CD Review: 'Invisible Girl' by King Khan & BBQ Show
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KING KHAN & BBQ SHOW
"Invisible Girl"
Kindred spirits: The Black Lips, the Black Keys, the Points
Show: Monday at the Rock & Roll Hotel. Show starts at 8:30 p.m. 202-388-7625. http:/
King Khan & BBQ Show may play old-time rock-and-roll, but it would be wrong to call them purists. They're just too filthy. Had Alan Freed tried to spin "Tastebuds" -- from the Montreal/Berlin duo's third record, "Invisible Girl" -- at a late '50s sock-hop, he would have been drawn and quartered. Frankly, the song's lyrics are so thoroughly scatological that getting it on MTV, even in today's more permissive climate, would still require Eazy-E-level vocal-bleeping.
But King Khan & BBQ Show's twangy and reverb-swathed hooks come straight out of another, more innocent, era. The duo is thoroughly schooled in the tropes of yesteryear's charting pop music -- be that wackiness ("Animal Party"), novelty dances ("Do the Chop") and tragic teen romance (the title track). The duo's finest moments pit the full-force sloppiness of '80s punk against the sheer weirdness of early rock-and-roll. "The way you chew tobacco baby/reading magazines/makes me want to skin a cat/sew it to your jeans," sings King Khan on the doo-wop-tinged "Tryin." Those lyrics probably won't have you reminiscing about the days of old (unless your childhood mirrored the movie "Repo Man"), but "Invisible Girl" can soothe the soul.
-- Aaron Leitko
