Tours: King Khan and the Shrines

Download: King Khan and the Shrines - "Welfare Bread"
Download: King Khan and the Shrines - "No Regrets"

03-06 St. Augustine, FL - Harvest of Hope Festival
03-07 Miami, FL - The Vagabond
03-08 Orlando, FL - Wills Pub
03-10 Atlanta, GA - Masquerade
03-12 Asheville, NC - Orange Peel
03-13 Nashville, TN - Exit In
03-14 Memphis, TN - Hi-Tone Café
03-15 New Orleans, LA - One Eyed Jacks
03-16 Dallas, TX - Palladium Loft
03-17 San Antonio, TX - The Warhol
03-20 Austin, TX - Emo's (Vice Records SXSW Showcase)
04-29 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club
04-30 Philadelphia, PA - First Unitarian Church
05-01 Brooklyn, NY - Music Hall of Williamsburg
05-02 Hoboken, NJ - Maxwell's
05-03 New York, NY - Santo's Party House
05-07 Boston, MA - Paradise
05-08 Ottowa, Ontario - Babylon
05-09 Montreal, Quebec - La Sala Rossa
05-12 Toronto, Ontario - Phoenix Theatre
05-13 Detroit, MI - Magic Stick
05-14 Columbus, OH - Wexner Center
05-15 Chicago, IL - Bottom Lounge
05-16 Minneapolis, MN - Triple Rock
05-19 Calgary, Alberta - The Warehouse
05-20 Edmonton, Alberta - The Starlite Room
05-22 Vancouver, British Columbia - Commodore Ballroom
05-23 Quincy, WA - Sasquatch Festival
05-25 Portland, OR - Dante's
05-28 San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall
05-29 Los Angeles, CA - Echo
05-30 Los Angeles, CA - Echo

The James Brown-cum-garage-rock revivalists King Khan and The Shrines are set to tour behind the American release of their live album What Is?. To read an interview I did with Khan for Chicago Innerview, go here.

King Khan and the Shrines MySpace Page

Cross-published on CIMI

Indie-Rock Supergroup Performs Improv Set at Pitchfork Due To Cut Copy Tardiness

Download: Atlas Sound - "Another Bedroom"
Download: Jay Reatard - "Always Wanting More" (via Spinner)
Download: King Khan - "Welfare Bread"

One of the most inexplicable, unusual, and totally fucking awesome bits of indie-rock history occurred at the closing of the Pitchfork Music Festival 2008, right after headliner Spoon began their set of blue-eyed indie-soul at the Aluminium, one of two main platforms, stage at 9:00. Cut Copy, the second-to-last band of the festival, were set to take the Balance stage at 8:25. Only the band hadn't shown up yet, and wouldn't go on until well after Spoon did. So, what are Deerhunter/Atlas Sound headman Bradford Cox, his band mate in Atlas Sound, King Khan, and Jay Reatard to do? Play an entirely improvised set of covers, of course.

The indie-rock supergroup played a peculiar, hilarious list of garage and punk covers, including a classic Bad Brains tune, video of which you can watch at the top of the post. As per usual, Jay Reatard was quite manic, enthusiastically knocking into mic stands and jumping around stage with an impossible amount of energy. Cox and Khan, however, took a dryer router, with the former lecturing the crowd in tongue-in-cheek fashion about safety, and the latter frequently stating that the newly formed "band" was just trying to give the audience members what they deserved, entertainment-wise. Khan, however, also took the madman route at times, spitting water into the audience, Sid Vicious-style, and joyously knocking into equipment as well The set was met with good-natured laughs, and cameras snapping, though also with heckles (Cox got a water bottle thrown at him, if I'm not mistaken) and chants for Cut Copy. All in all, the group was on stage for about 20 minutes or so, before Cut Copy finally showed up. Still, because of its absurdity and randomness, this was easily one of the festival's highlights.

More P4K coverage (including Flavor Flav responding to hecklers in the crowd) this week.

(Jonathan Graef)