It was a battle of wills at Don Pedro’s last night, in the way that only a punk show preceded by a three-hour open bar can be. By the time Live Fast Die played their last thrashing, three-chord power-punk number, there were more than a couple guys who looked like they were about to drunkenly pass out on their feet (one of them had a skateboard, disconcertingly enough), our photographer Alex Nathanson had been body-checked under a table, people were staggering around the venue looking for lost contacts, rides home, meaning in life, etc., and a guy had blood spurting from the side of his head thanks his getting decked with a flying guitar.
And then King Khan and most of the members of the Black Lips showed up. Awesomely, the next couple of hours were about what you’d expect a late-night mini-bender with King Khan and the black lips to be. Kahn kicked the night off (at like, 2 AM) by more or less saving the life of the dude who got guitar’d: “I need a tee-shirt!” Khan yelled, before grabbing one from Vivian Girls’ merch table (their set was solid, if doomed by the venue’s technical limitations. The Viv Girls experience is much different without any vocal reverb or looping pedals…). “Hah!”, I thought, “King Khan, stealing a Vivian Girls shirt, up to his old antics again.” Except he was using it to stop this dude from bleeding all over Don Pedro’s relatively pristine front bar. (An ambulance and a retinue of cop cars soon arrived.) Say what you will about King Khan, but the man is apparently a model citizen.
[King Khan, taking care of business.]
I only vaguely remember all the drunken advice on life Joe Bradley, the one with the gold grille in his mouth gave me, but I got the distinct sense that indie rock ass is amongst the easiest in the world to obtain.
King Khan and the Black Lips are a lot of things (I’d put “insane” towards the top of the list), but camera shy they ain’t. The lesson here: hang out enough at random Bushwick rock dives and you too can starfuck with the best of ’em.
