The King Khan & BBQ Show - The King Khan & BBQ Show (2005)

The King Khan & BBQ Show - The King Khan & BBQ Show (2005)

During the whole garage rock revival era of the early twenty aughts, many elitists purists scoffed at the labeling of bands like The Strokes or The Vines as garage rock. Having not known jack shit about garage rock, I was not one of those purists. But when listening to this album, it's easy to understand the music nerd outrage. Though they would technically be thrown into the garage rock revival crowd with the rest of the The bands, The King Khan & BBQ Show stay much more true to the original idea of garage rock. Or should I say, seeing as I'm no aficionado, they stay much more true to what my idea of what the original idea of garage rock is. That being: lo-fi, terrible sounding production (as if it were actually recorded in a garage), washed-out guitars, raspy vocals, yet still somehow completely awesome.

And there is much awesomeness indeed. "Waddlin' Around" sounds so much like a hit rock song from the 50's that I'd think that was when it was recorded if I didn't know better. It more than just rocks, it's got soul, like old-school rhythm and blues-style soul. Setting the mood emphatically, King Khan maintain the quality for the entire album, from the surf rock riffage of "Fishfight" or "Bimbo's Theme" to the crooning of "Love You So" or balladry of "Am I The One" or the dancy "Shake Real Low". These songs are so damned old school-sounding you can almost smell McCarthyism in the air when listening to them.

One of the few albums I've heard that benefits from poor production, The King Khan & BBQ Show is pretty much an all killer affair that probably would've suffered slightly (songwriting ability should be taken into account, of course) had they been afforded the cleaner, major label production of their peers. Funny how that works out.


Score: 8.5/10


"Waddlin' Around"


"Love You So"