La La Land of Crazy Girls

So I am fresh off of my trip to Los Angeles visiting a friend of mine and trying to promote this little site as well. And during the trip I was treated to plenty of Too Short and E-40 but I was also saturated with the constant feeding of Drake, LMFAO, and Pitbull. I had never even heard a Drake song until this past weekend. I thought LA was the land of indie bands? Every SXSW there's only about 800 bands from this wonderful city that come to Austin to perform. Are they just too busy eating at Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles the rest of the year to actually promote themselves? Or are they really just geeks in hiding? Like the ones that I saw there playing superhero games with each other in the comic book store? I would like to think these guys would never get laid but I've lived in Austin long enough to know that even guys who dress like pirates on the reg get some, so anything is possible.Oh well, I would have to say the highlight of the trip may have been at dinner when this beautiful girl is soo drunk that she tips over and smacks her head on my table as I am mid bite of my tasty burger. She then lands in my lap giggling Sixteen Candles style. Sadly we didn't bang in a Bentley the next morning like in that movie, but one can dream.

And speaking of crazy hot women who I want to pass out in my lap, there's Teresa Suarez aka Teri Gender Bender of Le Butcherettes. They are from Guadalajara, Mexico but now make their home in LA. When I first heard New York, I thought I was  listening to a remastered Runaways song.  But I never remembered rocking out this hard to Joan Jett before. Plus if i had, I would never admit it to anyone, although Cherry Bomb is pretty money.  It was at this moment I realized it was Teri screaming out these wonderfully weird lyrics along with a guy wearing a Mexican wrestler's mask on the drums. After doing some research, I saw that Omar Rodriguez-Lopez from Mars Volta produced their album and even plays bass. So naturally I decided to check out some of their other songs and was definitely not disappointed. They keep up the weirdness and rocking out on songs like Henry Don't Got Love and Dress Off while also remaining socially conscious. Teri, despite all of her antics is actually a pretty smart and educated woman. Although after seeing her live, I'm not sure she's all there. First off, it's an amazing live show! And I mean just that, it's a show. She walks on stage as this petite little thing with a mousy voice but as soon as the guitar is plugged into the amp, the crazy eyes show up and she takes on another personality. One with hair flying while shredding riff after riff. Then midshow during a drum solo, she smears her lipstick across her face and does a surprise head first stage dive into this small crowd who kind of catches her but not until after her head slams into the ground. Everyone freezes as she rolls on the ground screaming in what we think is pain. But we then realize she not screaming in pain, but is actually screaming song lyrics. She then pops up, barefoot, and starts running around the venue screaming more lyrics as everyone still has no clue what is going on. Meanwhile the music never stops playing; I guess her bandmates are just used to this crazy. The song finally comes to an end as she's swinging from a light fixture, breaks it, and screams something indiscernible in the mic. Needless to say,  I instantly fell in love.

Again, dont let the antics completely distract you. There is definitely a point behind her lyrics and they take you back to the raw power of mid to late 70's  punk rock. They are a three piece with Teri also playing organ on quite  few of the songs. They have no slow movers and have songs that range from negatively calling out the tradition of the Mexican male machismo to calling out certain political leaders who shall remain nameless. Oh and did I mention that she's pretty, even with the crazy eyes? Do yourself a favor and see these guys when they come to town; they are pretty FRESH!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtbltIS175U

Oh yeah, the second time I saw them perform, she threw her shoe at my head (I swear it wasnt in self defense). It was weird, I was like the Bionic Man. I effortlessly caught it with one hand while drinking my beer with the other. People kept trying to buy it off of me but no way was I giving this up. And that's not even the best part. I spent the rest of the night going from venue to venue with her shoe in my hand and noone even looked at me twice. Not even Friendly Fires' frontman Ed Macfarlane batted an eye as we had a drunken 10 minute conversation about our night and the festival as a whole; which looking back, our convo made no sense at all. Aah SXSW, a place where people who look like serial killers can feel at home.