Try as I might to look on the bright side of things, the truth is there’s a part of me that can’t wait for Summer to be over. I’ve been trying to celebrate the season, but all the outdoor activities, sunlight, extra-long days and scantily-clad young women in the world can’t make up for the oppressive humidity, sweaty nights, days so hot you don’t even want to set foot outside and spiking electric bills. Besides, I’m a hoodie & Timbs dude who will chill out-of-doors even when it’s brick out, I know most of those half-naked chicks sashaying around my neighborhood probably aren’t legal, and my landlord doesn’t even allow barbequeing on the back porch of my building anyway.
That said, if I were able to invite friends over and put meat (or soy-based meat-substitute) to flame this Summer I’m positive I’d wind up dragging my speakers outside so I could put King Khan and The Shrines‘ newly-release Vice Records LP The Supreme Genius of… on blast during the festivities. The 16-track disc, a “best of” compilation collecting tracks from the three full-lengths albums, handful of EPs and one-off singles the Berlin-based “psychedelic Soul big-band” have previously released overseas, is hotter than a pile of Kingsford charcoal briquettes smothered in lighter-fluid making out with a pack of matches under the hot Summer sun.
Getting a bunch of people dancing and stomping on my back porch probably isn’t a good idea. But readers with sturdier architecture than I (or spacious yards of their own) shouldn’t be reticent to invite Canadian transplant, and self-proclaimed “Maharaja of Soul,” King Khan (formerly known as Blacksnake of Montreal-based The Spaceshits) and his ten-member mini-orchestra known as the “sensational” Shrines to their next shindig. Wait, did I just say “shindig?” Yeah, and I might say “hullabaloo” too, because the ’60s-inspired Khan and his band probably would’ve been guests on the television variety programs that used those whimsical terms as their titles back in the day had they been around then.
Like a ’60s dance-party for Indie kids The Supreme Genius of… is a mixed cocktail of gritty Soul, rollicking Funk, ’60s Party-Pop, Bubblegum, Psyche, Garage-Rock revivalism and proto-Punk. The result sounds something like early Frank Zappa backed by the Dap-Kings, Jack White if he was suddenly struck with a Stax Records fetish, or a Cuisinart® full of (Shrines labelmates) Black Lips, Booker T & The M.G.’s, MC5, Animals and James Brown records. The resemblance to novelty rockers like Sam the Sham and The Pharaohs goes beyond the band’s ethnic imagery as well, extending to the goofy, party-ready vibe and aerobic rhythms that made acts of the sort so popular.
With lonely horns, rattling percussion, churchified organs, a lazily drawling lead vocal and “sha-la-la” background vocals “Welfare Bread” comes off like Bob Dylan if he’d gone Motown by way of the Brill Building after he went electric. The band lays the Funk on thick on the brass-laden, bass-driven bomb “Destroyer.” And the reverb-heavy drumbreak intro on the slow & low Latin-flavored girl-group ballad “Que Lindo Sueno” sounds like something off of an Incredible Bongo Band record. But my favorite track by far is the ribald Soul strut “Took My Lady Out to Dinner,” where Khan talks, sings and screams about what it takes to grease his fugly girlfriend up for some lovin’.
King Khan and The Shrines “Took My Lady Out to Dinner”
Maybe it was just Khan’s talk about ribs and burgers that got me thinking “barbeque?”