"Put Your Finger in Somebody Who Counts" (King Khan & BBQ, Cake Shop, 10/26)

At the start of the set some audience member up front - I can't see who, I'm at Cake Shop, I can't see shit - takes his full beer bottle and whips it around wildly, dousing those next to him, spritzing those further out.  A good deal of the sauce, though, wound up as a shiny, gravity-defying puddle on the room's low flat-black ceiling.  And it stayed there for a song or two, or however long it took before the night's only crowd-surfer wiped it off with her ass.

King Khan & BBQ (myspace) - What you mean I mean King Awesome and the Awesome-BQ? - are a pair of ex-Spaceshits, a ‘90s Montreal garage band that broke up when Khan (aka "Blacksnake") liked touring Germany so much he decided to stay there.  The two men have an army of aliases and bands between them.  BBQ (aka Mark Sultan aka "Creepy," also a one-man show, also of the Sexareenos and the Mind Controls) came out in a red turban (and something else, hopefully) and disappeared behind a drum kit (which he plays with his feet, mostly) and a guitar (which he plays with his hands, hopefully).  Khan (who had a group called the Kukamongas, who has a fuller-bodied soul band called The Shrines) was playing guitar and doing some singing, here, wearing a lavender wig and a lime green dress.

And there's really nothing that special about KK and BB, at least there shouldn't be.  What they're doing is filling basements with sweaty kids who love The Rock and Roll.  There's Berry licks and some good bluesy stomps (the tempos shift, but don't expect genius Jack White tangents; instead, sloppy frenzy), there's your boogie and your woogie and Everly-lovin' ballads.  One of the guys actually has a nice croon; and one of them does a good Eric Burdon.  They might be the same someone, I don't know, I'm at Cake Shop, I can't see shit.

King Khan & BBQ - Why Don't You Lie? (mp3) (buy What's for Dinner on CD or mp3)

King Khan & BBQ - Waddlin' Around (mp3) (preorder)

King Khan & BBQ - Shake Real Low (mp3) (preorder)

Love those lots.  "Shake Real Low" ain't nothing more than "Twistin' the Night Away."  But that's sort of the point.

The front of the room is and-a'ing.  Boppin'/hoppin', shakin'/bakin', movin'/groovin'.  The ones bored with ye olde sounds and/or frustrated with the venue are leaving, grieving, maybe missing the point while dissing the joint.  It's wrong to assume the immediacy of Rock and Roll has been preserved nicely in yr daddy's record collection.  You gotta hear it first hand, hot-sweaty basements are Rock and Roll churches.  Sacred stomping grounds.  Fuck the pristine indie-yuppie concert experience.  This is a living word, the bird is the word, you don't stop until everybody's heard about the bird.  It's got to get in your face.  Khan pushes the neck of his guitar forward, shoves the strings against audience members' foreheads.  Healed!  A shirtless boy up front grabs the wig and puts it on his head and spazzes out.

(The band probably deserves a more dedicated congregation.  Calls for requests, and to "bum rush the stage" (even though the stage is a half-step off the floor) went mostly unanswered.  Blather about a Ouija board didn't seem to register with anyone.)

It's no Latin mass.  There's a song I'm guessing's called "Tea Bag Party" (It sucked balls! <rimshot>) because the lyrics were basically "Let's have a tea bag party!  Tea bag party!  Tea bag party!  Tea bag party!  Tea bag party!  Tea bag party!  Tea bag party!  Tea bag party!"  They dedicate a song to Todd P, because they "read on the Internet that Todd P should eat shit and die" (that, and they're playing one of his shows tonight in a Brooklyn house Khan called "Tony Montana's Death Palace").  The show ends with KK tangling the head of his guitar in the Xmas lights stapled to the club's ceiling, letting the instrument hang.  He takes a half-filled bottle of Beck's, dallies with dobro, then smashsmashsmashes it against the neck.  Standing in a puddle of beer and sweat and broken glass.  Good night, ladies and gentlemen.

*

The band's at Montana's Party Place tonight with Golden Triangle and the Vivian Girls.  Then back in Brooklyn December 7th at Don Pedro's on Manhattan Avenue ("The Official Death Cult Headquarters," whatever that means).  Bring your willingness.

*

There's this sort-of sweet three-day Cavestomp garage festival coming to Warsaw (November 2-4, myspace).  The Sonics ("Have Love Will Travel," a zillion others) are playing their first show in 35 years (headlining nights one and three?).  The Strawberry Alarm Clock is playing its first album (Incense and Peppermints, featuring the ultimate dumb hippie song, "Incense and Peppermints") in its entirety.  The Fleshtones are there, and they're always fun.  Nuggets curator Lenny Kaye is MC'ing the final day.

Original members?  Who knows?

But Tickets are $35/night ($40 dos)?  $90 for all three days?  Nothing rock and roll about that.

tags: king khan and bbq  concert reviews  

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