Boasting two stages on two floors of Downtown’s Club Nokia, the sold-out event was not quite of a large enough scale to be considered massive, though that didn’t stop its patrons from indulging in massive-style excess.  While I did catch a glimpse of the mound of confiscated drugs at the venue’s entrance, it’s undeniable that a fair amount of mind altering substances made it past the double doors—if the sea of completely uninhibited, barely clothed dancers was any indication.  Of course, chemicals were only partially responsible for the euphoria the crowd was experiencing; the sensory overload of a production transpiring onstage would be incredibly stimulating to even the squarest of observers.  Each of the screens at Club Nokia was synchronized to display the psychedelic visuals being projected behind the DJs, the perfect complement to the sound system’s low-end assault.  Only the rapidly spinning glow sticks and neon clothing of the audience could compete for your eyes’ attention.

The music was abrasive and relentless, never allowing a break in the action.  The DJs were well aware that there is a no bigger buzz kill than the absence of a beat to pump your fists to.  The Bass Chamber, located on the fourth floor and accessible only via elevator, played host to the likes of Gaslamp Killer, Marshall Barnes, EMU, and Camo UFOs.  The lounge-like room was a more intimate affair with only about 50 audience member, most likely due to the difficulty in finding it.  Those loyal 50 were treated to a mysterious “special guest” on the bill who was revealed to be an unmasked Deadmau5.  Following Gaslamp Killer’s selection of “Everything in Its Right Place,” Deadmau5 kicked things off with Peaches’ “Fuck The Pain Away” and a mash-up of Madcon’s “Beggin’” and Amy Winehouse’s “You Know I’m No Good” before moving on to an impressive display of breakbeat manipulation.  He showcased his penchant for creating brutal and complex synchopations, performing what amounted to a Buddy Rich-style drum solo on the decks.  On the HARD Stage, sweaty bodies abounded to the sounds of Ali G, Destructo, Boy 8-Bit, Jack Beats, and Fake Blood.  Co-headliners/showstoppers Jack Beats captivated the audience with their surging, elastic basslines, shrill sonics, and unpredictable rhythms.  They dealt the crowd sheer brutality in the form of blistering beats.  At one point during one of their build-ups, they ran a sample beckoning the crowd to “get down”—as if anyone in the house needed instruction to do so.

—Amorn Bholsangngam

And salivation is literally what was going down at infamous Hollywood tease-atorium and strip club, Crazy Girls.  The ladies were hot and the thigh highs were bold. The audience passed the time stuffing tips into panties waiting for sweet and sour German rocker Mignon.  After at least an hour of giggling breasts and gyrating American booties, the petite blonde bombshell from off-shore bounced onto stage full of energy.  Giggle and gyrate she did too, but this lady was not just a sight—she was also a sound.  Mignon introduced herself to the audience in a cute German accent and jumped right into “Gimme Gimme Gimme.”

From the beginning of the set her songs were catchy, her energy was high, her band was tight (and not bad to look at, if you know what I mean), and the music rocked. The drummer was amazing. The bassist had the background vocals of Danzig at a high school birthday party. And the guitarist played it cool, even when he broke a string while rocking out on “Hot Love.” Mignon (and her newly assembled band) fluently blends rock, electronica, pop and punk into music that is heartfelt and real.  In spirit as in vision, she is what Lady Gaga wishes she was—a fucken rockstar.  Her almost white blonde hair is interrupted with a shock of jet black. Onstage she was a gothic vision in a black corset, black boots, black wrist bands, a Medieval cross necklace (why, yes, it was black…) and a fringy black jacket and top hat that she donned on an off throughout her performance.

Mignon’s not afraid to wear what she wants, sing what she wants, scream what she wants and even get bloody…what she wants.—At one point she jumped off stage to grab some fake blood to splatter on herself and her bassist. It’s not surprising that she toured with the ever epically hot and bothered free spirited Peaches in 2001 and 2002.  Her video to “Hot Love” (which was screened while the hottie guitarist recovered from guitar string stresses) doesn’t do her or her music justice.  She’s way more of a killer queen on stage—and though she’s small, her presence is felt.

Everything about Mignon feels right.  She rocks out, but she doesn’t try too hard to be something she’s not.  Like Peaches, she says what she wants with the ferocity of tiger on cat-nip and the message resonates—be who you are, do what you want, find out what’s cooking in the kitchen even if it is getting steamy.

—Linda Janota

Lists like this are always personal, and I live for live music, so all the bands represented blew me away in concert as much as on the album, with one glaring exception. 

The Gossip – Standing in the Way of Control  

I loved the Gossip going back to their first album of blues-tinged garage rock.  I dragged a friend to a show of theirs months before this came out, and we were astonished to hear disco-esque dance punk come out of them.  But it was perfect, even better than their music before.  This album lived up to that potential.

The New Pornographers – Electric Version 

The one band on the list that blows live.  But the album shows they are the one band that has found the sweet spot between Elvis Costello and Cheap Trick, and that is a beautiful spot to live in.

The Vivian Girls – Everything Goes Wrong  

Their first album got them all the attention, but their sophomore release justified it.  This is the album I put on whenever I just want to throw something on for the hell of it.  It makes me happy.

LCD Soundsystem – LCD Soundsystem 

This is the band I end up justifying more than others, because it’s hard to see what is so amazing about it the first four times you hear it.  But I keep going back to this album, which is a good sign.  The inventiveness of the music sneaks up on you. 

TV on the Radio – Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes  

I got into the TV on the Radio Friday night set at SXSW at the Parish in 2004 in by pulling rank as a native Austinite at the door, and being let in before everyone else in line.  The place was packed.  I stood by a door crammed between two smelly hipsters and my drunk date.  Despite all this, the band made me stop breathing with its beauty.  They had a new sound, something quite unusual in the aughts. And they pulled it off.

Danger Mouse – The Grey Album 

Danger Mouse owned the aughts, between the Gorillaz and Gnarls Barkley.  It all started with this record.  Before this, mash-ups were a novelty.  After this album, they were an art form.

Basement Jaxx – Rooty 

Every couple of years, someone announces some combination of hip hop and electronica music like it’s the next great thing.  Basement Jaxx officially perfected the blend of house and hip hop in 2001.  The rest is just footnotes.

Peaches – The Teaches of Peaches

 The next time I hear someone wax on about how Lady Gaga is some sort of innovator or icon, I’m grinding this album in to her ear until she gets a clue. 

Phenomenal Hand Clap Band – Phenomenal Hand Clap Band   

It’s hard to stand out at SXSW.  They did so with ease.  Their album is addictive. It reminds me of the best Sly-inspired rock of my childhood with 70s rock head parents, but without getting caught up in nostalgia.  I don’t know how they pull it off.  The hip hop touches help.

Sleater Kinney -  The Woods  

 I almost didn’t want to put such an iconic 90s band on the list.  But they deserve credit for putting this album, which was a real departure from their former sound, a right turn into a more rock and roll kind of rock that made official the nostalgia with a twist that dominated so much of the aughts.  Another SXSW show that will be permanently burned into my brain.

-Amanda Marcotte

Peaches’ albums benefit from their confrontational approach and aura of danger. The Wiltern seemed to be too large of a venue for the intensity to translate; only Brian Lichtenberg’s radical costumes packed a punch. It made me wish we were in a smaller space with the band right in the audience’s face.

[View with PicLens]

Although she’d probably never say it herself, Peaches is a true diva. During “The Farewell Tour,” Cher—the ultimate diva—left the stage saying, “Follow this, you bitches!” Sometime just before releasing her second album, Peaches heard. Trailing Cher’s footsteps, Peaches has an endless (and eclectic) schedule of costume changes, her own almost avant-garde dancers, an open attitude toward sexuality, a persistent desire to recolor her hair, and a huge gay following. Oh, and a whole lot of love for the fans.

From the moment Peaches stepped out on stage, her energy was explosive. She jumped on top of the drums, did a stage dive into the audience, crawled across a giant speaker in order to perform in one of the two Henry Fonda Music Box balconies that flank the stage, and vibrated as she sang her lyrics. She explained to us Angelenos that she spent a little while living here and therefore feels a kind of kinship with our sunny (despite “June Gloom”) city. Naturally this conversation about love turned into a conversation about hate. As Peaches railed against the inequalities of this world—and more importantly, the inequalities her fans directly deal with—and specifically criticized Prop 8, the audience buzzed, giggling and cheering when Peaches called three same-sex couples on stage. She wasn’t leaving until some(gay)body was married.

Like their peachy preacher, the crowd was full of love. Though there were some youngins still new to the Teaches of Peaches, older fans were seasoned members of Peaches’ congregation. (Check that off on the Peaches – Cher similarity chart—loyal fans!) When Peaches asked her fans to take off their shirts – a lot of them did it! The show ended just as dynamically as it had begun. Her keyboardist threw off his glittery snake-scaled shirt and threw on a long blonde wig so that he could impersonate Iggy Pop for the duo “Kick It.” For a second encore, she lit up a little light that flickered in her crotch and asked her fans to “Look into the center of the Peach.” And of course everyone did.

—Linda Janota

Peaches performed at The Henry Fonda Theatre on Saturday June 6 and Sunday June 7. Linda Janota photographed their Sunday show.

[View with PicLens]

(from Too Thirsty 4 Love on Goner)

Quintron invented the dream-machine-slash-drum-machine called the Drum Buddy and Miss Pussycat invented Pussycat Caverns for her puppets, and from their Spellcaster Lodge in New Orleans they are re-inventing America. They are equally able to befriend Burmese pythons and Lou Reed, but only one appears on their new album cover. This interview by John Henry

Where did you come up with the idea for the new record cover? It’s really great.
Quintron (vocals/organ/drum buddy): The idea is we had access to a twenty-foot-long Burmese python and it was time to make a record. That’s the idea. My friend Jeanie wanted to have her picture taken with this huge snake and the location happened to be our house and, well, it would just be ridiculous NOT to make a record cover with a twenty-foot Burmese python, right? I think that I can not disclose the name of the person who owns this snake because it is very illegal to own a snake of that breed and that size. Let’s call him ‘a friend.’
You took the photo inside the Spellcaster Lodge—is that the new look of your venue since you’ve repaired it from the storm damage?
Q: Yes, that is the new Spellcaster Lodge—decorated entirely with Miss Pussycat’s design of Mardi Gras petal paper, which is used to decorate truck floats for the final parade every Fat Tuesday.
Miss Pussycat (vocals/puppets): It’s like an inside-out Mardi Gras float.
How much repair did you have to do to the Lodge after Katrina?
Q: Basically—tear down all the walls and rebuild them because they were moldy. All the walls are soundproof—four layers thick—so we had to take them all down and rebuild them. Rebuild the doors, rebuild the door casings, put new wall covering on, new sound system—everything on the inside needed to be done.
What did you do during Gustav? Did you take off or batten down the hatches?
Q: We went straight to the eye of the hurricane in Baton Rouge and stayed with a colonel friend of ours. We got to see the hurricane and run around in it because it doesn’t flood in Baton Rouge—it’s above sea level but that’s actually where it went. They had more violent winds there than here, but we got to get really drunk and run around in the hurricane and watch oak trees fall down.
P: It was a rare daytime hurricane. Normally this kind of thing happens at night, but this one was daytime so we got to actually see it and have fun with wicked old Mother Nature.
Q: Then the colonel made us clean his yard and his neighbors’ yards.
Who’s the colonel?
P: We can’t say.
Q: But can we please stop talking about hurricanes? I’m sick of tragedy defining us. Fuck Katrina, fuck Gustav, fuck recovery, fuck rehab, and fuck God. We didn’t drown, life rules, and our record cover has an illegal snake picture on it. THE END!
I heard you have a new puppet stage that throws up. What’s that all about?
P: Yes, my puppet theatre can talk. It can talk and it has eyes and teeth and arms and trap doors.
Do you have a new puppet show that goes along with the new theatre?
P: Yes, I do. It’s called the Haunted Art Gallery and it’s about the art world. See I think when you go to see art it would be really cool if it would give you—and I’m serious now—if it would give you psychic powers. If it was a vortex into the astral plane—that’s what I always want. I want it to be like a coven. So that’s what it’s about. It’s about witchcraft and parapsychology in the arts.
Are you bringing this on tour and doing it in L.A.?
P: Yes, and I made my puppet theatre two feet wider. Our van is so full. Quintron has started bringing more equipment. He brings two Leslie speakers now so I felt like I had to take up more space. There’s not room for anything else now.
What about the newest Drum Buddy model—will you be using that on this tour as well? What’s different about this one than the old one?
Q: The cabinets for new design are made from ‘sinker cypress’ which is this 300-to-800-year-old wood that was submerged in the swamps of Louisiana and harvested for furniture. I think it was first harvested for outdoor furniture and siding and then it became as precious as gold and people started using it for really fine furniture and there’s only a little bit of it left. I know people in the woodworking industry here and they’ve had bits and scraps left. So I had enough to make ten Drum Buddies out of this very precious sinker cypress wood. Electronically the difference is the circuits are cleaned up, it doesn’t buzz as much, and you can now play through it. It’s now an effects pedal in tandem with the Drum Buddy sounds.
Did you sell any of the new models?
Q: All of them except I kept one. I sold one to Nels Cline who is an improvisational guitar player from Los Angeles. He’s also the newish guitar player in Wilco. I sold one to Laurie Anderson in New York. I got to hang out with the Louster. I got to jam with Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson for forty-five minutes or I don’t know—for a long time. Lou was very suspicious of the Drum Buddy at first. Laurie Anderson got very excited when I brought it there to give her her first lesson and show her how to use it. She said, ‘Oh, my friend Lou will really love this.’ So Lou came over and he was really suspicious and assumes that everything is an audition for him. He thought it was for him or I was trying to make him one or that I was some kind of door-to-door Drum Buddy salesman. He really thought that, I think. After a while he got his distortion out and started playing through it, and he got really into it. Then she played her violin through it. Laurie Anderson is a really sensitive incredible musician. You can tell from meeting her and hearing her improvise for two minutes that she was really an artist. It’s suited to her music, I think. Her whole thing is simplicity—a childlike simplicity.
Is she going to use it when she plays live?
Q: I haven’t heard anything—not a peep about whether she’s using it, whether it’s in a closet, whether it’s been recorded in the studio. I’m pretty sure it’s not on tour because we know her bass player and he would have told us if it was on tour.
Along with the new record you put out you released a puppet video—is that the same episode you did for Vice TV?
P: This is the first season of Trixie and the Treetrunks but it has credits. Online it didn’t have credits, and the credits are really beautiful. It’s got some bonuses like Witch in The Club bloopers and the Making Of which was for Dutch television that they let us put on as an extra bonus. Quintron was the director of photography and our friend Darren Deluco helped us out some and Jayme Kalal and Lefty Parker and tons of our friends were puppeteers. Jayme Kalal was there for almost every shoot—he’s great. It was all in our basement basically.
How long is this tour and where are you going?
Q: We’re basically going to go on tour for the rest of the year and then into next spring and summer. Not constantly but we’re going to go to Mars and back. We haven’t been out on a real tour for a year. Well, we did a tour with the Black Lips and we did a tour with Peaches.
P: We went on a tour last summer with our friends from New Orleans.
Q: King Louie’s band Black Rose, The Pussuaders—a Persuaders cover band—Overnight Lows but that was just a southern tour.
What made you go with Goner Records to put the new album out?
Q: Because they rule and they are the best record label in the world and we’ve been friends forever. They’re on it—they are so on it. Eric and Zac and their store and I don’t know! It’s hilarious that we can be on a garage-rock label and Tiger Beat and 31G.
They’ve kind of gone beyond just being a garage-rock label, don’t you think?
Q: That’s good for them, and they’re dear old friends but that’s not why—it’s because Goner rules.
Did you go up to Memphis for Goner Fest and do any promotional stuff for the album?
Q: No, we couldn’t do it. We were going to bring the snake in a limo with Jeanie and sign posters but we didn’t have time.
P: We should have rubber snakes for sale at the merch table or just sell snakes.
Q: Can you sell pets at rock shows? Snakes are deaf and they like cigarette smoke, too. Oh, wait—check out my tour outfit. [Quintron runs into the Spellcaster and grabs something.]
It’s a denim jumpsuit with a cobra back patch, two champagne glasses and a rose that says ‘Too thirsty for love.’ Where did you get that made?
Q: In Chalmette at Embroidery Unlimited. I’m very excited about this new jumpsuit.
Do you have a matching outfit that goes with the jumpsuit?
P: We’re going to have a denim theme. Shopping Bear and I are going to have matching outfits with Drum Buddies on them.

L.A. RECORD PRESENTS QUINTRON AND MISS PUSSYCAT WITH STATIC STATIC, GOLDEN TRIANGLES AND DJ SHORT SHORTS ON FRI., OCT. 10, AT THE ECHOPLEX, 1154 GLENDALE BLVD., ECHO PARK. 8:30 PM / $12-$14 / 18+. ATTHEECHO.COM. QUINTRON AND MISS PUSSYCAT’S TOO THIRSTY 4 LOVE IS OUT TUE., OCT. 14, ON GONER. VISIT QUINTRON AND MISS PUSSYCAT AT QUINTRONANDMISSPUSSYCAT.COM.

Hard Place
Get Your Hopes Up CD
World Famous in SF

Hard Place are consistently compared with Devo (the wackiness), Sparks (the punk-style humor) and Queen (the sexy awesome total rock ‘n’ roll vocalists). But musically Hard Place is closer to the likes of Glass Candy, Peaches—if Peaches went arena rock—and even touches of Swedish art rock act the Knife. (With a sharper edge, if you will.) The title track of this first EP starts like the smoke-filled stage entrance of a gorgeous dual-gendered hair metal band with Huizenga’s lustrous voice complimenting Cristy’s rather precise guitar shredding. The rest of the album is electronic rock with great lyrics (“A pearl necklace is better than a diamond ring!”) all delivered with humor, genuine talent and skill. This is the kind of album you put on full blast in the car on your way to the dance club when you’re ready for an auto danse party. “The Photographer” is a bit of a Kraftwerk throwback with full-tilt Top 40 catchiness and “Better in Leather” is like an updated “Sex Dwarf.” Hard Place’s first album might not yet be as epically enduring as their influences, but right now they sure as hell are a fun band to listen to and watch.

— Chesney Higgins