Kosmische Upstairs @ The Garage, London
23 June 2001
I‘d never heard of Khan (aka Can Oral) before hearing about this gig a few weeks back, but his odd background (Finnish mother, Turkish father, grew up in Germany) and his array of current collaborators (Kid Congo Powers, Diamanda Galas, Julee Cruise, Hanin Elias and Jon Spencer, among others) certainly grabbed my attention. Hitching back from Avebury on the 23rd, after three blissful days of rural loafing, I was in two minds about whether I wanted to dive straight into a small sweaty club, but dive I did.
I quickly remembered that, in most cases, I love plunging straight into city chaos immediately on returning from travels. There’s a balance just between Culture Shock and Surrealism that hits the spot. No one I knew could make the night, so I made it to The Garage, parked myself on my rucksack, reeled at the stimulation of loud music, and wondered what the hell Khan would be like.
Well, I didn’t expect the tracksuit. Black with red stripes it was, but with those nifty zips down the sides of the legs so that Khan could fully indulge in his half-mock sleaze by striking sometimes ridiculous, sometimes lascivious poses and daring himself to unzip.
But wait, back up – before all this, before Khan and the even sleazier Kid Congo Powers took to the tiny upstairs Garage stage, the scene was set by a video projection. Home camcorder quality footage – made to seem as if it was being broadcast straight from New York – showed a geeky, sweaty, pudgy white guy with miscellaneous tattoos sat in his kecks in a tiny grubby bedroom surrounded by children’s duvet covers and wearing a cheap green Duran Duran sun visor. With a whiney NY accent – and a horrible half-mustache – he raved about Khan’s genius as an intro, and then stayed there in the background all through the gig, doing weird shit with an inflatable guitar, gaffer-taping his head up, smoking, babbling, dancing enthusiastically, being geeky and grubby. A kind of Paul Calf of the NY avant-garde as a backdrop. Cool.
The music was a strange hybrid of insistent Electro-beats, Hip-Hop-feeling samples and (virtual) scratching, grindy guitars and alternately venomous and lustful chant-like vocals, all permeated with a distinctly Mexican feel – which Kid Congo Powers did a lot to emphasise, with his white vest and great looking-down-his-nose-at-yer Latino sneer.
What foxed me was the audience. The place wasn’t packed but there was a good crowd there, but everyone needed a bit of coaxing to come right up to the stage, and even more to actually dance. I’m no exception – and it didn’t really heat up until the last few tracks – but I consider myself mildly reserved, and I was whipped into a frenzy by the end. Apart from maybe 6 or 7 others down the front, everyone else applauded and stood around as if these talented guys weren’t giving their all and occasionally miming oral and anal sex to get us all off. Khan ventured among us a few times, clearly wanting a bit more from everyone, and at one point grabbed a surprised girl and slung her on his back as he ground slowly up and down singing “Ride me / Ride me like a pony / Horny horny pony / Ride me…”
What more can I say? I came away excited by the world, ready to grab Khan’s new album No Comprendo and ride someone, like a pony.
-Gyrus-
