Surrealist band Powdered Wig Machine is one of the bands performing at Friday’s charity fundraiser. Credit: Ashley Bueno

San Antonio’s Powdered Wig Machine is far from a conventional rock act.

Over the past year, the trio has emerged as one of the city’s foremost purveyors of performance-art, surreal multimedia and psychedelic punk — a happy collision of skewed art-world antics and garage rock energy.

Makes sense then that group’s origins are also far from conventional. It was originally conceived as a web video series of the same name, which primarily focused on sketch comedy and interviews. The series’ intent was to blend offbeat comedy with the sensibilities of independent film — and with David Lynch’s surreal masterpiece Mulholland Drive as a major touchpoint.

As part of the show, creators Brandon Pittman and visual artist Mauro De La Tierra conceived of a drag character named Patricia, who wears a roach-infested wig. Pittman now inhabits that character as singer-guitarist for Powdered Wig Machine — the band, not the web series, of course.

“I originally pictured the Powdered Wig Machine as a conveyor belt with all these wigs being spit out, and then on to the next one,” Pittman explained. “I thought Patricia would be just one of them, but people wanted me to keep doing it. I said, ‘OK, but if I do, I’m gonna play music.'”

With San Antonio garage-rock luminary The Wizard aka Vincent Garlisi on bass and Daniel Raigoza on drums the band forms a platform for Pittman to explore the musical side of Patricia’s character. As the next step on that journey, the group recently completed its first full length album, It’s What I’ve Always Wanted.

Powdered Wig Machine will play a show this Friday at Slab Cinema Art House in the Blue Star Arts Complex to celebrate the LP’s release. Guests including Bridgette Norris-Sanchez of local pop act HoneyBunny, Amanda Vega of “disco punk” quartet Lloronas and Kra of horn-driven BexarBrass will augment the band. Guitar-driven indie-rockers Grrrltoy will open the festivities.

It’s What I’ve Always Wanted

Transforming the video series Powdered Wig Machine may not seem like an obvious segue, but Pittman said it allowed him an entry back into music, his first love.

“It’s something I’ve always wanted to do,” he said. “In my early 20s, I just wanted to tour and make records.”

During that time, Pittman moved from the Alamo City to Rhode Island. While he wrote plenty of songs during that several-year stretch, he didn’t exactly manage to get the touring and making records thing off the ground.

“I had an internet girlfriend,” he said, laughing. “Worked at a gas station, lived in a basement.”

Returning to San Antonio gave him a renewed appreciation for Texas and the community where he’d grown up.

“This town is weird but it’s charming,” Pittman said. “Like a good Ella Fitzgerald song … she’s going nutty, but she’s in on the joke, and you can be in on it too if you want to be.”

The same could be said of Powdered Wig Machine itself. The members’ wild appearances and outlandish antics invite in the audience rather than turn it away. Combined with raucous garage punk, the group delivers a compelling package — one Pittman hopes is embodied on It’s What I’ve Always Wanted.

“[The name] has a dual meaning,” he said. “Its sarcastic, its sad but its also self-effacing. But what if there was a third meaning? A game show we’re all playing called It’s What I’ve Always Wanted. I like repurposing it yet again.”

In fusing sketch comedy, drag and punk rock, Pittman has also sees his stage persona as bringing multiple dimensions to bear.

“I love the juxtaposition — the feminine quality, but we’re playing really pummeling rock,” he said. “I love drag. For me, it all starts with laughter. I don’t know how to put it into a box or a label, and I don’t need to. I can feel it, and it feels good.”

‘Strange places’

Despite Texas right-wing politicians’ efforts to target drag performances, Pittman said he’s found ample support in San Antonio. That includes an invitation to perform at the Fiesta’s Cornyation, a festive mashup of drag and satire that Pittman described as “an interesting intermingling of pros with newcomers.”

“Makes you feel small in some ways,” he added. “Flattering to be asked, but intimidating.”

Aided by members of San Antonio’s thriving visual arts scene, Powdered Wig Machine has formed a cohort. That includes not just early collaborator De La Tierra, who helped conceive the Patricia character, but also tattoo artist Azure Sky, who provided visual art for every album track, and visual artist and Not For You Gallery owner Ursula Zavala, who directed videos for the band.

“We all exist within the notion that … we’re not too cool for something,” Pittman said. “Coming up through the art and music scene, you always have these people that are too cool … and they just kind of bore me.”

Moving forward, the band wants to continue pushing the envelope, according to Pittman, and that includes seeking out unconventional venues.

“I want to play everywhere. Strange places,” he said. “I’d love to do something weirder at Fiesta. I have this vision of playing at a sex toy store.”

For Pittman, odd venue choices are all part of a package that creates transcendent experiences.

“The biggest goal for me is to stop time for people,” he says. “The best art makes everything stop. Create the moment that all of us exist in together. How can I stop time for myself and for you? Because other people did that for me.”

$10, 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 20, Slab Cinema Arthouse at Blue Star, 134 Blue Star, (210) 212-9373, slabcinemaarthouse.com.

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This article appears in Oct 18-30, 2023.