The King Khan & BBQ Show

King Khan, the commandant and wildly prolific punk-rock auteur behind this duo, is, well, just plain wild. The Montreal-born Berliner borrows as much from 1960s girl groups as he does grainy garage rock of the same era. He skirts the frontiers of Chuck Berry rock 'n' roll and Sam Cooke soul while scuffing his sound with a punk ethos that makes for riotous live shows. Speaking of skirts, he is known to perform in drag. He and drummer BBQ, aka Mark Sultan, came of age in the Montreal punk band the Spacesh*ts, which released two records in the late '90s on taste-making label Sympathy for the Record Industry. When Khan moved to Europe, the Atlantic Ocean could not keep their musical partnership at bay. Theirs is a kinship that inspires spasms of primal energy akin to exploding balls of fire. If this dynamic duo were part of a carnival, it would certainly be in the freak show. It's all in the service of a good time.