FUZZBOX MELTDOWN:
Girls With Guitars (Ace Records)

As part of the ongoing collectors quest to unearth the holy grail of a single female ‘60s rock band who played their own instruments, wrote their own songs and were actually GOOD, an outfit called Romulan Records have issued at least twelve(??) volumes of their Girls In The Garage series over the years, and having heard about half of them, I’m sad to report that they are a disappointing prospect on the whole, regardless of how enticing they look in the record racks. Half decent material is obviously in short supply, and quality control is near non-existent.

It’s a bad sign that the early volumes found room for outright atrocities like Althea & The Memories “The Worst Record in The World” (essentially Kim Fowley jabbering for three minutes whilst some teenagers giggle and yell in the background) and goofy, if enjoyable, trash like The Surfer Girls’ “Draggin’ Wagon” (a stolen Chuck Berry backing track with some session singers doing archetypal hotrod lyrics over the top), whilst later volumes lose the plot entirely, resorting to covering French Yé-Yé pop (which is obviously cool, but pretty damn far from the garage, and better served by other compilation series), and even ‘80s/’90s tracks by The Delmonas and Holly Golightly (which are great too of course, but c’mon). There are a fair few intriguing oddities and lost classics scattered throughout the ‘..Garage’ comps of course, and I respect the compilers for taking the time to put them together so we can hear this stuff, but the good bits are few and far between, and depessingly, nearly all of the artists featured sound like bottom drawer novelty groups and cash-in studio quickies rather than genuine bands.

The dream of a real life Carrie Nations lives on though, and hey, here come the ever-reliable Ace Records – home of enough quality 50s/60s reissues to last a life-time, including the great ‘Good Girls Gone Bad’ round-up of ‘50s female rockers – with their own Girls With Guitars. A single volume – sensible! Some of the tunes included cross over with Romulan’s comps, but still, compressed into a lean 24 tracks, could this finally be the motherlode of ‘60s girl garage that is actually worth listening to? Fingers crossed... let’s go!




1.The Girls - My Baby

Not a bad start – quite a nice, restrained bit of garage-rock with a half-decent dance-floor rhythm and a twangy lead guitar line. The vocals sound good n’ real too, kinda sweet. Could this be a genuine girl-rock-band…? I dunno, I mean what do you want me to do, google “the girls”?

2. The Tomboys - I'd Rather Fight Than Switch

Hey, this one’s pretty good too! Quite a rough, lively Beatles-y guitar pop number in which The Tomboys outline their intention to kick some ass in order to save their boyfriends from the attentions of rival chicks. Wow! I hope those young hoodlums realised what a swell bunch of gals they’d got themselves, and hey, they even play in a band too! Honestly fellas, what’s with all the fooling around?

3. The Angels - Get Away From Me

A really cheap sounding Motown-ish girl group / soul knock-off that more than gets by on charm and eccentricity I reckon, built as it is around the admirable sentiment of telling creepy, annoying boys to fuck off. The vocalists have got a great street kid snarl, making them sound a little like distant ancestors of Thee Headcoatees, plus there’s a totally weird solo played on what sounds like a fairground wurlitzer organ, and even some Standells-style back-talk at the end; “listen here buddy-boy, if you don’t back off, I’m gonna belt you in a minute!” No kidding!

4. Denise & Company - Boy, What'll You Do Then?

Great, tough bit of harmonica-driven dance party stomp with great, furious female vocals. Pretty straight-down-the-line good stuff, so I can’t think of much more to say about it. Musically robust and rockin’ enough to justify a place on any given ‘Pebbles’ or ‘Back From The Grave’ disc, which is more than can be said for a lot of the stuff on this comp.

5. Goldie & The Gingerbreads - Chew Chew Fee Fi Fum

Pretty lame-brained bit of cookie cutter teenybop junk, although it’s hard to hate music this innocent and positive, no matter how bad it is. Plus: redeemed by some awesome hand-clapping and a rockin’ sax solo!

6. The Beatle-Ettes – Only Seventeen

Obvious beatlemania cash-in, presumably intended as an answer record to the Beatles “Seventeen”. Oddly, it doesn’t sound very much like the Beatles at all, until they bust into a rip from “She Loves You” on the chorus. A fairly pleasant three chord pop readymade anyhow.

7. Sugar & The Spices - Do The Dog

Total ‘written in 10 seconds’ stoopid dance-craze song that’s not a patch on the other Sugar & The Spices tune on this album. A b-side possibly? Notable for the presence of a girl trying to imitate one of the tenor backing singers in male doo-wop groups, which is kinda sweet, and weird, ill thought-out lyrics like “c’mon and do the dog ‘till you want to die!”, which really isn’t.

8. Kathy Lynn & The Playboys - I Got a Guy

I wonder if this is the same Playboys of Gerry Lewis & The Playboys (lack of) fame? Oh, who cares frankly. Music is pretty basic Chuck Berry with some good guitar. Kathy’s got a guy who plays in a rock n’ roll band, and she’s gonna love him all she can. Can’t say fairer than that. “Take it baby!”, she says before the solo, and baby proceeds to do just that, providing the obvious highlight of this one minute and fifty-seven seconds of my life.

9. The Goodees - Double Shot (Of My Baby's Love)

Oh YEAH!! Woo-hoo! Etc! Yes, it’s a female fronted version of The Swingin’ Medallions all-time frat party classic, and though a touch less rowdy than the original (no yelling or party noise), it’s still a good job for me they don’t bottle THIS stuff. The immortal organ hook is present and correct, although this version fucks with perfection slightly by burying the last three notes under a stax horn blast, but no matter, we get the point. Great drumming and nifty lead guitar licks too. The vocalist sounds a little unsure of herself, and no wonder, as lyrics which all seemed in good fun when hollered by an all-male chorus sound positively filthy with the gender pronouns reversed and delivered by a lone lady (“He loved so long, and he loved me so hard, I finally passed out in his front yard”?). Still, this one’s going straight to the top of my hypothetical party playlist, and if there’s a better record on this comp, I’ll eat my toga.

10. The Pandoras - (I Could Write a Book) About My Baby

Ooooh, wow, this one gets pretty close! Absolutely BEAUTIFUL handclap, xylophone and horn driven Specter-esque bubblegum girl-group magic of the highest order, but way more lightweight and fancy free than Phil’s sturm-und-drang walls of sound ever allowed for. Beautiful melody, beautiful vocals, and belts along with a brilliant, shimmering groove that’s just to die for. Chorus line: “I could write a book about my baby, and it would be a book that every girl would buy!” I think I just felt my eyes turn heart-shaped and go “boi-oi-oing”. Some contemporary indie-pop group really needs to dig out this song and cover it for all the Belle & Sebastian kids to get down to, if they haven’t already.

11. Pat Powdrill & Powerdrills - They Are the Lonely

What the hell is this?? Lurching several years and whole cultural world away from most of the proceeding tracks, this is a pretty inspid faux-psychedelia quickie with a keyboard intro lifted from “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”, utterly shitty lyrics and Grace Slick type lead vocals. It is sad to reflect that this is approximately one-thousand times less rocking than a group christened “Pat Powdrill & The Powerdrills” properly should be.

12. 2 Of Clubs – Heart

I don’t know quite what the deal is with this little record; it seems to be having a bit of a mid-60s identity crisis, sounding half girl-group and half folk-rock, with a crazy, rip roaring garage / r’n’b middle section that kicks things into gear slightly. The first half is pretty blah, but it definitely picks up a bit when some punk starts busting out some Animals style organ and everybody claps their hands gospel style. Still suffers from being essentially not very good though.

13. Daughters Of Eve - Help Me Boy

Another really dreary bit of kitschy soft-psyche that steals a few bits from “Icthycoo Park” and god knows what else besides. Soul-crushingly competent, instantly forgettable.

14. Goldie & The Gingerbreads - Skinny Vinnie

Totally goofy street girl doo-wop trash with a definite whiff of Kim Fowley about it; “he’s not much thicker than a fishing pole / he’s one half rock and the other half roll!” Fun!

15. The Percells - Hully Gully Guitar

Oh man, now THIS is a bad record. An attempt at a “listen to the guitar man” song in the vein of Dick Dale’s “King of the Surf Guitar”, the guitar man here unfortunately seems to be a surly, rock n’ roll hating studio hack who reluctantly spent a few minutes learning bits off Eddie Cochran records in exchange for beer money. Correspondingly, the singer sounds like she absolutely could not give a shit. The song is utterly mindless, the production values are non-existent and the playing is so sluggish and stilted it sounds like everyone in room could have been on a ketamine comedown. And they drag it out for nearly three fucking minutes. So horrid and joyless it’s actually quite creepy. Bad vibes all round – I’m gonna skip on to the next one if that’s ok.

16. Kathy Lynn & The Playboys - Rock City

More solid rockin’ fare from Kathy and her darling on the guitar. Hang on though, I think this is actually an instrumental…. where’s Kathy?? I mean, we’ve already established that she’s the singer and the band are guys, so what’s THIS doing taking up space on ‘Girls With Guitars’?

17. Lonnie Mack & The Charmaines - Sticks and Stones

Lonnie Mack’s not a girl either! What the hell is going on here? Presumably The Charmaines are girls though, and they sing some back-up on what’s essentially a jaunty though unremarkable little instrumental rock number.

18. Goldie & The Gingerbreads - Take My Hand

As far removed from the previous Goldie & The Gingerbreads tracks as can be imagined, this starts off as an attempt at sultry, dignified a-cappella gospel harmonising, before exploding into a passable Martha & The Vandellas pastiche. For some reason, The Amazing Criswell pops up towards the end to say “one more time!”

19. Sugar & The Spices - Boys Can Be Mean

This is more like it! Lovely bit of Southern-tinged, swingin’ pop… sounds a bit like Bobbie Gentry fronting the Carrie Nations. Only not quite THAT good, obviously. Killer song too, giving girls the low-down on us boys and our wicked ways. The day’s gonna come when we’re gonna have to do some prayin’, apparently.

20. Al Casey & The K-C-Ettes - Guitars, Guitars, Guitars

Another guy who’s not a girl! Heaven’s sake! Cool little song though, with smokin’ guitar and organ making for a great Booker T kinda sound. The K-C-Ettes sing about being kept awake by “guitars, groovin’ in the alley”, but thankfully they seem to appreciate the benefits of living in such a lively neighbourhood, so that’s just fine.

21. Goldie & The Gingerbreads – V.I.P.

Yet more Gingerbreads action for yer money. This is by far the best track by them on this album; a nice, dumb, danceable bit of feel-good soul-pop with a really swinging big band and good, punchy production. Alright.

22. The Hairem – Come On Along

‘Hairem’?? Christ, what an awful name. The first time I listened to this, I thought it was so appalling I had to skip it after about 40 seconds, but having another go for the sake of writing this review, I think I was being very, very foolish, because this is actually rather wonderful, and perhaps unique. Firstly, they’re definitely playing their own instruments, as I can’t possibly imagine any session-men could play in such a weird and shaky fashion, even if they wanted to. And whilst the playing and production are appallingly sloppy by conventional ‘60s pop standards, Hairem sound way more like a genuine, self-defined teenage girl garage band than anyone else on this disc, and have a great, innocent energy about them that’s really lovely. There’s a sort of dignified wallflower shyness to the band’s performance here and a refusal to engage with macho rock band clichés that puts me in mind of The Marine Girls. Obviously this is still a heartfelt take at a rock n’ roll song though, so perhaps think The Marine Girls quietly trying to be Buddy Holly in their parents’ basement somewhere in California. Yeah, don’t worry, I swooned too. The lead vocalist actually has a pretty strong voice, but the harmonies from the other are just so hesitant and sweet…. arg! Damn, these girls sound like they’re having so much fun though. “It’s Piper’s turn now!”, the singer shouts, and Piper proceeds to play a swell, surfy Hank Marvin style riff/solo that continues through the rest of the song. By the standards of 99% of the world’s music listeners, this is probably not a great record, but I… I.. I’m speechless in the face of such beauty.

23. The Girls - My Love

More moody and dramatic than the Girls track that opened the album, this is nonetheless pretty generic post-Beatles American teen fare, but it’s also pretty raw and gutsy, and again sounds like these could well be genuine girls with guitars, so… good.

24. She - Outta Reach

Opening and closing with a bunch of saucy “uh!”s and “yeeeeah”s, ‘She’ almost sounds like a young Patti Smith in places. Her band meanwhile play total trashola organ-driven garage slop. Pretty spirited stuff and not half bad, although I fear it suffers from being conceived / written / recorded in about ten minutes.

WHAT WE’VE LEARNED:

Look, let’s just face facts: there was no female equivalent of The Chocolate Watch Band, no matter how much we might want one. Despite the teenage cultural emancipation of the ‘50s, American society in the ‘60s was still deeply sexist and conservative, and the music industry doubly so. (For one random example, just look at the way Grace Slick was sidelined in the Jefferson Airplane, only allowed a couple of tracks on each album to do her thing, despite being obviously the best singer in the band and the writer of both of their hit singles.) Even the basic idea of girls playing guitars, acoustic ones even, and writing songs only made it’s way into public consciousness thanks to the likes of Joni and Carly in the early ‘70s, despite the earlier trailblazing efforts of cult faves like Odetta or Wanda Jackson.

And chances are, even any girls who did break with cultural norms by learning to play rock n’ roll would have been given a pretty hard time in the course of trying to get a half-decent record made; ridiculed or neglected by record companies, sold as novelty / throwaway acts, forced to work with manipulative producers who’d try to push them toward a more ‘feminine’ (read: crappy) sound... all are likely possibilities.

But if we leave aside concerns about authenticity for a while and stop dreaming of the non-existent bad-ass garage chicks who didn’t play the Whisky A-Go-Go in '66, Ace have really pulled out all the stops to put together a fun-packed compilation of the best ‘60s American girl stuff that DOES exist; the vast majority of the tracks here are real enjoyable, and there are at least 4 or 5 bona fide classics included, which is more than can be boasted of by most second-division male garage comps. So well worth checking out if you appreciate a good bit of obscure, sugary teen trash jollity, with at least a few songs worthy of being checked out by everybody with a pulse, some of which below.

TOP THREE SONGS:

1. The Goodees - Double Shot (Of My Baby's Love)

2. The Pandoras - (I Could Write a Book) About My Baby

3. The Hairem – Come On Along

(To buy Girls With Guitars, clicketh here.)

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UPDATE:

Some further info on The Hairem, courtesy of All Music Guide:

One of the few all-female garage bands of their time to play their own instruments and write their own material, the Hairem did not release any recordings, though they did evolve into the more psychedelic- and hard-rock-influenced She in the late 1960s, which put out one single in 1970. The Hairem got together in the mid-1960s when guitarist and primary songwriter Nancy Ross formed a teen band (with her younger sister Sally on organ) in Sacramento, California. Originally known as the Id, they changed their name to the Hairem and did attract some label interest. The Hairem did not officially release anything in the 1960s, but five songs that they recorded did come out on the She CD compilation Wants a Piece of You (which also has 14 songs from several years later by She) in 1999. These cuts, though not as crude as the Shaggs, were nonetheless quite raw and basic, in the manner of many US garage bands of the period. Indeed they're pretty generic, or sub-generic, the chief distinction being that there were extremely few all-female groups playing such music circa 1966, especially with the raunchy attitude evident on cuts such as "Like a Snake."

I still reckon the Hairem track is way better than the She one, but such is life.

Labels: 1960s, fuzzbox meltdown, Girls With Guitars, pop, The Hairem