TJ Kong & the Atomic Bomb is all about soul now
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
Though you should never assume that someone is inebriated, with Philadelphia’s skronky TJ Kong and the Atomic Bomb, absolute drunkenness could be a damned good guess about what’s going on.
Like the booziest of music from Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits — to say nothing of singer Dan Bruskewicz’s newest tool in his kit bag, a cognac-soaked Van Morrison-like wail — TJ Kong’s brand of raw, stomping blues and searing, rural folk always goes down uneasily. A drunk tank’s wealth of dramatic disquiet has long been the allure of TJ’s wild live shows, as well as its previously released The Hinterlands EP, and its two brusque full-lengths, Idiots and Manufacturing Joy.
But a funny thing happened on the way to TJ’s soon-to-be-released Kong EP that has made the band the one to watch this spring. They found vibrancy, nuance, space, an inner light. And more.
“We’ve had a heartbeat, a central nervous system and a brain in this band for years,” says Bruskewicz. “But when we put together this EP we wanted to throw out all the old ideas we had about recording — about how our band is supposed to sound — and found real soul.”
TJ Kong worked too quickly this time out to be anything but raw. They recorded six songs in one day at Kawari Studios with Bill Moriarty and Zach Goldstein — all live in one room, including vocal takes.
“We now intend to preach that truth, that fire, to the entire world,” says Bruskewicz.
Hallelujah.
TJ Kong and the Atomic Bomb plays Fri., April 18, 9:15 p.m., $10, with Ali Wadsworth and Pine Barons, Johnny Brenda's, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 215-739-9684, johnnybrendas.com.
