Heading over to Turf Club, I knew it was going to be a fun one with the ever entertaining King Tuff in town supporting his latest album, but sure to be working through his twenty year catalogue of lo-fi fuzz rock.

Caution got the evening started. The Birmingham, Alabama based duo of Cash Langdon and Nora Button (the latter has lived / does live? in Minneapolis) run across multiple genres from post-punk to shoegaze. Their most recent album is 2025’s Peripheral Vision, which plays the pedal boards of Langdon’s guitar against the dual vocals. As a duo (guitar/vocals, vocals) they had some reverb going off the jump, and Parti Blues was a good set up for them. This was a lot of their newest album with some recorded backing music and that mix of harmonies over pedaled modulated guitar was a solid tone for Caution to play off of. The first bit of banter was a nice run of thanks to the headliner and venue, and they noted that the first three were off their new album, but the next one “was an oldie”, and Fuk It Up with the drone was excellent for the moment and the super reverb close was right on. A longish guitar intro to Dancing had the band at its peak, playing off that recorded music and some staggered vocals. Pleasure Addict had a crunchy guitar intro and the dual vocals were there to counteract it. Caution finished up with Mind Like a Tool, with the singers in octave harmonies with each other. It was a solid close and they headed off stage to a hearty round of applause.

It was time for headliner King Tuff, stage name for Kyle Thomas. We last saw him here at Turf Club in April 2023. He has seven studio album releases, and 2014’s Black Moon Spell is a classic in certain alt rock circles. With the newest album, 2026’s MOO, also being the name of this tour, it’s been nearly full circle as King Tuff’s experimental albums have come back around to a gorgeous fuzz rock that plays over classic rock, near Americana tones, and straight alt vibes. Coming to stage as a trio (vocals/guitar, bass, and drums), Twisted on a Train was a brilliant start for the band, with some great guitar reverb. The first bit of talking to the audience led into East of Ordinary, a crashing onslaught of drums and the vocals on full delivery mode. A bit about how dark it was, “I don’t think it’s the sunglasses” (dear reader, it was the sunglasses), led into a fab version of Crosseyed Critters. King Tuff had the crowd and that classic rock sound with the fuzz overlay was carrying the day. As the band continued to work through the newest album, it was fun to sit in the middle of this jangly rock and great guitar work.

Invisible Ink was a perfect follow up, with a punchy tempo and lyrics. Landline had our drummer ask for more monitors and it set off a whole mini sound check before rolling hard core into that number. King Tuff laid into those psychedelic guitar riffs and the band was crushing it. Backroads closed out the album and was such a great song to finish up MOO, with the heavy bass supporting those vocals (“hit the gas on the backroads”). The band moved on to the older hits and when we got to Black Moon Spell, the evening had hit the zenith. It’s such a good fuzz rock song, with a retro crunch to it and King Tuff was obviously pleased with the moment. We headed into what felt like the encore, and the blitz on those two songs were phenomenal. Closing on Anthem, the band had curated a wonderful set list. Back on for the actual two song encore, the energy kept flowing and as they finally wound down, King Tuff had really delivered the goods.