The Kills

Last night at Newport Kentucky's legendary Southgate House: The Kills. What a show. The band's made up of a transatlantic duo who exploit sexual tension to create really loud, agressive, bluesy punkrock. Both band members play guitar and sing and the cacophony's backed up by drum machines and (I think) backing tracks that are heavy on the bass and kinda hard on the ears of the over-thirty crowd (I'm just speculating of course). But American Idol this ain't. They ripped through virtually their entire, excellent, new album No Wow and broke out a few tunes from their debut (which isn't as strong a record) including "Cat Claw," one of woxy's last heavy-rotation songs before the station's demise and subsequent online rebirth. Mostly they stuck to the whole punkrock two-minute-tune aesthetic, but at times they let the distortion do a little extended eardrum-shredding. The frontwoman, who goes by "VV" for some reason, would either leer at the audience or pace, cat-like, during these solos. I really had the sense she was going to pull out a weapon at several points--especially when she climbed atop the amps. The highlight of the show was clearly the encore, during which the band covered Captain Beefheart's "Dropout Boogie"--a perfect ending to the show. They actually made the Captain's lyrics make sense: "ya told her you love her/so bring her the butter/ya love her adapt her." Great, great show.