king khan & the shrines

11 Things: King Khan & the Shrines

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Digging curiously through the ampersands of time, we found King Khan & the Shrines traveling somewhere north of North Dakota and then, just as quickly as we found them, we lost them again ... only to find them reappearing a few days later somewhere deep inside the great big heart of Alberta. By this point, it had become increasingly obvious to us that the band was unstoppable. But if you think this saddened us, or made us feel down in some small fashion, think again. Knowing that King Khan & the Shrines were unstoppable only made the following facts - and the band members' decision to share them with us - that much sweeter:

1. Old & Wise: "The combined ages of King Khan & the Shrines is 384."

2. Brother & Sister: "Bamboorella, the GoGo dancer, and Ben Ra, the sax player, are the first legitimate brother/sister love affair and have been ex-communicated from all societies except the Shrines."

3. Fate & Coincidence: "Mr. Speed-finger, the Shrines lead guitar player, went to high school with the dude from Stereo Total."

4. Talented & Fun: "Fredovitch, the organ master, was featured in Bass Player magazine in 1998 for being able to play the 'Ghostbusters' theme on slap bass."

5. Sweet & Delicious: "Ron Streeter, percussionist extraordinaire, has been known to cry tears of vanilla ice cream."

6. Righteous & Worthy: "King Khan & the Shrines raised enough money in 2007 to build a school in Ecuador (this is true!)."

7. Strange & Amazing: "Big Fred Rollercoaster, the baritone sax player, has the longest fingers in all of France."

8. Unbeaten & Unbelievable: "A statue was erected in Wolfshagen, the hometown of Simon the Amazing Trumpet Player, for his still unbeaten record as women's arm wrestling champion of the East German Olympics."

9. Furby & RoboCop: "The Shrines rescued a Thunderdome reject who is like the living version of a Furby and RoboCop who, over the years, has morphed into their soundman."

10. Related & Unrelated: "Recent DNA tests have shown that King Khan is definitely not related to the Kennedy family or Michael Jackson."

11. Where & When: King Khan & the Shrines play a free show at 5:30 this afternoon at Amoeba before taking over the Great American Music Hall tonight at 9 tonight. Amoeba Music, 1855 Haight St., S.F. (415) 831-1200. www.amoeba.com; Great American Music Hall, 859 O'Farrell St., S.F. (415) 885-0750. www.gamh.om.

- Tim Sullivan, tsullivan@sfchronicle.com

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/28/NSUJ17O1UU.DTL

This article appeared on page F - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle