Mannequin Pussy are a buzzy, ascendant band with a whole lot of charisma and an amazing live show. They're exactly the sort of band who would kill on the late-night talk show circuit, except for one thing: They are called Mannequin Pussy. Late-night hosts on network television can't say, "Ladies and gentleman, Mannequin Pussy!" Or if they can, then they're not trying. But when Netflix attempts its own version of the late-night talk show, all bets are off.
Everybody's Live, John Mulaney's halfway-experimental weekly live Netflix panel show, aired its third episode last night. Thus far, the show's music booking has been idiosyncratic and excellent. Last week, Mulaney got Kim Gordon and Kim Deal to sing their 1995 Sonic Youth duet "Little Trouble Girl" live together for the first time ever. That was cool as hell! On the most recent episode, the show had what was billed as Mannequin Pussy's first-ever television performance, and it was cool as hell in a slightly different way.
John Mulaney was clearly amped to put Mannequin Pussy on TV, and he devoted a decent chunk of his monologue to the band:
You will hear music such that has never poured through your airwaves! That's right. There are many milestones in human culture. There's the invention of the printing press, the Armory Show Of 1913, and tonight we bring you the television debut of Mannequin Pussy. It's the best. It's the best. Mannequin Pussy plays loud rock music, and their name is fun to say. Our studio has been flooded with telegrams all week because of these youngsters and the excitement has reached all corners of the globe. We even received this wire today. I was very excited. [Reading] "Ahem, me and Michelle are watching along with the rest of the world. Long live Mannequin Pussy. Yours, Barack Obama."
(UPDATE: John Mulaney lied. Thanks to reader Keith for alerting us that Mannequin Pussy performed on The Chris Gethard Show in 2017 and it was broadcast live on truTV.)
The Obama thing was probably a joke, but you never can tell with that guy. If any former world leader is sending telegrams about Mannequin Pussy, it's him. In any case, Mannequin Pussy went up there and just fucking wrecked shop. Marisa Dabice, fully seizing her rock-star moment, came out in, like, a bridal tutu-negligee situation, and she made her elemental screams hit hard. The band ripped through the title track from their instant-classic 2024 album I Got Heaven, which means that Dabice got to roar about Jesus Christ Himself eating her fucking snatch in front of Pete Davidson and the Fonz. The backup singers in nun costumes were Jill Ryan, Jessica Lea Mayfield, and Wednesday's Karly Hartzman. Some of the band members also had nun costumes. This was the kind of weird, exciting performance that I would've accidentally caught on TV as a kid in the '90s, and it would've blown my fucking mind. Hopefully, it blew some kids' minds last night.
There weren't any other music bits on last night's Everybody's Live. Ostensibly, the episode was about funeral planning, but it turned out to mostly be about comedian Luenell attempting to flirt with a visibly uncomfortable Pete Davidson.
I Got Heaven is out now on Epitaph. Read our 2024 interview with Marisa Dabice here.
