King Khan & BBQ Show - The pagan gods of the garage revival

Seemingly stupid music sometimes feels as necessary as air, as long as that apparent stupidity remains a game played openly between us and the musicians who serve it up. When it comes to garage-rock, this is precisely the golden rule, the only one that allows you to tune into a world apart without running the risk of judging its codes with the condescension of the arrogant. Well, if the King Khan and BBQ story were a film, its register could only be farcical, a coarse-grained irreverence that, deep down, hides not exactly a moral, but certainly a form of disenchanted wit. For the script, it's worth starting, for convenience, with a relatively recent episode with no major consequences, but in a sense emblematic of the two characters' temperament: a well-calibrated bit of shameless self-promotion, an arrest for drug possession and an invalid driving licence in Kentucky, a few years back. The result? Bail that wasn't too prohibitive, a couple of cancelled shows, but who cares when you consider the bad-boy publicity gained at such a bargain price? Hard to engineer better promotion for an album that would otherwise have had little visibility.

That these two walking novels know exactly what they're doing is no longer up for debate. Following them with carefree good humour can easily turn into genuine enthusiasm, while trying to interpret their exploits in search of hidden meaning is a pure Sisyphean task. Of course, "following them" is an enterprise that exists only in intention. You'll never find King Khan where you left him. Sensational Shrines, Almighty Defenders, Black Jaspers, Tandoori Knights, Vomit Squad, Ciaoculos, Red Mass, Cocobeurre: a tangle of side projects perhaps second only to the absurd deluge Pollard-esque output, yet still capable of making even Wild Billy Childish jealous - no slouch himself in that same department. Mark Sultan borrowed the same schizophrenia from the "sovereign", though he limited its scope to the silly stage pseudonyms he's adopted live (at least a dozen of them). Back when they were still in their very first band - the "Space Shits" - King and BBQ made headlines for their tendency to deliver shows as lightning-fast as they were deranged, invariably ending in brawls and flying vegetables. Thrown out of every club in Montreal, they embarked on a European tour that ended in a split, with Khan choosing to settle down in Germany.

After nearly twenty years, their musical deviance hasn't subsided, but King Khan and his trusty sidekick have learned to discipline its quirks while still indulging their unhealthy love of the past. Mawkishness and idiocy, rapid-fire quotations and a wholly personal stamp, dishevelled psychedelia, soured pop and assorted garage grit: the brightly coloured blend, whipped up and served without much fuss at the table of anonymous revivalists, is a high-calorie kitsch bomb. Songs that plunder a repertoire of long-dead and buried styles and go zipping exuberantly through the players or turntables of those who still love to buy albums, whenever they come out. Sloppiness remains, for them, a suit so well tailored that it pulls off its own expressive deception beautifully: these Canadian rascals are highly skilled tailors and, where the songwriting itself doesn't quite measure up, they make up the shortfall with their usual excellent craft. If you haven't the faintest idea what kind of music two lunatics of this calibre might play but still fancy finding out, know that everything written here is the immaculate truth, and their albums, stupid or not, might just be exactly what you're looking for.

Once upon a time in Montreal…

Arish Ahmad "King" Khan and Marco Antonio "Mark Sultan" Pepe met in their native Montreal in August 1995, when the former, barely eighteen, was hired as bassist in the wild band fronted by the latter, the Spaceshits. Sultan had cut his teeth as drummer in a band from the punk scene of the Chateauguay suburb, the Powersquat, fairly well known at the time in Quebec for its particularly rowdy and irreverent shows, but he didn't hesitate to put himself forward as frontman of this other, freshly founded group. The five original Spaceshits hid behind silly pseudonyms: axeman Tongues, rhythm guitarist Oily Chi, drummer Skid Marks, Pepe's barking vocals (aka Creepy) and the bass of Stinky B., replaced almost immediately by a Khan who at the time went by Blacksnake (easy enough to guess why, given the musician's Indian roots and the project's tongue-in-cheek streak). Looking at them today it's hard to believe, but at the start of their career it was actually Mark who was the loudest, most unpredictable element, proof that the new outfit inherited, with barely any smoothing of the edges, the downright turbulent nature of the Italian-Canadian's previous creature. Rarely lasting more than a quarter of an hour, spiced up with brawls, fireworks or battles waged with all manner of foodstuffs, the newborn quintet's shows quickly made the Powersquat's already dismal live reputation pale by comparison.

One gig in particular, opening for the American New Bomb Turks, landed them unequivocally on the blacklist of many clubs in the city. It's April 1996, and the band, who had just released the double seven-inch "Full Fisted Action!" on Sympathy For The Record Industry, had yet to make their full-length debut. That gap was filled a few months later by Winter Dance Party, produced by Canadian underground veteran Al Caiati and released, again, by the legendary Olympia label, in early 1997. The Spaceshits' debut is fulminant garage-rock, ferocious and with a particularly lousy, scuzzy sound, right in line with the revivalist orthodoxy built up over the decade by the Mummies and the Oblivians onward. "Backstreet Boogie" or "Cassie" already betray a kind of embryonic cult of the past, reinterpreted with an explosive, impressively virulent energy, in punk ulcerations ("More Abuse" the manifesto, basically the Ramones on acid) that only occasionally stretch to a minute and a half.

Reverb drowns out voices and instruments with obvious strategic carelessness, but behind the bestial screams, the sonic jumble and Skid's jackhammer drumming, you can make out a real structure, a still-naive love for the most disparate genres: beat music on adrenaline, foaming-at-the-mouth power-pop and plenty of schizoid surf-rock. It's genuinely hard to spot major stylistic shifts from one track to the next, so it's best to take the filthy fifteen songs of this debut as a whole, as a happy snapshot of the very young Khan and Sultan in the throes of their furious rock apprenticeship. When the considerable dust cloud it kicks up finally settles, the clock reads just over twenty minutes of atrocious din ("Showdown On 3rd St." the best of the bunch), which makes the mainstream punk-rock of the period sound like a tame pastime for schoolgirls. There's also an affectionate tribute to Betty Page (and more broadly to the mythology of pin-up imagery), which, despite the usual grimy clothing, even dares a vaguely bubblegum touch on the refrain.

At the start of 1998, Tongues left and was replaced by Alex Fascination of Smash-Up Derby. In the meantime, Khan got involved with a host of other bands from the Montreal area, especially those - Lyle Sheraton, Daylight Lovers, Scat Rag Boosters - driven by the volcanic Paul Spence, who introduced him to the world of ultra-independent cinema (he would go on to act in gems such as "Enchiladas de Amore" and the never-completed "Count Crackula and the Cocaine Kid"). Around the same time he founded a kind of friendly cult among musicians with a passion for tattoos - the Kukamongas, a "family" as he calls it - which soon took in members from half the world and helped establish him as the informal leader not just of his own band, but of the entire Canadian garage scene. As if that weren't enough, his passion for music found a further outlet in the deranged interviews and reviews he wrote for the Montreal Mirror and, above all, for Vice Magazine.

In January 1999, Sympathy For The Record Industry released the Spaceshits' sophomore album, Misbehavin', the first true production credit for a fellow Montrealer, Howard Bilerman, soon to be among the founders of Arcade Fire and a highly sought-after engineer (thanks to his work for Canadian greats Silver Mt. Zion, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Wolf Parade). The renewed quintet's incendiary potential comes out somewhat toned down, since the emphasis is on the accessibility of a more conventional garage-punk sound ("We Know Where The Girls Are"). Not that the band had lost any of its edge or bite: there's more cohesion, let's say, the pace becomes less schizophrenic, but the nastiness and griminess remain at thoroughly respectable levels. The result is another collection that's as brazen as it is fun (just listen to "C'mon Let's Suicide" or the doggish "She's A Bad Luck Charm" for proof), rigorously devoid of any conceptual pretension but spiced up with the irrepressible slacker spirit of these Quebec rascals. Also worth noting are the ramshackle bubblegum suggestions of "I'm In Love", the hopelessly broken and limping rockabilly of "Jungle Beauty", and the intact celebration of DIY philosophy, embraced more out of sheer laziness than any real operational intransigence. Two tracks even push past the three-minute mark: as if it were a symptom of creeping respectability or overly elaborate songwriting, the band chose not to follow up the record with anything beyond their usual travelling circus of live shows. So "Tell Me Your Name" can sound like a farewell, or a see-you-later, and indeed it's the closest thing to the music that Arish and Mark would record together five years later, with a far greater sense of purpose.

On 30 April 1999, shortly before setting off on a new European tour, during an argument the owner of the club where the band was about to play injured Khan's arm. His bandmates and the other bands on the bill refused to perform and convinced the audience to get their money back. It was the last straw, and it earned the Spaceshits a ban from every club in the city, including the few still willing to host them. Once the dates in the Old Continent were wrapped up, the various members went their separate ways: in August, Arish announced his decision to settle in Kassel, in the heart of Germany, adopted the moniker King Khan and founded the psychedelic-soul band the Sensational Shrines. His bandmates refused to carry on without him, and the group split up. Mark and Skid Marks carried on together in Les Sexareenos, while Oily Chi went on to front the Del-Gators and the Milky Ways alongside Khan's sister, Coco, with Alex Fascination sticking around briefly with the little-known The Chains before dropping off the radar.

The circus has come to Berlin

As mentioned, Khan didn't take long to put together the pyrotechnic group he'd had in mind for ages, and in the slow moments he made a living reading tarot cards for tourists on the streets of Berlin. The original line-up of the Shrines' backing band featured a string of European musicians, as usual hidden behind boastful aliases. Alongside him and his black Squier Telecaster, complete with a totemic beast on the pickguard (a black cobra, the Blacksnake of his most beloved moniker), there was the other guitarist - the band's jack-of-all-trades and, in effect, second-in-command - Till Timm, better known as Mr. Speedfinger, Jens Redemann aka Boom Boom Jennes on bass, the monumental Mirko Wenzl aka John Boy Adonis on drums, while the horns were handled by Sam Cook (trumpet), Torben Wesche aka Ben Ra (tenor sax) and Mr. Tom Bone (trombone), and rounding out the lineup were standout members Frederic Bourdil, known as Fredovitch, on organ (and, in his spare time, a one-man band), and African-American percussionist Ron Streeter, aka Rahn Kahn, who in his youth had worked with Curtis Mayfield, Bo Diddley and Stevie Wonder. As if that weren't enough, live the crew also boasted two backing singers, or Khanettes (Domi & Fabienne), a jester dressed as Tarzan who ran wild with tribal dances (Harry Bo), and a burlesque artist to set the crowd alight with her stripping (Baborella).

It was inevitable that the new outfit would become a cult phenomenon purely on the strength of their live shows across the Old Continent, well before their recorded debut. The first single, "Torture", came out on Kunta Kinte in January 2000, followed a few months later by Spread Your Love Like Peanut Butter!, a ten-inch EP released by the small German label Sounds Of Subterrania. The mini-album diligently replicates, in broad strokes, the exhilarating energy of their live shows, and works especially well thanks to a couple of sufficiently adrenaline-fuelled tracks destined to become live staples for the ensemble: opener "Got The Itch" and, above all, "Took My Lady To Dinner", with its platoon of horns, its riffs front and centre, and an enjoyably hoarse hysteria reminiscent of the fired-up preacher-style ye-ye gospel of Ian Svenonius (shamelessly plagiarised). If the sugary title track, enlivened by Fredovitch's Hammond flourishes, is prime territory for the frontman's showmanship, "What A Shame" slows things down quite dramatically to play the card of a ragged (and still unripe) sentimental crooning, which would be put to much better use in the future, while "Peanut Duck" is a filler that reeks of harmless tomfoolery without ever really winning you over. The two-part closer "Do The Slap Pt. 1 & 2", all strung-out, licentious rock-blues, confirms that not all of the collective's potential had found full expression on this first studio outing.

In a sense, the true full-length debut of King Khan and his Sensational Shrines should be considered the album recorded by underground guru Liam Watson at his Toe Rag Studios in London, released in 2001 on Voodoo Rhythm. Three Hairs And You’re Mine ignites from the very first instant with a duly contaminated, gloriously overloaded rock sound, perfect for showcasing the Canadian showman's crackling musical exhibitionism. The band, whipped up beyond measure by the horns, is the perfect foil for the effervescent eccentricities of an artist who's over-the-top almost out of necessity, and who in the manifesto-like "Kukamonga Boogaloo" allows himself the pleasure of the necessary introductions. The blend of soul, funk, R&B, jazz and garage comes off remarkably well as an exercise straddling genres, but it's above all the wild-card variable represented by the singer that keeps the whole operation from the one-dimensionality of similar efforts excessively devoted to the programmatic. Here the sound flow, hot-blooded and overwhelming as expected, reflects a rejection of any academic logic in favour of the fun — if eclectic — side of making music together.

The standard remains at an excellent level of fluidity and sparkling vigour, fired up by the horns and the choral parts but grounded in a sturdy (and necessarily conventional) rock'n'roll framework — qualities that easily earn Khan labels like "the Maharaja of soul", "the godfather of voodoo-soul" or, more simply, "the bastard son of Screamin' Jay Hawkins". "King Of The Jungle", the album's apotheosis, is another episode that's paradigmatic for obvious reasons, though on a western/tex-mex ridge that sublimates the happy Tarantino-esque/comic-book inclination of a project born to entertain, especially when the stirring of the pot of the past tends toward a more theatrical or particularly wild emphasis. Arish excels as a tumbler in the mood for assorted oddities or eccentricities, whether it's the calypso sketch with doo-wop trimmings of an enjoyable diversion like "Crackin' Up", the tasty, parodic cross-breeding of "Que Lindo Sueño", or the Latin-twilight evocations of his more languid, mannered incarnation — that of the decadent artist who's good at not taking himself too seriously and not letting himself be boxed in by easy genre stereotypes.

The crew's superb craft finds its most classic expression in "Saba Lou", a song Khan dedicated to his infant daughter — scruffy and headlong, true to the protagonists' nature, with coarse-grained big riffs marking the beat, the usual surrounding hullabaloo, and a frontman as suitably possessed as ever. By contrast, in less frenzied passages like "Live Fast Die Strong", the group plays it low-key and works admirably on the velvet of the arrangements as well as on the sophistication of their tireless name-dropping, drawing on an early-1970s European tradition (including cinematic references) and elevating its cues to the rank of a rock art that's still thoroughly relevant today. When the "King" slows down, quite fittingly, he does so to make use of the same clichés of rough romanticism that around the same period began to become the trademark of his former (and future) partner Mark Sultan: the closing "Shivers Down My Spine" falls into this category and is the best possible representative of it.

For the Sensational Shrines, niche success comes almost immediately, in Europe — toured extensively alongside Black Lips, Enon and Mr. Quintron & Ms. Pussycat — as well as in Canada, where the ostracism toward Arish is thankfully set aside. Live, his new lineup doesn't come close to the obnoxious irreverence of the Spaceshits, and the frontman shows he has managed to tame his unruly nature through a series of harmless stage gimmicks, mostly trashy costumes, which readily establish themselves as one of the big draws of his shows.

Keen to strike while the iron is hot, the small Vicious Circle label indulges itself by releasing, in 2003, a first anthology of the supergroup, Smash Hits, which gathers the first single ("Torture"), the two best tracks from the EP, and six excerpts from the debut. The true second chapter, however, arrives relatively soon, already the following year, though the shift from the debut proves rather abrupt and the ambitions don't land where expected. Mr. Supernatural, as it's titled, is to all effects the most "German" record in the collective's catalogue and, in all likelihood, also the least successful. It comes out on a Frankfurt label, Hazelwood, produced by Wolfgang Gottlieb and Gordon Friedrich.

The listener doesn't need to dig too deep to notice how the brilliant soul-band inclination, polished and muffled as never before, has taken over, silencing the group's more instinctive soul in order to showcase the precision and sophistication of a work that's better structured but more standardized and closer to a certain ethno-jazz manner. Khan himself seems to perform on leash and muzzle, forgetting his noisiest rock antics, overshadowed by horns elevated to true protagonists of a sophomore effort that the title track signals as rather dull from the outset. Thus, crushed by the pursuit of style, the Shrines give way, perhaps not entirely knowingly, to the caricature so common in similar works, indulging in a kind of holiday license that overdoes the lush contaminations of a mischievous, luxuriant sound that's far chillier than expected.

Within the album's golden mean, standouts include the near-mythological homage to the Stax era's vintage glamour in "On A Brass Bed (In Paradise)", fairly sincere in its dusty nostalgia, the insinuating boogie exorcism of "Pickin' Up The Trash" and, above all, the fervent closer "Burnin' Inside", a solid reminder of the animal magnetism the band has never stopped unleashing live, without reservations.

The usual stock of virtuosity is, for once, poorly employed, and a few yawns are to be expected (the gurgling, mimetic jam "Train No 8"). The rippling funk of "Stone Soup" is barely passable, while despite a similarly sordid revivalist atmosphere, the soporific "Shattered" only shares its name with the superlative album the Reigning Sound would gift us ten years later. In the end, what lingers most is the impression of a work too programmatically sweetened and tame, overthought but not deeply felt by its authors (Khan first and foremost), along with the sense of an exercise — more than the usual joke — stretched out far too long ("I Don't Have To Tell You"). A chance at redemption, however, arrives within a few months, offered by a split album that King Khan and his gang share with one of the institutions of the North American garage scene, Mick Collins's Dirtbombs.

Billiards At Nine Thirty, released by Sounds Of Subterrania in January 2005, is split evenly between the two bands. The half given over to the Detroit outfit feels like a polished pastime, lacking the explosiveness of an "Ultraglide In Black" but also not leaning as much as might have been hoped into the more eccentric registers, into oddness that's curious yet enjoyable: a performance without much bite, then (except perhaps for "The Size Of Ottawa", itself a touch caricatural), ill-suited to capturing the spirit of this meeting-as-challenge, however formidable the collective behind it. Far, far better is the crew led by Khan, possessed from the opening "Sweet Tooth" onward, and considerably more jagged and sharp-edged than an average that's already fairly devoted to tetanus and electric hysteria. This is the direction chosen, sparing no sweat, across the six tracks of their segment, from the flea-bitten revivalism of a frenzied "Annabelle" to the roaring riff of a "Burnin' Inside" reconverted to a stomping trend. If toward the end room is again made for the ringleader's unchecked ham acting ("40 Birds") or his more freak-animal nature ("Take A Trip"), "Killer Diller" stands as the signature of a pact made with his own classicism, never to betray it again.

A more openly garage-rock record, then, sharp and biting, which, in order not to pale next to the American masters, floors the accelerator without ever running off the road — though, given this release's scant visibility, it wastes some genuinely interesting ammunition.

Mark, between Les Sexareenos and BBQ

But let's set Arish aside and go back to the summer of 1999, to the breakup of the Spaceshits and their offshoot on the Canadian side. Mark and drummer Danny Marks moved a few kilometres away to the nearby suburb of Saint-Laurent and, together with ex-Daylight Lover Roy Vucino and keyboardist Annie Laurin, formed Les Sexareenos, a name lifted from a pulp novel by Vin Saxon (pseudonym of Ron Haydock of The Boppers). The fondness for aliases is confirmed, with Sultan becoming (depending on the occasion) Blortz, Bridge Mixture or Noamnm Rumnyun, and the others transformed respectively into Colonel Lingus, Choyce and "Work With Me" Annie; Danny hands the drums over to the frontman and takes on the instrument that in their first shared venture belonged to Khan, the bass. After a couple of seven-inches, it takes the group only a few months to release their full-length debut, Live! In The Bed, recorded by another veteran of the console (Jim Diamond of the Dirtbombs, first producer of the White Stripes) and once again released on Sympathy For The Record Industry.

The sound is ramshackle just as in the previous incarnation, but the tone comes off light and carefree, looking more openly toward power-pop sketching, noisy soul drift, the Fleshtones-style revisited beat (Laurin's farfisa playing is crucial here, a genuine break from the Spaceshits), and Mark's singing opens up quite decisively to melody, even while staying within a generally headlong, and at times suitably fired-up, orientation. The paradigm track for this new, brash and festive animation is called "Everybody Sexareeno!". The imprint is even more derivative, the house's name-dropping has become shameless (listen to "Hey Sah-Lo-Ney", an admirable cover of The Chants), but the searing impact of tracks like "I Need Your Lovin'" and "What You Gonna Do", as well as the ramshackle country-blues of "I Found You", remain a formidable treat for genre devotees; the record doesn't drown in the usual impenetrable lo-fi and is in fact rather well produced. Above all, it shows no drop-offs or dead spots, thanks to a Sultan who's never more pyrotechnic behind the snare. Tracks like "Sorry" or the thoroughly ragged "Carolina, Yeah!" are worthwhile also, and especially, as a kind of dress rehearsal for the rough romanticism that the Italian-Canadian would deliver with extraordinary incisiveness in the fruitful years of his artistic maturity.

The group wins fans around the world, Japan and Europe included, above all for its tireless live activity alongside labelmates Deadly Snakes, Von Bondies and Detroit Cobras. The self-released sophomore 14 Frenzied Shakers hits stores in July 2001. Compared to the debut, there's a decisive shift toward lo-fi, a device that strips a bit of brilliance from otherwise intriguing gems like "We Gonna Ball". The frontman's histrionics are also somewhat toned down by a work more painstakingly focused on the meticulous philological reconstruction of a style (the emblematic "Don't You Know Yokomo") but penalized by a sound no longer so explosive. The band's repositioning as the architect of an elaborate revivalist breviary ("Ring Dang Do", the fine "The Way That You Work") certainly brings a higher degree of eclecticism, but at the same time betrays the drying-up of this lineup's more genuine vein, in a record that's at times rather lifeless, overtly programmatic, lacking the enthusiasm that had set the debut apart, and written more with the head than the heart (and gut, especially).

Evidently Sultan himself is convinced of this, since in 2002 he decides to throw in the towel and embark on a solo one-man band adventure, while at the same time starting his own label (Sultan Records, which would go on to release works by Deadly Snakes, Daylight Lovers and Scat Rag Boosters). Les Sexareenos only resurface retrospectively in 2005, a year after their official breakup, with a rich compilation anthology padded out with outtakes and various rarities. Inside the exhaustive sweep of this 28 Party Dancers From Montreal's Finest, the raucous exuberance of the debut thankfully breathes again, thanks to a string of excellent gems: from the swirling "Mojo Workout" and "Roses Are Red" to the Elvis caricature of "Lights Out" or the flea-ridden cover of "White Light, White Heat", and from the furious rockabilly of "Work For Fun" to the thoroughly rotten "Without Your Love" and "Leave Me Alone" — there's a chance here to fully appreciate the Canadian outfit's repertoire, even though its expressive horizon always remains bounded by the same familiar fences. And if horns even make an appearance in "I Can't", almost sealing a game of mimicry with the Fleshtones from which there's no going back, "Little Bit O'Soul" is a particularly successful slice of retro-pop, though with its especially well-crafted roguish sixties youthfulness, it hardly seems to be Sultan's own handiwork.

During this phase Mark performed live under the new moniker BBQ, embracing the frantic one-man-band formula of singing, playing guitar and bass drum all at once. He occasionally joined the Cool Jerks and Soledad Brothers circus, or the kindred spirit of Bob Log III, but more often he preferred to go it truly alone. His eponymous studio debut (also known as "The Complete Recordings, Vol. 1") arrived in 2003, recorded by his friend Andre Ethier (frontman of the Deadly Snakes) and released, as usual, by Sounds Of Subterrania. It's a truly raw piece of work, branded by the most searing of guitars while the vocals agonize in reverb, without ever giving up on their own venomous harmonies. Sultan reveals the same exuberance of his earliest projects, scrappy as a fighting cock and heightened by the abominable sound quality of these recordings.

On a purely formal level, there's no doubt we're dealing with one of his most terroristic works, yet beneath the electric sludge you can already make out a songwriting sensibility destined to reserve plenty of nice surprises for devotees of the best garage revival. Here, raw unfiltered violence still prevails over everything else, though a few tender, explosive gems can be spotted - in the sublime, vinegary lyricism of "European Girls", for instance, in the Elvis transfigured into noise of "I Wanna Be The Only One", or in the fifties ghosts of "Deborah Lee". Superlative covers (a take on The Sharps' "Lock My Heart"), blind-fury rockabilly snapshots burned down to irretrievably scorched grain ("Hang On", "I Said"), and a blues primitivism so rancid it borders on unlistenable ("3 Days") round out the picture, helping explain why the firepower unleashed - or the dust kicked up by this Canadian's ramshackle tempest - is so considerable.

You have to wait almost three years for the sophomore record, but it's worth it. Recorded live and strongly championed at Bomp! by the great music critic Greg Shaw (who would die shortly after), founder of the storied Burbank label, Tie Your Noose is Mark Sultan at 110%: unkempt, ramshackle, and rigorously raw in presentation, without filters, makeup or compromises, but with all the simplicity of his unmatched revivalist art. After the inevitable pleasantries of an opener that reads like a filthy rockabilly brochure ("C'Mon And Love Me"), there's room to enjoy a trio of songs that our man would soon also perform alongside Arish - here still in a sharper, rawer form, but already frankly irresistible ("Outta My Mind", "Waddlin' Around" and "Shake Real Low", the latter with touches of dazed lyricism).

The mix alternates between: filthy garage-punk blasts, overexposed and sloppy by deliberate expressive choice, marking a return to the blissful chaos of his early projects ("Year Old Wine"); incoherent, laughing caricatures of the rock'n'roll gospel (the fantastic title track); crooked, delightfully old-fashioned sketches ("Don't Hold Out On Me", a pure classic like "Out Of Time"); plenty of radiant lo-fi radicalism too (the closing of "Record Machine"); plus a portrait of the artist as a hopeless romantic, "Justify".

What emerges is the profile of a ragged, heartthrob singer-songwriter, a werewolf of the pop song, kind despite that perpetually frayed, bristly, wretched air. His crowning virtue remains his natural ferocity, the stance of the fervent primitivist whose purity here expresses itself at the height of its powers - uncompromising yet lovable, as every lost cause should be.

Let the Show Begin

The album's modest success didn't change Mark's plans - by now tired of the solo adventure and firmly set on starting a new two-piece with former bandmate Blacksnake, whose work leading the Sensational Shrines he'd come to admire. Flying to Berlin expressly to win Arish over, our man had far less trouble than expected in achieving his goal. So in 2004 the two began writing new songs in Khan's Berlin apartment and, at first only sporadically, started performing the shared material live in small German and Spanish clubs - flat cap as standard issue for one, an unmistakable Prussian Pickelhaube helmet for the other. Recorded by their friend Bob Tooke at Hazelwood Studios in Hamburg, The King Khan & BBQ Show LP came out on Hazelwood itself (Goner in North America) in May 2005.

Their debut record as a duo is an absolute first gem, and effortlessly stands as one of the peaks in both Canadians' output. While the lo-fi sonic trinkets are pure Sultan handiwork, it's the magnificent interplay between his barking vocals and his partner's exquisite doo-wop flourishes that makes all the difference right from the start. Abrasive and biting yet with a stunning gift for melody, this is the band launching its new name, ambassador of a top-shelf revival that recovers and renews the spirit of primordial rock'n'roll straddling the Fifties and Sixties. It's garage with the crabs, hammered out with vehemence and a happy romantic streak by a fairly vicious war machine: volume knobs pushed to absurd levels, pounding rhythms, one guitar grim, the other sadistic and searing, vocal performances pushed over the top almost out of necessity, basic songs and songwriting hacked out with an axe, for a furious yet thoroughly enjoyable album that easily outclasses the vast majority of its competitors in this musical territory. And indeed the formula works exactly because of that - raw and frayed in all its rancid glory, with no need for overdubs or cosmetics.

Vital, Dionysian and drunk well beyond what's legal, the two North American rascals overwhelm the listener with their unflappable blend of electric cockiness and bleeding hearts, alternating between enjoyable proto-punk rampages ("Fish Fight", a "Pig Pig" as licentious and headlong as their shared history suggests) and moments that are just as drenched in reverb but soppy in their own way, to which Mark manages to give exactly the right old-fashioned flutter and a thoroughly contagious romantic aura. So from rockabilly to big ballads, and from noise-scarred rackets to surf-rock sketches, the pair strategically try to leave no avenue unexplored. Khan brings the soul pedigree of his German outfit to the table, while Sultan can be as rough and languid as few others manage (the aching "Am I The One") thanks also to that debris-built jangle that is something of his trademark. As "Got It Made" shows, the fusion often borders on the miraculous. Both men's blood is boiling, yet their primitivism is still kept properly disciplined by a stylistic command that would only grow sharper over the years - perhaps at the expense of the genuine, disheveled purity that makes this first release so essential.

Riffs and deranged duets are always incredibly compelling, yet it's still hard to fathom the insane energy unleashed, how just two of these mad, tenderly brutal rockers manage to pull off such carnage. Even in their most feral incarnation, though, Arish and Mark never lose sight of the precision of their craft, and the game never reduces itself to a mere show of strength or anarchic bravado. Among the memorable tracks in a collection of filthy gems are the hysterical surges of "Shake Real Low" - a sublime dry run, or template, destined for endless subtle variations on the theme - and "Outta My Mind", two instant classics recycled from the earlier BBQ solo effort. There's no boredom, no catching your breath, no insincere affectations or prim rock theatrics, and the duo's immediate success in alternative circles bears witness to the soundness of their strategic choice.

2005 is also the year the two Canadian clowns launched a new outfit, shared this time with Venetians Davide Zolli and Matteo Bordin (better known as Mojomatics), even though these Ciaoculos would never amount to more than a single seven-inch ("Hey Little Girl/Walk On") released on the French label Yakisakana. Meanwhile, signing to the prestigious In The Red hinted at a further step up in quality.

The eagerly awaited sophomore record, however, was recorded in-house at Arish and his partner's small Berlin studio, the Moon. What's For Dinner? hit shops in October 2006 and, once again, it's the cover photo that signals a fresh change of look: Sultan sports a brightly colored turban he wouldn't part with on stage for years, while Khan opted for a garish pink wig straight out of the trashiest hooker chic, his new live security blanket.

The calling card, "Treat Me Like A Dog", brands a return to the duo's usual standards for electric grating, if anything even more venomous and substantial in its onslaughts: Mark's bass drum is a hammer striking with blind indifference, while tetanus is guaranteed by the two guitars and by both artists' emphatic, hoarse howls in their relentless march. Quick compensation comes courtesy of "I'll Never Belong", a number steeped in that down-and-out romanticism Sultan always nails to perfection. On the pages given over to him, the dials of lyricism and early-sixties revivalism practically spike and go haywire, while the reins placed on his partner bring a rather different structure and melodic payoff, even as it persists in sticking to crepuscular inflections, with lo-fi sound quality still calling the shots.

If the surprise factor is gone, the mix still confirms all its rough-edged merits, whether it's winking at Jack White at a moment of extraordinary visibility for his main project ("Dock It #8"), or bringing back to the fore that vinegary brand of surf-rock/doo-wop quotation (the pop-song apotheosis of "Why Don't You Lie?", say, or the triple backflip into the past of "Too Much In Love", pure lifeblood for implicit disciples such as Shannon Shaw and her Clams). The purity of the two Canadian ringleaders can't be called into question in any way, because there's no acting going on here - what's on display is the artists' slightly unhinged naturalness. Ramshackle and cocky, their rock, loaded with weirdness and grime, truly bears the stigmata of the best garage around - ulcerated and patched up, perhaps, but delivered without tricks or cynical calculation. The songs have stretched out slightly without losing a single gram of their original immediacy, or the punch guaranteed by the schematic approach to songwriting on display. Deliberation, however absurd that might sound, seems to get the upper hand here over raw, unfiltered violence.

Even more than its predecessor, above all, this record sounds like a carefree elegy for the outcasts, the misfits, the wholehearted dropouts. It does so by opting for a happy blend of rockabilly authenticity and musical-antiques finesse, as happens in "Blow My Top" and in the divertissement that lends the record its title, or perhaps with Mark venturing into sentimental spells lovingly turned rancid yet exquisite, in their sincere devotion to a style now fallen out of favor ("Into The Snow"). The next best option is noisy flare-ups like "Captain Captain" or "Zombies", which gives the illusion of having stumbled upon some deeply sick outtake from the grunge vaults, quite possibly with Mark Arm of Mudhoney at the mic. This time around, punk hysteria is instead confined to the fifteen seconds of "Learn My Language" or the minute-and-a-half of furious howling that is "Operation".

In a state of grace

Proof that this new shared venture had given both artists fresh shine becomes fully evident in 2007, the year of the sparkling comeback of Sensational Shrines and of Pepe's debut under the moniker Mark Sultan. Khan's crew – who in the meantime hadn't failed to lend a hand to his sister Coco's dream-pop project, called Cocobeurre, and to an Ep credited to his six-year-old daughter, Saba Lou – returns to make noise with the soundtrack to the film “Black Sheep”, a modest hit in Germany produced and promoted by a major label. Meanwhile, Frédéric Brissaud's baritone sax, aka Big Fred Rollercoaster, has replaced Mr. Tom Bone's trombone, while Simon Wojan aka Sam Francisco has taken Sam Cook's place on trumpet: changes that are only seemingly minor, and that manage to give fresh momentum to the collective, whose third LP comes out on Hazelwood (Europe) and Vice (North America) in May, landing a few months later on Pitchfork's list of the year's best releases.

There could hardly be a more rousing opener than “(How Can I Keep You) Outta Harms Way”, which kicks things off here in sparkling fashion, marking perhaps the most complete and convincing meeting yet of horns and rough garage swagger. In truth, it's not this song alone but rather the first of a staggering run of at least four instant classics that makes What Is?! the true manifesto album of this unstoppable Euro-Canadian collective. “I Wanna Be A Girl” is an unabashed feminist proclamation that doesn't skimp on hysteria and lands with the most lethal of earworm refrains; “Welfare Bread” comes across more loosely sprawled, carried along with placid nonchalance by a Khan who sways between falsetto and the prickly charm of a mic-wielding seducer, while the guitar's jangle tips toward power-pop and lights up the scene; “Land Of The Freak”, meanwhile, has all the hallmarks of a superb identity statement, and the all-out exhilaration it barely contains promises to carve out a special spot in future setlists. So far, this is simply an astonishing record, with a relentless cohesion that in no way stops virtuosity from shining through, yet remains a thoroughly solid example of fierce, fun, no-frills rock.

The eccentricity keeps being pushed to extreme standards, but this time the trick works brilliantly, without slipping into the usual parade of bizarre, somewhat self-indulgent divertissements. What emerges is an incredibly rich collection of moods, influences and stylistic molds: “Let Me Holler” goes back to exploring the man's wildest, most raucous streak in a bold jumble of blues swelling and freak-garage madness; “I See Lights” is as venomous as it is noisy yet transcends plain punk-rock bravado, while “No Regrets” seems closer to muscular rock conformism, packed with flashy (though never show-offy) solos, “Le Fils De Jacques Dutronc” sounds like an explosive new dive into Seventies genre cinema, and the sensual little page of “69 Faces Of Love” presents an Arish more controlled than ever.

What Is?! thus comes across as an urgent record, as raw as it needs to be, never dropping in intensity and never showing any need to catch its breath. When it rediscovers the brass-band verve of Mr. Supernatural, it does so with an altogether different ferocity, with the furious vehemence of outcasts and without a trace of mannered posturing (“In Your Grave”). This time around, the horns act more as vaguely unsettling, toxic, sullen and drunken elements (just listen to the psychedelic plunge of “Fear & Love”), rather than champions of the sometimes irksome aestheticism of certain past passages, and their lush eclecticism peaks on the jam “Cosmic Serenade”, somewhere between progressive digression and world music. Closing things out is the fanfare of “The Ballad Of Lady Godiva”, which indulges in the luxury of doing its own take on Lou Reed.

Mark, meanwhile, hasn't been sitting idle. While working on new material for his third solo release, he still finds time to found yet another band from the Canadian underground, Mind Controls, alongside Brian “B-Man Le Duke” Hildebrand (drums) and Ysaël Pépin (bass), both members of another local legend, Demon's Claws. The eponymous debut album comes out on the American label Dirtnap in February 2006 and is destined to remain a one-off.

Riffs that are always the same, a raucous tone, lo-fi grime and rhythms as monotonous as they are pounding: the Canadian artist forcefully returns to his distant past, to be precise about a dozen years earlier, but the regression turns out far less exciting than one presumably hoped. More than anything, he doesn't seem to have much to say, and gets lost in harmless kid-stuff punk-rock. This is Sultan at his most schematic and rowdy, locked into a garage mold that's enjoyable enough but ultimately far too repetitive: the dividing lines between one track and the next grow ever more blurred, and the man performs in his most monotone (and paranoid) incarnation, seemingly without any real emotional investment. The stylization here seems to have impoverished the material a bit too much, and neither the noise nor the energy can meaningfully make up for that gap. Much like “Grapevine”, the track that lends its title to both album and project is a playful rant indebted to the Ramones, but with purely playful intentions alone there's no hope of going very far, if the deviations from the formula are next to none. At least it has the virtue of being short, just like the records by Spaceshits and Sexareenos, with which, however, it shares neither their frantic effervescence nor their variety of ideas.

Things go better, decidedly better, with the first album Pepe credits to the more “collaborative” alias Mark Sultan, marking a clear distance from the one-man-band incarnation of BBQ, and which in May 2007 marks his debut on the prestigious In The Red. Inside The Sultanic Verses the sound is still gloriously raw, but the rubble-strewn jangle of his guitar arrives at a sublime compromise with that melodious voice and the quirky trinkets of its sparse arrangements. As the lead single, “Beautiful Girl”, proves, the result is wonderfully disorienting precisely because it's celestial, joyous and raw-nerved all at once. The Canadian jester of rock'n'roll rediscovery still carries Elvis's holy card in his jacket's inside pocket, but his soul seems to belong more to deviant blues, closer to a strung-out Johnny Cash (perhaps transfigured by thoroughly rotten punk, as on “Warpath”). The engine of “Cursed World” is flooded and caked in dust, and over the desert a purple dusk already looms, announcing the coming night. It's in torrid, unaccommodating scenarios like these that Mark moves, a wild troubadour with an irrepressibly romantic streak, like the hairy, wolfish variant of Mark Oliver Everett, but also a tangled-up rowdy with a soft spot for relentless little tunes carved into popular (and thoroughly genuine) memory, the ideal frontier outpost of an American dream sabotaged with blasts of fuzz (“Spinning Ceiling”, the shambling “Two Left Feet”).

When the man instead pushes toward the harrowed garage sound of old, he shows he has a lot to teach the many young up-and-comers who, at exactly this time, begin to emerge, not without a bit of naivety, in an underground scene destined to make plenty of noise in the years to come. The tar-black nihilism of a track like “Mortal Man”, for instance, is far less forgiving than what some fresh-faced epigone will later unsheathe more out of a taste for larking about than any genuine inclination, and its fascinations shine through the reverb, in a haze that engulfs the listener and leaves them refreshed.

Sultan sounds loose, nonchalant, now sprightly (“Something Wrong”), now relentless, on what might be considered the true manifesto album of his scuzzy poetics. And the songs, beyond the usual stylistic workmanship or the inevitable racket? One lovelier than the next, with the decadent “We're Sinking” and the decomposing sunshine-pop of “Unicorn Rainbow Odyssey” standing tallest, promptly covered by the unsuspected admirer Bradford Cox (for the project Atlas Sound).

With their individual hunger satisfied, Arish and Mark go back to collaborating four-handed on their shared project. The Ep that Crypt releases in November 2007, Teabag Party, is little more than a snack to kill time before more significant releases: five tracks (three, once you discount a couple of flare-ups) forcefully geared toward fifties revivalism and a thoroughly lo-fi, good-humored doo-wop. For the third, long-awaited LP, however, fans had to wait another two years. Recorded by the Canadian pranksters together with Lou Galluch, half within the friendly walls of Berlin's Moon Studio and half on a trip to Brooklyn, Invisible Girl is the third chapter of their two-man adventure and the second to be released under the In The Red banner.

Compared to previous works released under the same name, on this new album the duo opts for a substantial diversification of their sound, widening with remarkable ease the spectrum of possible reference points beyond the standard (and limited) expressive vocabulary of garage-rock, while still preserving the plain, no-frills attitude that a genre record like this almost demands by necessity. An emblematic track like the title track, placed right at the start, perfectly clarifies the coordinates of this specific stylistic choice: roughness and saccharine sweetness are blended with just the right balance, defining the broad outlines of a deeply sixties-oriented sound and shaping a more-than-credible parody of that era's surly romanticism, with irresistible results and a pleasantly disorienting finale straight out of the Byrds on acid.

With the following “I'll Be Loving You”, it's instead a revisiting of the boom-era pop-song epic (Italian boom included) that takes center stage in a stunning beat number, between emphatic ruptures and guitars magically dropped into that long-gone atmosphere. If “Tryin'” shows a similar mimetic genius, and once again it almost feels like listening to Mark Arm (though tackling a cover of Profeti), the lethal Khan & Sultan centrifuge can't spare the Beach Boys either, revisited on “Lonely Boy” by way of a gaudy electric guitar and an irreverent bubblegum voice.

Of course, there's room for much more in this schizophrenic cauldron: with “Tastebuds” – a sort of Ramones-style proto-punk suitably tilted toward power-pop – they look back to rock's origins without forgetting their own incurable taste for raucous levity and melodies cut with a hatchet; with “Truth Or Dare” they instead fold back toward more conventional garage shores, complete with the obligatory solo buried in a general haze of reverb and low (even very low) fidelity. Given the sheer, gleeful joy of the pastiche, executed with real mastery, one could say that Invisible Girl is exactly the kind of record Yo La Tengo dreamed of making when they donned the dirty, roguish mask of Condo Fucks. What these two Canadian rockers have recorded, whether in their shared work or their solo projects, has never simply been bland genre exercises. As this new effort illuminatingly proves, Khan and Sultan's work isn't a cheap, vulgar imitation, but rather a collection of melodies trapped in the past, songs steeped in shared memory and therefore endowed with an intelligent soul. To grasp the point, just immerse yourself in the atmosphere created by the opening track, “Anala”, an unmistakably unhinged garage-pop number, disorienting for its brazen doo-wop quotation and also rather depraved, filthy (sonically speaking) and syrupy, with wildly sick surf harmonies and vocals that never stray from their a-la early Zombies blueprint.

Paradoxically, though, the trick works wonderfully and sounds sincere, never pandering. A perfect example of postmodern kitsch – where the surprise stems precisely from the unusual nature of the pairing – gutted first with heart and gut, then with the head. Sure, the intellectual component carries its own weight, but the attitude of the musicians involved is about as unacademic as can be imagined. A track like “Animal Party”, for instance, carries more ramshackle, rascally rockabilly echoes, somewhere between demented bravado and the surgical precision of revivalist philologists. Not a cunningly calculated nostalgia operation, but an act of love paired with an ironic step back: to some it'll look like mindless, aimless trash, but underneath it reveals a kind of genuine stylistic assimilation, plenty of research, passion and talent. The same can be said of the shabby, soured pop of “Spin The Bottle”, a tribute to the immortal spin-the-bottle game, seasoned with an idiotic chorus, a miniature solo and a voice as raucous as it needs to be. The peak is perhaps reached with “Third Ave.”, a true Sultan-esque compendium of cut-rate sixties romanticism, molded into a simply phenomenal caricature. The perfect adherence to the formulas of a popular subculture now fallen into sad obscurity casts a precious light that amplifies the merits of the whole record. Nor should we forget the deliberately curt, oblique cut that always gives these compositions an alienating charm, a restless psychedelic aftertaste that's on full display in the adrenaline-fueled, relentless “Crystal Ball” – hands down the most acid and (lucidly) deranged episode on Invisible Girl – as well as in the raw, vividly colorful finale of “Do The Chop”.

The New Monsters

Looking back at it in hindsight, 2009 - the year that saw the release of the third King Khan & BBQ Show album - turns out to have been a particularly intense one for both protagonists. First of all because of the news item mentioned at the start, with Arish and Mark arrested in Kentucky for drug possession along with actor Maxwell McCabe-Lokos aka Leo Chips (already a keyboardist in Deadly Snakes, hired as an entertainer - in the guise of "Show" - for the new US tour) and manager Kristin Klein, who was also caught with a fake driver's license. And then because of both artists' collaboration, on separate occasions, with the deranged, pompadoured rocker Bloodshot Bill (one of their countless companions in the Red Mass super-collective, conceived by old acquaintance Roy "Choyce" Vucino), which within a few months led to the debuts of two new creatures, The Tandoori Knights and The Ding-Dongs.

Some time earlier, Khan had also celebrated the official launch (via In The Red) of an outfit that had actually come together informally eight years before, Black Jaspers, shared with Jasper Hood (from Bremen, frontman of punk bands Moorat Fingers and Shakin Nasties) and trusty John Boy Adonis. In the case of this umpteenth eponymous debut, the expressive direction takes shape as a hysterical, effeminate hardcore-punk, fairly grim in its packaging but far more by-the-numbers than one might have hoped, a frivolous and schematic trash-rock that is occasionally fun but never manages to be a truly memorable listen. Arish and (above all) his partner ham it up without ever really drawing blood (with the exception of the enjoyable "No Brain No Pain"), partly due to the reiteration of a set formula and a certain rhythmic flatness that wears thin fairly quickly. Among the tracklist, the decent "Born In '77" stands out, a song Khan would revisit five years later in his collaboration with American outfit Gris Gris.

Among the side projects, the real event of 2009 is nonetheless the launch of the impromptu Almighty Defenders project, born from the meeting of the King Khan/BBQ outfit with Black Lips - who had taken refuge in Berlin in January, after the cancellation of a controversial tour of India - and culminating in the release of the eponymous full-length debut in September, via Vice Records. Diving into this record lets you enjoy the pleasure of those surprising, offbeat adventures that only come along once in a while. The lead is mostly taken by Arish's fetid soul persona, with the Atlanta boys called on to lend their seasoned filth and genuine band firepower to their Canadian colleagues. Were it not for the occasional, disorienting gospel evocations ("All My Loving", "Over The Horizon"), one would be tempted to label the record as the most conventionally garage-rock effort from the Khan/Sultan outfit, at least going by a sonic brand that combines the Sonics with the rough eloquence of Dirtbombs and kindred spirits (the excellent "The Ghost With The Most").

There's a bit of everything in there, which seems not only understandable but almost desirable for a collective of musicians who chose to perform live dressed in African-American choir robes. While "She Came Before Me" swings between vicious R&B and doo-wop with crabs, drawing on some of the most infectious moments Sensational Shrines ever delivered, "The Great Defender" is a hallucinated preacher's exorcism, while elsewhere the band leans on a filthy, irresistible choral quality, overexposed by the lo-fi production, made searing by reverb yet still just as effective (the singalong of "Bow Down And Die" remains memorable). At the heart of "Cone Of Light", on the other hand, is a remarkably authoritative Mark, to whom the Lips literally give wings, while his partner sticks to his typically goofy warbling. It's a lovely listen, the meeting works wonderfully, and the same goes for Cole Alexander's ragged vocals or Saba-Lou's violin cameo on "Jihad Blues" (her sister Bella barks on "30 Seconds Air Blast") and for the phenomenal, heartfelt cover of The Mighty Hannibal's "I'm Coming Home" - one of the shared idols of Khan and his American friends - which perfectly captures the spirit and coordinates of this unexpected joint venture.

But let's go back to the double partnership between the two Montreal jokers and their fellow townsman Bloodshot Bill, which took shape in the middle of a five-year stretch in which the artist was barred from entering the United States. The first to try his hand at the collaboration is Arish, with Tandoori Knights, whose eponymous debut came out on Norton in 2010. Occasional caricatures of a certain Indian folklore provide the sonic ("Roam The Land") and visual backdrop to an otherwise hillbilly-leaning, lo-fi little record ("Bucketful"). The approach is once again deliberately jokey and a bit slapdash, in the name of a technical carelessness elevated to an idol (on par with the inescapable revivalist bent). Not bad are the freak-surf sketch of "Bandstand", lifted from the Trashmen, the narcotized doo-wop of "Big Belly Giant", or the weary romanticism of "Into Her Arms", but for the rest the album can be filed without hesitation among the strangest and, at the same time, most marginal chapters of Khan's endless discography: something curious, in short, but undermined from the start by the sloppiness of its makers as well as by the indolence and lack of bite in the performances. The fun for the listener is genuinely mild (if the highlight is a "Tandoori Party" that's limp anyway), and teaming up with kindred spirit Bloodshot Bill, notoriously more fired-up than our man, turns out, in a sense, to be an aggravating factor rather than an asset.

Things work better - though not by much - when it's Mark Sultan spending his token with him. The duo's debut as The Ding-Dongs came out practically at the same time as that of the Tandoori Knights, also on Norton, delivering a crooked, rough-and-ready, utterly ramshackle rockabilly, driven by two wildly over-the-top performers with hot-blooded temperaments. The common denominator with that other duo is the fairly wretched lo-fi production underpinning everything, plus of course Bloodshot Bill's grim, grotesque vocals, which in this particular incarnation seem to be engaged in a sort of contest with Mark over who can sound more like a dog. It's this that makes the Ding-Dongs livelier and, ultimately, preferable, also because every now and then you get to enjoy a gem in perfect Sultan-style ("Until I Die", "She's A Tiger"), if anything even more battered than usual and dressed up in an unprecedented electro-acoustic guise. The crossing of two voices so cartoonishly distinctive ("Come On Lil Dolly") is disorienting and may irritate the less accustomed listener; for others it might prove a pleasant surprise within the context of an album that is otherwise quite dispensable. The two will team up again three years later on the sophomore effort Rang Tang Ding Dong with no substantial shift in approach, beyond an even more werewolf-like fervor applied to the pop song ("Phantom On The Hill"), a songwriting that is in some ways more polished ("Never Let You Go"), and a more general leaning toward divertissement ("Marco Polo"). Mark proves much more inclined to hide in the background here, while his partner gets to take center stage often and gladly with his boogie stylizations and his unmatched outcast persona.

Do the paths diverge?

In the course of 2010, it's even Sub Pop that brings to stores the first (and, to date, only) 7-inch by King Khan together with Patrick "Pat Meteor" Bourbonnais of Demon's Claws (already a member of the Kukamonga brotherhood), "The Fiery Tears Of Saint Laurent", a hilarious garage rant built around the last words attributed to Saint Lawrence on the grill - "Turn me over, I'm crisp on this side" - used as the chorus.

Only a few months go by before the eccentric Indo-Canadian rocker already has the debut of yet another outfit ready, this time leaning hardcore-punk (if a rather blunt one), shared with old acquaintances Danny Skid Marks and Roy "Choyce" Vucino: this is Vomit Squad, whose EP Amon Ra Bless America comes out on Psychic Handshake without turning out to be a standout release (the passable but hardly gripping "Burning With Beelzebub"). Another project is in the works in the following months, relying on Kickstarter to raise the funds needed to gather a handful of Kukamongas at Moon Studios in Berlin to record an album. The target is reached quickly, but the country-flavored venture (inspired by Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson and Lee Hazelwood) of these Khanwood Clarke (featuring Jeff Clarke of Demon's Claw, Sean Wood of the Spits, and members of The Sadies) will never materialize, much like the (long-rumored) debut of a collaboration between Arish and GZA of the Wu-Tang Clan.

Mark Sultan, for his part, already has $ ready, the second album credited to his go-to alias, his only release for Last Gang. The raw, snappy aesthetic norm of the works released as BBQ with his partner-in-crime Khan (as with the archetypal predecessor, Sultanic Verses) is shaped into comfortable, rough-hewn sketches such as "Go Berserk", "Waiting For Me", or the near garage-pop single "Misery's Upon Us": filthy parties built on reverb and cholesterol, rough romanticism, fuzzed-out guitars, amplifiers pushed to their limit, sonic bric-a-brac and rock'n'roll rancidness. A gruff heartthrob trapped in a past that grows ever more remote and ever more current, Sultan once again proves to be an infallible, if unwitting, manipulator of so much mid-to-low musical mythology, and ends up delivering an eccentric revival of himself: "I Am The End", slowed down and roughened by a misleading, alien noisy context, remains as warm and fragrant as ever; "I'll Be Loving You" is likewise undermined by a production treatment of real substance, but its killer refrain would come out on top even in a session recorded in his own shower (the place where - in all likelihood - it was born); the same goes for "Catastrophe", revisited in a cut-rate version, yet still fully capable of capturing that informal, unmasked temperament Mark flaunts live with his cap firmly planted on his head, proof of a songwriting as sharp and genuine as few others.

On the tracks framed within this "Dollar" album, the Canadian dares even more, venturing without restraint into psychobilly territory and more or less indirectly paying homage to the deranged genius of a kindred spirit like Ed Wood. "Icicles" is a grotesque dirge that comes straight from the fake afterlife of an old horror B-movie, with the vocals bursting in filthy amid a thicket of leaden distortion, giving way at the end to the most hysterical and sick solo in the catalogue. "Nobody But You", on the other hand, is Sultan at his very best: controlled, powerful, evocative, even while dealing with a sloppy, highly acidic kitsch-pop with blatantly derivative traits. Firmly at the controls of his tin flying saucer, heading fearlessly into the vulgar, faded hyperspace of our everyday lives.

The follow-up is ready relatively soon, at the end of 2011, and surprisingly it's a double compilation (that's the CD format) with high-profile guests - from Bradford Cox to Dan Kroha of the Gories, as well as Black Lips's Cole Alexander and Jared Swilley - available via In The Red on two vinyl editions with different titles and covers. The Sultan of Whatever I Want appears far more restrained than usual and seems intent on placing his chips on a gentler kind of revivalism, somewhere between the withered enchantments of teen tragedy ballads ("No Worries"), beat, doo-wop, and unexpected affinities with the Beach Boys and all the assorted, glittering rhetoric of Oldies But Goodies ("Axis Abraxis").

The melodies are far more brazen, the citational emphasis takes over and finds in Mark a superb interpreter, equal to the mythology of the pop song and its unchanging clichés, paid tribute with taste and devotion. The influence of the project with Bloodshot Bill has made itself felt, and our man goes as far as altering his own singing like a true showman, bending it now to this stylistic twist, now to that one. "Never Coming Home" is the track closest to the grim, crepuscular standard of $, and there's no shortage of livelier moments, like the freak-out squall of "Quit The Human Race", but the noisy excesses of the past are now just a memory.

So the record, entirely focused on imitating formulas that have by now become historical, inevitably pays a price in terms of vitality and edge, closing in on a kind of impassioned necrophiliac cult ("Graveyard Eyes", the sepulchral boogie of "Blood On Your Hands") that is philologically admirable but a touch lifeless, given the artist's potential. That doesn't stop it from standing out as by far his most varied and ambitious work, the one that tries hardest to boldly explore the many sonic universes bordering his usual genres, nor does it deny him a superb, brazen nerve in tackling so many worn-out pop schemes. "If I Had A Polaroid", for instance, is more conventional by his standards, but Mark is skilled at reinventing himself and quoting himself with just the right touch. The game, undoubtedly delightful and meticulously crafted, occasionally risks fading into an outdated caricature, but what saves the album from this excessive, point-of-no-return identification with tradition is once again the trick of lo-fi production, that deliberately rough-hewn sound that grimes up the songs and, paradoxically, makes them feel more current.

The expressive direction would seem confirmed on its twin, Whenever I Want, at least judging by the rippling rockabilly in which our man resumes his usual role of wounded, heart-on-sleeve crooner on “Keep Em Satisfied, Pt. 1”. Already its follow-up, however, in a disjointed, autistic version, shuffles the deck and helps us grasp the singer's intent: to confine to this further collection the most morbid pieces and the heaviest curveballs from a collection of experimental eccentricities and oddities, sometimes delightful, sometimes simply unsettling (“In Future Worlds”, the garage-psych prank of “Party Crasher”), tagged for simplicity's sake as leftovers. The withered wonder of a mythical musical era still cuts a fine figure, and the overall picture remains grandiose, packed with irresistible ideas; above all, it reveals the imbalances and creative generosity of a truly extraordinary songwriter, ravenous, omnivorous, never entirely tameable, whose sketches veer bit by bit toward grotesque miniaturism (“Apophis To The Slaughter”), threadbare pop (“Sweeter Than Wine”) and freak-show trinkets, especially in a hallucinated closing jam with a sax in terminal condition.

In 2011 Arish also resurfaces, for the first time apparently as a solo artist. The venture shared with Sultan would seem to have officially reached its end after a couple of shows at the Sydney Opera House in late 2010, with the artists personally handpicked by Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson as part of the Vivid Live Festival they curated. To grasp the meaning of a grandiose title like The King Khan Experience, the scrawled caricature of the famous Hendrix-esque incarnation found on “Are You Serious?” says it all. But there's plenty more extravagance on the album, released via Scion in 2011. The lush, swollen, highly animated and very well produced sound stays in line with the overloaded R&B of his longest-running project, and it's no coincidence that his accomplices this time around include his usual partners Fredovitch and Big Fred Rollercoaster. “Come Levitate Me”, “Keep It Simple Stupid” and especially “Knock Me Off My Feet” try out eccentric sounds worthy of the Shrines themselves, if not bolder still, heading toward an all-out psychedelic exoticism (embellished with flutes and sitar) that at the very least proves intriguing.

If “Bob Log Stomp” goes back to mimicking the hysterical preacher clichés à-la Ian Svenonius (amid a profusion of little organs and a decent dose of filth worthy of the JSBX), and elsewhere plays the card of a sly, somewhat tamed sensuality, the real gem is the cover tribute to the late Jay Reatard's “Hammer, I Miss You”, sung in German over a gaudy electro-pop backing. At the end of the day, it's a collection of oddities with a clear seventies stamp, not always perfectly in focus, occasionally running out of breath, but enjoyable and knowing enough.

The Time of a Comeback. Make That Two

And just when no one expected it anymore, after producing the second album by Russian torch singer Mary Ocher in early 2013, King Khan surprisingly resurfaces at the helm of the Sensational Shrines. They'd been gone for a full six years, since What Is?!, a modest success (bolstered soon after by the compilation The Supreme Genius), but they show up ready for the occasion alongside their Canadian frontman, determined to finally revive their fortunes (complete with flashy new costumes and disguises to flaunt on stage). Compared to the many projects he kept busy with in the meantime, this one with his psychedelic-soul Big Band returns to the unusual sounds rediscovered just around the time of his solo release, leaning toward James Brown or a happily, damnably retro rhythm & blues, somewhat in the manner of his friends the Dirtbombs. The long inactivity might have suggested some rust on the part of this sprawling international ensemble, but the opening of this Idle No More is enough to dispel any doubts, given the driving rhythm, the guitar spirals and the subtle western flavors of the programmatic "Born To Die".

The expanded, revved-up dimension of the collective fires up a particularly earthy Khan, while in the background a broad array of horns, percussion and strings runs wild, the result nonetheless fluid — a sign that the band has a reason for being that goes well beyond mere horsing around with friends: it manages to explore eccentric solutions with results that live up to expectations, and it's well equipped, tipsy yet purposeful, knowing. Things get even better when the pace turns sloppier ("Bite My Tongue"), ideal for leaving the singer and his Telecaster (on revivalist duty) in the role of jovial ringmasters, well served by the soft, harmonious horn arrangements, or in the more full-blooded, fun episodes bursting with funky-blues energy, like "Luckiest Man": here the bandleader hams it up like a poor man's Mick Jagger, while the presence of a Farfisa shifts the reference points fairly clearly toward the late-80s Fleshtones (the same band evoked on the following "Better Luck Next Time", which also has a festive jangle-pop flavor). What makes the real difference above all else, though, is the songwriting of this seasoned fisherman of melodic pearls, songs that work wonderfully dressed in 50s garb and revitalized rockabilly à-la Heavy Trash ("Yes, I Can't") as well as entrusted to a sharp, early-sixties-style rock sound, caught between surface-level damnation and plain romanticism ("I Got Made").

"Romanticism". On closer inspection, that's precisely the key word, as always in Khan's productions. It's also because of this particular inclination of his that a record like Idle No More sounds gripping without being banal, proof that behind music like this there is always research, a careful reworking of the past, rather than mere blind passion pursued for its own sake. The great talent of an artist who has never stopped marveling and amazing others lies precisely in his ease handling certain stylistic tropes that might otherwise seem worn out, as he leafs through the legendary pages of a tradition often dismissed as minor. And so, once again, you stumble upon plenty of little surprises. The garage-blues of "Bad Boy" recalls the usual hoarse, over-the-top delivery of Ian Svenonius, preacher of gospel yeh-yeh obsessed with vintage Black music, from licentious soul to rock'n'roll à-la Chuck Berry: for anyone who loves the genre and the character, it's one of the most enjoyable moments on an album that is otherwise all fizz and sparkle. Which finds its astonishing peak in "Darkness", where, amid swollen sax and vicious guitars straight out of a filthy club, King Khan puts on a dazzling display of cross-dressing as a fatalistic floozy singing with her heart on her sleeve: the result is an exceedingly filthy, leering, nocturnal number, steeped in the most worn-out stereotypes about doomed love, yet absolutely irresistible, a thoroughly successful divertissement. The following "Pray For Lil", a slow, more conventional diversion with a rather sincere down-and-out-yet-shining atmosphere, doesn't shift the coordinates much, but it's sung by an actual woman, with whom the chubby rocker merely duets from the sidelines.

And what about the classic King Khan, the duettist, the rough, tune-mongering showman? On the new record with the Shrines he's barely audible ("So Wild", "Thorn In Her Pride"), and always bolstered by the bandstand seal of his German bandmates. The eclectic streak therefore takes priority, and the album benefits from it in both depth and fun. A true godsend for followers of the revivalist movement, who need records like this — enthusiastic yet meticulously crafted — like a lifeblood.

Arish Ahmad Khan is a slave to his own nature. Not just any slave, though, since his unconventionality has made him beholden to rather different habits than the ones that are our daily bread, us jaded wretches. The fact that he reached peak notoriety by wiggling his bare buttocks along the Croisette in Cannes in front of a delighted Lindsay Lohan might seem the least appropriate anecdote to open a review of one of his records, but we genuinely can't think of anything else that captures the man quite so strikingly. The Montreal jester has always been a victim of the fierce dictatorship of carefreeness, a tiger that can easily turn on anyone who tries to ride it without a healthy dose of talent and madness behind them. That's not the case here, though: Khan is a madman, a tireless epicurean, as well as the classic maverick genius who never calculates and loves to live in a perpetual holiday-induced apnea, squandering opportunity after opportunity perhaps, but having more fun than most and able to say, to the very end, that he has never betrayed the gluttonous child living inside him.

After discovering himself to be a patron and producer for the eccentric avant-pop hopeful Mary Ocher, 2013 finds him forging new alliances on American soil, albeit further south than his native Canada. To tell the truth, the one with the Gris Gris, an Oakland band led by Greg Ashley, could easily have remained just another one-off pairing, swallowed up in whatever enjoyable compilation happened to come along ("Garage Swim" by Adult Swim, in this case). But the chemistry between the parties must have exceeded all expectations, since around that "Discrete Disguise" our man decides to build an entire album, which sees the light of day as 2014 draws to a close. Well, there's a detail in this Murder Burgers that immediately catches the ear: compared to all the backing bands he has previously run wild with, the Californian outfit is the first to succeed in containing Arish's euphoria, while also shifting the stylistic bar toward late-Sixties psychedelic pop. The single from which it all sprang seems emblematic in its implicit mission statement, a stripped-down boogie with warm, crepuscular tones. Gently dazed by the same sun that once set early Coral songs ablaze, this disciplined, Morricone-esque Khan is likeable, it must be said; he may be less sharp or abrasive, but the mellow rhythms and delicate arpeggios of his Airline suit him remarkably well. The dusty, Dylan-esque ballad that follows close behind, with piano played by Chris Stroffolino, stands as yet another demonstration that, besides being a sensational primitivist, the Canadian can also be a refined entertainer and a highly authoritative connoisseur of the past, bordering on philology.

The overall impression, then, is of a relaxed but very well conceived diversion, perfect for catching one's breath from heavier commitments and focusing more on form in yet another comfort zone, a bit like what happens to kindred spirit Ian Svenonius whenever he dabbles with the rascals of the Chain & The Gang crew. Several of the tracks offered here aren't new: from his vast back catalogue Khan dusts off a 2008 single ("It's A Lie") and a track from the sole album so far credited to the Black Jaspers ("Born In '77"), as well as that "Born To Die" which was among the standout tracks of the recent Idle No More: a reprise that, in this case, is fantastic in how stripped-down it sounds — almost mineral-water plain, one might say — confirming that a good song works even without too much makeup on. The "neutral" backing of the Bay Area band proves decisive in leaving the leading man free to steer the track wherever he pleases. As for the Gris Gris, they only take center stage in the recovery of a track from their self-titled debut ("Winter Weather", a muted-toned sunshine-pop with a cleanliness reminiscent of Vetiver), and it's worth noting the quality of their support, an exquisitely sweetened version of what's done by the sprawling German ensemble that more often accompanies the King (the sax that peeks through takes us straight back to Shrines territory).

Echoes of the superb work produced together with Mark Sultan are not lacking ("Run Doggy Run", "Desert Mile"), but they remain bound to the new midtempo standard: the good-natured exorcisms credited to King Khan closely recall the similar explorations of the better-known of his two partners, who has however always leaned more toward noise-rock emphasis and a lo-fi of pure substance. The only chances for a bit of a rev-up are the raw "Born In '77" and the Dirtbombs-esque garage-punk exploit "Your Teeth Are Shite", while the prize for the most unhinged passage rightfully goes to the charming, disjointed mess "Too Hard And Too Fast", undecided to the very end between chamber-pop, late-Sixties roots psychedelia and southern-rock implications worthy of a Chris Robinson. Since it's merely a colorful postcard sent during an extended vacation, it works out more than fine as is.

Amid all this hubbub of projects and collaborations, Arish and Mark find a way to call off their mutual veto and reconcile. Having returned to perform together on sporadic occasions starting in 2012, they gradually rebuild their chemistry and rapport until the announcement of a new studio album. So the most beloved of their partnerships — the celebrated outfit King Khan & BBQ Show — officially gets back on track in March 2015, and it's as if nothing had changed in the meantime: same label, same adorable doo-wop twirls (or rather, bop shoo-wop), same superb primordial r'n'r delivered with a scholar's touch, same blunt, loutish punk breakins, the same tangle of sappiness and idiocy, rapid-fire citations and garage roughness.

On Bad News Boys, the fourth chapter in their shared discography, the raw, spirited standard of its predecessors is reaffirmed across the board and shaped into easy, quick-and-dirty sketches: gloriously tacky fairground fare built on reverb and cholesterol, blessings of fuzz, cheap amplifiers, sonic junk and rancid rock.

Right from the start it's a triumph, especially with the ultimate pop song that kicks things off under the banner of a headlong romanticism, somewhere between jangle-pop and lo-fi. Sultan sings, and Khan reinforces its irresistible melancholy in a playful key, thanks to a delightful choral backing. With roles soon reversed ("Illuminations"), the formula's inevitability is confirmed once more, a scruffy, rough-edged power-pop, far less naive than it would like to let on. Cut from the same cloth is also "Killing The Wolfman", another track that has all the ramshackle classicism of the duo and pushes forward with guitar solos (a real gem) and fabulous nerve.

Here's the band's primitivist garage-punk again, unleashed at appropriately schizoid levels (“D.F.O.”, “Zen Machine”). They haven't sounded this unbridled in years, not since their first creature, Spaceshits, ran wild in their feral state and earned them notoriety for their live misdeeds. Well, after a good decade and a half their musical deviancy hasn't been reabsorbed — and the skimpy new stage outfits, all leather thongs with fetish overtones, prove as much — but the “King” and his trusty secretary have learned to discipline their incontinence while indulging their unhealthy love of bygone times. This time around, fast, reckless, tetanic, noisy, stomping tracks steeped in tomfoolery are back in the ascendant: ultra-lightweight little tunes à-la King Tuff, stuffed with elementary riffs and, needless to say, filthy as ever (“When Will I Be Tamed?”). There's also a near-rockabilly number, as frivolous as it is delightful, that wouldn't displease another jester with the right pedigree, namely Jon Spencer (“Snackin' After Midnight”).

Antimodernists to the point of parody, as only the other phenomenon Shannon & The Clams have managed to sound in recent years (and not even always), gruff heartthrobs trapped in a past that grows ever more remote and ever more current, King Khan & BBQ Show end up staging an eccentric revival of themselves. As usual, they prove to be infallible yet unwitting semiologists of lowbrow musical culture, regurgitating brand-new vignettes built from pop-music clichés older than they are, without the academic pretensions of so many tedious colleagues, but with the love and enthusiasm of those who genuinely can no longer tell their art apart from their life. The chilly diorama effect is, however, averted thanks to the artists' natural madness and irreducible charisma. So the result rings alive and throbbing, as if the fifty-plus years of hooks centrifuged into every two-minute pill had been wiped away by the glow of an unexpected second youth. (“Buy Bye Bhai”).

If the derivative emphasis is underscored at almost every turn, amid shrieks and infectious, regularly over-the-top little choruses (“Ocean Of Love”), it's still blatant nonchalance that's the key to reading their Dionysian music without misunderstandings — a masquerade thrown together for sheer amusement by two souls on permanent leave. Nostalgic, crepuscular and proudly out of time (“Never Felt Like This”), Khan and Sultan remain faithful to their fourth-hand clichés and carry on what has all the hallmarks of a genuine aesthetic mission. Accomplished once again, among other things.

The start of 2017 marks another comeback, six years after the last release, though it's not clear which of his two aliases this new album by Marco Antonio Pepe should be credited to. Spotify and In The Red favor Mark Sultan, while elsewhere it's credited to BBQ, perhaps because of the return to the fully stripped-down one-man-band formula, the very one that regularly drives the man's solo shows but which had been missing on record for as long as twelve years, since the acclaimed Tie Your Noose, to be precise. Adding to the mystery, it should also be noted that a couple of years earlier the collection got a four-track preview in Ep format, with the same ambiguous interplay between title and cover. Jokes aside, the admittedly minor enigma isn't so negligible after all, if one wants to pin down which character trait the Montreal rocker has chosen to foreground this time: the boisterous, prankish side he shares with King Khan, or the other, more sentimental one.

It's the usual Sultan, one immediately thinks. Coarse, ramshackle, bare-bones, razor-sharp yet sublimated in his crooked little sketches by an old-fashioned romanticism. The recordings, however, done live on a four-track with just a few vocal overdubs, are if anything rawer and more spartan than ever. So fair enough if there are no frills or sweeteners of any kind — that's almost a requirement for work of this sort — but the second game clearly goes to BBQ. “The Other Two” is Pepe at ground zero, with no embellishments or complications, and he doesn't care one bit if it sounds cramped or monotone.

The chopped-up riffs of his cheese-grater guitar are enough, along with a tetanus-stricken rockabilly and that inflection of a lesser god's son, a beaten dog howling his proverbial torments at an indifferent moon. Another album that's all heart, then, with mood swings kept to an absolute minimum, from the blunt yet devilish “Broken Arms” to the thoroughly ragged garage outburst, foaming at the mouth, of “Black And Blue,” the usual compendium of lo-fi sonic fidelity and deranged impetuousness, kept at more than decent levels of rock'n'roll hysteria.

What makes the difference is the insane punch of those refrains, thrown together out of nothing yet utterly memorable, scraps of a pop-song jubilee that not even the threadbare packaging can tarnish. In a sense, this new work should be understood as a definitive statement, a manifesto of his tousled, shining aesthetic, wild and overflowing with lyricism both secondhand (“I Love You So Much,” a cover of Nashville singer Jimmy Wayne) and thousandth-hand (very fittingly suited to his sensibility as an admirable reject). As usual, with him the revivalism can't be dismissed out of naivety as a cynical stylistic exercise, because it's the most genuine form of expression for a performer who, as ever, seems to have erased the boundaries separating art from life.

What works against an otherwise still lovable collection, in its own way, is the lack of viable alternatives to relieve this unchanging formula, replayed without significant variation from the first track to the last. The absence of guests or of instrumentation that's eccentric yet still an alternative to the usual whiny trinkets is keenly felt, and it conveys a sense of loneliness and despair (“You To Be Mine”) that's hardly new in his work but here, perhaps, truly a bit too suffocating and limiting. The apex of this emotional nosedive comes with the double dusk of “Will You Teach Me” — a reworking from an obscure late-Sixties Dutch band, Group $oall — and “It's Suicide,” a further emblem of the dark well from which the Canadian's refrains emerge. On closer inspection, it's not hard to detect a tone that could even sound distressing and worrying, if we didn't know what kind of character we're dealing with. The permanent scowl and the dazed expression are, in fact, part of the package, so there's no reason to worry. The North American garage rocker should, in short, be taken for what he is, with his aphasias, the homespun sores of his sound, even his live tantrums as the eternal misunderstood artist. He's a musician little inclined to compromise and particularly resistant to change, but his purity can't be called into question in any way.

Whether on this occasion he appeared as Mark Sultan or as BBQ, we'll never know for sure. The result, when in doubt, amounts to a substantial tie between the two incarnations. All while we wait for new chapters of his story, possibly in cahoots once again with that epicurean jester Arish Khan, to come and liven up our days.

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