Ko & the Knockouts

About Ko & the Knockouts

For first impressions try these: The overwhelming charm of Ko Shih’s fully-intuitive pop melodies; Eddie Baranek’s grit and reckless, tube-driven feedback and the blow-your-hair-back rhythmic exuberance; Jeff Klein's breathless assault. But the lasting impressions of Ko and The Knockouts aren’t as easy to list. At the very center of Detroit’s post-millennium rock ‘n’ roll heart, the trio is a much a spirited revisitation to the high-octane V-8 glory days of ’60s rock ‘n’ roll as it is a testament to pop music’s timeless vitality. And while drummer Jeff Klein alternates between a shake-your-ass, four-on-floor stomp and a hip-inspiring, slightly sexualized shuffle, Baranek and Shih deliver everything from love-gone-wrongs to the “Twisting Postman” with a fully disarming Joanie-loves-Chachi candor.

All details on the group’s formation are somewhat enigmatic. It was probably in late 2000. It was probably motivated in part by a suggestion by Sympathy for the Record Industry’s Long Gone John, that Ko put a songs on The Sympathetic Sounds of Detroit compilation. The initial conversations probably happened amongst the bowling ball rumble and spilling drinks of Detroit’s Magic Stick, where Shih was working Wednesday nights as bartender and the trio would debut a few months later. “Black and Blue,” Ko and the Knockout’s contribution to Sympathetic Sounds… was the perfect song to put them on the map, a revenge fantasy built on garage-pop sensibilities and wryly fatalistic wit. Half a dozen shows and a dozen months later, the band celebrated the release of their self-titled debut on Sympathy, a twelve-song snapshot of the past and present of Detroit downtown scene, wrapped tightly in a package of heartbreaking harmony and coy go-getter, rock ‘n’ roll-girl sentiment. For final impressions try these: Gritty pop, knee-length skirts and the panicked, compulsive desire to dance until you drop; a slightly masochistic need to play songs on repeat with the volume all the way up and faith in the sound of sublimely unrefined rock ‘n’ roll that is as essentially Detroit as Woodward Avenue.