VIA PRESS RELEASE | Harry Nilsson and John Lennon named this 1974 album Pussy Cats in reaction to the bad press the pair had received while carousing around Los Angeles with the Hollywood Vampires (Keith Moon, Alice Cooper, Ringo Starr et al.). Of course, their contrition just went so far; underneath the table on the front cover were the children’s letter blocks “D” and “S” flanking a rug, spelling D-RUG-S. And the music, in its own way, was as uncompromising as any either artist had ever made.
Both artists had left commercial considerations far behind; Nilsson was fresh (or not so fresh) from the disappointing reaction to A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night, while Lennon, deep into his “Lost Weekend” split with Yoko Ono, had just (barely) survived the nightmarish Rock ‘n’ Roll sessions with Phil Spector. Predictably, the Pussy Cats sessions were a revolving party featuring such luminaries as Moon, Starr, and Willie (The Lion) Smith (!) as well as super sidemen Jesse Ed Davis, Danny Kortchmar, and Jim Keltner, playing an ostensibly light-hearted mix of oldies and originals.
But underlying the generally genial proceedings was a thinly-disguised layer of desperation and self-loathing, breaking through on the almost punk rock version of “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and the revealing Nilsson originals “Don’t Forget Me” and “All My Life.”
Only adding to the rawness of the recording was the fact that Nilsson blew out his vocal cords halfway through the sessions, a fact he kept from Lennon. The result: an album that in a weird kind of way belongs with Neil Young’s roughly contemporaneous Tonight the Night as a chronicle of wasted ‘70s rock star blues.
Pussy Cats’ first-ever vinyl reissue comes in a “six-page” gatefold jacket sporting lyrics just like the original packaging. This “hardwood” vinyl edition is limited to 1,500 copies.
