Why Perfect Pussy Are The Biggest Fuck You To Punk

It’s 2014 and nothing is just “good” or “okay” anymore. Either something is so staggeringly amazing that it’s the only thing you need for the rest of your life, or it’s so bad that you want to be sick in your own eyes and then set them on fire. Thanks to social networking slowly transforming everyday life into a form of entertainment, the internet is now full of people who are constantly reduced to tears by a houmous sandwich, describe gifs as “unreal” and LITERALLY DIE after watching anything that features Matthew McConaughey. We approach music in the same way; plucking bands out of nowhere, hyping them up to an impossibly high standard and piling a level of expectation on their shoulders before they even start. More often than not, the expectation is too much and they die in a hype wasteland next to Wavves and Odd Future. The industry moves on to “the next big thing”.

These are all thoughts I turn over in my head as I stand at the back of the The Dome in Tufnell Park. The room is small, square and open-plan with wooden floorboards and white drapes over the windows. Someone tells me it reminds them of their high school prom and I agree. I am about to watch Perfect Pussy for the first time.

Despite being active for little over a year and dragging up some astonishingly NSFW Google search results in the process, Syracuse five-piece Perfect Pussy have been everywhere. Literally, in the sense that they’ve been on tour pretty much since their formation, and figuratively as one of Rolling Stone’s must-see acts at SXSW 2014, NME’s Radar Band of the Week, and Pitchfork’s “boldest new rock bands.” Couple that with stories from numerous friends who had seen them on previous tours and, by all accounts, I am about to have a life-altering experience. As a fan of their debut album Say Yes To Love and the preceding I Have Lost All Desire For Feeling EP (both of which were critically acclaimed across the board), I desperately want that to happen. Having seen footage online of them playing a pretty poor live show, I am very concerned it won’t.

It’s pretty hard to get a decent recording of a punk/hardcore set, and literally every single example of Perfect Pussy playing is like 2% bass, 98% feedback, and a whole lot of vocalist Meredith Graves struggling to project anything beyond speaking voice. Beloved as they are, every YouTube video of them playing live is flooded with comments like “this is awful”, “I don’t know what’s going on” and “I guess it's true, punk rock never dies, it just passes out face first in its own filth and then wakes up to put out an album”. After thirty seconds of them being on stage, though, it becomes evident that every single one of those comments was left by somebody who has never been to a Perfect Pussy show.

To understand how intense their live performance is, you need to be there. It’s as simple as that. It’s still all overwhelming bass, feedback and strained vocals, but that’s exactly what makes it work and it’s not until all that energy is blowing your hair back that you understand why. Meredith Graves's movements, her facial expressions and her intensity are what carry the whole performance, maybe even more so than the music. A part of me thinks she could stand on a stage in absolute silence and still deliver a soul-shattering performance.

There is so much pressure placed on bands to be perfect, to match the level of expectation built by the shitstorm of media attention. This is especially true, if not more so, when the band in question is fronted by a woman. There’s a whole new level of added attention placed on female singers simply for being an “other” in a typically male dominated arena. As Mish Way recently pointed out in an op-ed for Pitchfork, the pressure is exhausting. But this is where the real strength lies with both Perfect Pussy and support band/long time PP tour pals Joanna Gruesome.

From calling out Sun Kil Moon and his language of male violence to pointing out what we really mean when we label a female-fronted band “twee”, both Meredith Graves and Joanna Gruesome vocalist Alanna McArdle have wrestled very publicly with the issues facing women and the unfair pressures put on them. Unless you’re a massive idiot, you don’t call your band “Perfect Pussy” without good reason. In this case, it represents all the shit thrown at women in regards to their appearance or bodies, which is all too common for women in music. When asked about the name in an interview, Meredith said “It's like, "Are you going to call me a cunt? Are you going to tell me I'm ugly? Well, here's my band name - do your worst, motherfucker."

It’s not that either band exists purely as a vehicle for political dialogue, but the fact that they exist, are doing well, and have vocalists who are utilising their position as a space from which to address the issues they care about is incredibly powerful and unfortunately rare.

Both Meredith and Alanna jump in on a track from the other’s set, planting thank you kiss on one another after each turn. Insignificant as that may seem, It’s probably the only time I’ve ever been to a punk show and witnessed something that honestly affectionate. Typically, all the band members are male and the thank you will come in the form of a chest bump, back slap or strong-gripped hug. It makes a difference. It says “women are welcome here”, not “we’re all going to dive on top of each other and if you don’t like it you can stand at the back or leave”.

Perfect Pussy close their set and the guitarists start feeding back, creating waves of noise that lasted for what could have been anywhere between five seconds and 15 minutes. The drummer starts packing his kit away. Meredith starts hitting herself in the chest with her mic over and over again, each hit landing harder than the one before. At first, I assume the thudding noises are so loud because of how high the mic is turned up, but it as time drags on and on, it becomes evident that the noise is so loud because she is hitting herself really fucking hard. People in the crowd start to wince. It becomes almost unbearable to watch (you can see the results here). Meredith stops, says “thanks, you’re all really nice” and then leaves the stage.

So, are Perfect Pussy the perfect band? Of course not. They are even rougher around the edges live than they are on record, but Perfect Pussy are masters of "feeling" - something often lost in the clinical self-consciousness of the current musical landscape. They are flawed and harsh and utterly unapologetic. They can’t be perfect, because they are unconditionally real.

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