Who Is Andrew WK?

In the beginning it was pretty simple. There was this guy, Andrew Wilkes-Krier and he partied hard. He sang loud, ridiculous songs, performed amazing, concerts and all was well.

Then things started getting weird. His third album was only released in Asian markets. He stopped touring with a band. The third album finally was released in the US but only on Vinyl. Then he released an album of improvised piano music from a record label based in the UK. Plus during this whole time the "identity" of AWK became more of a mystery.

You can read up on some of the drama on his wikipedia, or start on this Gawker article. There's a lot of tinfoil hat stuff, but in a nutshell, some people think the person currently appearing as Andrew WK is not the same person, and there is some reason to believe this. There's someone called Steev Mike, whose identity is still a mystery, and then there's a whole lot of legal stuff behind the scenes that adds another layer of confion.

The basic point is, no matter what statements or comments are made by Mr. WK, there seems to be something funny going on behind the scenes. Is it all sinister? Probably not. Most of the subterfuge is probably the result of legal agreements, but the more statements that come out, the more confusing things seem to get.

How do I feel about the whole thing? In all honesty, I don't really care if someone else secretly wrote and performed the music on the first (and maybe second and maybe third) album(s). Andrew WK is a positive force and the person who by all accounts from fans is a really decent guy. He has gone out of his way to be kind to his fanbase and he seems genuinely enthused about damn near everything. To my mind, this is a bit (just a little bit) like the Tiger Woods situation. One more music comes out (or once Tiger starts playing golf) the weird sideshow of identity will go back to being a small distraction. I'm amused by AWK the public speaker and TV personality, but all that I really want is to be in a club full of fans shouting out the lyrics to "Party Til You Puke." And I think I'm not alone on that.