Quintron and Miss Pussycat at the Triple Rock, 6/26/10

Photo courtesy of the artist

​Quintron is famous for being an unrestrained type of genius, spreading his patented (literally) badass garage dance or swamp tech to all corners of the globe or at least America, organs and their Cadillac façade and soulmate and talking puppet stage in tow. Quintron and Miss Pussycat will bring you to a special place if you're good and ready and ready to give; a Nola-sprung posi-communion tuned to sweat and shake where the squarest of left feet end keeping time and jumping out of line. They want to get you where their heads are all the time, but they're not gonna force it. At the Triple Rock Saturday, they didn't.

"We. Are. Ready." With that Miss Pussycat began the night with her brilliant puppet show, her face attached to a little puppet body making introductions and throwing it off to a tiger kitty and white elephant just about to practice their party magick. "How 'bout we make some secret pizza right now?" "OK, go ahead and cast the spell!" "Pizza pizza pizza pie, effin' hexin' me of my, jungle mungle really high." And wizbang! Albino elephant and tiger kitty are up to their ears in secret pizza. Three cops died. You have to be there, I think. The effect Miss Pussycat's puppet show has on a crowd of twenty- and thirtysomethings is incredible and inspiring, a vibe so beautifully, childishly enthralled the closest analogue would be seeing your first Children's Theatre production in elementary school or playacting in the woods. In our fast-paced and regurgitative culture these moments seem so hugely lost that when they do occur, you're feeling it for days. It's something I think we require now more than ever, a salve and balm for our burned-out brains.

Following the puppet show (one final note on that: at the end of all of her performances the puppet stage becomes a talking puppet, something so genius and meta and surprising maybe we should invent an award for it) Quintron got behind the mobster Cadillac that serves as his central console where a Hammond and a Rhodes reside, wearing his usual uniform of mechanic jumpsuit, a shimmering bandana around his neck, and began a four-minute industrial introduction leading straight into Too Thirsty 4 Love's "Waterfall". (I took a video of their intro, but didn't post it because Miss Pussycat politely asked everyone to refrain from recording any portion of their show, which is understandable. You have to be there, and it's misrepresentation otherwise.)

​The Triple Rock was not packed. That's one of like two things necessary for a Quintron show to be a Quintron Show. The other is an audience more than ready to lose their shit. It being a Saturday night and everything I assumed that's what we would get, but it just didn't connect for most of the hour or so set. It could have been when the Drum Buddy blew a fuse, requiring Quintron to pause the show briefly to replace it (the Drum Buddy is Quintron's patented light-powered analog drum synthesizer, a piece of musical wizardry that could only come from the brain that brought you the Spit Machine saliva-powered hand organ - google that shit). It could have had to do with the Triple Rock; I've only ever seen Quintron play the Entry, a space that gets packed so easily the requisite sweatiness and jitters are practically guaranteed. But the Triple Rock, when it's not sold out, lets you move around and find a nice space a few feet from your neighbor and gently nod your head in time to the provided entertainment. Or it may have been me, pickled and a little tired. NOT CONDUCIVE TO A QUINTRON SHOW. While a bummer, it's not the end of the world: these two children of light and magic come through town twice a year usually. Let's give them something to shake and freak for next time.

Personal bias: The same as everyone's.
The crowd: Minneapolitan (staid)
Overheard in the crowd: "Dude she's nippin' out so hard!"
Random notebook dump: Elephant gets stopped for party magick, makes a deal for party pizza - kitty cat ripped the cops head off! Kitty in jail for 15 yrs :(