Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground - Introducing… Review

When Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground hit the scene in 2007 after punk group, Gatsby’s American Dream, took a hiatus, they lit up my musical radar and caused “Hey Momma” to repeat on my iPod for a week straight. Keyboardist Kyle O’Quin had me questioning why the hell he ever even made the transparent, power-chord rock of Gatsby’s. Notoriety? Easy money? Great friends he couldn’t deny? The ragtime, jazz-infused pop of Kay’s Kay’s self-titled debut seemed like a practical joke on the Absolute Punk community. There was no way these guys were former members of the post-hardcore genre of the early 2000s.


O’Quin and Kirk Huffman (the pioneers of the giant 10- to 12-piece band) weren’t joking, though. This was the music they’d had up their sleeves all along: Scott Joplin-influenced piano pop accompanied by tuba, cello, trumpet and flugelhorn. When Huffman ever uttered the words, “Hey Momma, I’m such a selfish bastard,” as he kept the tempo of a 1940s lounge singer, I seriously wondered if the two had hired a ghostwriter. The instrumentation was too phenomenal.


Eventually, though, surprise became acceptance, and I realized these guys were for real, and three years later, Introducing… has had to follow up that fantastic display of circus tricks. This time around, Kay Kay lay off the bombastic music and instead apply more chilled-out, mellow tunes, and the change does the band justice. This sophomore effort is a much more engaging experience for those unfamiliar with the Seattle natives. Whereas their debut tended to overkill the drastic breakdowns and stop-on-a-dime-and-change-tempo mentality, Introducing… plays as a much more straightforward album with great background accompaniment. The opening track, “Sweet Strange Dreams”, starts off with a slow burn, but eventually gives a taste of the ragtime pop for which Kay Kay are known, but the next song, “You Motherfuckers”, resembles a country hoedown, while single, “Diggin’”, sounds like something Ben Folds Five would have written while attempting to mimic the breakdown halfway through “A Day in the Life”....full text The mouthful that is Introducing Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground might sound like the title of a debut album, but it is actually the sophomore full-length from the Seattle mega-band. Have they changed to the point where Introducing is like hearing a new artist for the first time? Is this album the best introduction to the band, regardless of sequence? Or, rather, is the band just the sort of act for which such quirks make sense? Not so much, yes, and definitely – respectively.


Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground consists of Kirk Huffman and Kyle O’Quin of Gatsbys American Dream, with friend Phil Peterson at the center. Joining them in the studio, and at their live shows is a sizable array of musicians, such as those pictured on the album cover that brings to mind those hilarious forgotten oldies found in the dollar bin of any thrift store. The large lineup is vital to Kay Kay, because their genre-blending brand of psychedelic pop is also a decidedly orchestral one.

String-filled opener “Sweet Strange Dreams” begins with faint nature effects, before revealing a lush, wistful sound that recalls The Beach Boys. Boisterous “Diggin’” is the musical equivalent of spending an afternoon at a carnival haunted by the spectre of The Beatles. Theatrical closer “My Friends All Passed Out” mixes together sinister, eerie organ, and thunderclaps, with guitars both bluesy and steel slide, and vocals that dip down to a faint growl at will. On Introducing highlight “World’s Entire”, the summery influence of the Beach Boys prevails once again, but abandoning dreaminess for a more climactic, full-on symphonious direction.

Generally speaking, Introducing Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground is a more focused album than their self-titled debut. The experimentation with sounds and styles is still present, but less unpredictable, instead concentrated into crafting songs that fit more traditional song structures and can be consumed individually outside the context of an album. Sometimes somber, and sometimes tongue-in-cheek, on Introducing, Kay Kay has crafted a well-orchestrated 10 song journey that jumps throughout memory lane....full text {On Sunday, June 12, 2011, Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground will be playing a record release show for this album with The Young Evils and The Can Can Castaways at the Triple Door. If all of this sounds extraordinary to you, we love you as much as we love those artists and that venue -- and that is loads and loads.}

Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground sounds as if freak rock died and went to heaven in 1971, instead of the miasmatic personal singer-songwriter purgatory that actually mostly formed that year's musical output. This is appropriate, as the band was spawned from the early demise of Gatsby's American Dream, a much hyped Seattle-based band that many people planned on dancing to and singing along with for years. But like the 60s, the dream was over. It's just that no one told Kirk Huffman and Kyle O'Quin that they could have an even better time with the funkier, psyche-stirring topical cabaret KK&HWU, especially when master musician and band-butterfly Phil Peterson was brought on board for their double-down debut.

The history of the band is occluded by V2 signing them and then dying on the vine; the Live At The Pretty Parlor DVD and sold out shows at the Triple Door have bolstered the legend but it never quite coheres in the minds of regional writers. But once they get the story scribes go suitably ape-shit over a local band as courageous and supremely constructed (up to eleven members at times) as any from Sufjan Stevens to I'm From Barcelona, but with their own mescaline-BBQ bite.

Introducing Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground has been swinging wild on the cyber-vines for awhile, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't hunker down and purchase a hard copy as they now hit the streets this summer. It's probably going to look gorgeous in your collection (as this group is artistically ambitious in everything it does, from sprawling, senses-exploding live shows to massive movements in every arrangement, to sure-is-pretty packaging), perhaps even as gorgeous as it sounds: Bold, sweet-pop blizzards ("Diggin'"), bittersweet bonbons ("Paychecks and Pipe Dreams"), and buoyant dancehall anthems ("Sweet Strange Dreams") alike....full text