Harry P*ssy - s/t LP (1993), Ride a Dove LP (1996)

All right, let's play a song

I didn't really "get" SONIC YOUTH until way later in life.  The idea of Sonic Youth, from what I'd seen and read in magazines as a kid in the late 80s and early 90s, led to an imagined sound, that, when I actually bought the records, turned out to be way, way off!  Derek Riggs' incredible artwork for IRON MAIDEN was similarly misleading - Maiden seemed so tame compared to the visceral, inspired imagery on the shirts of the local hesher dirtbags. My interest in grindcore and extreme metal might have just been a search for a racket that seemed to match the intense color of that Maiden tour merch.  And in the former case of what I had dreamed up for SY, was initially satisfied by the noisiest output of their associates, PUSSY GALORE (like the 1 Yr Live tape).

In this way, one can at least appreciate SONIC YOUTH as a bridge for musical exploration. And in their actual activities throughout the band's history, SY are well documented as important patrons/curators/connectors for the global musical underground.  As their cultural footprint got larger (I mean, they did have an outsized role in bringing Nirvana to the world), circa mid '90s, Thurston Moore showed up as a guest host on MTV's 120 minutes several times.  On one such occasion, he took the opportunity to tout some of the highly uncommercial, avant garde artists in his Ecstatic Peace! label's inventory, including New Zealand's DEAD C, and Miami's HARRY PUSSY ("Harry as in the Hendersons, and Pussy as in Cat" I recall him hilariously backpedaling, as if this would throw Viacom's Standards and Practices department off the scent).  He even proceeded to show grainy video footage of an HP set, which then left a huge impression on me.  Drummer/vocalist Adris Hoyos was just mercilessly attacking her kit, while screaming to human limits into a headset mic, with guitarists Bill Orcutt and Mark Feehan shredding away and falling over themselves. With their abrasive, uninhibited power, HP set, for me and the wider world of weirdos, a new bar for punk thrills.  

Cobain - "Good night"
Novoselic - "so in National Enquirer there was a picture of River Phoenix in his casket, it was gross, so this song's for him"
Grohl - "a von, a two, a hoo hoo hoo er "
Cobain - "There's this band called "Harry Pussy" who are playing at Churchill's Hideaway tonight, so you should go and see them"

11/27/93 - AT&T Bayfront Park Amphitheater, Miami, FL, US

I know this kind of stuff isn't for everyone, but just give me, a now-thoroughly square person, a minute to try to explain the appeal (besides the moniker that is humorously, and unavoidably hard to say in polite company).  You have undoubtedly faced some critical dismissiveness of your more out-there tastes from the civilian world - it's stupid, it's not music, these aren't real musicians, it's just distorted noise, even I could play that, what are they so mad/sad/upset about, etc.  HP is exactly, up-front, all of these things manifest!  It is noise, it is ugly, it is loud. It is often a raging, formless mess.  The sounds have perceptible touchpoints in hardcore, no wave, blues and other sources (see their ripping cover of KRAFTWERK’s "Showroom Dummies"), though HP's noise can be all things to all people - in their wide continuum of moods, from slow atmospheric drones, to scrapey, blown-out tantrums, one can hear almost anything one wants.  Writers in the margins were inspired to dub their music “post-hardcore” and described an endeavor of taking the cacophony and punishment of all extreme music to some kind of destructive conclusion. It’s interesting to have seen the same language applied to early grind like NAPALM DEATH’s Scum, which was seen as doing the same with the variables of speed and brevity. I find delight in the band's approach to their instruments, which seems to apply JAD FAIR's directions for guitar (all you need to know is the low strings/frets make low sounds, the high strings/frets make high sounds, and then you can play hard (loud) or soft (quiet), or fast, or slow).  It seemed like much of HP’s music was spontaneous and improvised, but not so - they faithfully recreated “songs” from the records live. An aesthetic that on affect, seems so carefree and effortless, as it turns out is actually pretty difficult to create, so why go down that road?  Especially if next to nobody is going to enjoy this?  As you ponder these ideas, notice the figurative bridle that has directed your expectations of art and entertainment for much of your life, slowly loosening.  You are mere paces from fully giving in to the chaos!  

Japan's HANATARASH - this notorious performance consisted of the artist destroying the venue with an excavator

It was on a middle school field trip to the Art Institute of Chicago that I first noticed an odd phenomenon - a particular modern, abstract painting (I can’t remember exactly what, a Rothko maybe? It was a large, nearly monochromatic red canvas) provoked an impulsive, unnecessarily vehement disgust from classmates and chaperones alike, with the above familiar refrains of This Is Not Art, This is Stupid Garbage, and so forth. Not to say that abstract works necessarily resonated with me, but maybe there’s a lesson in here in trying to understand things and giving the unfamiliar a fair shot?  The potential to un-anchor oneself from accepted tastes and standards turns out to be an uncomfortable space to inhabit, and thus one can get angry about a painting that on the surface, depicts nothing literal.  I think that museum moment was fairly pivotal, and it still informs how I gravitate to things straddling that area of Serious/Amateurish/Unconventional/Misunderstood. On the other hand recent research has revealed Abstract Expressionism to be a CIA funded cultural influence operation (I wish that was a joke). My agency handlers would like me to remind you that HARRY AS IN POTTER, PUSS AS IN BOOTS, Y AS IN THE LAST MAN IS ALL THAT IS RIGHT ABOUT FREE MARKET CAPITALISM AND OUR AMERICAN VALUES.

The self-titled HP lp (1993) is the recording that is most digestible as an album, with short, discrete songs/blasts just like a classic hardcore record, and it's probably the one that initially won over the noise-rock loving public.  Ride a Dove (1996) was perhaps purposely more dissatisfying -  its an intense 30 minute continuous sound collage featuring, among other things, screaming, crowd noise, pieces of live recordings, and a self-oscillating Korg MS-20.  Apparently the whole thing was mixed through a RAT pedal (inner voice:  "OF COURSE it sounds good to you, big surprise elbert") and then further tortured using free software.  Some fans have taken this LP as an elaborate joke or anti-audience provocation; those close to the band say it was an intensely personal document of the band's increasingly difficult lives, chronicling, in part, the advancing dissolution of Hoyos' and Orcutt's marriage.  I suppose it can be all of these things, and I have probably listened to this one more often.  It sounded to me like HP headed in a more psychedelic direction, like the long atonal jams from the DEAD C.  It's a more immersive thing to experience vs the assault of the other recordings.  I remember even niche fanzines being pretty dismissive of Ride a Dove, laughably describing it as too self-indulgent or "arty." Several collections of their singles and live recordings have been released including What Was Music? on the Siltbreeze label and You’ll Never Play This Town Again (on Load, but recently re-released from Palilalia). The former is more interesting to me as it captures some earlier, more ponderous, jazzy material. Many of the first 15 tracks are untitled, and perhaps capture the band figuring things out - a minor niggle, but at some point the track listing on this goes off by one and everything gets misnumbered.   

San Francisco's Cool Beans! fanzine had a nice feature of HP interviewing themselves, that is gratefully preserved on the web. In rereading it, there is a ton of good stuff in there, but a couple tiny details really jumped out at me. 

Hoyos performed angry, and meant it - she occasionally dispensed with the live set and instead attacked instruments and the audience; she says here it may be channeling pain from an abusive father.  But she also tells a story about screaming from just being a lonely awkward kid, that is also entirely relatable.

Orcutt touches for a second on the insanity of trying to precisely create the sound that is in your imagination.

HP records were more or less live rehearsal tapes, which leads me to wonder what the recording setup looked like.  One of my favorite recordings is the 1985 demo from the San Francisco thrash band INSANITY - allegedly captured with a single microphone into a cassette Walkman.  I speculate the HP arrangement was similar, and WTF how did both end up sounding so awesome?