Pure Punk Picks
Methodist Church – The Girls
A couple of summers ago, I met singer/musician/songwriter Richie Parsons, a person you might know, especially if you grew up in the early Boston punk scene like me.
He fronted Unnatural Axe, The Future Dads and still performs today- I told him that I would describe The Girls as “Devo if they smoked Angel Dust just before they recorded.”
Richie told me, “I think that’s a pretty, accurate description.” And I concur.
The Girls were a bunch of guys- whattya expect? And not glitter/ glam guys like The New York Dolls. More like a bunch of nerds, guys who looked like members of The Science Club in High School that the football team liked to pummel after practice.
The Girls existed for a short time in the late seventies but more popular local bands then, like Mission Of Burma and Human Sexual Response, really liked them as I did, too.
A lot of the punk/new wave bands in the late seventies/early eighties had a lot of arty or art rock influence, both locally and elsewhere. And this was not surprising as so many of the musicians came from art schools or other forms of art.
And though I know nothing of the background of this band, but I do know that their bass player, George Condo, is currently a well-known, successful New York visual artist.
I only saw them play live once and that was at The Rat maybe ’78 or ’79. And this was when they still had tables and chairs in front of the stage!
The Girls were getting little response during their set, so in the middle of a song, the guitar player leapt off stage and started kicking some empty chairs at the table in front of me, which was also occupied by a couple.
The guy of the couple took offense to this and proceeded to pick up a chair and hit the guitar player over the head with it!
I could clearly see some blood dripping down from the guitar player’s forehead.
A bouncer quickly stepped in, but instead of ushering out the patron, he began admonishing the guitar player!
The Girls just carried on as if nothing unusual happened, finishing their set.
The music of this song is typical of a lot of the early punk- meaning, it’s like a heart attack victim that had electrodes fastened to their chest and it worked, causing the person to jerk violently back to life.
It’s got a rockin’, rock’n’roll beat that you could twist to, that is if your hips were programmed to the highest speed on a food blender.
The vocals skitter along in fraught, emotional hysteria that resemble a suicidal person poised on a ledge, ready to take his last step.
During the chorus, there is great sixties like Farfisa organ sounding synthesizer line that only adds to the surrealness and uniqueness of the song.
“I am not a yo-yo. I am not a baboon!”
Point taken, but the musical and vocal presentation is so weird and wild that your protests are deemed- indefensible.
There is so much energy and excitement and punk art experimentation in this tune that it exceeds so many better well known art/punk bands such as Devo, Talking Heads and Pere Ubu.
So the glib remark I made about them being “Devo on Angel Dust” is just not funny, but I think, really true.
I love Devo, but this band was really- ready and willing to knock all the plates off the table, to not only reject the status quo of the rock world but the somewhat complacent art world, as well. And the catatonic real world, too.
They were certainly willing to knock chairs around to cause a little reaction even if it ended up with personal blood loss!
No surprise they had little success.
But I’m not so sure about that last line because I know their memory and influence lives on, not only with me, but with countless others. And what they embodied does as well.
What made The Girls different to me was, unlike most of the arty bands, in punk or other genres, that usually have a somber, rather serious tone that hangs over them. Which usually, I feel that’s great, adds a certain sincere tone to them. But, let me tell ya- The Girls rejected any sense of pretentiousness project onto them.
Instead, The Girls did have a sense of humor and a wild notion of fun. And an ability and desire to not only be creative, but to be disruptive of people’s expectations and perceptions, too.
I feel they were probably one of the best bands in the world at the time.
And I don’t need a chair across my head to make me feel that I’m right.
(Slimedog)
