As we head closer to actual content returning from Summer Vacation (otherwise known as Summer-Work-Massive-Not-Vacation), here’s a couple of things from the Patreon connected to the Cheshire Kittens. First up — a discography!
As of this writing, the Cheshire Kittens have had twelve albums, two live albums (one a double-album) and one box set compilation. For those trying to place these albums in the Justice Wing timeline — they bridge the transition from Justice Wing: Halcyon Days through Justice Wing: Apocalypse Agenda and finally to Justice Wing: In Nadir. To be more specific — the albums from Cheshire Kittens through Dark After Grey are released before the Apocalypse Agenda, and Just a Sling and beyond are released after it. Just a Sling is released at about the same time as Todd Chapman’s article “Interviewing Leather.”
Before their first album as the Cheshire Kittens, G-Listening and Zephyr Lish released some EPs as ‘Litterkin,’ with Esther Jowls and Allons-Zed playing on the last EP they released that way. None of these are considered albums by the band, though actual copies of the EPs are collectors’ items.
- Cheshire Kittens: An album put together to sell after gigs and to act as a demo. As you can probably imagine, this is an extremely rough (and pretty rare) album. Put together on a shoestring and sounds it. The Kittens get pretty embarrassed when ‘Enough Porpoises’ or ‘Dead Dong the Witch is Ding’ gets pulled out around them. ‘Ditchdigger Supreme’ is rough but shows their later promise, and got a reworking for their box set. “Knock at the Door” was re-released on Roundup.
- Antagony
- Knock at the Door
- No Means Fuck
- Enough Porpoises
- Ditchdigger Supreme
- I Keep It Now
- Clock-Knocker
- Dead Dong the Witch is Ding
- Roundup: The first proper Cheshire Kittens album. Roundup includes a few songs from Cheshire Kittens redone in a proper studio setting. The first album on the X-F-G label and the first work by the band with Cosette Wight being credited in a production and management role.. Often forgotten about — many people think Transparent was the first Cheshire Kittens album. However, ‘Knock At The Door’ is considered one of the most chilling songs G-Listening has written, and most of the Kittens have affection for ‘Fuck You Uncle Ben,’ which got a reworking for the Box Set.
- Who Said What?
- Knock at the Door
- Antagony
- Polluted Marrow
- Thank You For Slitting
- Watercress and Nails
- You Haven’t Done
- Fuck You Uncle Ben
- Transparent: (Grammy: Best Rock Album) The breakthrough album for the Cheshire Kittens, and still considered by many to be their best. The monster hit was ‘Transparent,’ but several other songs — ‘Between Ticks,’ ‘Another Basket of Bread’ and ‘Acrid Bikini’ in particular — perennially make critics’ lists. Certified Double-Platinum.
- Transparent (Grammies: Best Rock Song, Best Rock Performance)
- Sharp Disgrace
- Innuendoed
- Between Ticks
- Nail Gun Sitting Fine
- Bitterness and Harmony
- Another Basket of Bread
- National Lifeline
- Acrid Bikini
- Dark after Grey (Grammy: Album of the Year (Strong/Lish, Zed, Wight)) Considered a more than solid second release, including the coveted Album of the Year and Song of the Year Grammies. ‘Quarterhorse’ was the first major song by Allon-Zed, and featured a complexity of style lacking in other Kittens’ work. The album itself is considered a masterwork of technical production, and was the first point where Cozy Tight’s efforts were being recognized.The Kittens were touring in support of this album when they played the now-legendary Thunderfest where they were attacked and injured on stage but insisted on finishing their set before hospitalization. Bootleg videos of the attack and the set have circulated on the internet for years. The first song they launched into after the attack was ‘Quarterhouse.’ Some feel this may have influenced the Recording Academy unduly.
There was pressure from X-F-G label executives to ‘include a love song’ and ‘add sexy’ to the album. This turned into the sardonic ‘That Guy – He Ain’t Bad’ and ‘What-Fucking-Ever.’ Tensions over label pressures and pressures from their managing agency (Endeavor) boiled over, and Cosette ‘Cozy Tight’ Wight successfully both got them released from their contracts with creative control and countersued Endeavor into bankruptcy.
- Quarterhorse (Grammy: Song of the Year (Allon-Zed)
- Serrated Melancholy
- Parasitic Grief
- Immortalation
- Reluctant Exultation
- Stations of the Crosswalk
- That Guy – He Ain’t Bad
- Persistent Overquality
- Letter to the Officer Assigned to my Case (Grammy Nomination: Best Rock Song (Strong/Lish))
- What-fucking-ever
- Reluctant Exultation: The Cheshire Kittens Live: A live album recorded over the course of the tour in support of the Dark After Grey album. Features a performance of “Acrid Bikini” from the Thunderfest that happened just before the Vicars rushed the stage shooting at (and successfully shooting) the Cheshire Kittens, with a few screams and obscenities marking that attack before the audio cuts off and the new (studio) song “Kiss of the .38” plays. That song has not to this date been performed live, and is considered unnerving at best, though that helped propel the album to double-platinum.
- Kiss of the .38
- Just a Sling: A more directly political album, with the title track (‘Just a Sling’) taking on the concept of Justice Wing and heroes more directly. Having been a founding act on Metal Wings and with control over their music, more experimental work found its way onto the album, including ‘Queenfisher” and ‘The Air Up Here.” The almost plaintive “I Like Christmas Too,” a song about exclusion during a time of the year meant to be inclusive, topped many critics’ best-of lists that year. Its lack of consideration at the Grammys was considered an intentional snub of Cozy Tight and Metal Wings, which ironically led to a backlash and increased sales.
- Just a Sling
- Firehouse Sale
- How Does That Work?
- Suffocation Yearning
- Tasting Midnight
- The Air Up Here
- Burn Down Lake Woebegone
- Queenfisher
- I Like Christmas Too
- Mordant Whisper
- Ghosts: A more symphonic and lush album, with orchestration added to several pieces. Many Kittens fans didn’t care for this direction, but several songs were still very well received, with “Dear Mother Why?”, “Poor Mister Nickelsworth,” and especially “(It All Comes Back to) Underwear” hitting big. The last in particular was well received as a balance of the Kittens’ core message, their musicality, and a sense of both fun and pathos — the practical side of being a parahuman, with all the little annoyances, played for laughs but culminating in a bleak total: at the end of the day, it’s hard to buy underwear that won’t catch fire or tear or get torn off at mach two, after all.
- I Never Explained
- Dear Mother Why?
- Echoes of Myth
- Les Bons Légumes
- Butterflew
- Evening Chapel
- Rainwashed Gully
- What My Eyes See
- (It All Comes Back to) Underwear (Grammy Nominated: Rock Song of the Year, Song of the Year)
- Poor Mister Nickelsworth
- Mumsuch
- Unmarked Grave: The Kittens’ harshest sounding album to date, with deathcore and death metal overtones and far heavier sound. A strong departure from earlier albums — especially Ghosts. Several of the songs hit the top ten — including “Side of the Badge,” which was the first time a song written by Esther Jowls charted that high. The smash hit of the album was “Sadistic,” which is considered possibly the best song G-Listening/Zephyr Lish have ever written. Despite the almost nihilistic overtones of the rest of the album, many Kittens fans have a special love for “Drillbit P Gets To Sing Solo On This One,” a flat out comedy song poking fun at the recurring complaint that the bassist only rarely gets to sing lead.
- Side of the Badge
- Carcinoma
- Atrocity Plus Gold Star
- What Is It About Me?
- Sadistic
- Funereal Thunder
- Drillbit P Gets To Sing Solo On This One
- Proprietary Tits, Motherfucker
- Thread the Shared Needle
- Faking the Effort
- Angrier Than Wet: There was some concern that the Cheshire Kittens were going in decline — the heavy sound of Unmarked Grave had worried some, and Allon-Zed deciding to move away from keyboard to rhythm guitar and the choice of the band not to hire a studio keyboardist but actually add a sixth Cheshire Kitten worried fans. MTV built up a significant amount of media attention to ‘the search for the next Cheshire Kitten,’ which ended up fizzling badly when the Kittens hired Aileen Pyre at the very first audition in Grantham. As it worked out, this became the best selling Cheshire Kittens album since Transparent, as well as the album that won the highest accolades. This is in large part thanks to the intensely personal feel for “Paragirl Down,” the dirge played for the heroine’s sacrifice and last words in the Apocalypse Agenda. This also marked the first actual Grammy nomination for one of Esther Jowls’s song — the harsh “Eight of Swords.” This album also featured the first actual Bonus track on a Cheshire Kittens album — “Hazing the New Chick (Come On Eileen),” a fairly straight cover of the 1982 Dexys Midnight Runners Celtic/New Wave song, featuring Aileen Pyre and Zephyr Lish on fiddle, then Zephyr Lish on banjo, Allon-Zed on keyboard, Aileen Pyre on accordion, and all the kittens alternating lines, with the most embarrassing lyrics thrown to Pyre. There is a lot of laughter and swearing and it’s just considered fun.While posters, tee shirts and other merchandise had been part of the Cheshire Kittens all along, the release of Angrier than Wet had an actual best selling poster of the Kittens, soaking wet, standing next to a pool and looking unhappy about it. While the poster sold well and it has become one of the iconic images of the Kittens, it was frowned upon by some critics and — it is said — even some band members.
- Unfortunate Teller
- Eight of Swords
- Paragirl Down
- Stars-and-Chevrons
- Oscar Was Right!
- Fuckable Rommie, Fuckable Trace
- Omniscience (Abridged)
- Hazing the New Chick (Come On Aileen)
- From Zero to Cunt in One Rejection
- Denunciation: A relatively long gap between Angrier Than Wet and Denunciation fueled anticipation which was largely felt rewarded. This strong selling album inspired some controversy among certain Christian advocacy groups — the Kittens’ music had been condemned by some of these groups before, which led to the album title and title song “Denunciation.” Some groups loudly decried “Jesus Christ Need Not Apply” and “Chainpreyed” as anti-Christian, though the former was actually more about how more and more expressed parahumans were ‘encouraged not to apply’ for work, suggesting that if Christ returned, his ability to perform miracles would disqualify him for work as a carpenter in some states. As for “Chainpreyed,” the song was autobiographical on Esther Jowls’s part, detailing abuse she suffered at her parents’ hands, and those groups that had condemned it (which, as with “Jesus Christ Need Not Apply” clearly hadn’t listened to the song) suffered a significant backlash as a result.It came as a surprise to many observers that the album received no major nominations. A much broader movement to investigate the Recording Academy’s practices and perceived bias against Cozy Tight’s produced albums gained significant momentum.
- Holding Back Hope
- Whispervine
- Snitches Get Gone
- Denunciation
- Jesus Christ Need Not Apply
- Daedalus (Had No Choice)
- Status Quota
- Nero Was a Fiddlin’ Man
- Nightwatchdog
- Chainpreyed
- Get Your Own Damn Beer
- The Grey Album (officially the second album with just ‘Cheshire Kittens’ on the cover) A concept album with alternating structures and a building sense of entwined stories. While it is still highly regarded among critics, and it sold exceedingly well, it was the first album since Ghosts to not go double-platinum. While its musicality was praised, its lack of a breakout single, its sense of uniformity, and its lack of one or two lighter, more ‘fun’ songs turned many of the Kittens’ fans away. As with Denunciation it received no significant nominations, but not many thought it would. Many feel this is the weakest album in the Kittens’ library to date.
- Informancy
- Grasstains
- Immediacy
- Spectacles
- Inerrancy
- Noodlebricks
- Irrelevancy
- Paperclips
- Illegitimacy
- Cartridges
- The Cheshire Kittens Vol I. Where Have You Been Young Lady? (Box Set) A box set covering the years to date for the Kittens. It is most notable for its comprehensive coverage of each phase of their career, the first availability of songs like “No Means Fuck,” “Clock-Knockers,” and “I Keep It Now” (a song where a female protagonist warns a creepy molester that ‘whatever touches me I keep,’ then proceeds to hack away the bits of his body that broke the rule), and new and remastered versions of “Ditchdigger Supreme” (thought by many to have potentially been the breakout that “Transparent” was if the two had been reversed) and “Fuck You Uncle Ben” (with a new section about the comic book character’s wife). There had been one of the periodic movements to force or shame parahumans into more ‘superhero’ type roles, with an old comic book phrase used to justify this pressure. The song features the lines “You talk about great power but this power ain’t that great,” and “you got the power to work soup kitchens grab a ladle and a plate!” Finally, the box set includes the brand new “The Garfield Conspiracy,” which applies some of the more outlandish conspiracies surrounding the Lincoln and Kennedy assassinations to the 1881 assassination of President James Garfield. Though the music is a driving punk beat, the song itself is spoken word, with each Kitten ranting about the increasingly ludicrous conspiracy in turn, while getting louder and more crazed, before the whole thing ends with a gunshot and ‘James Garfield’ telling them he needs to get some sleep. It is notable that despite her disdain for some of the lighter songs the Kittens produced, “The Garfield Conspiracy” is one of Esther Jowls’s favorite songs. It is somewhat surprising that “Kiss of the .38” was not included, as it only appeared previously on the otherwise live album. Reluctant Exultation: The Cheshire Kittens Live.
- Contains a number of songs from the previous 10 albums, plus the following:
- Ditchdigger Supreme (new arrangement/version)
- Fuck You Uncle Ben (and Aunt May’s a Bitch) (update of original)
- The Garfield Conspiracy
- Contains a number of songs from the previous 10 albums, plus the following:
- Pedigree: (Grammy: Rock Album of the Year) Seen as a return to form for the Kittens, Pedigree was both reviewed highly and very popular with fans. The bittersweet ‘Annotations’ was the breakout hit of the album, and led to the return of the Kittens to the Grammies. ‘Number of the Fist’ and ‘The Taste of Maple and Ash’ were both highly regarded, and the pop-punk fast paced and cheerful ‘Penny Prestige (doesn’t like your tee shirt),’ detailing all the ways the popular comic book character hated the unnamed guy the song is castigating felt to many like the bright spot on the album that hadn’t always been showing up.
- What Child?
- Number of the Fist
- Watching Me
- Condensation
- Another Pleased Sir
- Annotations (Grammy: Rock Song of the Year, Rock Performance of the Year)
- Nothin’ to Do
- Happy to See Me
- Liken/Lichen
- The Taste of Maple and Ash
- Penny Prestige (doesn’t like your tee shirt)
- Penny Prestige (doesn’t like your tee shirt) and other observations live: (double album) The second Cheshire Kittens’ Live album, built off of the momentum of Pedigree and including live performances from across their career. Notably includes the live “Acrid Bikini” performance from Reluctant Exultation: The Cheshire Kittens Live, as a bonus track, including the same cut right at the point of the Vicars’ attack, but instead of moving into “Kiss of the .38,” it plays the sound of a scratched record (with no actual audio) while an actual radio broadcast reporting on the shooting murder of Lana Clarkson in a mansion belonging to record producer Phil Spector can be heard. (Spector was later charged and convicted of Clarkson’s murder). The report goes into some detail, but cuts off at the exact length of “Kiss of the .38.”
- Dire: A well selling, well received album with a grammy nominated song and a good amount of experimentation, there was still a sense that Dire was a bit of a retread. While songs like ‘Gaslight Ignition’ and ‘Understandably Blue’ were considered absolute classics of the Kittens’ work, other songs like ‘Then Frank Said’ and ‘Asbestos Merkin For Sale (never worn)’ didn’t engage as much as the Kittens had hoped. On the other hand, the bluesy, almost ska overtoned ‘Miss Match and Captain H,’ about a hero and villain who start to have an affair became very popular, very fast.Still, there was enough feeling of letdown, despite the album going double-platinum, that writing the next album proved to be challenging. Tensions in the band — particularly between Esther Jowls and Zephyr Lish — reached the boiling point in the months that followed.
- Ma’am of the Hour
- Dire
- Furlongs per Fortnight
- Then Frank Said
- Searching the Sky
- Understandably Blue
- Asbestos Merkin For Sale (never worn)
- Keyakizaka46 (can kick your ass)
- White Collar Vampire
- Gaslight Ignition
- Miss Match and Captain H
