Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground

A few days ago, I bought my first Vinyl record ever. I bought it for my Dad for his birthday. The album was Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground’s self-titled release.

When I first heard about the band a couple of years ago, I was quite annoyed that their album wasn’t available in a CD format. It’s unusual for me to decide to pay for music, and if I do, I want something solid in my hands to show for it.  At the time, I didn’t understand why it was important to be released first on vinyl (it did later come out on CD, long after I’d given in and paid for the mp3s.)  I don’t own a record player, and to me vinyl seemed outdated and inconvenient.

Fast-forward to June 2010, curled up on one of the amazing cloud couches in my friend Anna’s living room, listening to the dreamy, swirling, psychedelic sounds coming from this old wooden box, watching the sky-blue record spin. I then understood why the record needed to be heard like that. The inspiration behind Anna’s purchase had occurred a week earlier, when she joined me as a photographer to meet up with Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground for a pre-show interview.

A few minutes past 8 p.m. on a Wednesday night in June, and I was standing a few feet away from the entrance to TT Bear’s place, a tiny venue in Central Square in Cambridge.  TT the Bear’s is a venue that is often forgotten about, possibly due to the fact that it’s located directly behind The Middle East, which is a much bigger and better-known music club. Shows at TT’s are rarely over-packed, which is nice because there isn’t the problem of craning your neck trying to see past the tallest guy in the room (who happens to be standing directly in front of you) to get a glimpse of the stage.

Aside from myself and Anna, there were a few other people standing around, smoking cigarettes and looking bored. None of these people were members of Kay Kay, and I was about to take out my phone when Anna pointed out a van parked right outside the venue. We could see that there were people in it, but their faces were hard to make out in the distance. Right at that minute, the back door opened, and a guy who looked in his mid-20s walked out, followed by a trail of smoke. He introduced himself as Kyle, and moments later his other band members followed, leading us through the now-empty stage area to the back room.

After we settled down, sitting in a circle of chairs, one of which the recorder sat on, I asked about the meaning behind their debut, Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground. Singer Kirk Huffman explained that the album was centralized around ‘€œa male character in his early 20s going paranoid-schizophrenic’€. He mentioned that although there wasn’t a specific storyline, there were ‘€œthoughts and reoccurring themes throughout the entire record’€.

Kyle O’Quin, the keyboardist in the band, added that some of the inspiration for the record came from a documentary called ‘€˜Into the Realms of the Unreal’ (which the title of the first song of the album is based upon.)

‘€œIt was this crazy guy who created this entire world inside his head, and nobody even found out until after he was dead.’€ He described some of the items found in the house of the man, named Henry Darger, after his death, which included hundreds of paintings and thousand-pages-long books that he wrote, detailing wars that never happened. Kirk then explained this idea which relates to the band’s name: ‘€œKay Kay’s the character, and his ‘€˜weathered underground’ was this place he goes to, in his mind, and escapes through music.’€

When I asked about musical influences in Kay Kay’s debut album, Kirk cited The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper and The Kinks’ later records as their main inspirations, particularly some of Kinks frontman Ray Davies’ lyrics. Kyle also mentioned Ray Charles as an inspiration for the track ‘€˜Swan Ink’. ‘€œFor the new record, I feel there’s been like, five times as many influences,’€ Kirk acknowledged.

Keep in mind that at that point I was unaware of the listening experience that a record player brings, so I was really curious to know, why was this album first released only on vinyl and as a digital download?

Kirk told us that it hadn’t made sense to them to put something out that, ‘€œat [that] point in time, [was] kind of a disposable format’€. They eventually decided to release CDs because a lot of people wanted them. He added that they don’t ‘€œhate cds’€, and that they actually have a Sony Discman in their van. Kyle explained his feeling that, considering the price, CDs are ‘€œa cop out on artwork and the sound quality isn’t as good.’€

Anna is pretty sold on the pro-vinyl idea, and asked if they were selling any records (they were, and she bought one later after the show). I was interested to know if they were going to do the same thing for a new record coming out. Kirk said they would be releasing it on vinyl and digital download first, and then on CD a while after.

Speaking of the new record, I wanted to know if there was an official release date yet, but there wasn’t. Knowing that the record was streaming on MySpace at least a year ago, I couldn’t help but ask ‘€œWhy?!’€

My question was met with laughter. ‘€œThat’s the best question you’ve asked so far,’€ drummer Aaron Benson joked. ‘€œAnd the only one we don’t have a good answer to,’€ Kyle added.

I had a few more questions, and asked what they’ve been listening to. They surprise me with the reply that they’ve been listening to mostly reggae and first generation Wu Tang Klan. For my last question, I asked if they think there’s anything especially lacking in today’s music scene.

‘€œWhere’s the money?’€ a voice called out, met by a chorus of ‘€œyes’€. Kyle added that ‘€œweed is currently lacking our music scene,’€ which was also met with agreement.

‘€œNone of us really listen to any new music, other than people who are doing throwback stuff, or stuff influenced by older stuff,’€ Kirk admitted. ‘€œBecause it’s really easy to be a band, and get your music heard (online), for me, I’m over stimulated. It’s just too much to keep up with.’€

‘€œThe problem,’€ Kyle pointed out, ‘€œis everything has already been done’€¦ now every kind of genre is just being regurgitated.”