Three One G Records

I remember a Quintron show right around the time this record came out. It was at the Casbah in San Diego. I think Dmonstrations played. Maybe the Peppermints? What a fucking show. Quintron has this power to turn a room into a dance party both surreal and so real you miss it like your newest best friend the next morning.

The Drum Buddy’s beats and the organ squall plus Quintron’s R&B shout-croon and Miss Pussycat’s puppets on stage take you to a place unknown (to quote the killer first track off this record). The show in question was one of those nights where all your friends go, even the anxious ones who never leave the house, and everyone is dressed up and cute and happy and no one argues or says stupid, mean shit or peaces-out early.

I think I had a bad mustache (and I remember Chris Woo couldn’t stop laughing at it). I remember Raúl de Nieves dancing on stage behind Miss Pussycat (there’s a Rob Queenin photo of this I should find). My friend Maya Peterpaul was in town. Everyone from our magazine Fahrenheit came. It was a circus without the creepy shit and it was a party without the cops shutting it down. No cop in the world could break that barrier.

Are You Ready for an Organ Solo? was released by Three One G 18 years ago today and listening to it during a pandemic is painful. You want to be THERE. You want to be with your friends. It’s like that LCD song goes about seeing all your friends tonight. (If I could? What I wouldn’t give.) For now, the record. Which is an m-80 blowing your world up. A vision of glitter, sweat, and better times. A gift like a hug, like a free drink from the bar, like a kick in the skull to every enemy you ever had.

–Adam Gnade, author of This is the End of Something But It’s Not the End of You and Float Me Away, Floodwaters