Well shit. It’s not every night you get yelled at by Miss Pussycat – twice at that! Yeah, if you were at Friday’s Quintron show you likely saw a very very very angry Miss Pussycat yell at some guy in a polyester shell shirt on the side of the stage then come back and do it again. That was me! So you are probably wondering what that was all about. Well, honestly I’m not 100% sure. My camera has been a bit dodgy on focusing since the fatal Fatal Flying Guilloteens show at the Proletariat nigh a year ago. That means I take a lot of shots to get a few good one and a hella lot of shots if I’m avoiding the flash. Because of this, you will usually see me shoot a hell of a lot of shots for like the first half of a band’s set then settle in and only take a few more if there is some amusing action. So, here I am on the side of the stage – or one step down from the stage to be exact – and standing very still there for quite some time taking shots. It’s low-light so I’m trying to stay still to not add any jitter to the camera and even go so far as to hold my breath when I click. Since keeping steady is paramount, I notice across the stage are three mixed drinks atop the Leslie speaker there. Oh great I think, I’ll use the speaker not a foot away from me as a makeshift tripod (I’ve done this before by the way) and try to get the shot from there. Well no sooner do I extend my camera out there but across comes an enraged Miss Pussycat. Ok Ok I guess she’s touchy about her equipment. Fair enough, I figure and go back to shooting from where I was and boom I get yelled at again. Here is the sequence:

Now, to be honest, I’m still not sure what particular thing set her off. I wasn’t on the stage (and someone at one point even jumped on stage to dance) so that couldn’t have been it. It wasn’t the picture taking as many people were taking pictures (one guy with an SLR was just a foot away from where I was standing) so that wasn’t it. Putting my camera on the Leslie? Maybe but I’d figure the multiple mixed drinks atop the other one didn’t suggest they were puritanical about that issue. No, her explanation was that I was “distracting her.” OK. I guess standing still just off stage with a polyester shell shirt was possibly freaky and in a room full of dancing people it may have been even off-putting. I’ll never know but whatever the case none of this misunderstanding would be funny if she hadn’t very graciously apologized after the show after I approached her to apologize for upsetting her and explain what I was doing. She graciously bent over backwards to apologize but whatevs, it’s her stage and her reasons are her’s and I totally respect that. The lesson here is to find the band before the show and make sure that they know you aren’t some nut job but that you are there to cover the band.

But drama aside, what I came to cover was the fact that Pegstar had brought Miss Pussycat and Mr Quintron to town and that meant a great show. Opening was Brooklyn’s Golden Triangle who were high on the concept thing. A drummer in a turban, three women wigged out all Go-Go, and a band mixing 60s revebed Fender amp garage rock with femme B52 harmonies. They were high energy, lots of fun, and visually kooky and everyone got a kick out of ‘em. If you were close to the stage the harmonies were a but hard to make out but the guitars, drums, and bass alone were great if you dig the garage rock. The greatest garage rock band ever? Nah, but was it fun and people were dancing – that is solid in my book.

That was followed by Miss Pussycat and her puppet show which I’ve always dug since I heard Free Guitar Lessons for Animals ages ago. Here, for those who missed it, is the Cliff’s Notes version:

After that sillyness, things got to shaking again with Mr Quintron and his Drum Buddy (that’s that crazy spinning light machine). Now a Quintron show falls somewhere between a 60’s B-Movie teen dance party scene, a church revival, and a dancy version of the Carnival of Souls soundtrack. With two Leslie speakers at either end of the stage (spinning speaker exposed), crazy lights, and his organ dressed up as a car, it was like a junkyard of weirdness put together by McGyver and your crazy uncle. The highlight this night (as with the last time I saw him) was “Swamp Buggy Badass” where Quintron sings about being a badass then goes into the audience to tell you who there is a badass and who there is a motherfucking badass. Of The Kimonos – Major Miller – badass, Gina Miller – motherfucking badass, and Kenny neither (but, in his defense, he was off to the corner). So it was good groovin’ silliness all around that had the peeps hoppin’ and dancing-up the night and made me lose track of time for my appointment at Rudz.

I raced over to Rudz and got there at 1:30am, I knew I had blown seeing the Anarchitex but maybe I could still catch Exterminating Angels and, as I made my way up the stairs, I was happily greeted by the unmistakable strains of Scott Ayers’ guitarwork! Kids, that what you want to go for as a musician – a singular voice that is unmistakably yours. Exterminating Angels for all intents and purposes is Rotten Piece with Scott Ayers and the show was very much like a Rotten Piece show except with the rock cranked up to Ten. I’m not sure who was on the kit but the dude was pounding away while Carol Kelly filled in the bass lines that let Ayers solo with wild abandon while Shawn Kelly ran his vocals through a battery of effects as films ran in the background. Perhaps it wasn’t as dancy as the Quintron show down at Walter’s but it was no less fun. In fact, I’d probably say this show was a bit more adventurous as at one show you knew exactly what you were going to get but here the players were clearly improvising and taking a few more chances so neither they nor the audience knew exactly what to expect. That’s the joy and kick of the Houston experimental community right there – the thrill of the unexpected. Sometimes that modus operandi can lead to god awful performances but when it’s works it can be one of the best shows you’ll ever experience. This was one of the latter and I was very glad to have made the effort to catch even just the last 20 minutes of the set.

LINKS:
More Images in my Flickr (Link)

Quintron and Miss Pussycat on myspace (Link)
Golden Triangle on myspace (link)
Rotten Piece on myspace (Link) - sorry there’s no E.A. page at this time.