Pussy Galore “Feel Good About Your Body” released on or around this day, December 21st, 1985. Today is also the anniversary of Pussy Galore’s first show ever, at the University of Maryland (that info most excellently provided by Pop-Catastrophe). Feel Good About Your Body is a 4-song EP on Shove Records, Pussy Galore’s own label, and Adult Contemporary Recordings, another DC-based micro-label that only put a handful of releases from ’84- present including another Pussy Galore single and a few albums by Peach of Immortality (like Pussy Galore, a noise-rock band). As one would expect, the songs are noisy with lots of distortion and off-kilter rhythms. “Die Bitch” has buzz-sawed guitar and “drums” that are more like hammers pounding on metal (Bob Bert wasn’t in the band yet but clearly was destined to join based on Pussy Galore’s rhythm section aesthetic). “HC Rebellion” has Julia Cafritz taking spoken-word lead vocals (read from letters in the Maximum Rock ‘n Roll zine) over a droning raga-styled guitar hook and then layers and layers are added into the cacophony. Jon Spencer and Cafritz share vocals – more like shouts and screams – on “Constant Pain” (the only lyrics are “constant pain”) and “Car Fantasy” is all atonal, feedback and off-key droning.

Pussy Galore recorded the EP at the Laundry Room in October 1985 with Barrett Jones for $150 (the Laundry Room was his house that doubled as a recording studio). In an article on The Stranger website in 2002 Barrett said the recording process was hellish:

“First, Spencer was never happy with the takes. “He’d say, ‘That sounds too good–make it sound worse,’” Jones remembers. Then there was Julia Cafritz, the other singer at the time. She bragged about smoking three packs of cigarettes a day, and filled the house with a dense cloud of smoke. And Pussy Galore loved noise–loud, obnoxious noise. “God, I hated them for that,” admits Jones.

To the chagrin of Jones’ roommates, the band had a seemingly endless supply of noisemaking tools. They’d power up a rusty chainsaw for one song and hammer a steel oil drum on another. They broke glass and banged on sheet metal for hours. They also liked guitar feedback, and would spend forever perfecting just the right squeal. Finally, four days later, his ears assaulted to the point of bleeding and his legs cramped from crouching in the control-room closet, Jones was finished with Pussy Galore’s album. Needless to say, Jones and his home studio soon found another location.”

It’s not easy listening but since it is, I believe, Spencer’s first recorded output, Feel Good About Your Body provides an interesting glimpse into the evolution of his sound and style.