5.6.7.8’s keep it sloppy and spirited

Minutes before the 5.6.7.8’s took the stage at Spaceland on Tuesday, a scuffle broke out between a couple of guys in the packed house.

Big deal. The last time most people at the club saw this band, there was total carnage.

Of course, that was in the deliciously bloody restaurant scene of Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill Vol. 1,” in which Uma Thurman took on Lucy Liu’s manic martial arts minions.

Tuesday’s scene was tamer, but the music was every bit as much fun, as the three beehived Japanese women hammered out fuzzed-up, reverb-drenched rock ‘n’ roll the way it was meant to be -- sloppy and spirited.

These queens of sushibilly applied their Tokyo trash-twang touch to such staples as Leiber & Stoller’s “Three Cool Cats,” Bob & Earl’s “Harlem Shuffle” and Booker T. & the MG’s “Green Onions,” as well as the Rock-a-Teens’ “Woo Hoo,” the delirious chant from “Kill Bill.”

Guitarist Ronnie “Yoshiko” Fujiyama sang/shouted in barely decipherable English, but the group’s rock ‘n’ roll is universal. They’ve been doing this since the mid-’80s, long before the White Stripes “liberated” rock’s roots, and even with the current garage-rock explosion, the 5.6.7.8’s serve as a reminder to other bands not to get overly serious. And oh, keep the exits in sight, in case Uma shows up.