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BBQ (AKA Mark Sultan, AKA Creepy, AKA Bridge Mixture, plus a ton more) was interviewed on September 1, 2004 at Davey's Uptown in Kansas City. My first exposure to Mr. Mark Sultan was through the highly enfluential and sadly defunct band the Spaceshits, who managed to squeeze out to albums on Sympathy before their demise. Next up Mark played drums in Les Sexareenos, who as the Spaceshits before them, called it a day after only two albums. Which leads us to BBQ, Mark's one man band, now with two LPs under his belt he & King Khan have released the party album of the year "The King Khan & BBQ Show" out now on Goner Records. For more information visit www.marksultan.com Interview by Mike Fungus, Photos by Mr. Chips |
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Fungus Boy: Who is Kib Husk? |
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BBQ:
Well OK like the first record was really all about, I was---I’m
trying to get my ages straight, those dudes were sixteen or seventeen
and I was twenty maybe, I don’t remember, but we got to the studio
and it was like in Brooklyn, we’d never really ventured--I had kind
of gone to New York before but those guys like (had never been out or
Canada) and they were feeding us mounds of cocaine, literally. And it
was all just doing coke and just like not eating properly and drinking
tons, so it was like slammed out really fast. The energy, that was our,
it was like really fast but then it changed, like that album that you
speak of Misbehavin’, there’s two other albums between the
two albums that never came out. FB: Didn’t you record a different version of Misbehavin’ for Rip Off that never came out? BBQ: It’s not a different version, no, no, it’s like maybe four songs from that record and then a ton of other songs. And we recorded also a whole record with Kearney Barton, the dude that did the Sonics and all that shit, so we recorded--they are two different records altogether and if you would hear those two records it kind of makes sense, the transition or whatever. The second record was more like we were in Montreal and we didn’t have a lot of money, we got some money off the label but we were like abusing stuff. And then so like we did the second record because we didn’t have a lot of money and it was in Montreal and it seemed very easy to---I didn’t have a problem with that second record, but it is different because you don’t hear what happens between the two records. So it seems like a different thing…. FB: So if everything got released there would be four Spaceshits albums? BBQ: Five, there is one before Winter Dance Party. It was recorded on an Indian reserve in 1996, it’s faster than Winter Dance Party. FB: I had heard that initially that you wanted to release the bootleg that came out, Radioshits Rock & Roll, that you were going to release that too? BBQ: No, what happened with that---that’s a bootleg pure and simple. No offense to Italy but Italy is kind of notorious for that kind of business, I didn’t know about it, I was like this stupid kid, we sent out tapes trying to solicit maybe doing a single and this dude got the tape and just “Well I’m just gonna put it out”. So he put it out and I was like, “I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you”, and he was like, “I have a black belt” I’m like what are you Webster, I don’t give a fuck. FB: How did you feel about the quality of the release? Were you upset? BBQ: I don’t mind I think it’s cool. I think now looking (back), at the time I was upset only because he sent us like five copies, if he would have sent like---I think he pressed like three hundred or five hundred, if he would have gave us ten percent I wouldn’t mind. I don’t mind that shit, I’m not about money, I don’t give a fuck about that shit, I just like having fun. But it was more like a slap in the face like here’s like five copies, one for each of you. It really didn’t bother me, the quality is bad but it’s like that’s a live show from the radio show. I don’t know I like it, it’s all right, whatever. FB: At what point after the Spaceshits break up did Les Sexareenos start up? BBQ: Uhm, we started right after, let’s see two of the Spaceshits, me and Danny who was in the Spaceshits, he was the drummer, we got back from Europe and we were like “Oh, let’s make a band”. I started playing drums and he started playing bass and we got two other people, we started playing music. In Montreal it’s like if you have a band you start recording and doing stuff right away. FB: Wasn’t it around the same time that some of the other guys formed the Del-Gators and did a similar type thing? BBQ: No, the Del-Gators happened a bit after the fact, after the Sexareenos. It’s similar for sure and it’s not a knock on those guys at all, it’s like what we were into at the time. I mean for instance like punk or hardcore I was going to those shows when I was thirteen, I was fully into hardcore and punk and stuff but I went through the phase of actually trying like “Yeah”, and the bands that I had before the Spaceshits were like hardcore and punk. I guess it all came together with like the Del-Gators and Spaceshits was just coinciding the sounds that we were into or whatever. They started maybe a year after the Sexareenos, something like that, shared members, Montreal is very incestuous so. FB: I know around the same time the Daylight Lovers had an album come out and the Deadly Snakes stuff and Long Gone John hopped on that band wagon and helped out quite a bit. BBQ: We made sure the Spaceshits to like---Blacksnake the bassist for the Spaceshits was like, he had seen the Deadly Snakes first show in Toronto and he was like “You guys gotta see them!”, he was going all crazy and then we saw them and we tried to help those dudes out and get them on Sympathy. At the time Sympathy was OK to deal with and shit, and the Daylight Lovers same thing, we wanted to like keep our friends doing stuff. FB: I know for me at the time hearing you guys and the Deadly Snakes I went out and got the Sultan comp that you put out and then heard the other band like Scat Rag Boosters and Daylight Lover and definitely opened my eyes to a lot of that stuff. BBQ: That wasn’t just me, that was like Roy from the Sexareenos also. It wasn’t a matter of like---the thing with that label was just like those are bands that we really like from the area, we had really good distribution at one point then we left somebody else in charge once and the distribution got foiled. FB: Do you think there is every a chance, I don’t know if the guys from the Chicago Blackout have asked, but do you think there is ever a chance for a one off Spaceshits reunion show? BBQ: I don’t think so and not because it’s like we hate each other or whatever, it’s just that no one is really into reunions. I mean I see all these reunion bands and go OK whatever, none us are very old but it’s like still embarrassing somehow, no offense to these bands. I mean we still have our heart in that music and everything else but I don’t want to see that. I would not want to see us do it. FB: Has that ever come up? BBQ: Well yeah. |
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FB:
I figured the guys who put on the Blackout would press for that. BBQ: They never pressed, but I heard like--in Europe when we went with the Spaceshits--like now it’s “Oh, the Spaceshits!”, I don’t know why, I guess we had fun shows. FB: It could also be that the Spaceshits were one of those bands that after the fact, after they had broken up people finally are interested in the music. BBQ: At the time I was telling the rest of the band that, ’cause tours are really rough, I mean no offense to this show in particular, it’s a weekday and blabbety blah blah, and my performance was terrible, I’m having trouble with the drums. I’m not trying to make excuses but lets just say that sometimes you’re on tour and there’s rough shit that happens, and when you’re a bunch of kids sometimes it gets you down. I remember though, with the Spaceshits I was like, “Don’t worry man, like five years from now, don’t worry”. I knew it was kind of maybe important in times, not important in any way but I thought maybe people would pick up on it, and it happened, people picked up on it later and that’s more important. And I remember, this is a boring story for your tape recorder, but I remember we were doing that that bootleg that you heard, it was for that radio station, somehow this dude calls up the radio station, which isn’t even on the air at this point, and it was a producer from Los Angeles right, knows were there or whatever. And I found out later, I confirmed it all, and I remember he was like, “I want you to come to Los Angeles, and I want you to live here and I’m gonna like make you….”, and we’re just like (If I remember correctly he made a gesture as if he was flipping off the phone). Like nobody cares, like we never cared, and I still don’t give a fuck about that shit, he can suck my dick man. I don’t know the Spaceshits was kind of funny because I think like not a lot of people knew about it at the time, I guess maybe it was a label or---Crypt, we were supposed to do something with Crypt at one point and Rip Off and blah, blah, blah. Now people are like, “Oh, Spaceshits, oh hot are they”, for us that was just like growing up. FB: I think you’ve said before that if you could find the right label you would put out a lot of that unreleased stuff? |
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BBQ: I would do it personally
but I still have to ask everybody, you know. Because I have a lot of it
but like for instance the stuff that we recorded with Greg Lowery I don’t
have it, he won’t give it up. FB: So at what point did you
decide to do the one man band and become BBQ?
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