PUSSY GALORE - MELODY MAKER: THRASH THRASH [INTERVIEW] (PRESS, UK) DATE: 31.OCTOBER.1987 LABEL: n/a CAT NO.: n/a NOTES: This originally appeared in the Melody Maker issue of 31st October 1987 and is billed as a 'David Stubbs interview by Pussy Galore'. It also appeared as part of a press pack issued with promo copies of the US release of Sugarshit Sharp (31st Oct. 1988) and again as part of a photocopied document sent out by Mute to press to promote the re-issues of Sugarshit Sharp, Right Now! and Dial 'M' For Motherfucker. The Pussy Galore logo on the left was used as the cover of the Mute press pack. VIEW: Press VIEW: Pussy Galore releases ARTICLE TEXT: "Pussy Galore interview David Stubbs PG: Say, what's this Gree-boe? Some English journalist called us Gree-boes and you can tell him we're going to come over and kick his asshole. Are we Gree-boes? DS: No Gree-boes are spare tyres. Rubbery, Bleary. All snot and armpits. Ham-fistedly moral. Lumpen. Hairy. Dick Emery. Extinct. English from foot to mouth. Pussy Galore on the other hand are bleary. Headlong. The animal product of low ceilings. Silvery. Treble hep and black and blue. Thoughtless. American. They hark back to a moment of acceleration in English R&B - The Rolling Stones and so forth - that occurred just prior to psychedlia. They Revel in the...in the... Pussy Galore: I guess you could call it ineptitude. DS: Yes, yes, that's it ineptitude, the headrush and tripping of that moment in rock when the songs fall to pieces, the guitars take a leak and the overall effect leaves you with a throbbing upstairs akin to the feeling that there's a Frenchman living in your head. PG: We're influenced by Mark E Smith, although we're not too fond of the stuff he's done since "This Nation's Saving Grace". Isn't that f**ing obvious? DS: Yes, but not in any overwhelming sense. As with The Fall, Pussy Galore's sound involves a great deal of knocking and scratching on metal, as if they are literally assaulting rather than "playing". Live, they bludgeon the onlooker, send him or her away wrecked, Incapable of thought and grinning with profound satisfaction. It's masochism. PG: Live, we don't try and stop the fights. We encourage them. So long as they don't touch us. Sometimes we hate our audiences. We can usually tell, straight off. We taunt them. But I think "masochism" is taking it a little far isn't it? DS: Possibly not. These days, much of the best rock, the rock that's furthest ahead is dispiriting as opposed to uplifting, leaves you shattered rather than altogether, wants in rather than wants out, offers no escape, solace or hope. PG: Perhaps it's to do with frustration, we don't know, but really we're happy-go-lucky people. We've got a lot of attitude, but we don't care how people feel at our concerts. Do you think maybe we'll suck when we get as big as The Stones? DS: Let me ask you a question. is that hugeness even remotely possible? There's no single rock initiative for you to ride in on anymore. You're a rock fragment, and maybe that accounts for your "detached" attitude - that's why you don't care. PG: That's pretty much the American attitude these days, there's been a definite regression into that. Are you suggesting that we're a part of that mentality? DS: Not exactly. Songs like "Pig Sweat", "White Noise", "Wretch", "Really Suck" and "Rancid" are blank, irreflective, self-effacing, self-referential lumps of thrash apathy. And yet together they yield a great deal of detail, difference, diversity - an index of junk and a wealth of bleary echoes - Pere Ubu, Wild Man Fischer, Stooges and that's after just seven apparently careless seconds. The album "Right Now" is a Solomon's Mine of trash! PG: We're coming over to England in January. Will you be coming to see us? DS: I'll be right there at the back! - PG" RELATED LINKS: mute.com