What’s in a name? In the case of a band, their chosen name really can mean a lot. Take Perfect Pussy for example. The band obviously knows the power of a memorable name, even though it makes it difficult to do a Google image search on them. A name like that sends a message before you’ve even heard a note played. Fat White Family is another example. When I first saw the band’s name in print, I imagined a horrible sounding band, something you might find on a sidestage at the Warped Tour. Luckily, some good writeups from reputable sources and comparisons to early Pink Floyd and The Fall made me curious to see what they were all about. And thanks to the folks behind St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival, I had the chance to see both bands in one location.
Despite my reservations about the band’s name, Fat White Family totally blew me away with an impressively noisy, psychedelic, shambolic performance of songs off their debut album Champagne Holocaust. Singer Lias Saoudi’s got a bit of David Yow in him, with his confrontational style and penchant for taking off his clothes. He also stuck his hand down the back of his pants for a bit, which had me worried he was going to touch someone in the audience with a poo finger, but happily that did not come to pass. They seem to be getting a bit of hype from the British press lately and played the NME showcase later on in the day. That kind of push often means a quick burnout for bands, but here’s hoping Fat White Family sticks around for awhile.
More heavily hyped and also playing a ton of shows at SXSW this year was Syracuse noise rock band Perfect Pussy, who took to the stage a couple of hours after Fat White Family. “We tried to play this same set two hours ago and we blew like four speakers and they pulled the plug on us. This is our last show at SouthBy. Thanks for having us. We’re Mötley Crüe,” said vocalist Meredith Graves as they took to the stage. And true to her word, the band did seem to blow out something shortly after they launched into their first number. I’m pretty sure Graves’ microphone wasn’t totally working for the majority of their set; it didn’t matter. This was a powerhouse performance, even though it lasted 15 minutes at the most.