KJ: Godfathers of Nu-Metal

[manny at telerama.com]

And actually I thought of something else while watching KJ.

It's a known fact that KJ are basically responsible for inspiring Big
Black (Steve Albini) and Ministry (Alain Jourgensen), two crucial
personalities without which the alternative music scene would be
unthinkable. And that there's a postpunk thread that extends even to
today as PIL's Martin Atkins  was at one point also the KJ drummer and
today handles a good portion of the G/I scene with Invisible and
Pigface. Dave Grohl appears on the new KJ CD, perhaps it's a partial
payment to them for stealing the riff from "Eighties" for Nirvana's
"Come As You Are", or if not he's also paying homage.

But in addition to that they are also the godfathers of Nu-Metal (way
before Helmet, and metalcore). A lot of their guitar sound and the
chugging relentless postpunk bass (which I used to call 'choogle' when
it was employed by the Birthday Party-meets-Killing Joke band The Jesus
Lizard) found its way into Deftones etc, even if the nu-metal bands
didn't always directly realize it. And the new material which KJ
played seemed to bear this out, it seemed influenced in turn by the
Nu-Metal stuff as if KJ had no new tricks and was kind of coasting on
its legacy. It makes me think that KJ would have done better in the
States as an opener for a big tour such as Deftones, than as a headliner
whom far too few remember.

Just an observation.