Nashville Pussy / Guitar Wolf at Memory Lanes Block Party, Minneapolis (26 May 2019)

Making Memorial Day Great Again –

Living up to their tour name (Slash and Burn at Every Turn), Nashville Pussy and Guitar Wolf closed out the annual two-day Memory Lanes Block Party in the bowling alley’s south Minneapolis parking lot, with a loud and raucous roar on a weather-perfect holiday evening.

With over two dozen acts spread over the two-day festival, the event was this concert year’s best band-per-buck value by far, at a mere five dollars per day for entrance and the vibe was friendly and neighborhood-like, with a happy crowd that featured several tattooed, pierced and leathered, in homage to the bands performing.

We’re longtime fans of Japanese trio and masters of jet rock ‘n roll Guitar Wolf, (members Seiji, drummer Tōru, and new bassist Gotz) having written about them since 2007 and seeing them most recently in late 2016 and whose amalgam of Ramones, Link Wray, punk, garage, and rockabilly is irresistible, with their live performances unforgettable.

Their thirteenth and most recent release is this year’s LOVE&JETT (Guitarwolf Records, issued by Third Man) and the band started their forty-five minute set (all dressed in head-to-toe black leather, no matter the temperature) with Seiji and Gotz each chugging a beer quickly to get started, with a small mosh pit quickly forming near the left side of the stage.

Their music is snarling, fast, and unapologetic, (for example, the new record is 10 songs over just 26 minutes) getting fans frothing early with the new, ‘Sex Jaguar’ and with Seiji pointing to the sky during 2002’s ‘UFO Romantics’, it wouldn’t have been the least surprising to have something come down and beam them up.

New bassist Gotz proved as frantic as his predecessors, half swallowing his mic and diving head first into the pit area, to be surfed about, and the title track of the new album, anchored by a fast Tōru bass drum was played late in the set, before one last flash leveled anyone in the crowd whose mouth was not already agape.

Atlanta’s Nashville Pussy took to the stage (after a brief delay in starting with a between-acts bass monitor issue) in support of last year’s cheekily named Pleased to Eat You (on earMUSIC), still proudly flying their freak flag of psychobilly/cowpunk hard rock with a bold and rolling fifty-five minute set that, in outlaw-like fashion, stretched past the city-mandated curfew time potentially inviting a police-imposed shutdown, due to the delayed start.

The band is led by husband-wife duo Blaine Cartwright and guitarist Ruyter Suys, along with new drummer Ben Thomas and bassist Bonnie Buitrago, whose hair was nearly as lion-maned as Suys.

“Who wants some Pussy?” Cartwright asked after tuning up, beginning the set with 2005’s ‘Pussy Time’, in case anyone in the crowd didn’t realize what time it actually was. Suys and Buitrago were flowing masses of head banging hair and the band, realizing they were behind schedule, barely took a breath between the first several songs.

“This is the coolest city in America” Cartwright declared before going into 2014’s ‘Pillbilly Blues’. “That was a sarcastic song” Cartwright clarified after playing the new ‘We Want a War’. “You kids don’t go to war now, stay in school” and their version of a 1996 Steve Earle tune, was even more stomping than the original.

Cartwright (presumably thirsty) poured the entire contents of a tallboy into his black hat then chugged it all quickly, to rave applause. With time growing short and a curfew time looming, two songs on the setlist were replaced by a Contours cover (made famous by J. Geils Band) and things ended with 2014’s ‘‘Til the Meat Falls Off the Bone’ (that isn’t exactly about BBQ) and a thrash-y ‘Go Motherf**ker Go’ from their 1998 full-length debut, with an added crashing crescendo end.

“Tell me that wasn’t the highlight of your week!”, festival day host and local public access star Ian Rans raved as the band departed the stage. 

They came, they saw, and they conquered– Nashville Pussy, Guitar Wolf, and the numerous support bands, all slashing and burning at every turn, to make Memorial Day great again.

(click on any photo below to enlarge and see full image)