Nashville Pussy, Peter Pan Spe

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Hey, at least this review's only 4 months late this time and it's better than the NuclearSkull drama bullshit taking place on the boards right now....

Anyway, in between entertaining family and job-hunting again as well as that aforementioned Lacuna Coil review that was slowly becoming like a difficult university paper to complete, I caught another concert. It's the same band you've all heard me rant about before and if I wasn't ranting about them, Craig Williams was. Considering that it was near the end of 2003 and their Say Something Nasty album had been out for over a good year or so I was wondering whether Blaine, Ruyter, KatieLynn and their Kid Rock-looking drummer were starting to record new material or keep playing the current stuff until they wore it out to the point that they needed to start writing again. That night, they thankfully chose to do the latter. I even overlooked the fact that the first of both opening bands rather sucked that night....

Stink Mitt's performance made me ponder that if I were in Bizarro world, I would've actually caught Tenacious D live, instead since this comedy act were Canadian, female, kinda svelte (well, one-half was), having a hip-hop sound and, well, not really being as particularly funny as thy had hoped. Their battle cry was "Yo, we're bringin' back the spandex an' the big hair!" (How original. Sadly they didn't launch into "American Hair Band") They covered Fannypack's "Cameltoe," for reasons that most of the audience could not comprehend -- their backup dance music made The Mary Jane Girls' hit "In My House" sound like Superjoint Ritual in comparison. One of their own songs was called "Cherry-Go-Round" and they're apparently endorsed by the equally overrated Peaches. That's about all you really need to know about them. I'm getting disturbing visions of this Surrey, B.C. duo still performing "Cherry-Go-Round" and throwing in a version of Bordeaux's "I Love The Bass" when they're both at the age of 46 now so let's move on to the next band, shall we?

From complete shit to THE shit, Holland's Peter Pan Speedrock wasted no time in hitting the stage (but since Stink Mitt's stage gear consisted of two mic stands and a ghetto blaster it didn't take Stink Mitt long to get off the stage either) and once they played, it was like Stink Mitt didn't matter. Given that the trio's brand of thrash-induced garage rock went down well with the crowd that night, one could also say that Peter Pan Speedrock made a lot of those nu-garage bands like the White Stripes and Jet look like they didn't matter either. This wasn't a concert for this band; it was a mission. Only time they stopped to pause was to introduce themselves and then to announce maybe one or two new songs from their recent album Lucky Bastards, and I couldn't tell the difference between their older and newer material (I had only heard of them the night before the concert) anyway. I was quickly converted after their performance, though. The highlights (or rather the songs I actually remembered by name) here would be:

"Bad Year For Rock 'N Roll": Ironic that a lot of the cult favorites usually wrote songs with titles like this this past year or so. "Bad Year For "Rock 'N Roll" and the Supersuckers' "Rock 'N Roll Records (Aren't Selling This Year)". I only brought that subject up just to add some dialogue.

"Bitch On Wheels": One of their faster numbers as well as one of their more-recognized hits in Europe and seeing as damn near every one of their songs are played at 100 m.p.h. that's saying something.

"Gotta Get Some": I think this was actually the sixth or seventh song in their set that night. Pretty ferocious drumming during that song. The drummer must go through drum skins as quickly as the average person goes through a pair of underwear, although despite the punishment he inflicted on his gear, the entire drumset looked as if he just bought it at Steve's Music Store a few hours before the gig.

"Always Drunk, Always Loud, Always Right!": The musical equivalent of about 95% of KNAC rants. Or at least the tone of them. Don't worry, I'm including myself in that percentage here too....

"Live Fast, Die Young and Leave a Beautiful Corpse": A cover of the Elvis Hitler moshpit classic that I heard for the first time that night. Also found out that night that Elvis Hitler was a real band, according to the huge guy with the mohawk who hung out with me after the show. Also hung out with a couple of members from the party of Dutch fans who flew over to follow the band around North America over the past few weeks that night. They were too drunk to remember to give me the URL to Peter Pan Speedrock's site but through the revolutionary magic of just making an educated guess through Yahoo! and Hotmail you can find more on these guys at http://www.peterpanspeedrock.com anyway. Mind the grinding when you log on. As far as I know, it's just distortion or something.

Did I mention that they were just the OPENING band?

Anyway, headliners Nashville Pussy kicked off their concert for the night with their setlist being pretty much the same as the last time I saw them but as I was too busy ogling both Ruyter and KatieLynn -- someone made off with the setlist again after the show. That, and, um, I'm still intimidated by singer Blaine's muscle size. So never in any particular order...

"Say Something Nasty": The opening song of the night that seems to sound more solid each time it's played live.

"She's Got the Drugs": This song always seems to either follow "Say Something Nasty" or "You Give Drugs A Bad Name" for some reason during NP's live sets. I think this also happened tonight as well. Speaking of which....

"You Give Drugs A Bad Name": The song dedicated to the people who just don't know when a party is over. Still a classic.

"Keep On Fucking": Nashville Pussy's ode to the First Commandment. We never really needed Creed or Lifehouse after all to point out the benefits of procreation in accordance to the Bible after all, didn't we?

"Go Motherfucker Go": The first of only 4 songs that they're playing from the first album tonight. And this song's still a 2-minute thrashing mindfuck.

"Blowjob From a Rattlesnake": To quote Anna Nicole Smith on suicide bombers: "Doesn't that hurt?" I know there's not much of a deeper meaning into the song than that but the title's always put that image in my head. Besides, it's barely 2 minutes long so you can't really get that much out of it other than headbanging to it. Still a decent song all the same.

"The Bitch Just Kicked Me Out": Decent song, although I've always wondered who the "bitch" in question in this song was or is for as long as I've been a fan. My first guess was maybe Ruyter during a turbulent period in their lives but now I'm not so sure.

"Gonna Hitchhike Down to Cincinnati and Kick the Shit Out of Your Drunk Daddy": I swear, this song is shorter than its title and usually sounds even shorter the more I hear it being played live.

"Fried Chicken And Coffee": Probably my favorite NP songs if not one of my all-time favs. It got nominated for a Grammy in 2000 for Best Metal Performance and probably lost to either Korn, Metallica or some other lightweight band, y'know.

"Wrong Side Of The Gun": After Ruyter took her shirt off and her and Blaine did their infamous down-a-whole-beer-while-I-solo bit, they tore into this song and Ruyter almost played the whole song on my lap after miscalculating the length of the stage.

"Shot Down In Flames": This song as well as this concert has officially become a milestone in Nashville Pussy's live history as it marks the first time that KatieLynn Campbell has moved further than 20 feet while playing! (Don't get me wrong, she's a great bass player but needs to move around a bit more on stage.)

Hmmmm..... not a bad recollection of events without the use of a setlist. Then again, this was my third time seeing them live, so having praised an underrated European garage rock band and annoyed Stink Mitt's three fans with this review as well as reminded everyone why they should catch Nashville Pussy live as often as I've done, this overdue review has done its job.