—andmoreagain presents—King Tuff — The Moo Tour
w/ Morgan Nagler
at Kings
Raleigh, NC
doors 6:30pm // show 7:30pm
$25 adv // $28 day of show
Presale tickets on sale at 10am Jan 29
General tickets on sale at 10am Jan 30
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KING TUFF
I got my Tascam 388 fixed, the same tape machine I had used to record my first album, King Tuff Was Dead. It had been sitting in my parent’s house in Vermont for the past 14 years, but I had finally dragged it out to LA. The first song I recorded on it was “Twisted On A Train”, and I was shocked by how instantly I sounded, and felt, like myself again. In fact, I wrote and recorded the whole dang song in the span of a few hours, which was basically the opposite of how I had been working in the computer. Spending hours moving waveforms around like a zombie, comping vocals, second guessing, trying to make things sound not lifeless, trying to make anything sound good at all, took months. But here on the tape it was so much more alive. More like painting or collaging. More like making actual music. Every move I made stuck like super glue. It was effortless. It was pure joy.
I stopped caring if there were mistakes.
There’s not enough mistakes.
I played my old, blue, Gibson SG, Jazijoo, and she spewed mangled electrified gold.
For once, I sang and I didn’t hate my voice.
I played the drums badly and bounced them in mono to one track and it sounded like glorious shit.
I wish it sounded even worse.
Rock & Roll is the music of rodents and bugs. It should sound like it crept from a decrepit trashcan or a crypt or a toilet. It is not chill or vibey, autotuned or on the grid. It is not perfect, which is why it’s perfect. And I don’t care if it’s dead or alive, cool or uncool: when I hear it, and when I play it, as a chubby and balding 43 year old punk weirdo, I FEEL ENERGIZED.
・Listen: linktr.ee/kingtuffy
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MORGAN NAGLER
Sometimes it takes a side quest to reach the place you were always meant to go.
A songwriter for more than half her life, Morgan Nagler has contributed her poetic approach to melody and wordcraft to hundreds of sessions during the past few years, stretching across genre lines to help other artists get to the core of a feeling. Previously at the helm of bands such as Los Angeles stalwarts Whispertown and Supermoon, Nagler had decided to put her own projects on the back burner while building new muscles as a collaborator. She was already highly regarded among her creative community, and had struck musical gold on early co-writes with HAIM and Phoebe Bridgers, earning a Grammy nomination with the latter for her contribution to the song “Kyoto.” Nagler has since become a hugely in-demand presence in writing rooms, frequently sought to help her collaborators tell their stories with depth, humor and authenticity. Her recent work includes songs with Margo Price, Kim Deal, Madi Diaz, Claud and Tyler Ballgame.
In the midst of that all, Nagler realized that she still had her own stories aching to get out. In early 2024, on the precipice of the devastating break-up of her engagement, she turned to her guitar to sing her grief, and once she’d opened that channel, the ideas came rushing through like an emotional tsunami. She soon amassed dozens of songs that she knew were the start of something important. As raw and vulnerable as the process was, Nagler says she felt more like herself than ever. All the skills she’d honed in countless hours of collaboration were being distilled into her truest musical statement yet.
I’ve Got Nothing to Lose, and I’m Losing It, Nagler’s debut solo album, is a stunning testament to her skills as a songwriter, as well as to the unique beauty and tenderness of her approach as a singer. From the anthemic, fuzzed-out album opener, “Cradle The Pain” to the joyful country stomp of “Grassoline” to the stunningly spare closing track, “Heartbreak City,” Nagler combines her gift for musical earworms with candid, evocatively detailed lyrics. And then there is her sweet, plaintive voice, which feels like a friend singing directly to you, letting you know you’re not alone.
“Realist hope” is how Nagler describes the overall mood of the album, and you can hear her navigating the balance between optimism and melancholy throughout its eleven tracks. On “Cradle the Pain” she sings: “Your happiness is a cloud / You can see it, but it don’t land / Just imagine it could catch you / Like heaven in your hands,” while the chorus to the bittersweet ballad “Hurt” offers the reminder that “you don’t know love if you don’t know hurt.” And on “Hammer And Nail” – Nagler’s personal favorite on the album – she sings about “dreaming of a log cabin building itself, like in a fairytale / Holding out for one divine hammer and one believer nail.” “For me,” she says, “that song encapsulates the childlike belief in magic that I don’t ever want to completely give up on, despite it all.”
“Morgan is by far one of the best lyricists I’ve ever worked with,” says Kyle Thomas (aka King Tuff), who produced the album and co-wrote some of the music. “Her lyrics are always interesting and stick with you, and they often have that unexpected surreal quality, while at the same time being highly relatable. Most songwriters struggle over the lyrics, but Morgan has a superpower where she can often come up with incredible shit on the spot.”
I’ve Got Nothing to Lose, and I’m Losing It was recorded in Los Angeles in 2024 and 2025. With a stellar backing band including Thomas on guitar, backing vocals from Allison Crutchfield, Madi Diaz and Bethany Cosentino, Gabe Noel (Kamasi Washington, Kendrick Lamar) on bass, Courtney Barnett, Meg Duffy and Harrison Whitford on guitars, and Josh Adams (Cat Power, Weyes Blood) on drums, they laid down basic tracks at 64 Sound in Highland Park, with the rest coming together at Thomas’s former home studio in Mount Washington. “Kyle is just an absolutely magical human being to be around,” says Nagler. “Obviously his music is wonderful, but also he values art in the way that I aspire to, which is to see the art in everything.”
A native of Southern California, Nagler entered showbiz when she was only five years old and began acting in commercials and TV series. Her first part was as a “fantasy child” on an episode of Days of Our Lives, and her successful run as a kid actor included roles on Punky Brewster, Frasier, Will & Grace, Highway to Heaven and more. At age 20, while filming a cable series called Maggie, Nagler made use of downtime in her trailer to start writing songs on the guitar her parents gifted her a few years earlier. “I remember, as I got farther into acting, I felt like I was waiting for a role to come across with a character that would be exactly like myself, because I thought I would crush that,” she says, with a laugh. “It occurred to me that, you know, that's not really acting. So with the first song I ever wrote in the trailer, I just remember the feeling was so profound, even though, at that point, I had zero intention of ever sharing it with anyone. But it felt like I had contributed to the ether in a way that I had never felt before, because I was craving my own words, not the words on someone else’s script.”
After several years balancing acting and playing in bands, she threw herself into music full-time, and hasn’t looked back. With all of her projects, Nagler was deeply devoted to the DIY ethos, recording and touring as much as possible, even when she had to finance it herself. Then, while on a grueling two-bands-one-van tour in 2019, she had the epiphany that maybe a change would do her good. She’d already had successes co-writing with friends like Kim Deal, Bridgers, HAIM, and Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, and it felt like a worthy challenge to see how far she could push herself in that arena.
Nagler went into every session with an open heart, and a humble desire to connect with other artists. With each experience, her confidence in her own instincts grew. “I learned something every single time, because everybody does it differently,” she says. “In those rooms, I'm always trying to help the other person follow their unique voice. Eventually that idea started reflecting back to me in my own writing. By freeing myself from trying to fit some cookie-cutter mold, I could have less of a filter. The songs just started coming.”
Soon she had a mountain of ideas, and a vision for her evolution into a solo artist. She brought dozens of demos to Thomas, and they collaborated to develop the ones that truly represented this new phase in Nagler’s artistry – the most expansive and yet most intimate work in a creative career spanning more than twenty years. “Mine is the story of somebody who decided to never stop,” says Nagler, with her usual pragmatic positivity. “Recently there have been more signs from the universe to keep going. But the ultimate sign has really just been within myself, realizing that I have a lifetime of experiences and my own unique perspective, and that is the gift I have to offer.”
・Listen: linktr.ee/morgannagler
Event Venue
Kings, 14 W Martin St,Raleigh, North Carolina, United States
Tickets
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