“Who is she?!” asked the old man in a Happy Hollows t-shirt. “That’s Heisenflei.” Aka Julie of the Pity Party. A drool puddle collected on the side of his mouth. A look around the room confirmed that many faces were transfixed where Heisenflei’s stretched t-shirt slid off her shoulder almost to her elbow. Even after she had stood, picked up her red stiletto boots and marched backstage, eyes stayed glued to where her black bra strap had taunted the audience with what appeared to be a nice boob. The shirt never did fall all the way.

Heisenflei writes hot-blooded rock with bandmate M, aka Marc, also a handsome feller on guitar + muchisimo pedals.  Barefoot in an oversized t-shirt/dress barely contained by a belt, she displayed her split brain musical abilities, playing drums and keyboard at the same time.

They began with a long song so we could adjust to M’s guitar science experiment. His many pedals provided him a chemistry set for churning tones and rusty machine gear sounds. Sometimes bubbling note to note; sometimes crushing the life from butterflies with heavy torture devices then tossing them over to his band mate so she could sew them into new flying frankensteins.

During the fourth or fifth song, I watched a guy who had been bobbing to the music turn to his friend and say, “This is a good one!” Reality became heavy for him and he stopped moving, closed his eyes, his hands stayed where they were for almost two minutes. He came back to life long enough to mouth the words, “They remind me of Helmet. You remember Helmet?” He blacked out again in slow motion, not drunk, but zoned in. I wondered if he was imagining Heisenflei’s bra.

—Daiana Feuer