When last we met, Free Kitten was an incredible duolithic experience, a combo that allowed Kim Gordon and Julie Cafritz to turn the goddamn tables on the crotch boys of undergroundism once and for all. Their first release, 1992's Call Now / Straight Up! mini lp, was hailed by wonderjugs from here to Istanbul as an aesthetic bullet shot into the perfect centre of the beast. Writing in Journale Man Tit , Roland Barthes made a particuarly salient point, and one that avoided the cognitive nets of most journalists:"At first we imagine that this record is a jape, something designed to provide amusement and perhaps a sense of profound cultural discomfort amongst those groups at whom its wit is aimed. But one evening, while the record played at a dinner party I was hosting, one of the guests noted that the song "Dick" had a surface similarity to the song "Rodney" on the GTO's classic "Permanent Damage" l.p. Musing upon this I realised that the essence of the surface ..ation was indeed similar, but that the intent and delivery were profoundly differentl. The GTO's were comprised of women whose self stated mission was passive: serving rock musicians as "groupies". Thus their song, about the male groupie, Rodney Bingenheimer, was directed at a factual peer whose status was somewhat above theirs since he was a man in a male dominant society. Free Kitten's members were "stars" inside their own milieu long before this recording. Consequently "Dick" is a humorous "put down" delivered to all potential male groupies from a platform of cultural superiority by two women who refuse to acknowledge the continuous existence of men as anything other than chattel."After the steamroller success of their debut, Free Kitten embarked on a series of tours that took them to Japan, the Western United States (as part of the Lollopalooza package), and every decent bistro within easy strolling distance of their practice loft. For some of these events (and the recording sessions that inevitably ensued) Free Kitten's ranks included Japan's versatile renaissance woman Yoshimi on Drums, voices, and trumpets, and/or Mark Ibold on electric bass guitar. And though it is all but certain that Yoshimi would ditch the Boredoms and Mark would forget Pavement if Free Kitten purred, neither Kim nor Julie are willing to share the limelight with other full time members. "The help is, after all, the help," Julie notes whilst checking the new paint job on the band's Volvo. It takes a special type of mettle to make a Kitten like me. Us, I mean. Kim and I share a certain something that sets us apart, makes us better. It's just how we are. I don't know to describe it, but I know it's rare. Otherwise it would be common. And we are certaimly not that. Perish the thought."Indeed, as this compilation of Free Kitten's first two years of recordings amply displays, they are anything but common. They are Kitten. And they are better than you.Susan Sontag & Joyce Carol Oates, co-presidents, Kitten fan club, NYC 1994
