Kinky
August 28, 2007
The Fifth, Miami Beach
Better Than: Once Upon a Time in the West as fleeced by The Thievery Corporation. Or something. Else.
The Review:
The seven-city Samsung/AT&T Summer Krush series swung into South Beach last night with a set so low and so hard it knocked me right outta my mind. Not that that’s such a difficult thing to do these days, but this mad act made it look like cake.
I’m talkin’ ‘bout Kinky, dig? That ragtag gang of Mexican hepcats with the cowboy cool who do for the beat of the world what Lalo Shifrin did for Hawaii 5-0 – that is, give it unmitigated groove.
Actually, make that an unmitigated anti-fascist groove thing – imagine the ghost of Heaven 17 pumping From Dusk to Dawn; Once Upon a Time in the West as fleeced by The Thievery Corporation; power chord cha-cha drunk on Goldfrapp; the out-Slimming of a Fatboy.
Really.
And the crowd dug it something wild. Bopping and jumping and shouting with a roar the hipster Strip seldom musters without resorting to violence. The by-now ubiquitous “Mas” (which I could always use more of), the ancient modern smirk of “Uruapan Breaks” (check their masked midget wrestler clip of the song to see what I mean), the suborbital intergalactic trip of “Nothing Really” (which churns like a polyrhythmic Electric Soft Parade) – each track propelling further, faster, louder than the last.
If I have one gripe it’s that they went on too late and didn’t play long enough, then what would be a South Beach night without one little gripe?
Mas y mas, indeed.
Personal Bias: This is the kinda shit they should be playing at Space at 5 and 6 and 7 and 11 in the morning, make those wee small hours loom large.
Random Detail: It’s true; Kinky does use accordion – and trumpet and vocoder too. So there.
By the Way: You can stream Kinky’s recent LP, Reina, on their site.
-- John Hood
