ALL ACCESS: Nashville Pussy

CD Review: Nashville Pussy – Ten Years of Pussy
Steamhammer/SPV
All Access Rating: A+

Nashville Pussy - Ten Years of Pussy 2015

Lemmy knows a thing or two about pussy ... Nashville Pussy, that is.

To the sainted leader of one of rock 'n' roll's most notorious bands, these raunchy, Southern rock reprobates are the real deal. In Kilmister's own words, "If there's ever been a better band to open for Motorhead, I've not heard them!"

Any doubters should acquaint themselves with Ten Years of Pussy, a new 22-track, two-disc "best of" collection from Steamhammer/SPV that's a 120-proof distillation of everything that's great about rock 'n' roll, taking the best Nashville Pussy material from the last decade of recorded material and pairing it not with a nice glass of Chardonnay, but rather a handful of live firecrackers that should be handled with care instead.

Unapologetically nasty and unrepentant about its sinful ways, Nashville Pussy's shotgun wedding of AC/DC's metallic crunch, the rowdy, red-neck swagger of Lynyrd Skynyrd and punk's reckless energy makes them as potent as moonshine on such fist-pumping anthems as "Come On Come On," "Pussy Time," "I'm So High" (with Danko Jones) and "Why Why Why," their infectious choruses swimming in STDs and drunken rebellion. And while they don't mind getting messy and sloppy, as they do on the rambling, Stones-y bump-and-grind of "Before The Drugs Wear Off" and the torn-and-frayed blues of "Lazy Jesus," Nashville Pussy favors hooks and mean-ass riffs as tight as Mick Jagger's pants, the blazing – not to mention hilarious – condemnation of the modern Confederacy "The South's Too Fat to Rise Again" absolutely scorching the earth.

And while the main package of choice Nashville Pussy studio tracks offers an essential primer for anybody still unfamiliar with how cohesive and powerful a unit they are – the salacious crawl of "Til The Meat Falls Off The Bone" is a particularly wicked delight – an extra disc of six vicious, rip-roaring concert cuts from Blaine Cartwright, Ruyter Suys, Bonnie Buitrago and Jeremy Thompson makes them seem even more savage and combustible when freed from the studio. Burning like Jack Daniels going down the wrong pipe, the Southern-fried boogie meltdown of "Nutbush City Limits" and the raucous, one-two punch of "Struttin' Cock" and "Late Great USA" are pumped full of adrenalin and wired on trucker speed. And that's just how God intended Nashville Pussy, champions of trailer-trash excess and poor decisions, to play.
– Peter Lindblad

Nashville Pussy – Up the Dosage

Label: Steamhammer/SPV
All Access Rating: A-

Nashville Pussy - Up the Dosage 2014

"The South's Too Fat to Rise Again" may be the greatest song title in history. And "Hooray for Cocaine, Hooray for Tennessee" isn't too shabby either. Yes, Nashville Pussy is at it again, offending the humorless and churning out morally repugnant, 190-proof Southern rock grain alcohol spiked with so much sleazy punk attitude that it could cause blindness, if ingested in mass quantities.

That's a small price to pay for energetic, shit-kicking rock 'n' roll this ballsy. The black sheep of this white trash family, guitarist/vocalist Blaine Cartwright, says of Up the Dosage that, "This is our Back in Black!" And he isn't just whistling "Dixie." Taking a cue from AC/DC, they aim for simplicity on the rowdy Up the Dosage, packing it to the brim with solid, hot-wired riffing and degenerate songwriting born with a swagger. Political correctness be damned, this souped-up Nashville Pussy are as funny and raunchy as ever, as Cartwright details a sordid, booze-impaired tryst with a high-spirited pregnant women who's "meaner than shit, hotter than Hell" in the Rolling Stones-y, Let It Bleed-era "Before the Drugs Wear Off," featuring a tasty boogie-woogie style piano that channels the spirit of Ian Stewart.

Then there's the hilarious ode to masturbation that is the high-octane, rip-roaring "Rub it to Death," its turbo-charged, muscular guitars threatening to tearing themselves away from the bones of such mean, cocksure hooks, just like those found in the pulse-pounding "Spent" and an accelerated, utterly infectious "The South's Too Fat to Rise Again." This is Nashville Pussy, the fast version, and like Motorhead, they play rock 'n' roll – unrepentant, dirty and with a taste for drugs and everything tawdry.

Cartwright's wife, guitarist Ruyter Suys, goes for the throat on Up the Dosage, her solos sounding like a hail of gunfire. That's her singing on the hit-and-run blast of gutsy psycho-billy known as "Taking it Easy," and she is a commanding presence. It helps to have sound that is richer and more vibrant than past efforts, and for that, sound engineer Brian Pulito is to be commended. Ultimately, though, it's Nashville Pussy's mix of metallic crunch and ZZ Top's bluesy nastiness, so prevalent on the title track and mid-tempo drawls "Till the Meat Falls Off the Bone" and "White and Loud," that makes Up the Dosage such a tasty meal, even if the cook probably spit in the food.
– Peter Lindblad