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Dusted Reviews
Artist: Quintron and Miss Pussycat Album: Swamp Tech Label: Tigerbeat6 Review date: Oct. 23, 2005 |
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You can’t keep a self-respecting Crescent City Crew down. The Spellcaster Lodge, Mr. Quintron and Miss Pussycat’s HQ in New Orleans’ 9th Ward, is still standing despite suffering a serious soaking after Hurricane Katrina, and their online store has been shut down due to flooding. Nonetheless they’re on the road, touting this record and spreading its gospel of NOLA noncompliance with the powers that be.
Swamp Tech kicks off with “Shoplifter,” which sets how-to advice to a righteous groove that’s a close cousin to Golden Earring’s “Radar Love.” This leads right into “Fly Like A Rat,” in which Miss Pussycat celebrates various rodent-born diseases. Quintron steps in at the bridge to chant a few lines from “The Jefferson’s Theme” before strafing listeners with boingy Drumbuddy™ shots. The rabbit-punch follow-up is “Swamp Buggy Badass,” which overflows with bad words and worse attitude. There was a time when Q and P’s act felt like a cross between a tent show revival and an after-school public access TV show; now it’s more like the kids on the playground with the grownups gone, swearing up a storm and doing all sorts of stuff that’ll merit a visit to the youth officer down at the precinct if they ever get caught.
They’ve also updated their sound, relatively speaking, beefing up Quintron’s old school organ with generous helpings of analog synth and pumped-up beats – even a straight-up disco thump on a fist-pumping cover of Kiss’s “God Of Thunder.” The remixes that wrap up the record seem a bit superfluous, but in New Orleans you don’t let the customers walk away hungry.
Check out these photos of the spellcaster lodger in New Orleans: http://www.quintronandmisspussycat.com/hurricane.html.
By Bill Meyer
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