That’s when Meredith came up with the idea to put her menstrual blood in the vinyl. I wasn’t there for the process of it, but I heard they just poured her blood into a vat mixed with liquid vinyl and it gave the vinyl streaks of red.
BY WILLIAM LENNON
When Chicago INNERVIEW asks Perfect Pussy guitarist Ray McAndrew what bands from the group’s hometown of Syracuse, New York, we should be listening to, he sends links of Random Blaster, Popular Music and The Nudes. The last of these count his brother/cartoonist Phil McAndrew among its members, who has also done work for Mad Magazine. Yet of all the Syracuse bands, the most well known is the band of which Ray McAndrew is a member: Perfect Pussy.
The group forms the macro-punk musical equivalent of repressive fire that feels scuzzy and DIY enough to raise the hackles of the squeamish, yet it also operates on an arena rock scale. Drawing comparisons to hardcore legends like Mission of Burma and Minor Threat from many as well as unadulterated ire from more, their filthy, unrefined sound and feminist ideals formed an irresistible crosshair for self-styled critics preoccupied with critical conceptions of “authenticity” and “listenability.”
But that sort of critical outrage is the stuff punk rock is made of, and it’s not like they’re the first band of their ilk to find themselves on the pointy end of some negative press. When your name is Perfect Pussy, you expect and maybe even revel in the knowledge that your work will be accompanied by the grumbling of conservatives and dogmatists. It comes with the territory.
And regardless, McAndrew reminds us, anyone who has even a passing familiarity with hardcore knows that burying your vocals a la Perfect Pussy isn’t a new trick. “The VSS are a band that do that really well,” he points out. “It forces people to listen a little harder and pay a little closer attention…It still astonishes me that people make this a big deal.”
As for the other common gripe against Perfect Pussy, that the band’s politics and preoccupation with the double-x chromosome are somehow incompatible with whatever scene they’re supposed to be a part of? Well, you can buy a sweater that identifies you as a fan of the “stupid misandrist hype band” on their website, so it doesn’t sound like Perfect Pussy is anywhere close to issuing an apology. If that doesn’t drive the point home, finding lead singer Meredith Graves’ menstrual blood in your copy of Say Yes To Love (as 300 lucky fans who bought the special edition of the album did) ought to finish the job.
“Meredith was talking to Mike Sniper, the label owner of Captured Tracks, and he was trying to get her to think of something cool we could do as a limited edition release,” McAndrew says, trying to remember the story. “He kept pushing her to ‘think bigger, think bigger’ and that’s when Meredith came up with the idea to put her menstrual blood in the vinyl. I wasn’t there for the process of it, but I heard they just poured her blood into a vat mixed with liquid vinyl and it gave the vinyl streaks of red.”
So there’s an interesting counterpoint for the naysayers to meditate upon. In the end, we may not have expected the “stupid misandrist hype band” that punk so sorely needed to arrive in an avalanche of electrified sludge. But now that they’ve done so, with all the tact and subtlety of a dirty bomb, we might as well admit that — for what it is they’ve set out to accomplish — they’re perfect.
PERFECT PUSSY
WITH FIELDED
DECEMBER 5 @ THALIA HALL
7:30 PM LISTEN
$12 TICKETS