Biography
Miss Pussycat, a whimsical and thought-provoking puppeteer, visual artist, and musician, places her creations comfortably in secret nightclubs, galleries, and dive bars. Puppets featuring her brightly colored, mischievous designs appear to have leapt from the pages of a 1960s storybook. Her puppet shows address social issues through subversively witty means, forming an ideal match for Quintron's electrifying concerts. Beyond her performances at his shows and on albums from Swamp Tech in 2005 to Goblin Alert! in 2020, her musical output encompasses releases from the puppet band Flossie & the Unicorns together with the raw electronic soundtracks for her puppet shows and films, compiled on Anthropomorphizer in 2015. Numerous solo exhibits across the 2010s and 2020s displayed the breadth and lasting playfulness of her vision.
Panacea Theriac grew up in Antlers, Oklahoma, where she began making art at a young age under the influence of her father's paintings and her involvement in her church's Christian Puppet Youth Ministry. After college art studies, she relocated to New Orleans in 1993 and began staging puppet shows in her home while operating the Pussycat Caverns, an underground nightclub. There she encountered Quintron, her creative and romantic partner, and their collaborations started in the mid-'90s. She first joined him on tour in 1995, playing maracas and singing backing vocals. The pair made New Orleans their home, with Miss Pussycat working as a seamstress and Quintron teaching elementary-school science. In 1996 the puppet band Flossie & the Unicorns and Quintron released a split single on Bulb Records, and the band's debut album Secret Mission also appeared that year. Miss Pussycat and Quintron established the Spellcaster Lounge in their basement in 1997 and launched Rhinestone Records to issue their material.
Entering the 2000s, Miss Pussycat balanced her projects with contributions to Quintron's albums and concerts. Flossie & the Unicorns released their second album, L M N O P, in 1998, the same year Quintron issued These Hands of Mine. During the European tour supporting that album, the pair taped a session for John Peel's BBC radio show. Miss Pussycat featured in Quintron's 2000 infomercial for the Drum Buddy, an electronic percussion instrument that turns light into analog rhythm patterns whose owners include Nels Cline and Laurie Anderson. She premiered her first puppet movie, North Pole Nutrias, in 2002; the next year she appeared on Quintron's Are You Ready for an Organ Solo?, while Flossie & the Unicorns put out their third album, The Animals' Clubhouse.
Alongside the puppet film Caveman Caverns, Miss Pussycat joined Quintron on Swamp Tech in 2005. Titled after the duo's fusion of garage rock, funk, R&B, and New Orleans party music, the album contained new Quintron tracks and an accompanying puppet movie by Miss Pussycat titled Electric Swamp. Just before their tour supporting the release, Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans. Though Quintron and Miss Pussycat remained unharmed, their house suffered water damage and they lost instruments along with puppet-making supplies. They proceeded with the tour, which featured benefit concerts aiding their recovery from the disaster. In September 2006 they reopened the Spellcaster Lodge. Miss Pussycat then released the puppet video collection Trixie and the Treetrunks Season One in 2007.
From January through May 2010, Miss Pussycat and Quintron recorded at New Orleans' Museum of Art and City Park, yielding the double album Sucre du Sauvage that appeared in early 2011. For the next several years Theriac concentrated on puppetry and visual art. The Trixie and the Treetrunks story continued with the 2012 film The Mystery in Old Bathbath. Her 2013 art installation Anthropomorphizer at New Orleans' Contemporary Arts Center produced Cookie Carnival Baking Contest, which included 100 new puppets she constructed on site over the exhibit's three-month duration. The following year she and Quintron each received a Rauschenberg Residency on Florida's Captiva Island. In 2015 the album Anthropomorphizer gathered the soundtracks to several of her puppet shows, many created with an old four-track recorder. Miss Pussycat debuted her short film Frenchy and Jett at the New Orleans Film Festival the next year. Originally developed for Disney, the story centered on a magic piano and featured voice actors including Peaches, Big Freedia, and Chris Parnell. Her 2017 activities included illustrating Quintron's surreal travelogue Europa, My Mirror and mounting an exhibition at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. In 2019 the Galveston Arts Center presented The Puppet Worlds of Miss Pussycat, a large solo museum show of her puppets along with videos, photographs, and sculptures drawn from shows such as The Western Village Shopping Village, Clothes Made by Small Furry Animals, and The Happy Castle of Goblinburg. She and Quintron also formed the side project First, a punk band intended as the opening act at shows.
In October 2020 Miss Pussycat and Quintron released their first album together since Sucre du Sauvage. Recorded with Oblivians and the Reigning Sound's Greg Cartwright at Gainesville, Florida's Pulp Arts studio, Goblin Alert! marked the first Quintron album made with a full band that included bassist Danny Clifton, drummer Sam Yoger, and talk box master Bênní. Around the album's release, Waxahachie, Texas' Webb Gallery opened Panther Creek, another major solo museum exhibition of her artwork.
Panacea Theriac grew up in Antlers, Oklahoma, where she began making art at a young age under the influence of her father's paintings and her involvement in her church's Christian Puppet Youth Ministry. After college art studies, she relocated to New Orleans in 1993 and began staging puppet shows in her home while operating the Pussycat Caverns, an underground nightclub. There she encountered Quintron, her creative and romantic partner, and their collaborations started in the mid-'90s. She first joined him on tour in 1995, playing maracas and singing backing vocals. The pair made New Orleans their home, with Miss Pussycat working as a seamstress and Quintron teaching elementary-school science. In 1996 the puppet band Flossie & the Unicorns and Quintron released a split single on Bulb Records, and the band's debut album Secret Mission also appeared that year. Miss Pussycat and Quintron established the Spellcaster Lounge in their basement in 1997 and launched Rhinestone Records to issue their material.
Entering the 2000s, Miss Pussycat balanced her projects with contributions to Quintron's albums and concerts. Flossie & the Unicorns released their second album, L M N O P, in 1998, the same year Quintron issued These Hands of Mine. During the European tour supporting that album, the pair taped a session for John Peel's BBC radio show. Miss Pussycat featured in Quintron's 2000 infomercial for the Drum Buddy, an electronic percussion instrument that turns light into analog rhythm patterns whose owners include Nels Cline and Laurie Anderson. She premiered her first puppet movie, North Pole Nutrias, in 2002; the next year she appeared on Quintron's Are You Ready for an Organ Solo?, while Flossie & the Unicorns put out their third album, The Animals' Clubhouse.
Alongside the puppet film Caveman Caverns, Miss Pussycat joined Quintron on Swamp Tech in 2005. Titled after the duo's fusion of garage rock, funk, R&B, and New Orleans party music, the album contained new Quintron tracks and an accompanying puppet movie by Miss Pussycat titled Electric Swamp. Just before their tour supporting the release, Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans. Though Quintron and Miss Pussycat remained unharmed, their house suffered water damage and they lost instruments along with puppet-making supplies. They proceeded with the tour, which featured benefit concerts aiding their recovery from the disaster. In September 2006 they reopened the Spellcaster Lodge. Miss Pussycat then released the puppet video collection Trixie and the Treetrunks Season One in 2007.
From January through May 2010, Miss Pussycat and Quintron recorded at New Orleans' Museum of Art and City Park, yielding the double album Sucre du Sauvage that appeared in early 2011. For the next several years Theriac concentrated on puppetry and visual art. The Trixie and the Treetrunks story continued with the 2012 film The Mystery in Old Bathbath. Her 2013 art installation Anthropomorphizer at New Orleans' Contemporary Arts Center produced Cookie Carnival Baking Contest, which included 100 new puppets she constructed on site over the exhibit's three-month duration. The following year she and Quintron each received a Rauschenberg Residency on Florida's Captiva Island. In 2015 the album Anthropomorphizer gathered the soundtracks to several of her puppet shows, many created with an old four-track recorder. Miss Pussycat debuted her short film Frenchy and Jett at the New Orleans Film Festival the next year. Originally developed for Disney, the story centered on a magic piano and featured voice actors including Peaches, Big Freedia, and Chris Parnell. Her 2017 activities included illustrating Quintron's surreal travelogue Europa, My Mirror and mounting an exhibition at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. In 2019 the Galveston Arts Center presented The Puppet Worlds of Miss Pussycat, a large solo museum show of her puppets along with videos, photographs, and sculptures drawn from shows such as The Western Village Shopping Village, Clothes Made by Small Furry Animals, and The Happy Castle of Goblinburg. She and Quintron also formed the side project First, a punk band intended as the opening act at shows.
In October 2020 Miss Pussycat and Quintron released their first album together since Sucre du Sauvage. Recorded with Oblivians and the Reigning Sound's Greg Cartwright at Gainesville, Florida's Pulp Arts studio, Goblin Alert! marked the first Quintron album made with a full band that included bassist Danny Clifton, drummer Sam Yoger, and talk box master Bênní. Around the album's release, Waxahachie, Texas' Webb Gallery opened Panther Creek, another major solo museum exhibition of her artwork.
Albums
Singles
