Rumor has it Andrew WK purposefully smashed his face against a brick wall to get an authentic gnarly nosebleed for this album cover. Seriously. Who the fuck is this guy.
I don’t particularly like Andrew WK’s music. I don’t feel weird about this, as his brand of heavy metal is not intended to be liked by the masses. At its core it’s shrill, repetitive, and contains noises that are meant to be naturally repellant to human ears, which may justify its entire reasoning for being awesome; It’s not for everyone, and his fans get off on that.
However, I like the idea of Andrew WK. I enjoy his insistence on wearing the same dirt and blood stained white jeans and t-shirt combo everyday like a heavy metal cartoon character. I like his devotion to partying. I like that he lives a simple life, performs metal, parties, and seems generally well-adjusted; Whatever this guy’s doing, it’s working out.
I recently came to a cultural crossroads with my music-loving dignity on the line. A friend of mine presented me the gift of a bumper sticker with the message, “I’d Rather be PARTYING with Andrew WK” and though, hilarious and true as this was I became instantly conflicted.
Firm within my obnoxious neurosis that someone might see this on my Subaru Outback and quiz me on how much Andrew WK does in fact party, I hesitated on any action. (If asked, I’d probably make up some unimaginable amount, “a quadrillion percent parties? He parties a quadrillion of the time?” Then the perennially cool kids that exist in my imagination would back away slowly, awkwardly.)
I credit my nervousness due to a teenage upbringing in a music scene, an environment that thrives on its bartering system of cool points. Band pins were always declarations of loyalty, bumper stickers doubled as resources for cutting to the chase personality-wise. Each band reference you made on a patched-up jean jacket fit together like an elaborate puzzle for what you stood for, each piece had to fit within another in some deranged way. If you had a pin on your jacket insincerely, the scene would soon uncover you as a fake and a phony; the worst offense any sixteen year old could accrue.
I stared at my Andrew WK bumper sticker and wondered how it would fit as a puzzle piece to my pop-cultural life. Am I putting it on my car as a proclamation of my appreciation for irony? Am I just in need of covering my station wagon with colorful excess to seem cooler? Or do I, much like Andrew WK love to party and if presented with an option to party without Andrew WK or with – would I choose the latter?
Once I was walking down Franklin Ave. and thought I saw the partier in the flesh. A bit heavier than MTV would remember, though still clad in dirtied white clothes contrasted against immaculate Nikes, he strutted the streets like a jovial neighbor; Even if this wasn’t WK, I would still love to party with this guy.
This guy embodied the very idea of WK that I adore. He’s the guy in High School you love for loving heavy metal. The creative genius who approaches every day with a spontaneity few can contain. He’s the guy that defies all of the ‘cool points’ gathered through every music scene, ever. And he’s the kind of guy I’d rather be partying with.
From the look of this head-to-toe makeover it's obvious that when Andrew WK slumber-parties, he slumber-parties hard.
My name is Julia Prescott, and even thinking about partying with Andrew WK makes me puke. In a good way. It’s that powerful.
