Seraphina Lotkhamnga on November 9th, 2014

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L.A.-based Kyle Thomas, mostly known as King Tuff or King Tuffy (“Long live King Tuffy!” as some would say), could get lumped in with the rest of the garage-rockers of the world, but the persona he’s created for King Tuff is a delirious fusion of slacker-rock, psych-rock and a bit of the supernatural. King Tuff’s latest album (now out on Sub Pop) is titled “Black Moon Spell,” after all. Loyal fans, who piled into the El Rey Theatre on Thursday for a night of mischief-laced music, danced and moshed with an energy that almost rocked the chandeliers above.

The curtain opened to reveal a backdrop of the King Tuff flame-lettered logo
in blood-red and surrounded by skulls just a second before Tuff and his bassist “Magic Jake” and drummer Garrett Goddard pounced on stage and dove right into the album’s title track. Playing with reckless abandon, the trio yelped, shrieked, jumped in the midst of heavy smoke machines while the crowd in front fell under their spell for mirrored commotion.

“We’ve been away for, like, five weeks and it feels so f*cking good to be back,” Tuff shouted before dedicating “Beautiful Thing” to a 17-year-old fan. The band went on to sing their evil-themed songs like “Eyes of the Muse” and “Headbangers,” although you would never know of such dark themes thanks to the bubblegum pop melodies made-perfect-for-garage-rockers and guitar licks that could have appeared on any Led Zeppelin album. There was a method to all the madness; the balancing act King Tuff has done with good and evil, pop and rock, and catchy and scuzzy is quite impressive. Thomas and company aren’t just up there fooling around like geeky delinquents; everything has been well-thought out, well-written and well-rehearsed for a memorable performance to go with those sticky melodies.

Older songs that made into the set included “Bad Thing” (dedicated to the troublemakers out there) and “Freak When I’m Dead,” but “Alone and Stoned” was saved for the follow-up to “I Love You Ugly” (another joking poke at the audience from Tuff) in the encore.

La Sera and Colleen Green preceded the night.

Photo by Debi Del Grande