Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU.UUCP (03/30/87)
Really-From: Karen Weiss <weiss@nrl-aic.ARPA> >Date: Tue, 24 Mar 87 03:32:42 CST >From: hogge@p.cs.uiuc.edu (John Hogge) >Subject: females in indi rock > >Why don't we discuss: > > Female Artists on Independent Labels I'm puzzled by the inclusion of "Susy & Banshees [sic]" in your list of indi bands. They debuted on the Virgin Label, four albums prior to "A Kiss In the Dreamhouse". This doesn't strike me as being particularly indi-esque. I mean, they have an airline and all. But whatever. That you should mention this album also puzzles me, as it is, in my mind anyway, the beginning of the end of good records by the group. But no more gripes. Your heart is definitely in the right place. Since you list the Slits, I thought you might be interested in some facts (and gossip) about some of their female Rough Trade contemporaries. Budgie, the Banshee drummer boy, played drums on the first Slits record, "Cut". Palmolive, who originally played with the Slits, switched over to join the all-female Raincoats. Later, Ari Up and Viv Albertine, both of the Slits, collaborated with others as the New Age Steppers on the On U Sound label. Featured in this project was experimental heavy white dub production by Adrian Sherwood. Also involved with the New Age Steppers was Neneh Cherry, daughter of jazz trumpeteer Don Cherry. Her most successful group was Rip Rig and Panic, made up of members of fellow Rough Traders the Pop Group. She also had some releases with Raw Sex, Pure Energy. Lora Logic, whose band Essential Logic was a Rough Trade group, was the original sax player for X-Ray Spex, featuring the young, intelligent, mulatto, feminist, and quite short vocalist Poly Styrene. After the X-Ray Spex' only album, "Germ-Free Adolescents", her solo career didn't live up to the early promise she showed. Essential Logic wrote the title track to the Lizzie Borden film "Born In Flames", in which appeared a performance by the fabulous all-female band "The Bloods". Their sole recording, a 7" entitled "Button Up", should be required listening for all white funksters. On Blood vocals, and having a minor role in the film, was Adele Bertei, who at one time worked with her friend Pat Place and the Contortions crowd during the No New York period. Pat Place later became the guitarist for the Bush Tetras, consisting of Cynthia Sley on vocals, now married to Ivan Julian (one-time guitarist for Richard Hell), Laura Kennedy on bass (she once worked at the bar here at the 9:30 Club), and token guy Dee Pop on drums. He's now married to Dear France, former musical comrade to John Cale. Laura Kennedy had a brief stint with a horrible DC band called She. I mention it only because some friends of mine were in it. Sally Berg played drums. She previously had played drums with another DC band called Egoslavia (formerly named REM but changed for obvious reasons), who put out a locally successful 12". She then moved to NY, where she played for a while with Lydia Lunch, then recorded an album with a band called Indoor Life, and this past summer was the second drummer for Robert Palmer's US tour. Adele Bertei contributed heavily to the soundtrack of the film "Beth B. and Scott B.'s Vortex", along with Lydia Lunch and John Lurie of the Lounge Lizards. She had a somewhat successful-in-discos 12" called "Build Me A Bridge", and has worked in the studio with Thomas Dolby. Hers is the high voice you hear on "Hyperactive". A one-time close friend of Bertei's was Leslie Woods of Au Pairs, in my estimate one of the most important musical and political bands to happen. They consisted of two of each, and their message was one of equality. Au Pairs released two albums, the first of which, "Playing With A Different Sex", is available on CD. There is also a bootleg of a benefit show they did in Berlin. Word is that the band didn't authorize its release, but Woods privately did, and took the money and went to South America, and they broke up. But that's just word, right? I saw Leslie Woods perform solo a year and a half ago at the 9:30 Club. She drunkenly sang in front of a tape machine, and it made me sad. Also on Rough trade was Delta 5, all girls, with two bass players. They recorded one album, but are most notable for their singles. Similarly, the all-female Modettes came out with an album on Stiff, but it wasn't as good as their singles. Another all-female singles band to emerge was Kleenex, from Switzerland. After their first single, they changed their name to Liliput due to some problems with copyright infringement. This band's singles are my favorites of the era. Girls At Our Best, a band with one girl singing and three guys playing, had that essential girl-band sound. They too put out good singles and one so-so album. This seems to be a common malady. Around the same time that DAF became popular in this country, a couple of German girl bands also made it across the ocean. X-Mal Deutschland is still putting out records, although I don't like what they've done since their first 7" and 12". Malaria put out a wonderful 12", "New York Passage", and then a mediocre album, and then broke up. Bettina Koster from Malaria moved to NY, where she briefly played with Sally Berg in a briefly together band called In the Service Of. If you've noticed an element of wife-swapping in all this, then you've gotten the point. Most of these women, and many others who weren't mentioned, were and are extremely supportive of each other. Perhaps it's the feeling that if the support doesn't come from women, it's not gonna come. What unifies these ground-breaking female musicians is a sexual and political open-mindedness (sex and politics can be the same thing, really), and a commitment to destroy repressive roles. This is the restriction that Poly Styrene sings about in "Oh Bondage, Up Yours!" It's what the Slits are onto when they sing "There's another marketing ploy - typical girl gets the typical boy." I find it interesting that an awareness of sexual politics and the support of fellow women musicians seems to have completely eluded the music of Kate Bush. The all-girl scene isn't quite as exciting to me today as it was seven years ago, but there are a few names I can add to your list. The Pandoras seem to have made the jump directly to a big label without working up through the indies. This may have been due to the masterminding of some cigar-smoking exec ("Yeah, yeah, girls, psychedelia, sixties hair, short skirts, like those Bungles or watchamageggie, yeah, yeah..."). Too derivative and revivalist for my taste, but they definitely will appeal to some. Brix Smith, wife of the Fall's Mark E. Smith, has her own outfit called The Adult Net. Very sixties flavored. Their current single is titled "Spin That Web", or something like that, and past singles have included a cover of "Incense and Peppermint" and a namby-pamby original called "Edie Sedgwick". Other bands about which I have second-hand information are: Anti-Scrunti Faction, all-girl and not terribly inventive hardcore. I like one song of theirs that I've heard, "Slave To My Estrogen". GASH, Girls Against Sexual Harassment, from Australia, not all girls, and good but not great. Scrawl, a raw female trio from Columbus OH. Wicinski likes 'em, Hofmann hates 'em. On the DC front: Fire Party, brand new hardcore. Four girls, all friends and/or girlfriends of Dischord boys. Too new to tell, but they sound promising. Betty, three women singing off-the-wall acapella. They've been described by Scott Simon of NPR as "the Marx Brothers meet the Andrews Sisters". Funny, topical, Bette Midler times three. They do all their band correspondence on my Mac, and Alyson takes care of my cat when I'm out of town. Finally, it behooves me to mention Broken Siren, from DC. This is a band to watch out for - three women, self-described as "brains meets trash". The 9:30 Club has written about them, "the Bangles meet Einsturzende Neubauten". Hell, Tim Wicinski is their roadie, main man, and he stuffs rags in the mouths of people who don't like them. Even Jim Hofmann has been spotted at one of their shows. They've just completed an eight-song tape, produced by John Labovitz, a fellow L-H. They're currently label shopping, so if anyone has any contacts, please let me know and I'll pass it on to the band. To Pat Waara, the following news: Mourning Glories broke up months ago. There will be no vinyl forthcoming from these people. Lida Husik, however, is currently recording with John Labovitz, aforementioned L-H and producer of Broken Siren. Lida is working pretty much solo, with some help on percussion from Dan Joseph, drummer of the now-defunct DC band 9353. Also, Peter Alfke writes about the film Suburbia, "... it was directed by Penelope Spheeris ... I believe she was in one of the bands shown in the film (Catholic Discipline) for a while." She wasn't, but you may be thinking of Phranc, who was. Phranc is currently working on her second album, continuing to create under her self-chosen moniker as "Jewish Lesbian Folksinger". - Karen Weiss
Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU.UUCP (04/15/87)
Really-From: Jeff Dalton <jeff%aiva.edinburgh.ac.uk@Cs.Ucl.AC.UK> > Date: Mon, 30 Mar 87 15:37:28 est > From: Karen Weiss <weiss@nrl-aic.ARPA> > Subject: girl bands > Lora Logic, whose band Essential Logic was a Rough Trade group, was the > original sax player for X-Ray Spex, featuring the young, intelligent, > mulatto, feminist, and quite short vocalist Poly Styrene. After the X-Ray > Spex' only album, "Germ-Free Adolescents", her solo career didn't live up > to the early promise she showed. Poly produced one solo lp, Translucence (?), which is very different from X-Ray Spex. It's quite subdued and introspecive but still interesting. It was only L1.99 a while ago in the UK but has probably ceased to exist altogether by now. After that, she became a Hari Krishna for a few years (maybe still) but produced a single last year or so. > Essential Logic wrote the title track to the Lizzie Borden film "Born In > Flames", in which appeared a performance by the fabulous all-female band > "The Bloods". Their sole recording, a 7" entitled "Button Up", should be > required listening for all white funksters. Don't forget Laura's own recorded output, which includes at least the Essential Logic LP Beat Rhythm News (I think that's the title, but my copy is at home). I never liked the record all that much -- it was sorta like X-Ray Spex without everything that made them fun -- but still play it from time to time. Then we have the Raincoats. They have 3 lp's so far, but the first is quite different from the later two. My sister used to say it was the worst record she had ever heard, but what she meant was that they couldn't play very well, were off key, etc. even more than other groups that supposedly "can't play". But I thought it was great. Anyway, it was guitar, etc. plus violin, sometimes a Velvet Underground-like sound, sometimes not. Included a cover of the Kink's "Lola". The second lp, Oddyshape, showed a marked improvement in their ability to make sounds, but to me was fairly boring. New musical direction, deemed more appropriate for a serious political image perhaps? Brix Smith's Adult Net 12" releases are (more or less) Incense and Peppermint Edie White Nights/Stars Say Go Wake Up in the Sun Put them all together and you've almost got an lp, so maybe there will be one soon. I like this stuff, what can I say? I can see not liking "Edie", but "namby-pamby"?