TJ KONG & THE ATOMIC BOMB PREMIERE VIDEO FOR “CALIFORNIA BASEMENT BLUES” ON PANCAKES & WHISKEY

On the heels of their latest release, post-apocalyptic Americana band, TJ KONG & THE ATOMIC BOMB, are premiering a new video for “California Basement Blues” with Pancakes & Whiskey. The song comes off the band’s new LP, DANCING OUT THE DOOR, out now via Good Behavior Records.

Pancakes And Whiskey praised the song saying, “With rustic and jangly guitars, hammering keys, spastic drums and gritty lyrics flung at us like we stole something, ‘California Basement Blues,’ is that honkey-tonk blues tune we’ve been craving.” and raved about the new album calling it, “A 13 song masterpiece that is so unlike most of the music, style-wise hitting us lately that it really stands out from the muddled pack and won’t be surprised if it ends up on some of “top of the year lists” very soon.”

The band’s newest LP, Dancing out the Door, is the third installment in a trilogy that began with their debut record, Idiots. According to Bruskewicz, “Idiots explores folk music, Manufacturing Joy explores garage, delta blues and country, and Dancing out the Door adds horns as well as organ and keys to explore our strange version of New Orleans, the holiest of the holies.”

The album begins with the intimate and cinematic intro of “Black Bats” which pushes through into the lunatic party of its chorus. They display a laid-back twang on “Mulholland Drive” before an out-of-this-world quote from Muhammed Ali leads into the animated “California Basement Blues”. “Dancing out the Door” displays its strength as the album’s namesake through its powerful drunken sing-along sensation. The tracks “Heat Heat Heat” and “Long Black Dress” show off TJ Kong’s jazz and garage chops respectively, gearing the album up for it’s Herculean New Orleans finish on “Soul Asylum”.

The band’s notoriety in the much-buzzed-about Philly music scene comes on two strengths: Frontman Dan Bruskewicz‘s darkly poetic, catchy narratives and a raucous, high energy live show – the likes of which the band was determined to capture in the studio for their third record. Dancing out the Door was recorded to tape over two days at Kawari Sound Studios, enlisting the talents of producer Bill Moriarty (Dr. Dog, Man Man, Ron Gallo) and mastering engineer Joe Lambert. “We recorded the majority of everything you hear live, including vocals,” says Bruskewicz. “It’s a very freeing way to work, knowing that perfection is out of the question. ‘Perfect is dead.’ James Taylor told me that once on a very strange evening in Philadelphia.”

TJ Kong & The Atomic Bomb was born when Drummer Dan Cask and Bruskewicz met while working at a bar in Philadelphia. The pair bonded over music and film, finding common ground in Iggy and the Stooges, Tom Waits, Jim Jarmusch, Johnny Cash, Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, punk music of all kinds and 90’s grunge. From there, the band took off – making a name for themselves with a storied live show that sends people into a dancing delirium. The band’s infectious excitement led USA Today to describe them as “One of the most sought after bands in Philly,” and landed them a performance at the POP Montreal festivalsupporting well-known Canadian two piece, Japandroids.

In an effort to capture the explosion of angels and demons that Dancing out the Door cultivates, Bruskewicz offers this: “We’re excited about what we found. A joyful madness. These songs all have a different story to tell, not the lame story of the band or our records, but real stories of strange humans doing beautiful things and being imperfect. Kaboom”