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Nashville Pussy, Nebula, Dick Delicious & the Tasty Testicles
Live at Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro, NC
Friday May 31, 2002

Morgantown, West Virginia, 1997, Nyabinghi Dance Hall. We drive from Indiana, PA to see the Makers play for the first time. We didn’t know who else was on the bill and Tobin sees a flyer and yells “Nashville Pussy! That’s the guy from Nine Pound Hammer.”

We arrive around 8 pm and since bars don’t close until 4 am in that wild and wonderful state, the show didn’t start until midnight. Foster’s oil cans were about $2.50 and Jack and Cokes were $1.50. And it was Stephen H. Christ’s 21st birthday. We drank for 8 hours.

Nashville Pussy opened that show, and this was their first ever tour, and completely kicked everyone’s ass. I couldn’t stop talking about them afterwards. And neither could anyone else.

Here it is five years later (damn!) and I’m seeing them supporting their 3rd album, Say Something Nasty, on their 3rd bass player, their 4th record label and after having toured the world, including the arenas with Marilyn Manson, and having been actually nominated for a grammy.

We arrived at the Cradle partway through the set of Dick Delicious & the Tasty Testicles. They were this comedy/metal/rap three-piece from Atlanta. I was thrown a curve ball because I was expecting this “stoner rock” band called Nebula to be playing, and here were three drunk dudes talking about the size of each other’s poop paths. I was confused, but after a couple songs, namely “I Wish I Was a Dog” about being able to lick your own balls and smell girls butts, I began to get the joke. “Ha ha,” I said. At the end of their set the bass player said “Thank you, statues!” which was funny because nobody was moving in the audience, like a typical Chapel Hill crowd. They came out for an encore that wasn’t really encouraged (funny), and at the end the guitar player said “You know how we got this gig? The drummer for Nashville Pussy is my roommate and he owes me money.” Heh heh, I was wondering.

The crowd consisted of some rockers, skinhead dudes, some gold ole boys, an old drunk dude, a chick that seemed famous or something wearing a coonskin cap, and some younger kids who looked like they may have seen the Pussy with Marilyn Manson. That’s a good thing. More rock bands need to land big time tours with non-rock bands so we can lure the suburban children away from that pop-MTV Disneyworld into the dark, moist, beer soaked and drug influenced back alleys and shotgun shacks in the deep dark woods of rock n roll. There was also a dude with a huge bushy mullet and leather jacket there which is always good to see. There were many people that looked visibly intoxicated, which either means they started to drink hours before the show, which is what you’re supposed to do, or they brought a flask full of whiskey they were hittin in the bathroom. I like to drink a few and then go, or bring my hip flask. That way I can buy only a few drinks and tip every time, instead of buying 10 drinks and only have enough to tip every other time, then the bartender only sees you when you don’t tip and you get a bad reputation. And if you’re on the guestlist or get in free it’s always cool to put all that cash you saved into the tip jar, but not all at once, of course, or the bartender won’t see you and you get a bad reputation. Someday I hope to be rich enough or sober enough not to have to worry about this shit.

Nebula came out and I guess they played “stoner rock”. It just sounded like good old 3-piece 70s-ish Rock to me. They sounded like a Zeppelin-y, Sabbath-y, Hendrix-y type of rock that I used to sit in my room and get stoned to in high school. So I guess that’s what they mean by stoner rock. Although I don’t know many types of rock that doesn’t involved people getting stoned.

Nebula is three dudes who used to be part of Fu Manchu. The bass player looked exactly like Tom Petty. The drummer was a hippie looking dude with a beard wearing a headband for some reason, reminiscent of Tommy Chong, with the fog machine kickin’. The guitarist/singer was very Hendrix-influenced in his guitar playing, but without Jimi’s raw dirtiness. He was a cleaner player with a nice white SG Standard and a full Marshall stack. They were a very tight band that I’d definitely recommend and see again.

The crowd showed it’s appreaciation with a good deal of volume but still very little movement.

Nashville Pussy took the stage and I got front and center like I usually do. There was a lot more slamming going on and right in the beginning one skinhead dude fell on his head and was gushing blood. “You alright man?” I said. I got blood all over my hand and I didn’t see him for the rest of the night.

Rutyer was going off all night like she was on speed and for the first time I noticed she was very reflective of Angus Young in her movements and facial expressions. Like a female, metal Angus. The new bass player, KatieLynn Campbell, held her shit on the left and she had a little fanclub over there the whole time.

I have to admit I miss the rock queen spectacle that was Corey Parks up there. Tall kick ass fire queen with the flames and the beer and shit. No doubt her presence boosted the band’s success, but Nashville Pussy doesn’t run on spectacle alone.

Tits or no tits, how can you not like a band with a song called “I’m Gonna Hitchike Down to Cincinatti and Kick the Shit Outta Your Drunk Daddy”? Blaine Cartwright’s songs are hilarious and intimidatingly ass kickin at the same time, much like Lemmy’s. Do yourself a favor and buy a Nine Pound Hammer record. That was Blaine’s old band. My favorite song by them is a song about me in high school working at Giant Eagle called “King of the Headbangin’ Stockboy.” I had the priviledge of seeing Nine Pound Hammer at the 2001 Sleazefest. That was a great time and it was crowded as fuck and I give the audience an overall 10 at that one.

Well the Pussy ain’t slowing down, and their love of good music and a good joke will eventually mold them into one of the best rock bands ever, I predict. I recognized and sang along with some of the ones off of Let Them Eat Pussy and High as Hell and they played a ton of new ones too. I kept asking for “Go Motherfucker Go” because it reminds me of 5 years ago and the “Go Motherfucker Go” 7 inch they put out, their first I think, with the naked chick in the car on the cover. AC/DC song of the night, with the obligatory “If you know it, sing along,” was “Shot Down in Flames,” with Rutyer on the bullet pick slides.

Shows end early there at the Cat’s Cradle so we got the good fortune to hang out with the bands at the Local 506 afterwards. I was drunk by then, and I was like one of those drunk guys that comes up to you at the end of the show and keeps telling you how much that rocked and all you can say is thanks over and over again. I wasn’t a nuisance or anything but all I said all night was “Raffinblaffin you guys rocked heffinafffin yew gotta nice guitar hiffinshakkin we seen you guys in West Virginia.”

I’m not going to put the bands on a 1-10 scale, but I will do it to the audience. The biggest central problem in the world of underground rock ‘n’ roll today is audience behavior. People are behaving themselves too much-- staring quietly, applauding like they are at a golf tournament, completely motionless like deer in headlights, afraid to step out of line in some bastard ettiquite filtering down from the upper-crust, too cool to act. That’s appropriate if the band sucks, but not at a Nashville Pussy show. Some dorko called me an idiot in my ear at a White Stripes show because I said “Wooo!” after the songs instead of stand and clap like everyone else. I wasn’t even dancing that night. That ain’t rock n roll, and it ain’t metal or punk or country either. I’m not the self-reflective type when it comes to having fun. I’m the type of person that says, here I am, at a rock show, the best place in the world to be, and I could die tonight so I might as well make it the funnest night of my life, and fuck them if they try to bring down a good time.

AUDIENCE RATING
from 1 to 10 beers – think of how drunk you get on 1 beer, compared to how drunk you get on 10, and that’s how the audience was.

Movement:

Movement is the most important part of audience participation. Movement makes the band play better and girls get naked and the guys get laid. The presence or lack of movement can make or break a show. There was some moshing, and a lot of arms in the air, but for the most part, they could do better than that. Lot of sitters too. And if you ain’t gonna dance, at least say “Yeah!” and get some hands up there.
Volume:

If you don’t dance, at least yell. You think a kick ass band like Nashville Pussy wants to hear golf claps after hours upon hours and gallons of sweat put into the music? The audience did well here. It could’ve been a tad louder, and a ten is if the audience is louder than the PA, but overall I’m happy with the audience response. Me being in the audience automattically brings it up 2 points.
Drunkenness/Debauchery:

Many people were very drunk, earning a thumbs up from me. Dick Delicious dove off the stage during the end of the Pussy set, and no one caught him and he fell on his head and was knocked unconscious. He was alright after the show though. And that dude bled on me. The blood alone boosted the ratings. Some beer was thrown among the audience and not at the bands, and that’s the way to be. Nakedness, vomit and more public drug use would have garnered a 10.

Overall Audience Rating:7.33 beers – this is excellent for Chapel Hill