Philly Concert Review: King Krule at Johnny Brenda's (December 7-8th)
Rest assured, 19-year-old Londoner King Krule (aka Archy Marshall)'s stage "antics" might best resemble that of a young red-haired Elvis Costello, Woody Allen's über-neurotic film work, or even a slightly awkward teenager performing at his high school talent show: senseless flailing around the corner-centric stage, random fist-pumping along with drum beats, grizzly-voiced wailing, top button-unbuttoned debauchery, etc! Philly's infamous hole-in-the-wall venue Johnny Brenda's, which I'm pretty sure is an old apartment or home, only added extra character to King Krule's righteous 11 o'clock set. As far as I can tell, Marshall and his 3-piece band played the bulk of King Krule's roughly 20-track discography -- including "Easy Easy," "Has This Hit?," "Baby Blue," "A Lizard Estate," "The Krockadile," "Bleak Bake," and plenty more unheard mumbled song titles. But from what I can tell, I don't think King Krule and the fellas ended up playing newly-added track "La Lune," which is supposedly from his forthcoming second album.
Excuse my French, but King Krule frontman Archy Marshall has a deeply-weathered Baritone singing voice that's better suited for a whiskey-drinkin' black man, than a pimply-faced 19-year-old bloke! After an appended 1-track "encore," we waited around the side bar/stage for about 15-20 minutes, yet King Krule himself seems to have never re-emerged from the green room; either because of groupies or maybe he couldn't legally re-enter the bar area (being a minor and all). Needless to say, King Krule's highly-skilled drummer George Bass soon emerged and after wasting more than enough time talking to a drunk blubbering super-fan, my beautiful girlfriend Caroline & I made our way over to his general direction. George was extremely approachable and after some light small talk, we posed for a picture and once I told him it was officially my "birthday" (post-midnight)... he offered to take my coveted 6 Feet Beneath The Moon vinyl backstage for the whole band to sign! What he came back with is truly a one-of-a-kind signed and Sharpie doodled inner-LP and the night was a great start to my birthday weekend!