ReceivedMAR 14 1989Barbed Wire Records
Hard rock · Texas prison blues
We did the time. The time did us.
01 · Statement of Formation
Artist Biography
Form BW-1 · Barbed Wire Records
Huntsville, Texas, 1988. Four musicians. One sentence on file.
Nobody knows exactly how Incarcerated Kittens formed. The official biography filed with Barbed Wire Records in 1989 reads, in full: "It happened." The label did not ask for a second draft.
What the archive can establish is this. By the summer of 1988 four women were rehearsing in a sheet-metal garage east of Huntsville, Texas, with the door rolled up for air. Huntsville is a prison town. The work songs sung on the state's farms had been in the air there for a century, and the band took the call and the response, the hammer-fall tempo and the long line, and put them through a Texas hard rock amplifier. Three of the four members have declined all interview requests. The fourth, the drummer, moved to Vermont and teaches pottery.
Particulars
02 · Personnel
The label kept one card for each member. The archive has added the interview record. It is short.
Interview requestsDeclined
Current Has declined all interview requests. Her reply to the archive's request of 2011 ran to one line and was signed in full.
Interview requestsDeclined
Current Has declined all interview requests. A request mailed in 2004 came back unopened, with the postage refunded.
Interview requestsDeclined
Current Has declined all interview requests. The archive has confirmed that she still owns the bass. It has confirmed nothing else.
Interview requestsGranted once
Current Moved to Vermont. Teaches pottery. Agreed to one telephone call with the archive in 2019, on the condition that it be short. It was.
On the record“We were a band. We played the songs. I make bowls now.”
“You keep the time. That's the whole job. It's the same job with clay.”
03 · Exhibits
Each album is filed in its own envelope, sealed with string. Running times are as stated on the label copy. Lyrics are not on file.
Exhibit A
The debut. It moved 8,000 copies in Texas. The label's A&R department described it, in writing, as "extremely concerning." The label released it anyway.
Exhibit B
Their most optimistic album. Two songs are in a major key. The band has not said which.
Exhibit C
The last record. They sounded tired. Three tours will do that.
Interoffice memorandum
The master tape has been reviewed in full, twice.
The performances are tight. The tempos do not move. The slide guitar is exact. The vocal carries to the back of the room and out the door.
The record is extremely concerning. Recommend further review.
— Initialled, not signed
No further review is on file. The album sold 8,000 copies in Texas.
04 · Chronology
The band's history, as the archive has assembled it from label records, promoters' receipts and one telephone call. Typed on continuation sheets and filed in order.
Sheet 1 of 4
The archive can place Incarcerated Kittens in a sheet-metal garage east of Huntsville by the summer of 1988. It cannot place them anywhere before that.
The garage had a roll-up door, two box fans and a pickup parked outside that nobody claimed. Tammy Rhodes sang. Carla Benavides played guitar, mostly with a glass slide. Deb Huckaby played bass. Wanda Pierce played drums and counted the band in on the steel upright beside the kit.
In 1989 the band signed with Barbed Wire Records and was asked to file a biography. It filed one sentence. The label's records show that the form had nine lines. Eight were left blank.
Sheet 2 of 4
Huntsville is a prison town. The work songs of the state's farms, sung in long lines with an axe or a hoe falling on the beat, had been sung and recorded in East Texas for most of the century. The band grew up within earshot of that tradition and did not discuss it.
What they did was play it loud. Tammy took the leader's part of the call and the band answered. Wanda set every tempo as if a crew depended on it. Deb held the low end in place and did not move it. Carla played slide over the top, slow and exact, in open tunings she never wrote down.
Critics in Houston called it hard rock. Critics in Beaumont called it the blues. The band called it nothing. It was on the form.
Sheet 3 of 4
Between 1991 and 1994 Incarcerated Kittens completed three tours of Texas and the Gulf South. The logistics of these tours have never been fully explained.
The band travelled in one van. The archive has not found a registration for it. Promoters' records confirm that the band arrived at every engagement on time, including Beaumont and New Orleans on consecutive nights, after a breakdown in between. Asked about this in 1992, the band said it had driven. Asked about everything else, all four members denied it.
Sheet 4 of 4
The third album was recorded in the spring of 1994 in eleven days. It is slower than the first two. The band sounded tired. Reviewers noted it. The band did not dispute it.
Incarcerated Kittens played their last show in Huntsville in 1995. There was no announcement. The van was not seen again. Three members stayed in Texas and have declined every interview request since. Wanda Pierce moved to Vermont, where the winters are long and the clay is good, and opened a pottery studio. She keeps the time on the wheel. She says it is the same job.
05 · Occurrences
Events the archive can place, entered in the order they occurred. Each report was shown to the band. Each was denied.
SummaryThe label's A&R department reviewed the master tape of Three to Five and filed a one-page memorandum describing it as "extremely concerning." The album was released six weeks later.
The memorandum survives. It is typed, dated and initialled. It does not say what was concerning. It recommends "further review." No further review is on file. The album was pressed, shipped and sold 8,000 copies in Texas. The memorandum and the one-line biography are the only two documents in the band's original label folder. The archive has kept them together.
SummaryThe band played Beaumont on a Friday and New Orleans on the Saturday, after a breakdown on the shoulder outside Beaumont that the promoter watched happen. They were on stage in New Orleans at nine.
The van broke down on the shoulder at two in the morning. The Beaumont promoter drove past it on his way home and reported it in the morning. A tow was booked and cancelled. At nine that evening the band was on stage in New Orleans with all of its equipment. Asked how, Tammy Rhodes said, "We drove." Asked what they drove, she said, "The van." All four members deny the breakdown.
SummaryDuring a Fourth of July set on the courthouse square, the power failed in the second song. The band finished the set with no amplification. The crowd kept the time.
Carla Benavides switched to an acoustic guitar from a member of the audience. Deb Huckaby put down the bass and clapped. Wanda Pierce played the snare with brushes and the kick drum with her heel. Tammy Rhodes sang the call and three hundred people sang the response, which they appeared to know. The set ran forty minutes, as scheduled. The power came back on during the last chord.
06 · Itinerary
The poster below was pinned inside the folder. It covers the first tour. The routing of the second and third was never filed, and the band denies it.
Barbed Wire Records presents
Live and loud
IncarceratedKittens
Three to Five Tour 1991
Hard rock · Texas prison blues · Slide guitar
We did the time. The time did us.
Doors at eight · All ages with ID · No refunds
07 · Disposition
The file was closed in 1995. The archive has kept track where it could.
| Member | Whereabouts | Interviews |
|---|---|---|
| Tammy RhodesLead vocals | WhereaboutsTexas. Not further specified. | InterviewsDeclined, all |
| Carla BenavidesGuitar · Slide | WhereaboutsTexas. Not further specified. | InterviewsDeclined, all |
| Deb HuckabyBass | WhereaboutsTexas. Not further specified. | InterviewsDeclined, all |
| Wanda PierceDrums | WhereaboutsVermont. Teaches pottery. | InterviewsGranted once, 2019. Kept short. |
Notes in the margin
The band's biography was filed on the label's standard nine-line form in 1989. The first line reads "It happened." The other eight are blank. The form is signed by all four members. The archive holds the original. It has been requested for exhibition twice and lent once.
Carla Benavides played slide with a short glass tube on her ring finger. She wore two silver rings on the hand that fretted and never took them off to play. She has not said where the slide came from. Players in Houston have tried for thirty years to get the same tone with a store-bought one. They report that it does not work.
Wanda Pierce counted the band in by striking a drumstick four times against the steel upright of the rehearsal garage. On tour she used whatever was nearest: a mic stand, a doorframe, the van. Promoters remember the sound before they remember the band.
All four members deny everything. The archive has tested the position. The members deny the van, the breakdown, the routing of the second tour and the existence of a fourth album, which nobody had asked about. They do not deny the three records. They do not deny Huntsville.
Correspondence received
Letters from members of the public, filed without amendment.
★★★★★
Saw them at a dance hall outside Conroe in 1991. The slide guitar went straight through the floor and came up in my boots. I have looked for that sound ever since.
R. Dupree, Conroe, TX
★★★★★
The pottery teacher in Vermont knows something. I took her Tuesday class for two years. She keeps perfect time on the wheel. She would not discuss it.
Greg M., Burlington, VT
★★★★★
I bought Good Behavior for my mother in 1992. She played it every Sunday morning for a year. She won't say why.
Tanya R., Houston, TX
Front counter
Shirts and posters are issued through the Sideband Label stores. Each item is printed to order and inspected before release. Allow time for processing.
Mailing list
Notices are mailed when the file is updated. It is not updated often.
Sign the register →Other Kittens in the archive
Blackmarket Kittens · Machine Gun Kitty · Stompin' Kittens
Filed separately. No relation is claimed.
IncarceratedKittens
Incarcerated Kittens · Huntsville, Texas · 1988–1995
File IK-89-0412
Three tours. Three records. Four denials.
It happened.