Have a sense of humor? The Smut Tour’s coming

If you like bawdy, goofy music, this show’s for you.

By JOHN BENSON

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

One person’s smut is another person’s poetry.

That’s the idea behind the inaugural Traveling Smut Tour, which is scheduled to play Friday at Cedars Lounge.

Featuring Cleveland-based acts Lords of the Highway, The Pussyfoot Girls and Miss Firecracker, this unique outing — which made its first road trip earlier this year to Erie, Pa. — began out of a common love of psychobilly and rockabilly music.

“It’s just because a lot of the music that we do is really similar,” said Carol Schulien, who performs as a one-woman band under the moniker Miss Firecracker.

“The Pussyfoot Girls do routines to music a lot like the music that the Lords of the Highway do, and Miss Firecracker ties in partly because I’m one of the Pussyfoot Girls. So I start the evening off with more country and rockabilly funny songs.”

Actually, Miss Firecracker’s funny songs can be described as dirty songs and double entendres that admittedly leave little to the imagination. There’s “Sweet for Your Pickle,” “I Like it When You’re Nude” and “Hard Lead Pencil.” Schulien hopes to release all of her songs on a debut, Americana-influenced album next year. 

“The material is definitely PG-13,” Schulien said. “Miss Firecracker is a one-woman band. I play a bass drum, a snare drum, a guitar, a kazoo and I sing bawdy songs, which are very suggestive songs, kind of like Candye Cane or The Asylum Street Spankers. Songs that are kind of dirty but also very funny.”

The same can be said about the Pussyfoot Girls.

“There are three of us and we’re like funny burlesque,” Schulien said. “The goofy, bawdy side of burlesque, not the nude part. It’s nothing experimental.

“What we usually do is we get together — the three acts — take the show out of town, a lot of people come, drink some whiskey, they hear some good music and see some girls dance. There aren’t a lot of one-woman bands out there, so they get their chance to see that, too.”

Schulien stresses that the Traveling Smut Tour isn’t for everybody. In fact, she suggests uptight and prude audiences wouldn’t enjoy or even grasp the artistic integrity that will be presented at the Cedars show.

“People who don’t have a good sense of humor should stay home,” Schulien said. “But others should come out because they’re not going to see anything like this again for a while. It’s a rare opportunity.”