Nashville Pussy's Season In Hell

If any of you have read my debut column, y'all ken why it is deemed odd that I should be a dyed-in-the-denim-cutoffs "Southern Rock" fan. But I is, nevertheless. While my desire to write and be in and of the rock & roll milieu has waned in the wake of this sad, terrible Mule biniss, my yen for the sights and sounds of the Southland has not. And Nashville Pussy's recent firecracker show at the Trocadero, in the City of Brotherly Love, has gone a long way in providing some much needed cheer.

As I've declaimed copiously before and elsewhere, I love The Boogie and the Hillbilly Thunder. Still, I don't pretend to always know and embrace the provenance of such intangibles and it's genetically determined that my albatross should be a sharp flinch whenever faced with the stars n' bars. So I defer, upon occasion, to my rock-stylee Amen Corner in Georgia for the Word. Michael Hagearty aka Dixie Moonshine, my dear colleague and Hot'lanta native son, had this to say about Nashville Pussy: "[the band] reminds me of Motorhead colliding with a rib joint full of Hell's Angels."

That's a pretty good and colorful reading, considering that the last time I almost caught The Pussy at the Troc, their erstwhile fire-breathing bassist Corey Parks had not departed for the dubious delights of the Smackdown and the band was slated to open for Motorhead. Apparently they enjoy a mutual admiration society, as is fitting. One could also hear the bursting pride in lead singer-guitarist Blaine Cartwright's voice this time 'round, as he boasted that his outfit had recently opened for the immortal Lynyrd Skynyrd. That connection is of even more interest and telling. A quick sketch of this high-octane quartet situates them somewhere on a highwire between those two indelible points.

The Troc show was awash in instant classics and should-be standards --- as this band are self-appointed standard-bearers for Rock: "High As Hell," "She's Got The Drugs," the Skynyrd-esque epic "Go To Hell," and the newly-penned "I'm Gonna Hitchhike Down to Cincinnati And Kick Yo' Daddy's Ass" (or some variant thereof... phew!). The Pussy's repertoire effectively displays this tension: an unstable relationship between the fuel thrash of Motorhead, the general arrogance and pomp of diverse regional rock genres from rockabilly to post-punk metal, and the sober, morality-play blues of their heroes in Skynyrd. In some ways, they --- Cartwright, lead guitarist Ruyter Suys, drummer Jeremy Thompson, and their (to me) anonymous but babelicious (on the Anna Karina tip) new bassist --- seem the fitting heirs to one of the South's two flagship bands (the Allmans being the other, of course). If Skynyrd, after the Day the Boogie Died in 1977, had pulled a lineup change like the Isleys did in the early 70s ie. roping in all the young brothers and cousins to add fire and freshness to the sound, they might approximate something like Nashville Pussy. At least, that imaginary ensemble would have precisely paved the way for what our fun-loving, hell-raisin' quartet do.

The above translates as a lot of flailing guitars and Thompson rattling his kit like Animal from the Electric Mayhem (which might be a good name for The Pussy to appropriate for secret gigs or perhaps a supergroup with Royal Trux who they should solicit for collaboration post-haste). Yep, there was a whole shite-load of skinheads (!) slam-dancing down front to Suys's riff-entreaties...nary a Yueh-ling twirler in sight. One guy in the balcony did have a t-shirt that said simply: BURN. A good totem for this quartet.

Sometimes, it's good to jump back and get a little perspective on what you're dealing with, peep how the other half are living. The Pussy don't improvise as such; rather they indulge in guitar pyrotechnics and resuscitating spectacle (hey, they've gone out with Marilyn Manson in the past). They got their cat music down keenly enough that the guy strutting around in his Ted Nugent tee probably went home happy. If this is what rock has come to in a defeated position, let it be.

Now, y'all are wondering: when is she gonna cop to the treason of using this of all sites as a forum for some Bud-guzzling, unrepentant redneck provocateurs from Hot'lanta environs? Well, The Pussy's 3-minute odes to the rock & roll good life on the t&a and joints and beer and, well, poontang-tip are a blast of relief from the usual half-hour improvisations that dominate the Jam corner of the world. Yep, I know a lot of the bands are moving into the arenas drawn by Rave culture throughout the last decade but many still like to meander the highways and byways of sound. The Pussy are recklessly speeding up that sonic, acid-drenched highway --- think the legendary, non-amputee Route 66 --- on a Fat Boy emblazoned with wings and fireballs, calling all their outlaw friends to come out and play.

If lust is your lure, one of the greatest things about Nashville Pussy is that it's Cartwright designated as the vulnerable object for our delectation, he of the balding pate a la the freaky-deke butler from Rocky Horror and the bizarre sidewhiskers, swampy howl and beer-belly we demand of our southern-spawned rock heroes. The new vampiric bassist is wraith-thin and pale in her skintight blacks and leather Stetson, with a tattoo sleeve up the right arm and working her way up the other. She's quieter than I suspect Parks was and purveys an air of controlled kool. Which serves as the perfect foil to the fiery Suys, who flicks her tongue out at the boys and girls, fellates Cartwright's Bud bottle, lets it all hang out of her red satin bra and humps into her blazing guitar in vinyl trousers with a red lightning stripe down the side and a red star right above her Nashville Pussy. She's the baddest bitch in rockdom this side of Jennifer Herrema.

And that's just what my sorry ass needs. Suddenly, I was a workaday whiner; it was too much for me to be out covering a show that late on a weeknight. How far I had fallen! How had I come to such a pathetic pass?! When just a short while ago y'all would see me haunting the alcoves at the Wetlands well past 2 am... If anyone is of a mind to be restored by Rock & Roll, Nashville Pussy are the one's to do it. They're as cheeky as Philly around-the-way dudes Marah: shooting sparks of white lightning heralded The Pussy's set closer and Suys was baptized with beer. Alas, I'm not of that mind... my Freebird really has flown with the loss to the Mule. It was great, however, to see a band play as hard as that without delusions of grandeur, pretensions to great art and refreshing lack of irony. Beck can rip-off the Skydog's slide genius for "Loser" but he could never deliver a show as immediate and hellacious as Nashville Pussy's dirt extravaganza, for all that he's the self-appointed Great White Soul Father Liberator of Rock. Nashville Pussy may lack Warren Haynes' sonic poetics but they sho'nuff know how to tell a basic human story and they'll never run the risk of becoming as boring and smug as ole Once-was a hayseed geetar-picker Beck. Can I get an Amen?