Austinist Show Preview: King Khan and the Shrines at Mohawk

It’s been a hell of a year-and-a-half for Khan and his big band: 2007 saw the release of its eye-opening LP What Is?!, while 2008 has brought a new label (Vice Records), a “best-of” compilation (The Supreme Genius of King Khan and the Shrines), and the band’s first-ever tour of the U.S. (hence Sunday at Mohawk).

The music, a lost transmission from the headiest days of the 1960s, is definitely worth the hyperbole of the compilation’s title. Khan rasps lyrics of lust and mind expansion (but mostly lust), while the Shrines lay into garage-born grooves propelled by space-bound horns. It’s not all sin, though — the Stax-esque What Is?! stand-out “Welfare Bread” finds two lovers pledging their devotion to one another … and government-assisted living. So maybe it is all sin, but hey, sin’s fun!

Accompanying the Shrines on this leg of the tour are the Floridian freaks of Jacuzzi Boys, who recently put out a 7-inch split-single with Khan. Scrappy Austin popsters Wine and Revolution open the show with some well-timed “woah-oh-ohs.”