Pussy Galore – Conflict #42: Wide Open (PRESS, US)

Conflict is a fanzine run by Gerard Cosloy of Matador Records, issue #46 included a review of Right Now!

Photo Caption/Credit: “Pussy Galore, Cristina, Jon, Julia, Neil and Bob (photo by sheilah)”

Thanks to Skeleton Boy

Gerard: So is there any past band shit that we can dig up?

Jon Spencer: No, ’cause none of us have been in bands that anybody’s known.
Julia Cafritz: Shithouse was really good.

Gerard: This is when you guys were in Providence? Did you ever play with anybody really hot, like Critical Few, or the Neighbourhoods?

Jon: No, no way. We weren’t that kind of stuff. We were total industrial. We did play with Seven Seconds once, which was fun.

Gerard: Great. Did Kevin Seconds offer to put you on Positive Force?

Jon: No, ’cause we were like, y’know, total hate. We were just up there making noise and shit.

Gerard: You weren’t part of the positive thing?

Jon: No, but people got into it ’cause we were trashing the fuck outta shit. Everyone got into it.

Gerard: So why did you guys more here anyway?

Jon: We just wanted to move to New York anyway. And we were kind of sick of DC.
Julia: We had been in DC for almost a year. I’m from DC, lived there all my life. When we first tried getting gigs there we encountered alot of resistance. Just as we were leaving that began to let up, but we had already decided to move.
Jon: It wasn’t so much for the band…we just wanted to move.

Gerard: What made you think New York would be any better?

Jon: I don’t know…I think it’s a more interesting place to live than DC, there’s more stuff to do.
Julia: Ever been to DC?
Gerard: Yeah, a couple of times.
Jon: Aren’t you from Boston?
Gerard: Yeah.
Jon: Yeah, ’cause I’m from New Hampshire.
Gerard: Boston’s a real good place to leave.
Some Guy In The Back Who Said He Was From Boston: That’s right.

Julia: There’s more to do here.

Gerard: How often did you guys ever play in DC?

Jon: Towards the end, around March or April, we were playing like, once a week. It started getting really heavy.
Julia: Alot of the other bigger DC bands had broken up. All the Dischord bands had broken up, 9353 had broken up. Even ‘tho everyone hated us, they had top book us because there was nothing left.
Jon: Well, not everyone hated us.

Gerard: All the Dischord Jr. bands broke up?

Jon: Yeah, the whole second wave of Dischord bands completely fizzled. Rites Of Spring broke up, Dag Nasty were broken up for a while. Embrace broke up, Beefeater were split up. Last year you had that whole Revolution Summer thing but they never really carried it anywhere, it just fell on it’s face. A real joke. So what’s with you review of the single? It’s like a review of Tom Smith! I mean, the whole thing’s like “here’s Tom Smith’s record”.

Gerard: Well, he’s a pretty magnetic figure.

Julia: He’s a real hustler.

Jon: He used to tell us “yeah, I was just on the phone with Gerard, talking about putting out the next Peach of Immortality album on Homestead”.

Gerard: It’s great that he told everyone that. How did I let Peach slip thru my fingers…Tom would call up and deliver this huge take-over-the-universe rap. He talked like he was leading some kinda tribe. You guys were part of the tribe.

Jon: We were, but then we wised up. End of the tour we told him to fuck off.

Gerard: So what was the deal with those shows with Peach? You guys played a lot of places they didn’t have indoor plumbing?

Jon: That was Tom’s whole Malcom McCalaren thing, “the Sex Pistols only played the deep south”, so Tom had us playing fucking Macon, Georgia.
Julia: Biloxi, Mississippi.

Gerard: So those shows actually happened?

Jon: There were pretty huge gaps in the schedule. Texas was cool. Athens was cool…
Julia: Macon wasn’t that bad.
Jon: We were their first show, ever. There were all these kids there to see hardcore, it was really funny.

Gerard: You played on Slam Dance Night?

Jon: Yeah, all these kids wanting hardcore shit and they had us and like 3 REM copy bands. And we come out with out fuck Ian MacKaye thing, and then they get Peach. It was like the worst possible first show they could have had. But they liked us.

Gerard: So what was the story behind Whitehouse on that tour?

Jon: Oh, that was just Tom & Jerry sitting up in their room in DC telling people, “we’re touring with Whitehouse”, “we’re touring with Swans”, “we’re touring Europe with Sonic Youth”. They’re just compulsive liars.
Julia: I know Spanish pretty well, so Tom had me calling Spain everyday trying to reach William Bennett…
Jon:…like I wanted to put out a new Whitehouse album, and Tom says “don’t worry, William and I are like this”, fuck you Tom Smith.
Julia: …and the lady keeps saying “William no esta, William no esta”

Gerard: So if the new record coming out in England?

Jon: Yeah, Thurston Moore set it up. It’s coming out on Blast First or Ecstatic Peace. I don’t know what Rough Trade are going to do with it ’cause if they got upset over a picture of a naked lady, I don’t know what they’ll do when they see “CUNT”, “BITCH”, “FUCK” and everything, Rough Trade over here only took 25.
Julia: They’re gonna put the EP and the 45 together over there.

Gerard: So which song on the album is the hit?

Jon: I don’t know, “Cunt Tease” and “Just Wanna Die” are the most upbeat.
Julia: “Die Bitch” on the 7″ is my favourite.

Gerard: So judging by your brilliant press release you guys aren’t part of the Oi! revival.

Jon: I was worried about some club guy in Buttfuck, Indiana seeing “PUSSY”, “JEW”, “CUNT” on the record and saying “no way”. In the press release we’re like “we just want to play, we’re a fun band”.

Gerard: So why the need to explain yourself?

Julia: Well, in DC everyone wanted to know what “Fuck Ian MacKaye” was about. Like in interviews when they ask, “‘You Look Like A Jew’, what’s that about? ‘Fuck Ian MacKaye’, what’s that about? What’s between you guys and Ian?” That’s just DC shit…liberal ass…wimpy…white people…
Jon: Yeah, white people, we hate ’em! so, uh, are you Jewish Gerard?

Gerard: Yeah, but I don’t let it get in the way.

Rick (bald dude that’s no longer in the band): Neither does Julie

Gerard: So how did you guys meet?

Jon: In college, at Brown. We dropped out…ask Gerard about the Vanity Fair thing.
Julia: So this girl from Vanity Fair calls up because they want to include us in this industrial music piece they said they were doing. But now they want to include this band called Scruffy Cat.
Jon: Aren’t they a Harvard band?
Gerard: that’s ‘Scruffy The Cat’

Jon: We’re asking your advice, do you think we should do this thing. ‘Cause we’re really concerned about our credibility.

Gerard: I don’t know. I don’t even know what Vanity Fair is. How did everyone else meet.

Jon: Julia and I were in college, and after 2 years I dropped out. Julie was only in college for a year ’cause she had a major neck operation which kept her out of school…

Gerard: …wait, let’s hear about the neck operation!

Julia: I had a serv-fusion operation, where they take a piece of your hipbone out…
Jon: Julie’s on heavy drugs all the time too, which really does alot for her playing…
Julia: …and they had to go thru the front of my neck. See this cool scar? They took out my C5-C6 disc and they graft in a piece of hipbone. So that song. “Constant Pain”? That’s what I’m in. man.

Gerard: It’s a shame that you can’t play live with a really heavy neck brace on…

Julia: No, but I had to walk around with one for about a year. That and an orthopaedic cane. I’d wear the brace and use the cane to go to gigs and I’d have to ask people not to slam into me, or I’d hit them with my cane.

Gerard: Well, Stefan, king of punk. He’s got a cane with a monkey head on it.

Julia: No! this was a orthopedic cane. A People’s Drugstore general issue old lady cane! There was no fashion statement in it! It was really embaressing…
Jon: So Julia and I dropped out and I came to DC as a joke and that’s where I met Neil and Cristina. Neil’s from Virginia, he’s a college dropout, everyone in this band is a dropout. He, did Bob Bert go to college?
Gerard: Never asked him.
Jon: How old is he?
Gerard: I’m not sure, 30 or 40
Julia: That’s a problem, because we’re all like 20 and 21, and we have an age limit for the band. Bob’s just gonna have to wear a mask like Big Stick.

Gerard: If both the Exploited and the Partisans were drowning and you could only save one of them, which one would you save?

(dead silence)

(OTHER TOPICS DISCUSSED INCLUDED A NEVER-RECORDED PUSSY GALORE SONG CALLED “KIM GORDON SEX SIREN” – – – CONCERNING KIM NOT-SO-HOT ON THE COVER OF OPTION…OTHER SUBJECTS, HATRED OF SPORTS, HUGE MARGINAL MANA INFLUENCE, JIM DE ROGATIS INFLUENCE, HUGE RITUAL TENSION INFLUENCE, WE’RE OUTTA SPACE).