Although they’re from Down Under, it’s obvious to me that they’ve spent some time behind a Volvo on the Dutch highways.
Although they’re from Down Under, it’s obvious to me that they’ve spent some time behind a Volvo on the Dutch highways.
I was always a good kid at school. So good in fact, the only time I was ever summoned to the headmaster’s office was because I’d watched a fight. Note that I wasn’t actually in a fight, I was just there when one happened. I never threw a punch, I simply watched two lads get off the school bus, walk into an alley way and batter the living daylights out of each other. It was good fun. The outcome was as expected, the lunatic won, but little did I realize that sitting on a wall watching two idiots square up to each other, outside of school time I may add, would result in me being summoned to the headmaster’s office and being threatened with expulsion. For what? Sitting on a wall holding a school bag? It was a strange occurrence I know and a bizarre and fairly uninteresting tale at that, but it was the only time I was in trouble at school, so I don’t have much experience to draw upon. As such, I doubt that Digger and the Pussycats would have much in common with me.
You see, I get the feeling that, if Digger and Co. had been pupils at my school, you wouldn’t have found them spending their lunchtimes in the library, no, you’d have found them round the back of the swimming pool, smoking cigarettes and beating up first years. Where do I get this idea from? Well, look at the cover of this album. It resembles the inside of a truant’s geography book. There aren’t any drawings of the water cycle, rock formations or cumulus clouds, instead you get a bunch of bones, knives, eyeballs and severed tongues. I kind of like it. There’s a picture of Karloff in full Frankenstein’s monster make up, which is cool and there are at least two chimpanzees, which is just marvelous. Who doesn’t love chimpanzees?
Even so, I don’t think I’d have gotten along with them. They obviously think they’re pretty cool for starters, which I never did, and they like punk rock music, which I never had much time for as a kid. Now, however, I like myself a bit of punk, especially when it’s got some humour involved and Digger and the Pussycats are quite a funny bunch. The music is your basic West Coast punk racket, although they’re from Australia and I think there’s a fair amount of Gn’R’s Appetite For Destruction influencing it, but it’s the lyrics that just make me smile. How can you not enjoy a song that revolves around the line, "You drive like a cunt?" Although they’re from Down Under, it’s obvious to me that they’ve spent some time behind a Volvo on the Dutch highways. Play Coming To Get You as you’re driving round the A10 on a weeknight and I swear you’ll feel better.
Catch Us If You Can is a fiery opener. It’s silly and immature, but there’s a good sound here, its not just a bunch of kids making a noise, there’s an actual tune there and it’s worth lending your ears too, which is better than most of the Punk stuff floating around at the moment. Fashion Victim is one of my favourites, as it just makes me laugh out loud. "Hey baby I love your look / Did you find it all in a book?"
Pick Up At Pony has the type of swagger that The Stranglers had when they were young, and all it’s about is going to a club and pulling a bird. Not very original, but there’s something rather charming about it. Working At A Desk is the type of song that only a rebellious little teenager could come up, but it’s the type of song that would really annoy parents the world over, so it deserves some credit. Unfortunately whichever one of Digger and Co. wrote Why Won’t She Marry Me? deserves a good kicking. It’s a nice little country tinged blues racket, the type of thing that Evan Dando does so well, but it has no business being on here. Lets face it, those kids that hung out behind the swimming pool were there because they were cool. How many of those did I ever see blubbering about losing a girl? None. Never happened. It would simply not be allowed and this song should not be allowed on this album, it’s too much fun for this type of shoe gazing, wistful nonsense.
Aside from that slip though, the album is a blast. It’s loud, it’s thrashy and it’s as immature as a teenager at Christmas, but you’ll get a good kick out it. Just get this album, it’s not big and it’s most certainly not that clever, but it’s a lot of fun. Hang out with the cool kids for a while and learn how to write in text language and maybe, just maybe, Digger wl hv yr bck 2.
Words : Damian Leslie
Check www.undertow-recordings.com for details on where to buy this album.