by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

If you were at the King Khan & BBQ concert at Casa del Popolo late last December, and can actually remember it, you know it was a night of good ol' fashioned rock 'n' roll fun, enhanced by the dangerously irresponsible enthusiasm of the audience. It was an atmosphere of chaotic good cheer and utter moral and intellectual decline clearly reminiscent of the mid-'90s Spaceshits gigs.

No surprise there. King Khan (the artist formerly known as Blacksnake) and BBQ (musician and label impresario Mark Sultan, when in one-man-band mode) were both members of that local band - bassist and singer, respectively. Since then, King Khan has relocated to Germany and started a sizzling soul supergroup. He also put a rude German army helmet on his head, to the delight of many. Sultan has relocated to the other end of his sofa and started a sizzling, soiled super-label named after his own damn self (releasing the works of garage-punk outfits like the Sexareenos, of which he was the drummer). He also put a bucket on his head, to the delight of nobody.

Teamed up as a twosome, Khan and Sultan deliver a knockout show worthy of their fake names' royal implications. A King Khan & BBQ Show album is due out soon, too. The Mirror got the pair on the horn for a conference call.

Mirror: Before we get into the King Khan & BBQ Show, I want to talk a bit about each of your independent projects, BBQ and King Khan & his Shrines. Let's start with the Shrines.

King Khan: The Shrines is what's kept me in Germany. It's basically a 10-piece psychedelic soul band, which I always dreamed of doing. I've got musicians from France, Germany and America. We've been doing it six years now. It's going well - we've done two albums, we got on a label over there called Hazelwood who are really helping us out. They're also putting out the King Khan & BBQ Show album.

M: Now, Mark, the BBQ thing, your one-man band.

Mark Sultan: Yeah, it's a one-man band. I had to do some music and I didn't have a band, so I just threw that together. It just happened, and now I'm stuck doing it most of the time. But it's allowed me to tour. I've been to Europe a few times, toured with the Shrines at one point. I've also toured the U.S. and Brazil, and done some shows in Argentina.

M: That, I'm curious about. I saw on your site that there was attention from TV and radio.

MS: Yeah, but I guess it's like, "Oh, somebody from somewhere else!" It wasn't like they knew who I was. I was just some foreign dude - like, a freak. TV and radio, for some reason, were interested in seeing this freak from Canada.

M: The one-man band thing, it's made you more sleek and aerodynamic for touring.

MS: Yeah, obviously it's easier for me to do a bunch of stupid touring and go do nonsensical things and do shows that are meaningless -

M: It's a little bit like being a hobo.

MS: Yeah, no kidding - I am a hobo, and it's pathetic. No, but definitely, it's a lot easier than relying on other people.

M: That said, you're now relying on the eminently reliable King Khan.

MS: Exactly. Can you believe that? I don't know what I'm thinking.

Human animal chaos at the death-punk party

M: Let's get to the roots of this duo. This started in Europe in 2002 as Blacksnake & BBQ?

KK: Yeah, Mark was doing his BBQ thing, and he came to Europe to tour and came to visit me. I'd started doing a one-man thing also, called King Khan and his Lonesome Guitar. We did some shows together, and every time we played, we'd wind up doing some songs together at the end.

MS: We got together in Germany, just to do stupid jamming business. Then, when we played shows - I'm just speaking for myself, but they seemed to be ridiculous, for whatever reason.

KK: People's pants were dropping. Excessive shimmying - people were shimmying with other people and cleaning the floor with their hair and stuff. It was crazy. I've never seen such an international amalgamation of freaks. In Berlin, we had these really Mad Max kinda punks, really greasy and scary, coming from Peru and France and all over, just going apeshit.

M: Gimme some more road gore. Mark, which show stands out for you as the most ridiculous?

MS: Thing is, I could get into these stories, but I fear that, for instance, if King Khan's family were to read half of them, and I'm very serious, it would cause a lot of problems in his life. I'm not joking. I would just say, the shows, for whatever reason, especially in Berlin, have been just ridiculous. They turn into these, like -

KK: Orgies

MS: No joke, orgies. Nothing violent, not chaotic in that way, but just human animal chaos, really weird and fun. But, if King Khan wants to -

KK: I don't know if we should print this stuff. We could tell you in a friendly way, but, uh -

MS: Go, tell him a friendly story!

KK: There was one - it's hard to describe the whole thing, but we have this kinda pseudo-manager in Berlin, and he sings this one song called "Fuck Off and Die," which is always improvised. The whole bar, about 300 German people, were all screaming, "Fuck off and die!" It wasn't scary, though. It was really nice.

MS: It was like a party -

KK: A death-punk party. I guess the only way to describe it is, people just lose all self-control. You could say some kinds of sexual acts have been committed during these shows. Some blood has been spilled.

Black magic Bundeswehr

M: Now, see, this is interesting. So many bands from what you could call garage or punk, the rock 'n' roll scene, make a big deal, like, "Aw, our sound is like, blood and sex and violence..." Then you go see them and it's just four lame fat guys.

KK: Mark and I, we never wanted to do any sort of purist retro thing. It's just two guys who've been buddies for a long time and who love all sorts of music - doo wop, punk rock, psychedelic rock. You can tell that we're having a good time doing what we do, and that, I guess, makes people really loose. They just get wild. We keep everything real simple, two guitars, bass drum and snare, and that seems to hypnotize people and get them all sexually aggressive.

M: Do you think that WWI German army helmet you wear encourages people?

KK: It gives them a lot of that black magic power that we focus on. Then, once they start staring at Mark's facial reactions, they get totally blown away. I don't know if you've noticed, but when Mark opens his mouth, there are about 20 different mouths inside. I've seen him take a Snickers bar and tear it apart, atom by atom.

MS: It's more delicious that way.

M: But at the root of it, I suspect, is the fact that you've both become excellent musicians. Mark provides a great musical background and Khan provides the spectacle - do you think that's the strength of the King Khan & BBQ Show?

MS: I don't think it's quite that. We both have strong musical attributes to give to this. His guitar playing is wicked, and people are probably surprised that this fat dude who looks like a jerk can sing, but what I think makes it special is that our personalities are completely different. So you get this extroverted cuckoo guy doing all crazy stuff, then you see me just sulking -

KK: It's kinda yin-yang.

MS: It takes the onus off me, anyway, and I'm happy for that.

KK: Mark has a pretty exceptional singing voice. He can sing like Sam Cooke. He's got this crazy, tortured black man inside of him somewhere. So, yeah, what we try to do - it's like a roller coaster. We have these really sweet love songs, for that '50s feeling, then we'll slap people in the face with this ridiculous punk song about eating shit. People just get spun around and lose all sense of balance and reality.

MS: It sounds like a great jukebox - but without the skill. A bunch of different tempos and styles that make people react in different ways, and they're connected somehow through this energy of nonsense.

With the Leather Uppers, the Night Terrors and puke eyes at El Salon on Saturday, Feb. 5, 9 p.m., $10

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