Digger and the Pussycats  - 'Watch Yr Back'  out now

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Reviews

The Neus Subjex - Ohio Fanzine USA

Digger and the Pussycats is a two piece band from Australia that have grabbed my attention like no other. This great band has a sound that many are after, with naturally
distorted guitars that are full, there is no room for a bass anyway. I have come across many two piece bands that have my full appreciation for their craft, but these guys do it just right. Track 4, ’Fashion Victim’, gets the point across of what these guys are all about with lyrics like... ‘Fuck Punk-Rock, Fuck Rock'n'Roll...It's all mind control’... This just might be the best Punk-Rock song ever written, even if they don't claim to be
Punk-Rock. Further on, ‘Coming to get You’ is a anthem to all that have a
drivers license...with lyrics like ‘You drive like a Cunt’ should I say anymore? On another ‘Why wont She Marry Me?’ comes out of left field compared to the rest of this CD. It is more like a 50s love song, But just shows how versatile these guys can be. This is a must have for real music lovers of  the Post-Punk era, or who are still living
in it. Cuz were all fucked anyway!

Dave Fishwick

 

High Bias – Austin, Texas

If the White Stripes weren't so obsessed with media visibility, perhaps they'd sound more like Digger & the Pussycats. This Australian duo vaults a very similar blend of punky rock and crude Americana on "Watch Yr Back", but avoids slickness of any kind. The fried rockabilly of "Catch Us If You Can," poignant country of "Why Won't She Marry Me?" and sneering satire of "Working at a Desk" and "Fashion Victim" leave little room for artifice. The pounding Stooges-like punk rock of "Coming to Get You," "No Vacancy" and "Where Did You Go?" have even lower bullshit factors, revolving around nothing but blunt emotional expression and primal riffs. Crank it up and stay out of the way.

Michael Toland

 

Rip It Up – Australia

Another great album has been and gone with little fanfare if any which is a tragedy in my view.
Watch Yr Back will undoubtedly go down as one of 2005’s finest and should be an essential CD in any music collection. It is easy to hype a band up but following the launch of 2004’s Young, Tight & Alright created an almighty impact in Melbourne, which was packed to the rafters with amphetamine-fuelled blues punk leaving some bands troubled that a two-piece could whip up such a raucous sound.
I wouldn’t even mention other two-piece bands such as The White Stripes or The Black Keys in the same sentence as Digger & The Pussycats because there is no comparison. After witnessing their recent Adelaide show it is easy to be left in ore of such greatness and same could be said for the listening experience  Sam Agostino’s relentless, meaner and tougher guitar lashings backed by the menacing drum assault from Andy Moore makes for an ominous combination. Fashion Victim is a scathing and cutting examination of the shallow and superficial music scene in Melbourne.
The legendary Spencer P Jones lends a hand on guitar injecting plenty of sparks on Coming To Get You, which provides a humorous and accurate observation of incompetent drivers on our roads. Why Won’t She Marry Me is a slow and casual reflection of unrequited love and the lull in proceedings provides the necessary breather before the onslaught continues.
The finale, Where Did You Go, is an epic clocking in at seven minutes and the frenetic rock attack is the best way to remember this underrated band.
Rob Lyon

 

Incendiary Magazine – The Netherlands

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

 

PeaceDogMan - USA

The cover looks like the intro to "Napoleon Dynamite". One track ("Where Did You Go") is ok and the rest is filler crap. This band wants to be a Rip Off Records RAMONES clone but they lack the riffs, guts, and just about everything else. So boring. Makes me wanna listen to THE LEG HOUNDS asap for some serious burger and fries jams. This is just a mess of bad ideas rolled into one. I hear THE RAMONES, I hear THE CRAMPS, I hear a touch of THE DEVIL DOGS, I hear nothing at all. All the songs blend together in a mediocre mess of crap.

This is the type of release that gives ponk rock a band name. If you're going to suck at least do it well. There's underachieving and then there's being lousy. This is lousy. Along with PIZZA CHEW this is the worst punk rock I've heard in years. And I hear bad punk rock all the time. This shit makes me wanna listen to metal non-stop. Actually, I'd rather just keep listening to THE FACES because unlike this turd there's some good tunes in there. Their best song is a bad JIM CARROLL BAND rip off. GRAYLING proved you could rip that tune off and make it good. These guys just make me wanna kill my hearing worse than I already have. And I'm growing deaf in my left ear. Once again (if you missed my point) this is total derivative crap. Time to eat hamburgers and drink cheap beer in peace.

- Two Tub Man      

 

Sleazegrinder.com  USA

Greasings to all you mongrels, mutations, and mountebanks of the Sleaze Nation. Our good pals at Rock Holy have been ranting about Digger & The Pussycats for awhile now, so I'm probably preachin' to the choir by tellin' all you nebulous undesirables to keep yer 'lectric eyes out for their dangerously unfashionable sounds! Like I'm always sayin',  them Aussies know how to rock. I mean, delve deeper than AC/DC & Rose Tattoo and there's a whole nether region of badass real rocknroll groups from the Powder Monkeys to the Hoodoo Gurus, Kim Salmon & The Surrealists, to Charlie Owen! Nobody in the U.S. besides maybe the Lazy Cowgirls or Tommy Rivers & The Raw Ramps could hold a candle to any of the raunchy Australian blues punk scenemakers, least not from where's I'm weepin'! This particular disc even guest stars BEASTS OF BOURBON super legend, Spencer P. Jones, and my sincere advice to you would be to order his last two masterpiece rock elpees from the Spooky label, and if you love 'em as much as I expect you ought to, then, you'll wanna branch out and check into some more stuff from the Spooky Records catalog, including Digger and Gentle Ben, but SPENCER P. JONES is the ACTION. Why can't Americans play fuckin' real rocknroll from the heart no more? Cos they all approach music like sports, they think it's a part of the rat race, a contest. Everybody's got their own faction. To learn more about the last oasis of authentic rocknroll check out the I-94 Bar where all the classy and trashy sounds of the Aussie underground are disseminated by a buncha discerning hepcats like yerself. Thumbs up on Digger & The Pussycats.

'I wish one of these guys would move here to play guitar for me'.
-Pepsi Sheen

 

 

Mindview - Belgium

 

De nieuwe plaat van dit Australische duo mag er best zijn. De muziek is te omschrijven als opgefokte alternatieve rock. Het klinkt soms wat rauw en dat maakt er een echte rockplaat van. Geen afgelikte toestanden, gewoon tien degelijke energetische tracks. Soms doet het mij wat denken aan de muziek van The White Stripes. Het leukste nummer op deze cd is zonder twijfel "Coming to get you", met als refrein de veelzeggende tekst "you drive like a cunt!". Dit is een ideaal plaatje voor in de wagen. (PDW) ZILVER (5/7)

 

Low Cut Magazine - Denmark

2nd album from these awesome Aussies who delivered one of the best r'n'r shows I saw in 2004. And the young raw-as-fuck duo of Sam Agostino (guitar/vocals) and drumming madman Andy Moore are still as agitated as they were on "Young, Tight, And Alright" as they attack fashion and empty relationships. "Coming To Get You"' provided my summer anthem against flashy bad drivers; YEAH, YOU DRIVE LIKE A CUNT! Easily my fave tune of the year so far! Digger & The Pussycat still got that unique snotty blues punk sound but this time they also take a stab at roots rock with the memorable "Why Wont She Marry Me?". Gospel soul and punk rage ends the album with the atmospheric "Where Did You Go?". Our dynamic duo are touring Europe this summer so try to get in on Melbourne's best kept secret if you think all bands sounds the same, if you dont then: YOU'RE ALL FUCKED ANYWAY! ("Thanks Alot"). Another sonic masterpiece from down under!!

Jens

Lucky Magazine - Australia

Some guys start bands “for the music man!” Yeah, yeah whatevs. Other guys start bands to shag a truckload of girls and although I’m sure these monkeys are into the music, I’m sure they’re into the hot sluts too. And Motherfucker, if I was a girl I’d be be all wet and slipping off the chair and telling my boyfriend shit like, “baby, I’m going to see Digger and the Pussycats with the girls tonight you know, I just need some me time….” And then I’d be happy to walk up to them after the show and suck on a beer bottle like a cock and we’d fuck in a flurry of Rock Testosterone and Hair and be I’d be a happy girl. But I’m a boy so, you know, listening to songs like Pickup at Pony just makes me want to get smashed and be single so I don’t have to worry. Hot

 

Beat Magazine – Melbourne, Australia

The new Digger and the Pussycats album Watch Yr Back has many and varied qualities that make it one of the stand out releases of 2005. Based around a minimalist approach of drums and guitar (a formula that's increasingly popular, though not always practiced with the currency of these guys), this is music that is infinitely greater than the some of its parts. Sam Agostino's guitar attack is relentless to the extreme; Andy Moore's drum assault demonstrates once and for all that the drums can be so much more than a time keeping mechanism – in the right hands they are an instrument in their own right.
The album opens with a guitar riff that tantalises like a tasty entree before a gastronomic rock feast; the feast that eventuates is like Mudhoney playing the White Stripes with artistic direction from a punk branded Violent Femmes.
Fashion Victim is a caustic analysis of the superficialities of the Melbourne music scene ("fuck punk/fuck rock'n'roll/it's all mind control"); and while the lyrics of Thanks A Lot might solicit critical analysis, the song itself is just shit hot. The legendary Spencer P Jones provides a spark of lead guitar to Coming To Get You, (an profane, amusing and accurate assessment about incompetent drivers). Why Won't She Marry Me, a casual country strolling lament about unrequited love, is the only track where the band chooses respite over mania but it's so much more than a frustrating filler. The final track, the seven minute rock opus Where Did You Go, has that rare ability to subliminally drag the listener into a frenetic rock maelstrom.
All too often bands eschew humour and fun for an earnest, committed attitude that might see them reach the moderate heights of rock'n'roll fame. The result of this might be some ephemeral national success, but it doesn't contribute to the tangible value of the rock'n'roll arts. Give me a sense of punk irreverence over a set of furrowed brows and imitation Led Zep riffs any day. And for this, give me a loud dose of Digger and the Pussycats.

Patrick Emery

 

The Age EG – Melbourne, Australia.

Rebellion has always been an essential ingredient of rock’n’roll, from Presley to the Pistols, deriving much of its potency from an extended middle finger directed at authority. With a sound that owes much to the Black Keys, the Melbourne duo of singer /guitarist Sam Agostino and singer / drummer Andy Moore shovel on the monster vibe of grinning fury, heading over the top in their use of words guaranteed to piss of the parents of any 16 year old slacker. They capture the energy of early Stooges, without sounding like them. Nor is it some lame, young-loud-and-snotty-post-punk duh-fest; the Diggers’ songs take critical, realistic and sometimes funny look at life: drugs, death and absent friends; clueless fashion victims; growing up in this fearful and violent world. Then there’s the faultless country homage Why Won’t You Marry Me. But they save the best for last – Where Did You Go? Is a seven minute soul-bearing statement of loss and anger that is amazing in its slow-burning, explosive intensity.

Jeff Gorfeld

 

I-94 Bar - Australia

 

Two guys with a bunch of basic songs, a pronounced sense of musical perversity, a guitar, amp and a minimal drum kit. If you think that's not much to base a band on (especially when it carries the odd moniker of "Digger & The Pussycats") you need to get out more. Or listen to their album.

"Watch Yr Back" (is it just me or is the abbreviation in the title a concession to the SMS generation?) are Sam Agostino and Andy Moore, confirmed band sluts last sighted in the Kamikaze Trio, who hail from Melbourne and are soon to re-locate to Europe for a year. Well, Europe's pretty small as far as continents go, and it may not be able to contain this shit.

"Watch Yr Back" is Digger's second album and a quantum leap on the first. Better songs, harder production and a sense that you can do whatever they want when the amp starts to buzz and the snare's all tight.

The "Fashion Victim" CD single was a precursor of a brutally strong album, bereft of tricks and full of surprises. "Coming to Get You" (with its compelling chorus 'You drive like a cunt') mixes it with the comparatively sparse "Why Won't You Marry Me?" (which is perverse in that it's the album's singular nod to anything that sounds remotely commercial).

It's a more accomplished and thought-out album - but that doesn't mean it's in any way contrived or short on songs. It's more a reflection that these two blokes probably don't give a shit what anyone thinks - and that connects with a lot of people who think a lot of current so-called indie rock sucks.

The Barman

 

Blunt Magazine - Australia

Watch Yr Back comes out of the blocks so fast it brings tears to the eyes, as Melbourne twosome Digger and the Pussycats set a blinding early pace for their second full-length album. There is nothing production line about it as evidenced by the fact that the poppiest song on it has the main line “You drive like a cunt” With a fast mean attack, they pummel punk blues to death, and it’s only on track 5 that they show they are actually capable of something other than breakneck intensity. The guitar playing of Sam Agostino is so full and it seams to flow from his fingers in wave after relentless wave. Meanwhile, drummer Andy Moore hammers double-quick tribal beats on his two piece drum kit. See this band live for even more fireworks.

AS

 

Buzz Magazine -  Melbourne

I don’t know about you dear reader, but I enjoy my rock dirty. Not just dirty, but filthy dirty. Luckily, then that ‘Watch Yr Back’ delivers this in spades. Think how the Black Keys would sound after knocking back several stubbies and a truckload of amphetamines and you’re getting close. Standout tracks include the anthemic Fashion Victim – with its diatribe against Tsubi jeans and Louis Vuitton oozing cynical venom – Catch Us If You Can, with a riff that really kicks the album off with a bang and the pulsating epic, Where Did You Go? Ely their raw and gritty sound, which stands out like a sore thumb in a music world that so often adores overproduction and slickness. Sure ‘Watch Yr Back’ can be hit and miss on occasion but don’t be taken aback by the rough edges – just have a listen and enjoy rock the way it really should be done more often.

Ryan Mason