Kool Kat of the Week: Madness Takes its Toll at The Earl this Saturday with New Orleans’ Swampy Mad Scientist of the Musical Variety, Quintron, and Miss Pussycat’s Puppet Pandemonium

Posted on: Jun 10th, 2015 By:

by Melanie Crewqcar_web
Managing Editor

Quintron and Miss Pussycat, hailing from the Big Easy, will be dishin’ out a night of interstellar swampy electro mischief and Technicolor puppet mayhem and pandemonium this Sat. June 13, at The Earl, along with punk rock outfits Predator and Enoch Ramone & the Ebola Boys. They’re bound to leave you mesmerized and begging for more of that garage rock spacey avant-garde swamp noise!

Quintron, mad musical scientist and inventor of his own instruments [including his patented Drum Buddy (a light activated analog synthesizer), owned by some musical notables as Laurie Anderson and Nels Cline (Wilco)], has been delivering his New Orleans “genre-defying noise and swamp tech dance music” for over 15 years. Insert Miss Pussycat, who adds her own twisted eccentricities by way of her Technicolor puppet shows, and you’ve got one helluva electrifying live performance! Quintron’s latest LP SPELLCASTER II: DEATH IN SPACE (October 2014), featuring Miss Pussycat on their garage-rock-y “Do the Raid,” was released by New Orleans’ Pizza Burglar Records and is the successor to his 1996 LP AMAZING SPELLCASTER (Live at Pussycat Caverns) (Bulb Records). And if that isn’t enough, you’ll just have to get your grimy little hands (if you can) on his other earlier releases [1994’s INTERNAL FEEDBACK 001-011– released by Bulb Records; 1996’s THE FIRST TWO RECORDS – released by Bulb Records; 1997’s PLAY 9 SONGS WITH MR. QUINTRON – released by Crypt Records; 1998’s SATAN IS DEAD – released by Bulb Records; 1999’s THESE HANDS OF MINE – released by Rhinestone Records/Skin Graft Records; 2000’s UNMASKED ORGAN LIGHT-YEAR OF INFINITY MAN – released by Bulb Records; 2001’s DRUM BUDDY DEMO VOL. 1 – released by Rhinestone Records/Skin Graft Records; 2003’s ARE YOU READY FOR AN ORGAN SOLO – released by Rhinestone Records/Skin Graft Records; 2004’s THE FROG TAPE – released by Skin Graft Records; 2005’s SWAMP TECH/ELECTRIC SWAMP (with Miss Pussycat) – released by Tigerbeat6 Records/Rhinestone Records; 2008’s TOO THIRSTY FOR LOVE – released by Rhinestone Records /Goner Records; and 2011’s SUCRE DU SAUVAGE – released by Goner Records)].

db300_webATLRetro caught up with Quintron for a quick interview about his latest album, SPELLCASTER II: DEATH IN SPACE; his long list of musical projects [Weather Warlock; First!]; and his upcoming show with Miss Pussycat at The Earl! And while you’re taking a gander at our little Q&A with Quintron, get an eye ‘n’ earful of Quintron and Miss Pussycat’s Face Down in the Gutter”!

ATLRetro: Science and puppetry! What a great combination. What’s the scoop on how you and Miss Pussycat got together to entertain the masses?

Quintron: I was touring as Quintron through New Orleans back in the day. At that point I was doing more of a power noise and percussion thing with this huge home-built drum rig and a bunch of electronics that I had built into the octopus. I booked the tour myself on the phone and so I talked to her about my show in New Orleans at her secret 9th ward club (now defunct) called Pussycat Caverns. I think I kinda fell in love with her on the phone actually. Best voice in the biz. The rest, as they say, is a footnote to actual history about wars and politics and shit.

We’ve read that the majority of your 14 full-length albums are filled to the brim with that psychedelic soul of traditional New Orleans party music. Who would you say in the realm of traditional New Orleans party music are your retro music influences?

I know that your site is called “ATLRetro” and I do not mean any disrespect here but I have always shied away from anything which attempts to blatantlyMT2 (1) Miss Pussycat recreate the past – and that is what the word “retro” (in music anyway) means to me. I do think it is important to acknowledge, appreciate, and study the past but as an artist to live in it is a form of death – and he’s my enemy.  So, just saying, I’m not really gonna play along with that word. But I think what you are asking is “Who from the past has influenced me musically in New Orleans?” That said, my biggest New Orleans influences are Ernie K-Doe, King Louie (who is actually younger than me), and Mannie FreshK-Doe was one of the all time great New Orleans R&B singers, and I had the honor to be able to play and record with him in his later years. King Louie is a punk rock god of a songwriter (Kajun SS, Exploding Hearts, Kondor, Missing Monuments, Black Rose, etc) who actually broke away from a band that, in my opinion, was so obsessed with the past that they kind of neutered themselves artistically. They were great, just not exciting to me personally. So I watched Louie break away from this band and do his own thing, and it had a huge influence on me. He started making real vital immediate punk rock that was still referencing his musical roots in Louisiana but the lyrics weren’t about ‘50s shit. Mannie Fresh is the musical genius behind all of the early Cash Money Records hits. You know him even if you don’t know you know him. I actually think he lives in ATL now. I got to jam with him once or twice too – incredible.

Photo by Gary Lavourde

Photo by Gary Lavourde

Your sound has been described as being an eccentric, artsy twist on swamp rock, which you like to call “Swamp Tech”. Can you fill our readers in on what exactly “Swamp Tech” is?

I didn’t make it up – some writer in the UK did, and I liked the sound of it. I think they mean that it is a drum machine-based take on traditional Louisiana / Texas style “Swamp Pop.”

We see that you’ve played organ on a number of other artist’s records, even having one of those albums nominated for a Grammy (Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys’ “Grand Isle”, which contained your song “Chatterbox”). What is your go-to instrument?

I was a drummer first and an organ player second, but at this point I’m much more comfortable on organ than anything. I’m also playing guitar in Weather Warlock. I’m a pretty remedial guitar player.  Actually, I’m pretty remedial on everything.

Can you tell our readers a little bit about your latest LP, SPELLCASTER II: DEATH IN SPACE?

I was commissioned to score a science fiction film soundtrack for a local filmmaker named Brent Joseph and ended up recording so much material thatquintron2014 I decided to put some of it out. The title is a reference to my second LP called AMAZING SPELLCASTER – LIVE AT PUSSYCAT CAVERNS. That album was also a soundtrack “mood” type album, and I had always wanted to make a continuation – a part 2 – and this is it.

You seem to have a lot of musical projects going at once, from your solo act to Weather Warlock and First!, which is a hardcore band consisting of you, Miss P and three other New Orleans musicians. First of all, how do you find the time?! And secondly, can you explain the method to your musical madness?

I am VERY VERY sorry to tell our Atlanta fans that FIRST! will not be performing at the show due to a death in our guitar player’s family. It totally sucks because if anyone would get FIRST!, it’s you people. FIRST! is just me and a bunch of my best friends making the most simple punk we can on instruments we are not comfortable playing, and the lyrics are of supreme importance.  It’s almost like a really, really fast poetry reading with some 8-year-olds trying to play like Fang in the background.

Weather Warlock is a heavy drone / noise / metal  improv band based on this weather controlled synth I have been building. You can listen to it online 24/7 here.

Can you tell our readers a little bit about the time you shut yourself up in The New Orleans Museum of Art for three months to create your double LP “Sucre Du Sauvage”, released by Goner Records in 2011?

I can tell your readers that I do not recommend attempting to get any actual work done in a public place full of noisy, rude children and tourists. I did most of that album at night after the doors were closed. Never again will I conduct such an idiotic experiment. Taking drugs and sleeping in the park was fun though. I got a lot of good duck recordings.

Photo by Tony Campbell

Photo by Tony Campbell

Miss Pussycat’s new album and VHS tapes are being released by Terror Vision in the near future. Can you tell our readers a little bit about her album?

The album is called ANTHROPOMORPHIZER and it’s a pretty deluxe gatefold / color vinyl thing. It’s all puppet story soundtrack stuff – like a very psychedelic kid’s record. And a bunch of her older films are being released by this label Terror Vision who only do VHS – which is kinda retro, huh? The label seems to think it will work and people will be into it.  Based on merch table sales on this tour, I would say that a lot of people got their VCRs fixed.

If you could put together a dream line-up of bands to play with [still around or not], who would it be and why?

We are on tour with NOTS from Memphis right now and I can’t think of anything more dreamy than that actually – and Hawkwind, and Keith Frank (Zydeco gangster from Lafayette), and Manatees, and Babes, and Gary Wrong, and the Willem Breuker Kollektief, and Barreracudas, and COPS, and umm – the original Ramones but with Markey AND Tommy playing drums and Andrew W.K. kinda off to the side singing but without a mic, so you can hear Joey but you can kinda see Andrew too jumping around. Oh and Brian Eno is our touring sound guy, and he has free license to do whatever the fuck he wants – like backwards phase-verb on everything – whatever!  Also, we will have at least one or two days off in between every show and all of the major museums in every city will open their doors to us at any time of day or night at no cost. Oh yea and The Black Lips would be there too, because they like to party. This is gonna be awesome.  Still working out the details with agents and stuff.

Anything special planned for your show at The Earl on June 13?

Miss P & Q

Miss P & Q

Brand new puppet show and lots of new songs! Otherwise, we are not big planners. Who knows, I might punch someone in the face or make out with a dog – but it will be totally unplanned.

What’s next for Quintron and Miss Pussycat?

Weather Warlock will be releasing a full-length this week (I will have it at the show) and will be touring in September. Miss  P is working on a new puppet film and has several releases in the can ready to come out on Terror Vision. Also a full Q and P tour of the Gulf Coast and Florida in December.

Can you tell our readers something you’d like folks to know that they don’t know already?

There is no possible way I could know what all others don’t know already and if I did know such information, why would I not have publicly disclosed it many years ago, unless it was a secret which I desired to keep to myself.

What question do you wish somebody would ask you and what’s the answer?

Q: What question do you wish somebody would ask you and what’s the answer?
A: Can you repeat the question please?

All photos courtesy of Quintron and Miss Pussycat and used with permission.

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This Week in Retro Atlanta, Aug. 1-7, 2011

Posted on: Aug 2nd, 2011 By:

Monday August 1

From 3 PM on, savor tropical sounds and libations, as well as a Polynesian dinner during Mai Tai Monday at Smith’s Olde BarKingsized and Tongo Hiti lead singer Big Mike Geier is Monday night’s celebrity bartender at Sister Louisa’s Church of the Living Room and Ping Pong ParlorNorthside Tavern hosts its weekly Blues Jam.

Tuesday August 2

Grab your horn and head to Twain’s in Decatur for a Joe Gransden jazz jam session starting at 9 PM. Crosstown All Stars play Southern rock and blues at Fat Matt’s Rib Shack. Notorious DJ Romeo Cologne spins ‘70s funk and disco at 10 High in Virginia-Highland. Catch Tues. Retro in the Metro nights at Midtown’s Deadwood Saloon, featuring video mixes of ’80s, ’90s and 2Ks hits.

Wednesday  August 3

Tennessee Tease Burlesque Invades the Cult Movie! combines two great Retro traditions on one stage at The Shelter. Doors are at 9, show at 10, and tickets are $10 to see this sexy troupe from Memphis which features titillating dancers, vocalists, comedians and fire performers.

The Beach BoysBrian Wilson sings solo at Classic Chastain tonight. Spend An Evening with Dolly Parton at Verizon Amphitheatre at Encore Park. MOTO, aka Masters of the Obvious, plays punk New Orleans style at Star Bar with Barreracudas and self-described “Cooter” rockers Tornado Town. It’s a soulful night when Ruby Velle Trio takes the stage at Eddie’s Attic. Get ready to rumba, cha-cha and jitterbug at the weekly Swing Night at Graveyard Tavern. Frankie’s Blues Mission bring the blues to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack and Danny “Mudcat” Dudeck blues it down at Northside Tavern respectively. Dance to ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s hits during Retro in the Metro Wednesdays presented by Godiva Vodka, at Pub 71 in Brookhaven. 

Thursday  August 4

Whiskey Belt.

It’s another honky tonk night at Star Bar with Whiskey Belt. Dirty Bourbon River Show fuses roots, blues, jazz, zydeco and more into something they call New Orleans gypsy folk circus rock at Twain’s. Frankie’s Blues Mission is at The Five Spot. Go Retro-Polynesian to Tongo Hiti’s luxurious live lounge sounds, as well as some trippy takes on iconic pop songs, just about every Thursday night at Trader Vic’s. Party ‘70s style with DJ Romeo Cologne at Aurum LoungeBreeze Kings and Chickenshack bring on the blues respectively at Northside Tavern and Fat Matt’s Rib Shack.Bluegrass Thursday at Red Light Cafe features alt-bluegrass Judge Talford Band.

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