Anyone who knows the late night cabaret/club scene knows Kitten on the Keys. She composes most of her songs and decomposes a few with her own wacky touches. She can be sweet as pie, tough as nails, and sometimes just a nail pie. She is kinky, freaky, dirty, flirty, and at times creepy. She can use her little baby-doll voice or belt out a big, rough, sexy one, or just sing the standards straightforward – going from soprano to alto with ease. Sometimes she’s a harmless kitten, and sometimes this cat’s got claws! Her CD, Happy Kitty Girl, is a limited release - homemade with love. It’s the best of CD outtakes, live productions, and other musical projects Suzanne Ramsey aka Kitten on the Keys has put together. She plays piano and keyboards, as well as a Hammond organ and ukulele. She does cabaret and vaudeville. She culls from previous sold out releases such as the first CD from 2001 and the sold out second CD, Kitty Muffins, which includes some interesting remakes of Sex Pistols songs on the organ. Yes, that was a pun, but it’s still true. In Kitten’s words, “This is Tin Pan Alley and kinky cabaret originals to stir your nethers and tickle your funny bone with 18 songs of mirth and merriment.” Happy Kitty Girl is available off her website only at kittymusic.com. CD cover artwork and all logos are by Joshua Ellingson at joshuaellingson.com.

There is perhaps only one song devoted to pony play, and that would be Kitten’s “Pony Girl.” She musically instructs in this rumba: “Your riding crop gets me hot; strap a saddle on my back, and stick a ponytail in my crack.” There isn’t anything she won’t do, just don’t turn her into glue. She will even whinny for you. “Rice Rocket Boy” has racecar noises in the background while Kitten strums on her ukulele to create a Japanese sound. Vrrroooom! “Sub-Mission” has two themes going: one is being a submissive in a relationship (“going down, down, down”), and the other is a submarine, which also goes down 
 in the water. This bluesy tune is about making undersea love: “You’ve got me pretty deep, baby; I can’t figure out your watery love.” Anyone who has had a close up personal encounter with a vibrator will appreciate “Mr. Buzzy Happiness,” and when sung in her little Shirley Temple voice, it sounds so sweet and innocent – especially when compared to being in a candy shop. Just in case you didn’t get it, she adds the very adult “heartfelt communication: me love you for long, long time” (as long as the batteries hold out). The interlude is very vaudevillian, sounding like it’s coming through an old fashioned megaphone. At the end we hear the happiness machine buzzing away and her unbridled giggling. “Bus Ride” will gross you out. If you’ve ever been on the Muni and sat next to a disgusting passenger, you can relate. Her experiences include “randy frottagers with castrated rogers, droolers, and size queens with rulers,” a hippy reeking of pot, a little person with smelly little feet, a transient with runny facial sores, a man with acute dandruff, a sexual deviant (the creepy kind), and a “tinkle smelling lady: this odiferous sister gives my nasal passages blisters.” “Kitty Muffins” is anyone’s guess. I’m thinking those could be breasts. It’s a “heart rending tale of an emotionally destitute, off-kilter little kitty, who yearns to suckle surplus nipples.” “Don’t S.P.C.A. our love,” she commands. “If you euthanize, I’ll tan your PETA hide.” Her little kitty voice soon becomes a raging tiger. The minor chords of an ominous Hammond organ give the perfect goth sound for “Safety Pin Stuck in My Heart.” With a low, torchy voice, she sings of an SM sub: “I don’t love you for your graveyard eyes or your stupid lies; I just love you for your bea-bea-beating.”

What could be more of an example of traditional values but a homespun song about a grandmother? Well, certainly not in the case of “Granny Sells My Panties on E-Bay.” This is a tango with a tangled tale about a widowed grandmother who makes money Zip-Lock bagging and selling her young granddaughter’s used underwear. In a grandmother voice, she puns, “Dearie, you’re sitting on a goldmine.” Creepy. But funny. “Beat Me” is yet another SM number: “till I’m black, till I’m blue, I will love you.” The French flavor reminds me of Jacques Brel. “My Girl’s Pussy” is NOT about a cat. She explains, “There’s a pet I like to pet; I stroke it every chance I get.” Meow!

“By a Waterfall” is by Irving Kahal from the 1933 movie, Footlight Parade. Kitten gets all Busby Berkeley on us - sounding just like those fabulous flappers – with echoing and birds chirping. “Everybaby Needs a Da Da Daddy” was sung live and recorded at the Great American Music Hall with the San Francisco Burly Orchestra. She’s looking for a sugar daddy “with silver in his hair, who’s got some gold to spare.” She can also do justice singing on the straight to an old standard like the title song from Charade by Mercer/Mancini. As a bonus, she throws in “Twitterpated” with the Muddflappers - with Kitten doing keyboards. This quirky little ditty is about the feeling one has when one is in love: “Daffodils go daffy when the bluebells ring; the whole wide world’s in love. Love socks you on the chin.” That includes all of nature: “boy meets girl; deer meets doe; squirrel meets squirrel.” You’ve heard of Dangerous Dan McGrew. Well, this is “Dangerous Nan McGrew,” a female outlaw: “a vo-dee-oh-do, boop-boop-de doop, rootin’, tootin,’ shootin’, high falutin’” gal. She’s “from the great northwest – different from all the rest.” She’s a bad girl. When a dog bites, she bites ‘em back. Kitten’s gorgeous voice frames Frank Loesser’s “Inch Worm,” telling of an “inchworm measuring the marigolds; seems to me you’d stop and see how beautiful they are.” “Tain’t No Sin” asks you to “take off your skin and dance around in your bones.” It’s recorded to sound like a really old, scratchy phonograph record. For the youngsters: before CDs and MP3s there used to be these vinyl 78 speed records that popped and cracked. Happy Kitty Girl ends with the beautiful “Wish Me a Rainbow” from the movie, This Property Is Condemned. The lyrics of this lullaby are lovely: “wish me the stars; all this you can give me wherever you are; and dreams for my pillow and stars for my eyes. All my tomorrows depend on your love, so wish me a rainbow above.”

This CD is perfect for your next party – especially if you invite a bunch of freeeks who enjoy this type of musical humor. It should really get the party started. Or just buy it for yourself for your own personal, devious pleasure. I dare you to listen without bursting out with laughter every once in a while. And maybe shedding a tear.  

 “Kitty Rose Live At The Ryman” CD release date is Feb. 13, just in time for Valentine's Day.  Her CD takes place Feb. 17 at the SF LGBT Community Center. 7pm doors open, 8pm, show begins. Featuring Kitty Rose and Special Guests: Jan Wahl, KRON4-TV, The Twilight Vixen Revue, and The Kitty Rose All-Star Cowgirl Band. Info: www.kittyrose.com