Perfect Pussy Will Divide You

Before going to see Perfect Pussy play in Toronto this past weekend, I went to a dinner party with a 98-year-old great-grandmother. As we sat at the dinner table she asked me what I’d be doing later in the night and I told her I’d be going to see a band. When she asked me what the band was called I changed the subject. I couldn’t bring myself to say the words “Perfect Pussy” in front of a woman who lived through two world wars.

Perfect Pussy is a divisive band. It’s right there in the name. A “perfect pussy” is a thing of incredible beauty, or it’s an incredibly crude thing depending on where you stand and how you hear. Their debut EP, I Have Lost All Desire For Feeling, has singer Meredith Graves’ vocals so buried in the mix that her cutting lyrics are unintelligible. The instruments sound like they were recorded in a bathroom. They’re not a pop band and they’re not trying to impress you, and if you’re not into hardcore you might not be into it.

I arrived at the venue in time to catch the opening bands who played for 30 minutes and 20 minutes respectively. We were at The Silver Dollar, a bar located between a homeless shelter and a one-star hotel where you can sleep where James Earl Ray slept after shooting Martin Luther King. It’s a venue bookended by a history of sadness, violence and survival. Despite this, these buildings stand in the same neighborhood as one of the most expensive universities in Canada, the University of Toronto. There is an ongoing battle to tear these buildings down to build student housing but the city, thankfully, won’t allow it. This was the place to find Perfect Pussy.

Perfect Pussy took the stage at midnight as soon as the opening band packed up. There was barely enough time between sets to smoke a full cigarette. Everybody filed in as soon as the noise came through the speakers and the room was instantly packed.

It was immediately apparent that singer Meredith Graves thrives on being on stage as she smiled and danced like a sprite or a painfully self-aware, hardcore raised Natalie Imbruglia. Then she grabbed the mic, pointed at the crowd with a pent up nerve waiting a lifetime to scream at them. And then she screamed and everything changed. She was possessed and accusatory and beautiful and every indie kid in the room wished they’d broken her heart. She’s a strong front woman and a major appeal of this band.

Toronto crowds can be notoriously unresponsive. While people mostly stood around watching there was a group of people at the front of the stage pointing their fingers back at Meredith in solidarity as they shook. The band were fighting with their instruments and Meredith was fighting with the crowd as she contorted her body in anger and victory.

The room was so condensed it took me twenty minutes before my camera could find a focus. By the time I was ready to take one last photo Meredith said, “Thanks, you guys are really nice,” and the show was over. Perfect Pussy had torn through a flurry of eight songs in twenty minutes without time to breathe.

Most people seemed satisfied. There were a few people in the room who looked confused and disappointed. A friend standing next to me asked if that was it and when I told her, “Looks like yes,” she said, “No, they must be playing more.” We stood watching the band pack up their gear, unsure whether to stay or go as the house music came on.

I found Meredith and we talked about the length of Perfect Pussy’s set. She told me that they’ve been in fights with disappointed bar owners through the tour who didn’t know anything about the band they’d booked. She stressed this point:

“Don’t be surprised when a hardcore band plays for only 15 minutes. There is no band on Earth that I want to see play for more than 15 minutes… If you can’t do everything you need to do in 15 minutes, rethink what you’re doing. It’s how we do things.”

Perfect Pussy’s first full length, Say Yes to Love, will be released in March. Judging by their recent coverage, there's a good chance that their audience will further grow and expand. The question becomes, will Perfect Pussy choose to isolate a new audience in order to stay true to their hardcore beliefs? Or will they shake off their traditions and strive to please a new audience that is interested but hesitant?