Music you should listen to: The King Khan & BBQ Show

As promised, we are also going to share some thoughts on music here, just because it is so damn important. REAL music and not the stuff that is coming out of the mouth of so-called pop stars. So we would like to keep it real and introduce to you some good artists (if you don't already know 'em). And we are going to start it off with one of my all-time favourite bands: The King Khan & The BBQ Show!

Canadian punk roots

Both, King Khan and BBQ have been around for some time now, playing in various bands to date, but having their roots in the Canadian punk bands Les Sexareenos and Spaceshits. They grew up, playing wild, fast and crazy punk songs, doing acid and touring around. In the mid 2000's, they both started to take different paths different paths, King Khan with his Shrines doing more soulish garage rock and BBQ aka Mark Sultan starting to play as a one-man band. Though they are both crazy good alone, they are even better when playing together.

Rock'n'Roll saviours

It is hard to give their music a name or to put it in a genre, maybe it is a mix of a little bit doo-wop, mixed up with punk and psych, topped with some soul and garage rock. The lyrics vary from genius to complete nonsense and back. I can just tell one thing, their tunes make you wanna go wild. Or jump around. Or shout and sing. Or vomit. Or fuck. It is just a trip from beginning until the end. And that's, what rock'n'roll is originally all about: it should evoke strong and wild feelings, it should make you wanna to go crazy. Call their music whatever you want, but for me these two guys incorporate the spirit of rock'n'roll more than any band out there at the moment. Maybe, rock'n'roll is dead. But if King Khan and BBQ try hard to bring it back to life.

Live and uncensored

If you get the chance to see them live, you should definitely not miss out to witness one of their infamous live performances. Usually, they are going fucking nuts on stage, especially King Khan is ripping the stage, check this. And they wear funny costumes too! I only had the chance to see Mark Sultan solo live, I did not really understand how a person can go so crazy with a guitar and a drum kit, was fun for sure. If you want to see how lunatic they really are, here are some lines from an interview:

Interviewer: Do you guys think that you're a psych band?

KK: We are psych in our hearts and our sould. We don't need the music to tell us...

MS: We grew up doing so much LSD.

KK: I eat rice, it's psychedelic, you know what I mean? It doesn't fucking matter to me.

MS: No, but we are psychedelic adventurers, since we were teenagers. Every punk band that we played in was all based around LSD, mushrooms, and, uh, and the Mohawk Indians, and....

KK: We were sponsored by microdots before...

MS: Microdots, before anybody gave a shit about microdots they sponsored us.

I strongly recommend to read the whole thing, it is hilarious.

And to finish it off, we got some of their tracks to show you what's up:

 The homie Toby shredding to the tune Truth or Dare of the infamous duo from their last LP Invisible Girl:

Analogue´s joy

So yeah, a while back we posted a digital photo on our facebook from a perfect session in Vienna this autumn. Here we go with some more, this time analogue ones:

 All the photos were shot on a Minolta x700 and a Nikon FE.

Philly's opus magnum: The Philly Files

So the Philly Files, they got released a few days back, what seems like ages, considering us living in the internet era. But I wanted this to be the first video we post on the side for various reasons. I think this is one of the best crew full-lengths to date regarding music choice (really appreciated Parrish's song), the riders (full McKeen part, damn son!) and the general feel of the video. The Philly Files is an urban documentary, that shows pretty good in the B-roll footy, which is dope by the way. I could write so much more about this full-length, but let the video speak for itself...

Bratislava/Vienna: bad weather trippin'

We recently took a little time to shred Bratislava and Vienna on two days after the NYE hangovers. Riding street here in this season can be from pretty hard to nearly impossible, regarding temperature and rain/snow. You might know how frustrating it is to absolutely want to get some shred and then get have to deal with bad weather. Still we managed to have a good time along with the homies Soregi and Moravčik, searching for dry spots and shredding a little indoor place in Bratislava.

Found one dry spot with a freshly painted rail...

...in the Bratislava suburbs. (David Tiefenthaler)

The second indoor spot of today: warm and dry. Until we got kicked and...

...had to check Vienna to find more of these dry streets. (Juraj Klas, BS Overcrook)

Photos by David Tiefenthaler, Juraj Klas and Mr. Moravčik.

First bunch of home-grown griptape!

This is the first bunch of designs we made recently: simple, black on white stencils. They are currently sold on http://www.scooter-kickboard.de/stunt-scooter-parts/grip-tapes/alchemyst-griptapes/. Only 50 pieces have been made so far, so get at them quickly! 

Introduction to ALCHEMYST

At the end of the middle age, there was a group of people experimenting with various materials, substances, call it what you want. They found out a lot about chemistry as we know it today, hurt themselves while experimenting and some people said they were just a bunch of crazy fuckers. But they pursued their initial goal regardless of other’s opinions: mixing things regarded by others as worthless and turning them into gold.

And that’s what the essence of scootering is for us: take some homies, concrete, scooters, maybe a cam and you will be for sure end up having a good time. For years now we have watched scootering grow and develop in different directions, also some directions that we do not consider as good: commercialisation, companies only caring about profits, scooter riders hating on each other etc. Scootering will grow up, just as other “sports” like skate or bmx did, but without efforts from riders as well as companies, it won’t work out.

We are based out of the very middle of Europe, two lads from two different cities: Juraj Klas and David Tiefenthaler, Bratislava and Vienna. At some point, we realized that there aren't really any independent and only rider-driven blogs around, speaking now of central Europe. But we want ALCHEMYST to be international and not tied to any state, borders or nationalities, therefore we will write in (bad!) English.

And that was how the idea for ALCHMYST came to our minds, to make a switch: from being a passive member of a community, complaining about this and that, to start creating. ALCHEMYST is not a company based on the goal of drawing profit, it is more a personal project to explore what is possible in the world of scooters.

But we don't want to limit ourselves to scooters, our project should have a broader approach: ALCHEMYST will be about things that heavily influence our lives: music, photography/videography, scootering and other arts. And we are designing and painting griptapes. Maybe you have realized it already, but the griptape is a spot on your scooter where you can get really creative. We have experimented with different kinds of griptapes, stencils and designs, you will see the outcome very soon. Of course these sheets will only be self-made.

Just to lose a few words on our view on scootering: As it slowly enters the stage of a rather “mainstream” sport, there are more competitions, more world-rankings and as a result there more money in the game. We do not give a fuck about that. Park vs. Street? Stop bitching around and lets just ride, both are fun, and everybody has got a different taste. Scootering is not a competition, not a sport - it is a form of self-expression, an art - just as painting, photography or skating. A scooter has the same function as a pencil, a camera or a skateboard, it opens a door to unleash creative capacity.

To be honest, we don’t really know where this journey is going to take us, but we are excited to get some shit started. And if you like dope griptapes, real rock’n’roll, analogue photography, creative scooter riding, the good old 60s, VX footage, psychedelic music, tall bars, hill bombs, beer and other stuff….then you should definitely stay tuned, what’s to come from ALCHEMYST.