Faster Pussycat

The Hollywood metal outfit Faster Pussycat, whose moniker came from a Russ Meyer film, delivered their debut record in 1987. Commercial success crested for the sleazy group two years afterward on the strength of the gold album Wake Me When It's Over and its Top 40 single "House of Pain." Whipped, the 1992 follow-up, scraped number 90 on the charts before vanishing, as the alternative rock wave had altered the hard rock audience and left no room for Faster Pussycat’s trashy glam metal. Once the band dissolved, frontman Taime Downe started the industrial-goth act the Newlydeads with Kyle Kyle, ex-member of the former L.A. glam pop band Bang Tango, and the project issued three albums: the self-titled debut in 1997, the 1999 remix collection Re-Bound, and Dead End in 2001. Renewed American interest in ’80s glam pop during the early 2000s prompted Faster Pussycat to reform for touring, yet the accompanying release was not new material but Between the Valley of the Ultra Pussy, a set of prior songs reworked as techno remixes in which Downe alone participated. Their first live album, Front Row for the Donkey Show, appeared in 2009.