MARK SULTAN (Of The King Khan + BBQ Show)

MARK SULTAN / BBQis a cult figure, sorcerer, nutcase, and underrated gem.Sultan (is) as an artist without many contemporaries.Pop MattersHis legacy of LPs and 45s on labels like In The Red, Goner, Crypt, Wick/Daptone, Sub Pop, Dirtnap, Vice, Fat Possum, Bomp!, Norton, Dirtnap, etc... and his impressive list of rock n roll projects (The King Khan s just the way he likes it.Im a music fan. When I was a kid, finding some crazy, magical 45 nobody knew felt very empowering.His unmistakable vocals and instantly transportive melodies use time as a tapestry, and mood as color, while retaining the sexuality and primitivity of the genre.Some of my favorite music acts like a portal to me. Its time travel. Its a way to shift into parallel worlds. Its like magic. ...a haunted jukebox, complete with all of the static and anticipation, you can almost smell the filthy ghosts he needs to exorcise upon the stage.Metro(Sultan) doesnt simply revive old sounds and old excitements, he ingests them and digests them, and regurgitates them as something new and personal.PitchforkIf theres a Patient Zero in garage rocks shift from emulating the troglodytic stomp of teenage Stones wannabes in 1965, to embracing the Golden Oldies pop and doo-wop of the years just before Beatlemania, its probably Mark BBQ Sultan, who releases albums of catchy, clever garage-pop more frequently than most people buy shoes.Chicago ReaderMarks notorious one-man band, BBQ, has long been lauded as an anomalous delight: an intense, improvised (and uncomfortable) show from which he rarely surfaces to take pause. Hes toured the world over, from the Americas to Australia, Europe to Asia to Russia, and everywhere in between. Hes played hallowed venues like the Sydney Opera House and Carnegie Hall, as well as all of the giant, unnamable Festivals. His fans include many strange, paradoxical artists across the spectrum. Generations cover his tunes, heard as a mysterious xerox throughout the underground, simultaneously miscredited yet grossly over-exposed to themax, online. His song (as performed by The King Khan Love You So has achieved Gold Status (and possibly whatever the next level is, as well) in the US (and a few other countries), and with streams, downloads and plays totalling in the 10s of BILLIONS, he has become an unlikely, subversive force as a modern-day torchbearer for real rock n roll.Its strange to me how (my music) is consumed, but I guess Im just happy it is sometimes beloved.