Live Review: Jeanie and the Tits, Slippery Slopes, Hot Hands.

Jeanie and the Tits, Slippery Slopes, Hot Hands.
@ The Peacock Room. Orlando, Florida. Thursday April 3, 2008.
Review and photographs by Jeffrey Howard.

If you never had the chance to see Orlando band Jeanie and the Tits perform it's official, you never will. Forming a little more than two years ago as a one-off tribute band of an early Florida punk band, Teddy and the Fratgirls, for The Brian Costello Show, the band announced their final show in early 2008 after numerous shows in Florida, a summer tour and a 7" on the Florida's Dying record label. With second drummer Jacob moving to India in a few months, Jeanie felt it was time to end the band while on top. And, boy, did they go full-out on top.

Opening the night was (if I am allowed to "review" my own band) Hot Hands, with is just myself on guitar and my fiancee Kristin on drums. Kristin was a founding member of Jeanie and the Tits. She was the original drummer and contributed lyrics of the first non-cover songs after the band decided to expand upon what they were doing. She left the band March of last year to work on her other two bands, Courtneys and Hot Hands. The Hot Hands set is short and fast. Seven songs over about eighteen minutes, start to finish- talking included. You can see a video of this show on Youtube with the song called "Dynamite".

The next band was Slippery Slopes, who are totally awesome. Made up of Erik from Fashion Fashion and the Image Boys on vocals, Rich from Florida's Dying Record Label (also recently married to Jeanie) on drums, Britches on guitar and Steve the Sleeve on bass. These guys are 100% fun and call themselves a party band. They totally are. It's messy and most of the time it's one rail short of a train wreck. They usually have theme-oriented shows. This show they donned injury gear in honor of Britches, who played the show with a broken arm. Yes, a broken arm! Badass! The rest of the band used crutches, bandage tape and band aids on their faces. Aside from visual antics they have some really great songs behind them like "Bad Motherfucker" and "No Nerds". At the end of the set they did a hilarious Jeanie and the Tits cover song of "Piss Off" but instead of asking the question "Why'd he piss you off, Jeanie?" they said "Why'd she piss you off, Erik?". It was so terrible it was great. What a fun band!

The night was all about Jeanie and the Tits. What they gave was undoubtedly the best Jeanie and the Tits show ever and might even go down in Florida punk music history. By the time the band went on The Peacock Room was packed wall to wall, floor to ceiling. Die hard fans (all ten of them?) mixed with first timers wanting to see the band for the first and last time. The current lineup of Jeanie Smegma, Mary Mammary, Tina Bulimia, Buni Lamor covered themselves in glitter body paint and homemade outfits. They got the final party started with "Tough Guy", a scathing song about, you know, a meanie tattoo guy who tried to ruin Jeanie's birthday. What a jerk!

The transformation from their first awkward show to this last performance was quite evident. Jeanie's front person presence had evolved from super-shy to super cocky. Or confident. Or something else...... like maybe drunk? How about all of the above? Okay. Jeanie's attitude was dead on sassy and vulgar. "Slutfame" from their debut 7" was next and it was all attitude-in-da-face. During "Piss Off" original bassist Yochi Yeast joined the band on vocals for the infamous "Why'd he piss you off, Jeanie?". The audience also screamed the line along with her. Kristin Klymidia also made her way down to the front for "Brainrot" to join on vocals as well. Everyone stayed up front for the next few songs, even their only love song "Sleazy Jeans".

Then came "Switchblade", aka the Myspace hit song. It's a pretty tough song and with everyone in the room screaming "switchblade!" during the choruses it was definitely the climax of the show.

The show came to an end with a surprise. For the final two songs the original lineup, including Yochi Yeast on bass and Kristin Klymidia on drums, played two of the Teddy and the Fratgirls cover songs "I Owe It To The Girls" and "Club Night". They hadn't rehearsed with this lineup in a year but they rocked those old songs. Who need practice when they're that awesome? The crowd screamed for more but the gals couldn't remember any of the older originals either. It would have been awesome to hear "Bitch Control" or "Cock Song", my two personal favorites. So, the last song would be "Club Night" and those girls couldn't have ended on a better note. This was the last show but they will have another 7" released later this year. Jeanie also is starting a record label focused on girl bands called Lipstick Pickup.

Hot Hands. Kristin and Jeffrey. Photo: Dan McGuire.