Digger and the Pussycats  - 'Let's Go To Hospital' 

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Reviews

I-94 Bar - Australia

There's a simple directness and economy of words in a song like "Spanish Jacket" whose only lyric is: "I got a Spanish jacket/I have got cocaine/I've got $40/How much is MDMA?" that sums up Digger & The Pussycats. There's no musical excess baggage - lots of excess, however, and sometimes they play for shock value - but there aren't many bands in Melbourne (or Australia for that matter) playing a better brand of down-and-dirty, street punk rock and roll. Listen to the brace of impossibly Bob Quine-like guitar solos herein and tell me they the song needs more words.

You probably know there are know Pussycats and this band is a two-piece (drums and guitar) that spends more time in residence in Europe than at home in Melbourne. There's talk they're doing a Dame Nellie Melba and bidding us bye-bye with extended tours. I could spend the rest of this review trying to tell you where they fit, musically, but it would be pointless.

But, fuck it, I'll have a go:

It's trashy as hell, poppy in parts and brasher than an AFL footballer laying a platinum Visa card on the bar and telling the staff to do their best to bruise the balance while a brain-dead model snorts fine flake Peruvian off his the top of old fella. Andy, Sam - and for all I know, you - want to be that footballer but can't. And it hurts. But you can laugh ourselves stupid about it. Along with the band who are happy to let us all in on the joke.

This is music for the times - those times being between 1 and 5am in some godforsaken hellhole bar where excess amounts of cheap booze and who-knows-what-else have sucked the soul into a black vortex that makes the Bermuda Triangle look like a kiddie paddle pool. Only the rising of the sun can save you because even bar-owners with the pallor of Dracula have to sleep sometime.

Lots of humour here with bursts of blunt brilliance like "Liar, Liar", "Cut You Loose", "I'm So Bored With You" rushing past like extras' names on a Neighbours casting sheet. The difference is that when Sam slurs "I want to be your slut" in the song of the same name it's a lot less forgettable and it's not likely to land him a gig on a TV soap.

This is their third and album and arguably their best. If you're not wise to the ways of Digger & The Pussycats, we're not leaving you many excuses not to make amends, are we? - The Barman

 

 

Mess and Noise - Australia

We all know this is by way of an indefinite auf weidersehn, don’t we? So there’s no need to dwell on the fact. And anyway, they are playing more farewells than Nellie Melba, but if you manage to miss those, well, you’ll have this fine item to remember them by. Recorded pretty much live in the studio, with no extra equipment and minimal overdubs, it’s a true take on their live set and presence.

The edge that these two have always had over other duos is their decision not to work from a blues or roots base. Sam Agostino’s much loved, well worn 'Jealous Again' t-shirt gives a telling clue as to where they’re coming from - the energy of early Black Flag, with relentless, if basic, beats and assertive guitar that adds rhythm as well as filling in melody and lead. Tight and all right is true. Even with a format stripped down to such basic elements, the pair still manage plenty of changes in mood and pace - making the technically difficult sound easy. And while they don’t take themselves too seriously, they don’t really play it for laughs, either.

Despite the presence here of a track called 'ASIO', they are markedly less political than in their Kamikaze Trio incarnation, dealing with more personal stuff. Although you probably shouldn’t believe a word of it, except the title track, which details an honest account of the various injuries, treatments and indignities undergone in the past year or so, without making a 'woe is me’ concept album out of their ordeals.

Coming To Get You has already proved they can swear like troopers, and they keep it up here with 'Liar Liar' and 'I Want To Be Your Slut', which is particularly inventive and shows just why their “Pussyacts” nickname is so well deserved. It’s (ahem) interesting to compare Sam’s ideal life as detailed in 'Slut' with Andy’s 'Kept Man', which follows it. The album closes with a short extra track of spoken credits and thank yous, included on the CD so as not to disturb the excellent cover artwork comic/booklet with any added print. Like Digger & the Pussycats themselves, its an odd idea, but it works.

by Trevor Block

 

Time Off – Brisbane, Australia

Arcade Fire, among others, exemplify how contemporary music can be made perfect by densely layering an array of sounds into works of epic beauty. Flip that coin, reduce the footy team-like numbers to a mere duo, and in the right hands, such as those of Melbourne’s Digger & The Pussycats, just as impressive results can ensue. Further building on the impressive credentials of their 2005-released second album Watch Yr Back, the duo of Sam Agostino and Andy Moore up the ante with Let’s Go To Hospital, another ten blistering cuts of unhinged garage rock n’ roll.

Chock-a-fricken’ block with relentlessly driving riffs, primal back beats, brilliantly scratchy solos and hollered, everyman vocals, LGTH represents the unadulterated, bullshit-free passion upon which rock’n’roll, and later punk, was born. Very solid from opener ‘Spanish Jacket’ right through to the closing title track, weak moments are nonexistent on this album. Tracks like ‘Liar, Liar’, ‘ASIO’, ‘Cut You Loose’ and ‘Kept Man’ are slightly rougher than those on Watch Yr Back, while ‘What You Say, What You Do’ melds melody to the band’s mayhem. And you don’t have to go past the brilliant ‘Oh Yeah’ to see how the band intelligently use space to accentuate their energetic bursts.

If more young bands had the spirit of Digger & The Pussycats, Australian music would be miles ahead of where it currently is. Here’s hoping.

(Justin Grey)

 

Beat Magazine - Melbourne, Australia

If you need to understand why Digger and the Pussycats chose a hospital journey as the theme for the third Digger album, skip straight to the concluding song on the album (stopping short of the last hidden track, in which Digger drummer Andy Moore does his best American voiceover in lieu of album liner credits). In mid 2006 Moore was victim of appendicitis – the catalyst for the diagnosis being, of all things, a dodgy shoulder – while guitarist Sam Agostino checked himself into hospital "feeling like a tramp" after acute pressure on his sciatic nerve proved even too much for his masculine bravado to ignore. Despite the pain, the duo only wanted to "get back on the street getting pissed with my friends" – an objective that's probably shared by many of the many PFO (pissed-fell-over) patients who clog up the public health system every Saturday night.

But Let's Go to Hospital is more than a tale of medical woe. In typical Digger fashion, Let's Go to Hospital is riddled with humorous commentary on the rich tapestry of life that Agostino and Moore observe during their national and international journeys. From smartly-dressed drug purchasers (Spanish Jacket) to the limitations of domestic existence (Kept Man) to the self-indulgent obsession of middle class with government surveillance (ASIO), Digger is in classic form. Beyond the observational, there's some emotional insights, tinged with the subjective and sexual tone that Digger rarely shy away from – Cut You Loose is the latest incarnation of the tried and tested rock'n'roll disdain for settling down (cue Hank Williams' Ramblin' Man) and Love Cuts is precisely the sort of gutter filth Family First would like to see eradicated from popular consumption. The music itself hits the mark better than one of Moore's miscued speaker dives, and Agostino pulls out more driving riffs than a hotted up SS Commodore lovingly patronised by a bunch of suburban hoons.

Let's Go to Hospital is probably the last full length recording we'll see from Digger for a while. Given the physical and emotional pain that underpins its creation, the least anyone can do is to get a copy and crank it up til the neighbours call the authorities. Oh, and it kicks fuckin' arse as well.

PATRICK EMERY

 

Vice Magazine - Australia

RATING 9 out of 10

Who are Digger and the Pussy Cats? Digger and the Pussy Cats are dirty, trashy, filthy rock and roll of the best kind and if you don’t like it then don’t tell your girlfriend because she will dump you for a two week fuck fling with a real man who has a beard, ripped 501’s and bourbon on his cornflakes.  With chainsaw raw vocals spitting out lyrics like “I’ve got a Spanish jacket, I’ve got cocaine, I’ve got $40, how much is MDMA…” the only thing wrong with this album is that you might not be able to sit through the whole thing before jumping up off your chair and running into the city to go get down and dirty with the creatures of the night. Where are my shoes?

by I’LL KISS YOU FOR A DOLLAR