Quintron and Miss Pussycat at Secret Project Robot

I hate to post photos of Quinton and Miss Pussycat taken in natural light. They are a total party band and as such their true habitat is the poorly but colorfully lit club, bar, or discothèque. These photos are okay, but on some level they are like pictures of polar bears sunning on the beach in Acapulco: interesting but not quite right. I also wish I could have shot them from a higher angle. Quintron has a lot of neat stuff on his dashboard like a slide guitar and cymbals and some sort of rotating night light thing which I think also plays music somehow.

Quinton and Miss Pussycat have a simple formula: organ + electronics + dual vocalists = catchy dance music. Personally I like to compare them to The B-52s: two total party bands with an experimental side and just a bit of an edge. They play light, bubbly dance numbers and darker, heavier songs (which you can still dance to, of course) and sometimes stuff that's just totally out there. Anything as long as it's crazy and fun. Quintron actually covered the Pink Panther theme song (as a solo instrumental) during the set, while Miss Pussycat put on a puppet show before the music started. Because why not?

Posted: 4/23/2013 at 6:36pm     Tags: Quintron and Miss Pussycat  Secret Project Robot 

K-Holes at Secret Project Robot

When you get a bunch of veteran musicians together strange things can happen. K-Holes started out doing everything from really messy punk to moody psychedelia to jazzy Mothers of Invention-esque freakouts. Some of it worked, some of it really didn't, but it definitely felt like more like individual musicians writing individual songs which suited them. Bands which work like that tend to fall apart.

Given that K-Holes have survived and put out two albums they obviously achieved some level of stylistic integration. These days if you don't listen too closely K-Holes could even pass for a rock band. They're loud and energetic enough and do have a bit of that rock attitude on stage. Yet their music is so moody. Now moody normally implies mopey or gothic, and they do go there once in a while on songs like "Window in the Wall", but normally the mood is more panicky and paranoid. It's a nervy, high-energy moodiness. In particular the sax adds a little bit of chaos, not enough to throw things out of whack, just enough to make things feel a little bit off. And if some of those lyrics seem a bit disturbing... I think that's probably the idea. It is quite intense and works so much better than when they started out, which is probably true of every band ever but moreso than usual in this case.

The stage in the garden of Secret Project Robot didn't look that small but dang it sure was crowded with band members. Every time I tried to isolate one person there would be an elbow, a leg, some part of someone else in each shot. And the smoke! Yes, it was a sunny Spring day in Bushwick and yet somehow I was reminded of a small club atmosphere. Great sound though.

Posted: 4/22/2013 at 6:01pm     Tags: K-Holes  Secret Project Robot