Who: Nashville Pussy
When: Saturday, Sept. 1
Where: Merlin’s
Tickets: $15
Blaine Cartwright of Nashville Pussy says he could probably write a book one day with a couple of chapters devoted to touring with Marilyn Manson.
“He’s pretty calm backstage,” Cartwright said from his cell phone on his way to batting practice.
After weekly visits to the batting cage for almost five years, he considers himself quite the pro.
“I rule,” he says, laughing. “I am so good, I get guys in their late teens asking where I play at.”
The boys should be asking about concert stages instead of baseball diamonds.
Cartwright continues with his Manson story.
“Manson did his own make up. He would walk through this totally empty hockey rink and get up on a television with crosses. He would be all subdued and then boom, he was raised up and all of a sudden in front of a 20,000 audience. He is the best performance I’ve ever seen, next to Alice Cooper.”
The memory is from seven years ago, the same year Nashville Pussy was nominated for a Grammy Award for the Atlanta band’s southern discomfort, rock and roll abandon.
Cartwright is proud of both accomplishments, but his most recent coup is what really gets him talking.
Two Nashville Pussy songs are included on the popular cartoon turned movie, Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
“The movie came out on DVD last week. It’s top 30 on Amazon,” he said. “It’s a limited release and its got two songs from my other band Nine Pound Hammer as well. Plus they sell it at Walmart. Now we can say Pussy is at Walmart.”
Thanks to the exposure of the movie, kids half Cartwright’s age are asking about Nashville Pussy.
The 43 year old chuckles at the thought.
“Rock and roll is like blues was in the 1970s — it’s cooler. It’s not what the average kid listens to.”
Nashville Pussy’s demonic sonics, self-described as “whoop it up music”, draws from the deep south of James Brown and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Get Some , on the Spitfire label, is their latest album, with a new one in the works for a 2008 release. Get Some was steered home by producer Daniel Rey of Ramones and White Zombie fame.
Song titles such as Good Night for a Heart Attack and Lazy White Boy suggest Nashville Pussy’s neck-snapping guitar riffage is not without humour.
“(Our music) is like AC/DC making out with Motorhead while Lynyrd Skynyrd watches,” Cartwright says.
(With a little Temptations on the side to throw some soul into the mix.)
After countless European and U.S. tours, Nashville Pussy heads north for a Loud, Fast and Out of Control show, which includes opening acts Flood of Fire, Gnar Boots and DJ Buddha on Saturday, Sept. 1 at Merlin’s. Advance $15 tickets are now available.
