Hosts: Neil & Chris
Duration: ~76 minutes
Release: 23 December 2024
Faster Pussycat's 1987 self-titled debut lands right between glam polish and raw ACDC blues, like someone crossed Guns N' Roses with authentic sleaze and refused to apologize. Chris and Neil dive deep into an album that sounds exactly like kids having a blast with Gibsons, JCM 800s, and Boss DS-1 pedals, capturing the Cat House club scene where Taime Downe and Ricky Rachtman built a kingdom of titties, strippers, and rock and roll without pretense. This isn't Def Leppard spending months perfecting intonation, this is hit record bang gone done, raw energy preserved with cowbells sounding like click tracks and guitar tones so lazy and sharp they define the era.
The album charts at number 97 on Billboard despite touring with Guns N' Roses, Motley Crue, and Alice Cooper, gets dropped by Elektra when grunge arrives, but builds a rabid fanbase who would hunt you down for calling it average. Thirty-six minutes, ten songs, all three and a half minutes each, nothing left on the cutting room floor. Rick Brownd produces with minimal compression letting the space breathe, capturing that punk ethos where you grab your guitar plug it in make that sound be playing in seven weeks maximum. The scene explodes 1987 with Appetite, Girls Girls Girls, Permanent Vacation all dropping simultaneously, LA owning everything before Seattle kicks everyone in the nuts then nu metal finishes the job, but Faster Pussycat stays authentic never trying to be grunge never compromising just doing their thing.
Bathroom Wall epitomizes the whole album for Chris, that rolling guitar melody with lead work layered over top just epic not their biggest single but pure Faster Pussycat. Cathouse the song about the club they owned, sleazy lyrics professional diversion don't go measuring. Don't Change That Song swagger. House of Pain ballad Taime didn't want to write took two years lyrics about dad musician hero kept blowing off family neglected, bouncing melodies back and forth with Greg Steele until boom clicked. No Room for Emotion closing with bluesy swagger bending strings on Gibson proper rock and roll when they play live, totally different beast but tonality fits. The thin production isn't compressed like Empire's 1990 Bob Rock everything squashed, this reveals dynamics needs headphones or turned to eleven to hear the palette, British production American band separating bass vocals not everything compressed together.
This album captures a moment that can never be recreated, the LA scene before cancel culture before camera phones filming everything before social media shutting down the chaos. Glorified in music press documented in real time everyone knew titties and chaos happening and it was just the vibe, bands like Faster Pussycat existing purely for the party with zero pretense zero executive interference just kids on Sunset Strip having the time of their lives. The authentic versus manufactured debate where Def Leppard suffered under Mutt perfecting intonation while Faster Pussycat turned up drunk smashed it out in takes capturing energy that still sounds alive forty years later.
The scene's rapid evolution matters too, watching five-year cycles where classic metal gives way to LA glam gives way to grunge gives way to nu metal, each wave kicking the previous in the nuts, bands either adapting like REM just sailing through or getting crushed despite making equally good music. Faster Pussycat got caught in the grunge wave Elektra dropping them 1992 but Taime refusing to go Seattle doing industrial Newlydeads instead, proving the scene wasn't about following trends but authentic expression. The fanbase staying rabid proves some music transcends commercial success, becomes cult essential that if you get it you're in for life.
Thirty-six years later the album stands as pure document of that sleazy honest swagger, punk energy with metal chops and blues underneath, the sound of not trying too hard just being exactly who you are. In modern sanitized world it's reminder that sometimes best art comes from chaos not control, from Harleys fire and strippers in the studio not producers torturing perfection from broken musicians. The LA scene died but these ten songs preserve it perfectly, bathroom wall phone numbers and all.
Perfect for: Anyone who thinks Appetite gets all the LA scene credit when Faster Pussycat captured the pure sleaze, collectors hunting first pressings that smell right and lived through things, headphone believers who crank volume to eleven hearing dynamics producers stopped compressing, people who understand ACDC Guns N' Roses crossover with bluesy swagger, fans who grabbed imported CDs from record stores ordering two weeks waiting desperately, those who know scenes evolve in five-year cycles and watched grunge nu metal kill predecessors, believers that authentic beats polished every time even charting lower, anyone who loves when cowbells sound like click tracks and guitar tones lazy sharp capturing kids having blast, Cat House regulars who remember Jonesy interrogating every girl Ricky and Taime building kingdom before clubs run their course, vinyl addicts comparing floppy eighties cardboard to modern Metallica represses that won't bend, people who think Motley Crue should stop and David Gilmour had it right just pub acoustic daughter done, fans of bathroom wall phone number sleaze professional diversion measuring nothing, anyone who refuses Seattle sound stayed authentic through grunge wave, seventeen-year band families versus seven-year originals understanding longevity brotherhood, turn it off put it on crank volume go inside believers who know this album demands commitment rewards deeply.