14th June 2010

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Quintron & Miss Pussycat / JEFF the Brotherhood / Ava Luna at Santos Party House

I was expecting some weird stuff at last night’s show, but I don’t think I really guessed a saucy puppet show would’ve been a part of it.  If I’d known a bit more about Miss Pussycat, perhaps I would’ve.

The show went down at the Andrew WK-owned Santos Party House, which I suppose was an okay spot, with its Santa Claus/astronaut mannequin suspended from the ceiling and whatnot, but the smoke machine smells like crap, and the sound mixing could have been a bit better. The lyrics of “Swamp Buggy Badass” deserve more clarity.

Opening up for the night was Ava Luna, a seven-piece group operating out of Brooklyn. They’re attempting to meld doo-wop lady vocals and hipster disco in something that sounds like it could be interesting, but that ended up sounding sloppy and overall not very tight.  The singer, however, was quite entertaining in an epileptic tweaker kind of way. The bassist had a head like a pachycephalosaurus.

The mid-card was JEFF the Brotherhood. The songs found on their MySpace didn’t have me too excited, but something seems to have happened between the time those were recorded and last night, because they rocked the fucking house. The guitarist walked across the bar to serenade some girl sitting in the corner playing with her phone, and it was awesome. She had no idea what to do in that situation, and was therefore completely owned. The two-piece blasted out a nasty wall of sound, and at some point, a wig went flying and I’m still not sure where it came from. The best part of the set, perhaps, came at the end, when the clearly stoned guitarist told everyone the merch tables were “like … a really awesome record store.”

Quintron and Miss Pussycat then set up their whole piece, puppet show theater, vintage automobile/keyboard, drum buddy, and all that stuff, and kicked things off with a puppet show about drugs or something. Secret pizza? Killing cops? It was all there, and I don’t know if I really followed it, but I’m glad I saw it. Following the bit of theater, they proceeded to knock out jam after jam and they were still going by the time I left. “It all gets worse from here,” Quintron assured the crowd, so I feel as though, in my fatigue, I made the right choice, but it still would have been fun to hang around for more organ/drum machine/yelling.

Tagged: gotta love mei'm the baby!