Why is this man on stage in spandex underpants and a cape?
He’s up there, rubber-limbed and pornstachioed, rocking out in Elvis specs, some kind of voodoo necklace and a dangly gold knitcap thing that joggles violently as he does the same, microphone in hand.
The venue: McCarren Pool – a public park in Brooklyn which used to be a community swimming pool until, in 2005, New York City turned it into a space for open-air performance. Now McCarren attracts local indie-punksters in droves. They come to hang out, to smoke weed and sunbath. They come to hear good live music.
M.I.A. performed here last August. So too have MGMT, Sonic Youth, Joanna Newsom. On this day though, it’s our desi superman and his travelling band of misfits. Among them, a variety of percussionists, horn players, a bassist, a guy called ”˜Gay Blade’ and another who goes by the name ”˜Orgasm.’ Then there’s ”˜Bamboorella’ the ultimate “Gogo Queen of the Underworld.” Her contributions to the group include cheerleading on stage with a pair of fat pom-poms.
It’s clear though, that Captain Underpants is the real star of this show. He was born in Montreal, and raised there by Indian immigrant parents who named him Arish Khan. These days he goes by King Khan. Or Boa Khan. Or Bama Lama. Formerly, Black Snake.
So his name is a nod to Bollywood royal Shah Rukh, right? Actually no, it isn’t; not at all. “I only heard about that other guy,” he says, “after I started using the name.”
Well, on this, especially hot, afternoon at McCarren Pool, whateverhisnameis is perhaps losing his patience with the audience. He introduces a thumping, Sixties-era soul track called ”˜Welfare Bread,’ then orders the stunned first row to take a dollar bill out and wave it in the air.
“Come on,” he jeers, “don’t be fucking assholes!”
The non-assholes in the audience oblige, and start fumbling for some cash, thoroughly confused. Khan pounces off the stage, like a caped collection agent, snatching the money and delivering a parting insult: “You guys,” he yells, “are cheap.”
It’s stuff like this that makes you worry his band might be a bit, well, gimmicky: a slightly hysterical indie-rock spectacle. Crass, overconfident, and potentially disastrous. But the music they churn out is anything but. Free of stunts and cheap tricks. Instead: pure heart-driven Big Band punk-soul. Songs that have been crafted with intelligence, great skill and care, nothing like the mass-produced slop we hear on air today. Music that’s different; that sounds different. Music that sounds good.
Khan, now in his early forties, got his start as a teenager when he left home to become play bass for a band called the Spaceshits. He travelled a lot, experimented with drugs (but never became an addict, he tells MTV), ending up in Germany – where he met his wife, and formed the group the Sensational Shrines. Since then, King Khan and the Shrines have toured Europe exhaustively. The band’s album What Is?! will be in US stores beginning April 21. It’s a re-release, put out originally in Germany, as a Hazelwood imprint, a few years ago. It won’t be physically available in India (they don’t have an Asian distributor), but fans can purchase the album digitally starting this month.
What is?! Khan tells me, has a “psychedelic R & B feel” to it (like if James Brown were to have gone hardcore garage punk, say). It will be his third full-length album. The first, Three Hairs & You’re Mine, came out in 2001, and White Stripes sound engineer Liam Watson helped put together Mr Supernatural three years later. All three records are bold, big-sounded, and totally funky – with an emphasis on ”˜fun.’
Fun, Khan tells me during a phone interview, is the whole point really, the bottomline. And if some people find his showman stage antics debauched and juvenile? Well, that’s just their problem.
“This is entertainment,” he says. “Entertainment is what music is ultimately about. I think people take themselves too seriously in general. We all need to loosen up and enjoy life a little.”
Well Captain, Amen to that.
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