Speaker 1: Hudson River Radio dot com. Loone, my life's getting your lonely.
Speaker 2: You can always goolune next.
Speaker 3: Hey, this is Jesse Carmichael from Room five. Hi, this
is Phil Margol of the Tokens.
Speaker 4: Hello.
Speaker 5: It's Nicole Atkins on the Rock and Roll History Show.
Speaker 6: Hello, everybody, Welcome back to the Rock and Roll History
Show and Hudson River Radio. I'm Brian Horowitz. Tonight we're
talking girl groups, so I am very much looking forward
to hearing everybody's selection tonight. Before we hop in, as always,
allow me to introduce all the Cranwell's joining us here tonight. First,
from the Richter Observatory. He says, if you drop a
piano on a child, do you get a flat minor
net here?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: Oh that poor kid? Right? Ouch? How you doing?
Speaker 6: And everybody from paranormally yours she lost her mood ring
and doesn't know how to feel about that.
Speaker 5: Yea, Hello.
Speaker 7: Oddly enough, I have two that I just bought recently
in a set.
Speaker 6: One on each hand, and if they don't mean the
same thing, they might be full of you know what?
Speaker 7: I just thought they were pretty.
Speaker 8: Yeah, or princess might always be different because I'm a Gemini.
Speaker 3: Or you know.
Speaker 5: The why not both or two?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: From the silver screen, she saw a guy walk into
a bar and ask for ten shots of bourbon. The
guy takes the first shot and dumps it on the floor,
and he takes the last shot and also dumps it
on the floor, and the bartender said, why'd you do that?
The guy said, well, the first shot always tastes like crap,
and the last one always makes me sick. Mercedes cat
is here.
Speaker 9: Totally fair, right. I was horrified when you first saty
threw it on the floor, But you know it makes sense, buddy.
Speaker 3: I wish I had thought of that.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I'm taking mental notes on.
Speaker 10: That long time.
Speaker 9: I'm gonna throw out that last shot for sure.
Speaker 6: Well, hang on to it, don't toss it, just hang
on to it for me.
Speaker 9: I'll be down.
Speaker 6: I won't be driving down, but I'll be down. At last,
but not least. The host of Shaving Cream she got
to take a tour of mc hammer's house, but she
wasn't allowed to touch anything. Barbaraville was story in my life. Everyone,
all right, So tonight we're talking girl groups and before
the angry emails come.
Speaker 9: Whoa, All right, now we know who we are apparently.
Speaker 6: To take two, take three, take four at it. So
girl groups versus all female bands. We're actually doing all
female bands because a lot of people define girl groups
as you know, just the performers out front, not including
the band. But we're talking all female bands, all everybody
across the board, singer's, all the instruments and everything.
Speaker 7: Just to clarify that stuff, because I found out that
the group I chose occasionally had a guy in the band.
Speaker 6: Occasionally. We're gonna slide, you get it? You get a
B plus today, that's okay. They still pass, all right,
So why don't we hop in and Neil, why don't
you lead us off tonight?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 11: Well, you know, female rock bands, they come in all
shapes and sizes and all sorts of genres too, as
I think we'll find out tonight. But are you ready
for the Surferjets? The Surferjets or a four piece instrumental
combo that formed in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in late twenty fifteen,
playing reverb drenched surf music mixed with a dash of
psychedelic rock, all while sporting sky high beehive hairdoos, mini skirts,
Go Go boots and eyeliner as thick as their guitar strings,
to quote their website, and that pretty much checks all
the boxes for me. I'm like I'm sold.
Speaker 3: Now. Currently, the band consists of members Mackenzie Shermie Freeman
and Nicole Danielle, both founding members on the guitars, along
with Annie Lillis on drums who joined in twenty twenty three,
and Abby Joe Powell on bass who's been in the
band since twenty twenty four now. Danielle and Freeman have
known each other since high school, with Danielle coming from
a blues background and Freeman starting out playing in a
rock band a nice mix there. As the Surfragettes. They
have worked together with a number of bass players and
drummers before recruiting Powell and Lewis now in twenty eighteen.
The group first gained attention with their instrumental cover Yet
This Mercedes of the Britney Spears hit Toxic I Knew
You would Like That, and more recently in twenty twenty four,
the group released the song easy as Pie, which We're
going to hear from their full length LP of the
same name. So why don't we sit back and do it, d'lus.
Speaker 4: Non na.
Speaker 11: I don't know who's playing that roller ring organ part,
which fits perfectly, but I'm not going to quibble. I'm
sure one of them did it. And they even have
guitar like plugins that you can make your guitar sound
like pretty much anything you want, so again, I'm not
gonna quibble.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 11: Overall, the Surferjets have recorded two full length LPs, as
well as numerous singles and EPs, both on vinyl and digitally,
and all released by High Tide Recordings. I love that name,
so High Tide.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 11: As of this taping, the band is currently on tour
here in the States, Canada, and over in the UK,
and I myself have had the pleasure of seeing them
a couple of times, and if they come to your town,
I highly recommend that you go see them too. The
Surferjets everybody.
Speaker 9: I've seen them multiple times, and honestly, the first time
that I saw them, I had never heard of them,
but went I heard the name and I thought, oh,
I'm gonna like this right, yeah, yes, And it was
it was the week before COVID. It was like the
last thing I saw. They were so good. It was
it and it was in a little it was in
a it's called the Micai It's in Fort Lauderdale and
it's like all you know, Hawaiian and stuff and perfect. Yeah,
and it's it was. They played in like a small
bar area and it was really tight and I was
right in front of It's like having such a good time.
Speaker 12: They sound so fun.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and they do. You know.
Speaker 11: It's almost like if Josie and the pussy Cats were,
like if they make them with live action, you know,
now they are a lot of fun. And yeah, no,
I highly recommend them.
Speaker 9: My home keys are on their key chain and it's
a pink like old Motel key cha.
Speaker 8: Retro.
Speaker 6: Yeah nice?
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 6: Yeah. As soon as you said the band name, I'm like, yeah, yeah,
it's Neil.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I don't even know it's coming, but yeah, excellent, all right,
thanks Neil, Barbara, you're up.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 8: The song I chose is called I'm in the Band,
and it's by a band called Brett Mobile. Ratt Mobile.
Speaker 3: I love I love it already.
Speaker 8: Yeah yeah it kind of I was drawn by the title,
so yeah. Brattmobile is an American punk band formed in Olympia,
Washington in nineteen ninety one. Now they're known for being
a first generation riot girl band. Now, if you choose
to google the term riot girl, you have to spell
girl with three r's and no vowels.
Speaker 6: Correct.
Speaker 8: So riot Girl being a feminist movement that began in
the early nineteen nineties in the Pacific Northwest, which combines punk, feminism,
and politics. That's a lethal combination right there. Brattmobile has
also been influenced by pop, surf and garage rock. Band
members are Alison Wolf, Molly Newman, and Aaron Smith, with
past members Michelle Noel, Jen Smith and Christina Bilott. They
got their start when Wolf and Newman met while attending
the University of Oregon in nineteen eighty nine. Being raised
and influenced by activist parents, they took classes in women's
studies as well as music, and collaborated on the feminist
fanzine Girl Germs in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 8: At first, the girls did not play any instruments into
to perform a cappella, as they had been booked to
play a show in nineteen ninety one on Valentine's Day
in Olympia along with bands Bikini Kill and Some Velvet Sidewalk.
Now some Velvet Sidewalk member Robert Christy let them borrow
rehearsal space prior to the gig and gave them now Neil,
I apologize in advance for what I'm about to read,
gave them the advice that they should listen to the
Ramones for inspiration.
Speaker 11: However, why would I object to that. I think everybody
should do that, whether they played an instrument or not.
Speaker 8: However, Wolfe reasoned that all the boy punk bands all
did this, and so Brett Mabil was not going to
get any inspiration by listening to the Ramones because they
wanted their sound to be completely their own. So they
did the very punk thing. They did the opposite of
what they were told to do.
Speaker 11: Okay, you know what, I definitely agree with that. I
can do their actions.
Speaker 12: Okay.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 8: So by the time they played the Valentine's Day Olympia
gig at North Shore Surf Club, Newman and wolf were
able to share in playing guitar and drums as well
as performed vocals. Band member Smith and Blott later joined
them to play a gig in Washington, d C. And
later in Hoboken, New Jersey. They released their first album,
Hottymouth in nineteen ninety three and continued the tour you
see why I was drawn.
Speaker 5: To the Yeah, but.
Speaker 8: They famously broke up while performing live in nineteen ninety four,
and they took a hiatus until nineteen ninety nine, when
they reunited for a tour and released their second album, Ladies,
Women and Girls in two thousand. Our selection for today's
topic is called I'm in the Man, and it's from
their third album, Girls Get Busy, released me seven two.
Speaker 12: Thousand and two.
Speaker 8: Let's pause now and.
Speaker 1: Rock out you.
Speaker 8: I'm in the band, ye brat, I can say.
Speaker 13: Find you say to me and find play in a way.
Speaker 14: I'm in the mound and I be.
Speaker 13: To Canada anyway.
Speaker 4: All right, all right, all right, all right.
Speaker 14: To do what you say, girls can fifty nine girls bas.
Speaker 1: A grand if you stat.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, I'm not one of my time. It's
not one d pasin and puts you and you.
Speaker 14: Can have anything you want.
Speaker 13: Oh my, all bad, All right, all bah, we know
the continue what you said, Dot fifty nine in the
way that'll make music.
Speaker 4: Guare with your stay.
Speaker 13: We don't these a distications.
Speaker 14: We just make dond you like reason you make music,
not you, but don't make you will be playing yea Reena,
don't not.
Speaker 4: Be the res of my life? All bad? All right,
all right, all bad.
Speaker 14: We don't let's forgin what you said back in.
Speaker 13: Fifty don't even go away, don't make music where you
can stay.
Speaker 8: Well, Girls, Get Busy ended up being Brought Mobile's final album.
The band continued to tour in two thousand and two
and two thousand and three, and although there was no
official breakup, they all went their separate ways working on
different projects. They did reunite briefly in twenty nineteen to
perform at musician Toby Vale's birthday party. Their last performance
was in twenty twenty three at the Mosswood Meltdown Festival
in Oakland, California.
Speaker 15: And that's it.
Speaker 8: And found them by accident, and I completely loved them.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, this is right up your alley.
Speaker 3: I loved it. I loved it.
Speaker 11: But I hate to break into them, but I'm hearing
a lot of Ramon's influence on that, well, the drumming
and the hey hey, I'm sorry, but I'll give it
to him. It's a very punk thing to say. We're
not going to be punk.
Speaker 9: We're not gonna be so and then turn around and
be punk.
Speaker 3: Right, I'm totally down with it. That was great. I
love that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that was good.
Speaker 9: It reminded me of I went to see my daughter
play one night and they were playing with another band,
and apparently my daughter's band did not like this other band.
I don't know what the problem was, but yeah, it
was like and it was just like a school function.
And the other band was called care Bears on Fire,
and apparently I just I just looked them up to
see if they like see if I made it up.
It says here that they formed in two thousand and
five by three musician music minded fifth graders. Yeah, they
were shoeing, but they do a song called Barbie Eat
a Sandwich That is so good.
Speaker 3: I love that awesome cool stuff.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Barbara. We're going to take a real quick
break and we got lots more coming up, so stick around.
We'll be right back.
Speaker 3: Hudson Riverradio dot Com.
Speaker 12: This concludes the first part of this cassette.
Speaker 9: Please turn the cassette over and begin again on side too.
Speaker 6: Hudson Riverradio dot Com. Your dad likes us, all right,
welcome back and Mercedes turning it over to you.
Speaker 9: Okay, well, I was going to use a song from
my daughter's baand New Myths, which I probably should have
since I just mentioned them. Actually, but there's this other
band that I've heard about for a long time and
I was curious to learn more, and I'm referring to
a band called Fanny. Fanny is often described as one
of the first all female bands, but there were bands
that came before them. There were apparently some girl groups
during the nineteen twenties the nineteen forties which I didn't realize,
like the Parisian Redheads who were later the Ange News
and the International Sweethearts of Rhythm. And in the early
sixties there was Goldie and the Gingerbreads, who also played
their own instruments. And I listened to Goldie and the
Gingerbreads and they are definitely worth a YouTube search. So
then came Fanny in the early nineteen seventies. They were
an American rock band, and they were one of the
first all female rock bands to achieve critical and commercial success,
including two Billboard Hot one hundred top forty singles. The
group was comprised of sisters June and Gene Millington guitar
and bass in that order, and Alice de de Burr
on drum's Nicky Barclay on keyboards. The sisters had been
playing music together since, you know, childhood, early sixties when
they moved from the Philippines to California, and initially they
were playing ukulele together. In nineteen sixty nine, they were signed.
Speaker 12: To Raprise Records.
Speaker 9: They had been playing around la in a motown cover
band called Wild Honey, and because they were frustrated at
how they were treated because they were women, they decided
to disband. They played one final show at the Troubadour
Club and were spotted by producer Richard Perry's secretary. Perry
had been on the lookout for an all female band Mentor.
The band was renamed Fanny, not with a sexual connotation,
but to denote a female spirit. And that's a quote
from what Looks Like a book. And I've always wondered
about that because the British, if you were in England,
the term fanny and Neil smiling, oh yeah, yeah, I
mean fanny normally means like your butt, but in England
it means another female part on other side of the
other side, yes, And in.
Speaker 6: Some circumstances it's something you take a load off.
Speaker 9: Yeah right, it took me a minute, boy. So Perry
produced their first three albums. The third album, Fanny Hill
from nineteen seventy two, featured the Beatles engineer Jeff Emerick
and included a cover of the Beatles' Hey Bulldog, which
is so good and rocks so hard. But I didn't
want to use it today for this because it's a cover,
and they were known for their writing their own material.
So the album also included a Marvin Gay cover of
Ain't That Peculiar, featuring Rolling Stone saxophonist Bobby Keys and
Jim Price on brass, and it was released as a single,
reaching number eighty five on the Billboard Hot one hundred.
Their fourth album, Mother Pride, from nineteen seventy three, was
produced by Todd so that they were not you know,
they were out there. They were hobnobbin with the right
Peopil June, one of the original members, you know, one
of the sisters, decided to quit when the label wanted
to control what she wore on stage and what direction
the band should go like nobody likes that. Patty Quatra,
sister of Suzi Quatro, replaced June and the group released
one final album on Casablanca Records in nineteen seventy four.
The single I've Had It reached number seventy nine on
the Billboard Hot one hundred. The second single off the album,
butter Boy, was released as the band was splitting up,
and reached number twenty nine on the Billboard Hot one
hundred in nineteen seventy nine. The song was written by
Gene Millington, one of the original sisters, about her relationship
with David Bowie. But butter Boy is it? She ke
he somewhat condescending nickname for a male who is a player.
So can you imagine being close enough to Bowie to
just be calling him something? Oh Fanny. The band rejected
the typical girl group style. They played all their own
instruments and wrote the vast majority of their own songs.
They backed Keith Moon on his cover of their song
solid Gold. Remember some of the members worked on Barbara
Streisand's nineteen seventy one album Stony End. The band opened
for Slade, Jethro Tull, and Humble Pie. They were on
The Sunny and Share Show, American Bandstand, The Old Gray
Whistle Test, and Beat Club. They had many well known fans.
David Ohie sent the group a letter admiring their work
and invited the band to see a post show party,
where he showed them mime techniques.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, you're good.
Speaker 8: Well, no, that paints a picture?
Speaker 9: Can you imagine?
Speaker 5: Is that the modern?
Speaker 7: Is that the at the time how people said they
wanted you to come up and see their etchings.
Speaker 9: Look at my etchings?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 12: Approbably not.
Speaker 9: It was like a show, like a party, like after
show party. In nineteen ninety nine, in an interview with
Rolling Stone, David Bowie revealed his respect for the band.
He said they were one of the finest effing rock
bands of their time in about nineteen seventy three. They
were extraordinary. They wrote everything, they played like Mf's. They
were just colossal and wonderful, and nobody's ever mentioned them.
They're as important as anyone else who's ever been. Ever,
it just wasn't their time. So let's take a break
here and listen to Fanny's.
Speaker 4: Here I am.
Speaker 5: In the gold World.
Speaker 4: With all mother.
Speaker 5: Do you help the girls?
Speaker 1: Yeah, loveless do.
Speaker 15: I've got too much chick for my.
Speaker 16: Handy Superman?
Speaker 15: When I get in my best him won best.
Speaker 2: Oza hot, loving, good loving, were loving.
Speaker 17: Woman, loved the doll your love leg.
Speaker 15: I got find one, save all day, kill that right.
Speaker 1: Man comes my way, kill the man comes all.
Speaker 15: I've got too much sad on mynd.
Speaker 1: I got by Superman.
Speaker 15: When I got him in my bedroom.
Speaker 5: Look kill Lona, go back.
Speaker 10: I'm a hot love it, love it.
Speaker 4: We love him?
Speaker 1: No, no, I love him good love ing.
Speaker 18: We love woman, No no no, don't love you.
Speaker 5: Faver.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I.
Speaker 18: Need to, I need just for.
Speaker 7: So.
Speaker 9: O'Brien just called me out and told me that this
song was written by Ike Turner. Damn it.
Speaker 6: That's not how I approached it, and I wasn't.
Speaker 9: But most of the songs were written by them.
Speaker 6: I just haven't it was it was a cover. Now
it was a cover, but it's okay. It was a
good one.
Speaker 9: It was a good one.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 9: I cannot believe I've never heard of them. I can't,
and I hung out with a bunch of people that
this would be. I'm just shocked that this would be
right up there, Alley. I can't understand why they didn't
turn me into this music. But anyway, I'm going to
go talk to them later on tonight. So many of
them went on to do very well in the music industry,
either as musician, producers or on the business end of things.
There were some reunions and a formation of a new
band called Fanny Walked the Earth with Breedy Howard and
June and Jene Millington, The Bengals, the Go Gos and
the Runaways, and others point to Fanny as an influence.
Kathy Valentine, the bassist of the Go Gos, said she
wished more people had spread the word about Fanny, which
I happen to agree if their visit, if their visibility
had been higher, she said in an interview, we would
have seen a lot more women in the rock landscape.
Valentine didn't hear about Fanny until nineteen eighty two, she said,
which time at which time the Go Gos were making
their second album. There's also a documentary out called Fanny
The Right to Rock released in twenty twenty one, which
I'm really looking forward to watching because I didn't know
that was around this from The New York Times at
the time of the filming of the release of the filming.
When Bobby Joe Hart, the filmmaker, first learned about Fanny online,
she had a visceral reaction. It really pissed me off,
she said. It was just another of example, another example
of amazing women that we don't know about. Heart reached
out to a former band member about the possibility of
a documentary, but determined that at the time the Fanny
story didn't have the forward momentum narrative she was looking for. Then,
in January twenty seventeen, Bobby Joe Hart attended the Woman's
March in Washington. She was watching Madonna speak on the
jumbo trod when she spotted a woman with flaming gray
hair on stage, filming the proceedings on her iPhone. It
was June Millington. The site spurred Heart to call Millington,
who had some news. Three members of Fanny were about
to make a new album on an indie label. The
moment for the film had arrived, and that's Fanny.
Speaker 8: I'm still hung up on flaming gray hair.
Speaker 9: I love that description.
Speaker 3: Well, I can verify that, but first, let me tell
you something that may shock you.
Speaker 9: You'll know, No, I, you're sleeping with one of them.
Speaker 3: No, I was sleeping with David Bowie.
Speaker 9: That makes sense.
Speaker 5: You never saw.
Speaker 3: No all right, No I.
Speaker 11: Sometime in the early seventies. Okay, either seventy two, seventy three,
maybe seventy four. But I actually saw Fanny perform.
Speaker 5: Are you kidding me?
Speaker 11: I know, I'm shocking, shocking, I know, shocking, But okay,
now it was at It was on Cape Cod, the
Cape Cod Coliseum, which was his cavernous hockey arena, you know,
minor league kype of hockey arena, which they also would
have you know, concerts at and they were the opening act.
But I can't fight I believe that it was Chuck Berry,
who was riding high on my dingling at the time,
you know, so he was not literally out there, well
maybe maybe not.
Speaker 9: Yes, I saw that in my head, not on not
on my dingling.
Speaker 6: No, no, no, did you know David Bowie talt Chuck Berry.
Speaker 11: Mime little known facts? But yes, okay, but I can't.
I can't verify this or I've I've I've looked it up,
you know, you know, concert list and all that sort
of thing, and I can't. I can't verify this, but
I know it was them. But more recently, i'd say,
maybe like three or four years ago, I went to
some it was kind of a music con, you know,
like a comic con music con type thing up in Massachusetts,
and June Millington was one of the guests, and she
got up and performed, and yes, she had flaming gray
hair and spoke. I spoke to her briefly. You know,
she was sitting at the table, and I think she
was promoting that the documentary you were talking about. I
don't remember exactly, but I mentioned that that I had
seen them play, I believe, not young again, I said,
not far. It was in Massachusetts and opening for Chuck Berry.
But she didn't remember it either. Now, in both of
our defense, this was over fifty years ago. This is
over half a century, okay, Okay. I've been to a
lot of concerts in between before and after that, so
I can't tell you. My memories kind of get blurry
and again for many reasons. But it was, you know,
let's say it was fifty plus years ago. So but
I know I saw them, I know it and again
and I saw her play and I was like, you know,
it was a much smaller venue, and you know, she
got up and did a few songs and it was great.
Speaker 19: Uh.
Speaker 11: She and it was Sharie Curry from the Runaways was
also there, and you know, they didn't play together, but
you know, they had like a house band and they
got up and played individually. So yeah, and unfortunately she
said that her sister Jean had some health issues and
was at the time not doing so well and that
you know, she couldn't be there at the at for
much of anything, but hopefully she's recovered. And but yeah,
I know that June was she was kicking, she was
kicking out the James.
Speaker 8: So that that's going to be my band name, Flaming
Gray Hair.
Speaker 15: I love it.
Speaker 9: I I'd like to say, when this is an aside
from me, I have to say that I found it
a little bit uncomfortable reading their Wikipedia page because and
I could be wrong on this, and maybe you know,
somebody else wants to look at it and let me know,
but it just seemed like the page gave out much
more personal information than it would have with the male band,
Like it told specifically what small towns they were living in,
you know, which, well that's creepy, which I don't think
they would have done to Like, I can't I never
noticed that in another Wikipedia about a band and they
specific told them told specifically what they were doing like
very specifically, you know, and for one member they listed
their daughter's full name and said that she was a
Playboy model, and I was like, what is to do
with anything? Yeah, I was so interesting that it was
not cool.
Speaker 12: Yeah, yeah, creepy.
Speaker 9: Anyway, that's Fanny.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 6: That's a weird, weird note to end on.
Speaker 3: So I.
Speaker 9: Couldn't fit it in anywhere Beforehannah, and I was not
going to say it, so I was trying to bite
my tongue and then I was like, no, this is
making me mad. I really need to say it.
Speaker 3: I don't know, I'll go out on a limb.
Speaker 11: And I agree with you that it is kind of weird,
but I think that it's been since the beginning of
music time that like all female bands and all that
have been under much more scrutiny than their male counterparts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh yeah, and.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I'm not even going to go into what, you know,
the reasons for it, but You're absolutely right. It's like
the old Ginger Rogers and fred Astaire. She did everything
that fred Astaire did, only backwards and high.
Speaker 9: Heels, and who got the recognition.
Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 12: So yeah, thanks for backing me up.
Speaker 6: Yeah, agreed, all right, thank you, Mercedes, Gail, We're up to.
Speaker 12: You, okay.
Speaker 7: Well, unlike Barbara and Mercedes, my pick that I had
never heard of, never heard in my taste wasn't as
successful as Barbara's and Mercedes. This grip's a little rough
for me, but that's everybody's taste is different. But I
picked a song from them anyway because I wanted to
learn something new and about a new to me band,
So that's why I did it anyway. So the band
is called the Slits, and they were an early punk
and then post punk band formed in London in nineteen
seventy six by members of the groups The Flowers of Romance.
Speaker 12: And get this one, the Castraders.
Speaker 6: Already they're not bitter about something.
Speaker 12: I wonder if Florina bob It was a fan, oh ouch.
Speaker 7: The group's early lineup consisted of Our Up, whose actual
name was Arianne Forster, and Paul Molov, also known as
Palomo Romero, who played briefly with Let's see if I
can pronounce this right spitzen Erghi, and later left to
join the Raincoats with viv Albertine and Tessa Pollitt. Replacing
founding members Kate Horus and Susie Gutsey. Their nineteen seventy
nine album, which was their debut, called Cut, has been
called one of the defining releases of the post punk era.
Speaker 9: I don't know, I hm, I'm sorry. Is Susie Gutsy
herd stage name?
Speaker 12: I don't know.
Speaker 9: It's Gutsy, you said.
Speaker 12: Righty's guts Why.
Speaker 9: I kind of love that.
Speaker 12: I mean, maybe it's pronounced Guzsi. I don't know, but yeah,
that's that's the name.
Speaker 7: The song I chose is called instant Hit, and it
was written by guitarist viv Albertine regarding her friendship with
her former bandmate and future Sex Pistols Sex Pistols bass
player Sid Vicious. They played together in the short lived
band Flowers of Romance. Its theme is Sid's heavy drug
addiction and the consequences it had on their relationship.
Speaker 12: Let's have a listen.
Speaker 7: Like I said to me, it's a little rough, but
you know, everybody likes something different. And after we hear it,
I'll talk about some really weird to me ins and
outs of who was.
Speaker 5: Related to who and went out with who?
Speaker 7: And Oh my goodness and Neil can probably help me
on that a little bit. So let's have a listen.
Speaker 15: Boy, he's very thin.
Speaker 5: Don't like himself self talks.
Speaker 16: Talk to.
Speaker 5: Be suff.
Speaker 10: Project, Why time.
Speaker 18: Ny time, John.
Speaker 10: Write thing.
Speaker 4: Ritnything you.
Speaker 17: Scle self docceptual self destoct.
Speaker 4: Sent.
Speaker 12: It was interesting, it was It reminded me a little
of Chris.
Speaker 7: Chris.
Speaker 9: I shouldn't have voted my mouth until I had his name,
you know. Tina Weymouth the band.
Speaker 5: Yeah Yeah, so about the album.
Speaker 7: Their debut studio album, was released on the seventh of
September nineteen seventy nine. It was recorded at Ridge Farm
Studios in Rusper, England and produced by Dennis Bovel. It
was originally released on Island Records label in the UK
and on Antilles in the US. It reached number thirty
on the UK Album charts at the time. In two
thousand and four, it was voted fifty eighth in The
Observer's one hundred Greatest British Albums list. It was also
included in the book one thousand and one Albums You
Must Hear Before You Die, and in the year twenty twenty,
Rolling Stone ranked the album at number two sixty in
its list of the five hundred Greatest Albums of All
Time and another track from the album called Typical Girls
at number three eight one in its list of the
five hundred Greatest Songs of All Time. Cut is credited
with shaping the nineteen nineties musical movement.
Speaker 12: Riot Girl.
Speaker 7: Yeah. Rolling Stone wrote that the riot girl scene, their
bands Bikini Kill and Slater Kinney, came to be because
of it. So when I read some of the ins
and out, so who's who and who was married to
who and all that.
Speaker 12: Area.
Speaker 7: Whose real name was Arianne Forrester. Her mother was married
to Johnny Rotten, and so Johnnie Rotten was her stepdad
and they were kind of close in age.
Speaker 11: That That's pretty much. That's that's what happened. I mean,
Nora for Forrester was a like a promoter, so she
was you know connected in you know, she was like friends. Yeah,
she was friends with like Jimmy Hendricks and yeah, you
know that, you know, like the generation before and apparently
during the you know, the punk era, opened their apartment
or home to all sorts of you know punk people
that they would just come and go and kind of
like you know, live there. Yeah, And I guess that's
how she met uh, John Lyden aka Johnny Rotten, and yeah,
they they got married and it would make Ariy up
her his stepdaughter, and they were very close in age.
But let me let me just jump back. A couple
of you were saying, you know that the band of
Flowers of Romance where Sid Vicious was in it now
before he was in the Sex Pistols. Well, it's arguable
because he never really played bass in the Sex Pistols.
He didn't know how they tried to teach him. That's
not a personal no, that's widely.
Speaker 12: I just think it's so funny.
Speaker 11: But he played the drums in Flower of Romance and
I don't think he and as far as drumming goes,
he was a great bass player.
Speaker 3: So if you see, Yeah, but.
Speaker 9: I remember googling a song like looking for a song
that he had actually played bass on in the Sex Pistols.
I think there's so many rabbit holes.
Speaker 11: There's maybe one song that he actually tried to play
and they they buried it, you know. And uh, most
of the bass parts apparently were played by the guitarist
Steve Jones and Glenn Matlock came back and played on
I think one or two and they kept his part
in there, but it was like really low in the mix,
and they played the way it was supposed to play
over it.
Speaker 9: So, yeah, he's on the record, but.
Speaker 11: Yeah, barely. And as far as live, no, they they
either they gave him the guitar he had a roady
playing the bass behind the amps, or they just or
if they didn't do that, they just turned up the
guitar and the bass on the guitar very loud and that,
you know.
Speaker 3: But he wasn't. He never played a note on stage.
Speaker 12: You would think he would have been like really embarrassed
by that.
Speaker 9: I think when you're that high, you don't have to
be embarrassed.
Speaker 6: You're getting that much money.
Speaker 3: You suck it up.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, they call it Vanilli syndrome. Yeah yeah, but to
their credit, they wanted to sing. But that's a whole
nother story.
Speaker 3: But back to arey Up and her mom.
Speaker 11: Yeah, he Johnny Rotten was you know, contemporaries, but he
was you know there her it was his stepdaughter. Now
I'm going to jump ahead here. You might have Unfortunately
ariy Up passed away from cancer I think in twenty ten.
Speaker 3: Now, for all his for all his faults, and foibles,
of which there are many.
Speaker 11: I used to work on a internet radio show with
Johnny Rotten back like twenty five or so years ago.
He lived up to his stage name, but to his
he and Nora took in her kids and basically adopted
them and raised them, you know.
Speaker 7: Yeah, because she had them, you know, Ari had them
and said she couldn't handle them, and they were kind
of running wild from what I understand, didn't know how
to read, you know, that kind of thing.
Speaker 11: And well, and again in Johnny's favor is credit, I
should say when Nora got older, obviously she was, you know,
quite a bit older and died not too long ago
from you know, basically you know old age, I mean,
you know, Alzheimer's, and he nursed her, you know, right
to the end.
Speaker 12: Yeah, he was her caregiver. That you gotta give him.
Speaker 11: Yeah, no, I'll give him credit for that because yeah,
I mean I I can say a lot of bad things,
but in that case, no, he did the right thing.
And nothing but respect for that.
Speaker 12: Absolutely. Well, thank you for your input. I knew you
would know some.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 11: Actually, back to the slits, I didn't know who they were,
what theyre, so I actually saw It was in a
import section of you know, forty five single from them,
so I kind of bought it on spec to see
what what it was all about. And I'll admit that
the cover and the insert was like a poster that
appealed to me more than anything.
Speaker 5: Oh the one where.
Speaker 12: They were only wearing like clay or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, covered in mud, yeah, yeah, mud. Yeah.
Speaker 11: So I was like, oh, you know, of course, you know,
twenty year old me, you or whatever it was twenty
one or two year old me. It was like, oh,
you know, And I put on the record and I
think I played it once and it was a a
cover of heard it through the grapevine, you know, the
Martha Reeves Martin.
Speaker 7: Yeah, because I saw that they did a cover of that,
and I didn't have a chance to hear it.
Speaker 3: I was too busy looking at the poster.
Speaker 6: He didn't mention it. He played it once and that
was yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 11: But so that you know, I didn't really follow them
after that, but I was obviously aware of them. You
liked the cover art, Yeah, but no I and and
to their credit to yes, they did. They were very
influential at the time, and which you mentioned. So yeah,
again they was almost ahead of their time too. They
said they sounded like the Tom Tom Club, and they
were in in the you know, much later in the eighties,
late eighties, was somewhere around there.
Speaker 9: So yeah, like mid eighties.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's okay.
Speaker 11: Yeah, but way before nineteen seventy nine and or seventy
six when they when they got started.
Speaker 3: Anyway, that's all I got on the on the slits, and.
Speaker 12: That's all I got, too.
Speaker 3: Nice.
Speaker 6: That was a good one.
Speaker 9: I always get the slits, the strokes and this struts
mixed up.
Speaker 3: Understandably.
Speaker 12: I think I liked the truts and the strokes. I
already knew about them, but I didn't know about the
slits yet.
Speaker 11: Yeah, and I'm not going to make any more comments either,
all those names. Let's let's leave that to your elective,
vivid imaginations.
Speaker 12: M moving on.
Speaker 9: We didn't need to prompt Neil, no.
Speaker 3: I didn't think.
Speaker 6: So we're good. Uh, We're gonna take a break so
Neil can go dig up his old album cover. And
we got one more to go, so stick around.
Speaker 19: We'll be right back.
Speaker 3: Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 6: Hudson River Radio dot com, and welcome back. One more
to go and Uh, I'm an eighties kid, so guess
what we're listening to something that Neil probably never hurt.
Speaker 12: I like eighties music a lot.
Speaker 11: Yeah, now I was listening to her, but I was
listening to a lot of stuff then. But it was
you know, from another galaxy or.
Speaker 3: This one. Will try me, try me.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it'll probably ring a bell. I'm sure you've heard
this before.
Speaker 16: Uh.
Speaker 6: We start with the guitarist named Janice lun Kunemund born
in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in nineteen fifty three. She was
a guitarist in high school and put a band together
called Lemon Pepper. Lemon Pepper then changed their name to Genesis,
which may have conflicted with some other group that may
or may not have existed with a very similar name
maybe yup. So Genesis then became Vixen, which is the
name you may have heard. They split up in nineteen
seventy four. Six years later, Janice put together a totally
different band, but using the Vixen name, and moved them
all out to Los Angeles. They focused on glam metal,
punk rock, and their big break at the time was
appearing in the nineteen eighty four movies Heart oh Man
nineteen eighty four movie Hard Bodies, which I had never seen.
Have you seen that Mercedes movie, expert?
Speaker 9: I think I've seen clips of it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I never saw it, but they made an appearance
as a band in the movie, and the band name
in the movie is diaper Rash, which I think is hysterical.
Speaker 12: I like that name, right, Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 6: You know, props to them. You gotta take the opportunities
when they come. So yeah, Oh my goodness, telling a
whole story today, are we?
Speaker 19: So?
Speaker 6: The lineup when they made it big was Janis on guitar,
Janet Gardner on vocals, Sharon cher Ross on bass, and
Roxy Petrucci on drums. They played the rock circuit in LA.
They wound up getting signed to EMI in nineteen eighty eight.
Their self titled debut album came out in August same year,
nineteen eighty eight, and that album contained their biggest hit,
which we are going to come back to in a
little bit. Vixen would go on to open for Ozzie
the Scorpions, Bon Jovie, Kiss Deep Purple, and they headlined
their own shows while on tour, so they were doing
quite well. But they split up in nineteen ninety two
because they weren't really getting along. Five years later, nineteen
ninety seven, Roxy the Drummer reformed a band under the
Vixen name and went out on tour until Janie found
out about it, and then Janice wound up suing all
of them because she got left out, and it was
her band name to begin with. Kind of makes you
wonder if like she did it, was it her people,
was it, you know whatever? But her camp sued the
rest of the band. She won that lawsuit, so she
got the name of the band back. Then in two
thousand and one, Janice herself reformed the band with Janet
and Roxy the drummer who tried to steal the name,
and a new bassist, Pat Holloway. Halfway through the tour,
they imploded and three of them left. Janice wound up
getting three new band members to just come in and
finish the tour. As Vixen makes you wonder if anybody
in the audience, even new, especially in the eighties, with
the Aquinet hair and all that, you could just take
the hair off of one and PLoP it on the
next and probably get away with it unless you were
a diehard fan. In two thousand and four, they all
got along well enough to do an episode of the
VH one show Bands Reunited, where they focused on putting
bands back together again. That imploded and they would do
a one off concert. Some of them stayed together, this
one didn't. They did one episode, did a concert, and
then boom Splitsville.
Speaker 3: That was the end of that.
Speaker 6: In twenty twelve, Janie Kooneman was working on reuniting the
original lineup again. They were going to make a formal
announcement in January of twenty thirteen, but unfortunately, Janis was
diagnosed with cancer and she passed away in October twenty
thirteen at age fifty nine. The three remaining members decided
to carry on in her honor. So kind of sounds
like a relatively happy ending, So the three of them
seemed to be kind of getting along. Is a band
still going under the name Vixen, but the lineup is
totally different. Other than Roxy the drummer, she's the only
original member that's there now. Their biggest hit going back
to that eighty eight album was called Edge of a
Broken Heart. It was co written by Richard Marx, who
I happen to like some people like some people do not.
I think I told you that Richard Mark story where
co owner Neil Briscoe, who lives in Texas, we were
working at our college radio station, and he hates Richard Marx,
so he took all the Richard Mark CDs out of
the library and put him up in the drop ceiling
so nobody knew where they were. And then many years
we went back for a reunion and he stuck his
hand up there and they weren't there. So I don't
know if they someone found him, if he's checking the
wrong ceiling tile, if he fell, But yeah, Richard Mark
spent about twenty five years up in the ceiling. As
far as I've seen him live a bunch of times,
I like him. I think he does a good job.
But at the time he wasn't a big solo artist.
He was a songwriter working behind the scenes. He got
hired to write a song for this band. They had
sent him a demo of some of the stuff they
were working on, so he had an idea of their
sound and he wanted to write this song for them,
but he was on a very strict time crunch, so
he contacted a friend of his, John pee Waybill from
the Tubes who was a known weirdo, and they got
together and finished this song and they went on to
get in the top forty. He had actually made it
to number twenty six. And Vixen with all their hair
and all their aquinet and all their ozone destruction was
in high rotation on MTV back when that was important,
so that definitely helped. After they made it big, Richard
and Feed offered to continue writing some songs for them,
and the band politely declined because they wanted to focus
on writing their own and Fee made a comment in
a couple of interviews that, well, they said no, and
you've never heard of Vixen again, have you. So he's
a little bit right on that kind of But they
seem to get along with Richard Marx. If you watch
the video for Edge of a Broken Heart, Richard Marx
actually makes a cameo in it as a thank you
for writing a song. Let's check it out Fixen and
Edge of a Broken Heart.
Speaker 19: I don't need another dollar nine trying Nile is a
thing back the way and I can be a bit recently.
Speaker 4: I didn't do that.
Speaker 14: I don't broken hot, I don't want I don't want
I don't.
Speaker 4: Don't broke in hot. Don't you wonder why I gotta.
Speaker 2: Think she's I can never have a chance to a
change John too? Did you think that I'm a time
of chance?
Speaker 14: Well and dancing bru, I'm not doing it some way to.
Speaker 1: Know something in that to so demon cry to s.
Speaker 4: Pocuns happened. I want, I want.
Speaker 13: The ads pocus hop dot wonder why bag thank.
Speaker 18: Outside to.
Speaker 4: Something like you.
Speaker 14: To contained as well?
Speaker 1: And you're gonna be don think that.
Speaker 4: I'm enjoying its bay.
Speaker 18: The nipm.
Speaker 19: So brock, it will happens. I'm Crockett, happen to wonder
world pocket don't happen.
Speaker 4: Times of Crocks wander wild My god.
Speaker 6: Second, can you smell the hairspray?
Speaker 9: Absolutely right?
Speaker 6: The openness, the open CD and there's a little poof
of aquinate that just comes out. It's catchy, right, definitely eighties, Oh.
Speaker 3: To use the phrase totally eighties, totally totally.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So Neil made it. I'm throwing Neil right under
the bus. He made a comment while I was playing
that it just sounds like pretty much every other eighties
hair metal kind of thing.
Speaker 11: You're correct, kind it does? I mean you know, quiet
Riot and all that. You know, I'm not I'm not,
I'm not critiquing it. I'm just saying that it was
very it was the style interchangeable, Yeah, and that was
that was what was big at the time, not only
their hair but the sound.
Speaker 6: Very true.
Speaker 19: So there you go.
Speaker 6: That's it. We end in the eighties this week. What
else can I say?
Speaker 9: There are so many good girl groups out there when
you start looking through them, Oh my god, I know, right,
like way back in the sixties, and it's just yeah,
I should do another show like that.
Speaker 6: We can definitely revisit this. I have no problem coming
back to the prior topics. So there's always you can
always dig a little deeper, and there's always you know,
you work your way backwards, and you really, you know,
think about all the stuff that we don't even know
about from before records, before recording and all that, all
the stuff that was put out. Most songs that were
written we'll never know about because they just weren't saved anywhere.
Speaker 9: You couldn't, you know, and they were on sheet music, even.
Speaker 6: The ones on sheet music. If the sheet music didn't survive,
if nobody's got a copy anywhere, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
so it's worth it. It's worth digging because you never
know what you're gonna find. And uh, you know, just
if you find something that's in the public domain, now
you re record it and make a big hit out
of it. There you go. So yeah, all right, So
why don't we pull the plug for tonight. You guys
have any final comments, final thoughts before we ridy here?
Speaker 11: Not?
Speaker 12: Then good listen, go listen to some music.
Speaker 6: Agreed, agreed, So excellent selections across the board as always,
So thank you cram Bones, and thank you all for
joining us here for the Rock and Roll History Show.
Don't forget to subscribe in your favorite podcast app and
check out all the other shows we do with Hudson
River Radio because there is something for everybody. We're off
next week. We're back the week after with a special
surprise that I'm not telling you about just in case
it doesn't work out, but we hope to see you then.
Until then, have a great weekend and be safe. Everybody.
Piece out.
Speaker 5: Com a rock top bottom it rum.
Speaker 13: Okay, bye bye.
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