Agony Shorthand
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Thursday, April 22, 2004
PUSSY GALORE : “PUSSY GOLD 5000” EP…..
If there’s one band that’s fallen further from my good graces in a single decade than any other, it’s the JON SPENCER BLUES EXPLOSION. While I can’t write them off as being wholly worthless, it’s hard not to want to try. What sounded dynamic and loose and like a stunningly fresh punk/soul hybrid in 1992-93 now plays like a bunch of hipster honkies jibbering juvenile jive they picked up five minutes ago on “Yo! MTV Raps”. And that Elvis shtick was the worst – I even smelled a rat back then, but “chose to ignore it”. But I still fell for the package hook, line & sinker – but then it’s a commonly-accepted FACT that one’s bullshit detector can’t fully ripen until the threshold age of 30 hath been crossed (and believe it or not, for some people it takes even longer!). Hey, it’s not like people didn’t try to write these guys off at the time – but I never trusted those doubting Thomases because these were the same folks who hated Spencer in PUSSY GALORE as well. And that – well, that was unforgivable.
For every measure of respect I’ve lost for “The Explosion”. I’ve retained that much and then some for Pussy Galore, particularly after going back through their early catalog and letting it rip on headphones this week. Wow. Say what you will about the posturing, the badass preening, the rich kids play-acting at phony aggression and nihilism – Pussy Galore were a straight-up killer rock and roll band for the ages. Today it’s just as common to hear a noisy garage band of Johnny-&-Jill-come-latelys dismissed as “apeing Pussy Galore” as it is to hear “apeing The Stooges” or “apeing The Scientists”. That’s got to count for something, but I think the real power lies in how amazingly this band swallowed early European and indigenous US Industrial music (Einsturzende Neubauten, Whitehouse, TG etc.) and spat it back out via a 1960s garage punk delivery system, with 3 distorted guitars amped up to unholy levels and no bass or low-end rumbling allowed. Thus they came off as the most snotty, over-the-top 1965 teenpunk band imaginable – what the ESQUIRES, RATS or HUNS might have sounded like given 20 years and a drumkit made of metal.
Their pinnacle is the exceptionally brief, 45rpm five-song 12”EP from 1986, “Pussy Gold 5000” – their third proper release after a 7"EP and another 12"EP, and one that come out on the very incongruous New Jersey funnypunk label “Buy Our Records” (today all 5 tracks can be enjoyed on the “Corpse Love” retrospective CD). “Pretty Fuck Look” is their template song for this Industrial/teenpunk mindmeld – brash, swaggering and totally great. “Spin Out” has got that exhilarating 15-second opening, with the rasped-out scream/rap from guitarist Julia Cafritz, “Sometimes I get so desperate / I get a pain deep inside of me / And I wanna hurt someone / Oh BABY, step a little closer! – vrrrooooooooooom!!!! I’ll bet I’ve played this song hundreds of times & put it on almost that many tapes for people I wanted to turn onto exciting new “cutting edge” rock music. Then there’s “Walk”, the best and most excusable “The NWRA”-era FALL rip-off/tribute you’ll ever hear (this is Neil Hagerty's baby all the way), the skittering full-bore howler “Get Out” (three guitars? No way. Seven?) and the band’s live run-through of 60s punker “I’m a No-Count” by TY WAGNER & THE SCOTCHMEN (outstanding choice!). The whole thing wraps up in ten minutes, and like the band’s live show I saw in 1988, is louder than loud should be allowed. In short, the band got their relative ticket punched after this masterpiece hit the cognoscenti & ended up on big indie Caroline, with superior distribution, good press kits, photo studios and the like. Their next record, the full LP “Right Now!” was almost as good as this one, but “Pussy Gold 5000”s brevity, wide-groove volume and 1.000 batting average earns the nod from me. You gotta get “Corpse Love” if you don’t have it for these five songs alone.
If there’s one band that’s fallen further from my good graces in a single decade than any other, it’s the JON SPENCER BLUES EXPLOSION. While I can’t write them off as being wholly worthless, it’s hard not to want to try. What sounded dynamic and loose and like a stunningly fresh punk/soul hybrid in 1992-93 now plays like a bunch of hipster honkies jibbering juvenile jive they picked up five minutes ago on “Yo! MTV Raps”. And that Elvis shtick was the worst – I even smelled a rat back then, but “chose to ignore it”. But I still fell for the package hook, line & sinker – but then it’s a commonly-accepted FACT that one’s bullshit detector can’t fully ripen until the threshold age of 30 hath been crossed (and believe it or not, for some people it takes even longer!). Hey, it’s not like people didn’t try to write these guys off at the time – but I never trusted those doubting Thomases because these were the same folks who hated Spencer in PUSSY GALORE as well. And that – well, that was unforgivable.
For every measure of respect I’ve lost for “The Explosion”. I’ve retained that much and then some for Pussy Galore, particularly after going back through their early catalog and letting it rip on headphones this week. Wow. Say what you will about the posturing, the badass preening, the rich kids play-acting at phony aggression and nihilism – Pussy Galore were a straight-up killer rock and roll band for the ages. Today it’s just as common to hear a noisy garage band of Johnny-&-Jill-come-latelys dismissed as “apeing Pussy Galore” as it is to hear “apeing The Stooges” or “apeing The Scientists”. That’s got to count for something, but I think the real power lies in how amazingly this band swallowed early European and indigenous US Industrial music (Einsturzende Neubauten, Whitehouse, TG etc.) and spat it back out via a 1960s garage punk delivery system, with 3 distorted guitars amped up to unholy levels and no bass or low-end rumbling allowed. Thus they came off as the most snotty, over-the-top 1965 teenpunk band imaginable – what the ESQUIRES, RATS or HUNS might have sounded like given 20 years and a drumkit made of metal.
Their pinnacle is the exceptionally brief, 45rpm five-song 12”EP from 1986, “Pussy Gold 5000” – their third proper release after a 7"EP and another 12"EP, and one that come out on the very incongruous New Jersey funnypunk label “Buy Our Records” (today all 5 tracks can be enjoyed on the “Corpse Love” retrospective CD). “Pretty Fuck Look” is their template song for this Industrial/teenpunk mindmeld – brash, swaggering and totally great. “Spin Out” has got that exhilarating 15-second opening, with the rasped-out scream/rap from guitarist Julia Cafritz, “Sometimes I get so desperate / I get a pain deep inside of me / And I wanna hurt someone / Oh BABY, step a little closer! – vrrrooooooooooom!!!! I’ll bet I’ve played this song hundreds of times & put it on almost that many tapes for people I wanted to turn onto exciting new “cutting edge” rock music. Then there’s “Walk”, the best and most excusable “The NWRA”-era FALL rip-off/tribute you’ll ever hear (this is Neil Hagerty's baby all the way), the skittering full-bore howler “Get Out” (three guitars? No way. Seven?) and the band’s live run-through of 60s punker “I’m a No-Count” by TY WAGNER & THE SCOTCHMEN (outstanding choice!). The whole thing wraps up in ten minutes, and like the band’s live show I saw in 1988, is louder than loud should be allowed. In short, the band got their relative ticket punched after this masterpiece hit the cognoscenti & ended up on big indie Caroline, with superior distribution, good press kits, photo studios and the like. Their next record, the full LP “Right Now!” was almost as good as this one, but “Pussy Gold 5000”s brevity, wide-groove volume and 1.000 batting average earns the nod from me. You gotta get “Corpse Love” if you don’t have it for these five songs alone.
