My plan on Sunday night (Dec 29th) was to go see Soft Palms at Club Tee Gee. Then I noticed that Zebulon was having an early 6 p.m. opening. Hmm, maybe I could club venue hop? I know that the first band at Club Tee Gee generally goes on stage between 8:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. I also know that Zebulon usually has bands going on stage either at 7:45 p.m. or 8:45 p.m. If that was the case, it wasn't exactly worth club venue hopping, because I might have to leave before the first band at Zebulon finished their set. I wasn't certain if Zebulon was just opening their doors earlier than normal or if that meant bands were going on stage earlier than normal, as well. I noticed an Instagram Stories that highlighted the set times at Zebulon and they were indeed having bands starting their sets earlier than normal. That was that, I figured why not start my night off early, as well, by first heading to Zebulon and then jumping to Club Tee Gee.
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| Pink Stiletto at Zebulon |
I'm glad I made that decision, because I got to catch Pink Stiletto for the first time. The band is the brain child of Valery Kvochkova. As soon as Kvochkova came on stage I thought that she had the look of a Blue Velvet character melded with The Fifth Element. During the holidays, I happened to catch Blue Velvet by David Lynch. This probably had an influence on my thinking. Her stage performance had the most stylish choreography and as a photographer I loved the opportunity to snap away. The only problem as a photographer was that the audience was pressed close to the stage and I couldn't easily move around the stage to capture different angles without blocking the view of people who already had their perfect spots picked out.
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| Pink Stiletto at Zebulon |
The music has new wave influences that has one flash backing in a good way to the 80s/90s. The tracks remind one of Depeche Mode while her vocals get you into that B-52's mindset. (Okay, so the B-52's were around since the 1970s, but I'm thinking "Love Shack" here.) On guitar was Kontrol Inc playing guitar in a nonchalant fashion compared to the Kvochkova's stylish choreography. His playing brought in scratchy guitar picked notes that likely required new guitar strings after the set, because I'm sure if he kept those strings for his next set they would all break by the end of the first song. Unfortunately, her set ended a song early due to technical difficulties. After that, I jumped ship to Club Tee Gee. Thinking about it, I probably could have squeezed in one more band at Zebulon.
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| Pink Stiletto at Zebulon |
Kvochkova was kind enough to respond to my Q&A series for my Instagram account. She mentions a song that she performed that night called "Agent AF." That song mixes in all the above mentioned aspects of her music. Here's what she responded in regards to the song:
"One of the songs I played is called Agent AF - short for Agent Antifashion.
Aggressive, neurotic normalityShattered facade of the Pop
Fast living young dying good looking
Killed before decade was dead
It’s a shoutout to all the beautiful weirdos of the past that wanted to be different and didn’t make it."
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| Pink Stiletto at Zebulon |
That song is unfortunately not released yet on Spotify, but you can listen to her debut EP below.
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