, they are demoing now. Expect big things from those guys in 2009. We're trying to get them out there for a west coast tour, so if anyone listening has a sweet band that would like to do some touring with us, get at us!
Q: Any new bands we should hear? Got any tunes to share with Future Sounds?
COLONEL: Aside from the bands that I just mentioned, there are a hotbed of great bands here in NYC. The Midnight Prayers, The Electric Shadows, The Ex-Humans, Bad Dream, Acid Tiger. As well as anything that Rob's House, Douche Master or Goner Records are doing.
Labels: King Tuff, The Colonel Records
