Entertainment For Lively Minds
All-girl guitar bands are all rubbish - discuss
Posted by Ricardo on 14 February 2010 - 7:27pm.
There - I've said it. Why are there barely any all-guitar combos that are any good?
It's weird because most of my favourite bands - the Velvets, Pixies, My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, etc all have girl members. But I can't think of any all female guitar group bar one* who are half decent.
Bands like the Runaways have a couple of ok songs maybe, and groups like The Raincoats and the Slits are critically lauded, but would anyone ever want to listen to a whole album by any of these bands?
So am I horribly wrong in holding this opinion? Discuss.
(* Sleater-Kinney )
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Try the first Bangles album
'All Over The Place'
hmmm...
Tricky one. There's loads of predominately female indie bands I liked lots such as Breeders, Elastica, Lush, Kenickie that had token bloke members. Sleater-Kinney are cool though.
I don't know the first Bangle's album..
..but will investigate it. Is it the one with "Going Down to Liverpool" on it? It's a cracking track!
Yup, that's the one
Paisley Underground garage pop a-go-go!
Very good
... and the guitarist not only rocks, she was seriously hot (not Hoffs, the other one). Whistle Test evidence for the former.
And can we remember where first we heard from them?
It was care of either David or Mark on Whistle Test, back from the USA in about 1985 with videos from two bands.. The Bangles and Lone Justice.
...I hate to rain on the Ellen / Hepworth parade but...
...The Tube were there before Whistle Test. In the first series of the Tube (1982-83) they sent one of the team (I think it was Jools Holland) to California to check out some of the up and coming bands. A young Bandgles, including a far less styled and altogether nerdier looking Hoffs, were featured. This series has been released on DVD.
with
special guest appearance from old Spock himself!
The Bangles
First group that came to mind here, too.
The 'comeback' album Doll Revolution is really good. This, and the first one, are the only records where they actually play the instruments themselves. It's not that they couldn't play, it's just what producers did in the 80s.
They were a cracking live act too.
The Go Go's
Fantastic band, irrespective of gender.
My favourite Go Gos Moment
Best comeback single EVER.......
Narrowly pipping Blondie's "Maria".
Very glad to see...
...the Bangles and the Go-Gos. Both outrageously good.
this band were cool too, though didn't release much:
L7 were frightening
but pretty damn heavy..
hehe...
I remember that performance on the Word. I'm pretty sure that was the same show with Bill Hicks and a juiced-up Ollie Reed both on it too.
The defence
rests it's case. Yes there ARE guitars!
Fuzzbox "Pink Sunshine
Fuzzbox......d'oh!
Came across the 12" of this and "International Rescue" when going through some old vinyl in the garage. Transferred to MP3 - not the best really......
Shampoo
Jacqui & Carrie - Nicky Wire's personal fan club.
Great tune though!
Something I've noticed...
...is how certain all girl-bands who start off cool get messed around by their record companies and have their image and sound given a dodgy commercial makeover that ultimately destroys the band. The Bangles and Fuzzbox come to mind.
Probably fall foul of the token male member (oo-er missus)...
for at least some of their career, but I would suggest:
Throwing Muses
The Breeders
The Slits
The Raincoats(?)
Slits
Whoops - Forgot about them
Pleasure Seekers
Bit of an obscure one I know, and I have only heard a couple of their tracks so can;t vouch for their entire output, but I really like what I have heard of the Pleasure Seekers.
They were part of the Detroit garage scene (circa 1964-67) and featured a young (14 years) Suzi Quatro on bass. Worth searching for on Spotify.
Can I also throw in Amazulu? I remember them being quite entertaining at the time.
BTW I can, and have, listened to an entire Slits album.
The Belle Stars / The Bodysnatchers
Great bands
Have this...
...not sure if I've heard anything else by them, but this is bloody good.
Electrelane...
...an overlooked modern gem. Sadly, now on long term sabbatical.
Sahara Hotnights
Most definitely not rubbish.
do Heart count?
Given the only constants in their ever-changing line-ups are Ann and Nancy Wilson?
Ok - they went all soft-rock-power-pop-big-shoulderpads-heaving-bosoms and leatherette - but they started out kinda Doobiesesque didn't they?
Anyone remember The Alice Band?
One album, not bad at all, nice jangly harmonised power-pop. Dickie Allinson on R2 liked them. And they had a member called Charity Hair.
The Mo-Dettes
From the entertaining and informative blog:
http://thelondonnobodysings.blogspot.com/
Good live
Yes - I saw them a couple of times at the old Marquee in Wardour Street and they were very good, I've still got a T-shirt somewhere as well, I'm sure it would still fit me!
Coupl'a Things...
1) Vivian Girls
First album clocks in at barely 25 minutes, which is very kind of them because you'll need to hear it more than once to realise that these girls knock everyone else for six. And, they just get better and better. Second album - Everything Goes Wrong - is a blinder. Not only will you want to listen to the whole thing, you'll want to listen to it again solely to follow Kickball Katy's rolling bass-lines. And then there's Ali Koehler's rollicking drumming; not to mention Cassie Ramone and her endearing guitar thrash. Anyway, I give you two perfect examples:
2) Sleater-Kinney: Pretty much unlistenable!
How about
Luscious Jackson
or the funtime Shonen Knife!
The difference..
..between this mob and most of the above, is that they can actually play and sing.
Fanny 1971
Always liked Fanny...!
Saw them supporting Jethro Tull 8-}
Luscious Jackson
...Breeders, Slits, Go-Gos, Bangles and The Donnas. All really good bands. Thesis disproved.
Not to forget
The Like
Not heard of them…
… but that's way cool.
Couple more good 'uns:
the Pandoras from 1985 (think the Bangles raunchier sisters...)
The Feminine Complex (c. 1969)
(NB they were a proper band, although I think session musos also played on the album itself).
Thanks for The Like
That was great. Never heard of them until now.
Here's some...
Cocktail Slippers from Norway
The Models from Sweden
The Plastiscines from France
Those Dancing Days from Sweden again...
And who could forget The Gymslips...
Best of all...
Palomar
Girlschool?
Sorry, I can't resist
if you ain't heard The Shaggs you ain't heard nuthin!
Read all about them here...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shaggs
A couple more
Luscious Jackson / Vivian Girls / Donnas have all been mentioned, so I'll offer up these
Babes In Toyland
Angelica
First Aid Kit
Juliana Hatfield's "Some Girls" side project also made a couple of decent albums, but typing "Some Girls" into YouTube produces a whole different set of results...
The babes
Babes in Toyland - intense, and best of the lot by a mile. Check out the album "Bruised Violet" if you don't believe me.
Everything Courtney Love thinks she knows, she copied from these guys.
Met them once in Glasgow before one of their gigs and they were absolute sweeties.
Edit
Album is "Fontanelle" on whicj you'll find a song called "Bruise Violet"
Just remembered - Ipso Facto
Supported Magazine last year in Manchester.
Well worth the price of admission.
Can't resist including
Eisley
The Dupree girls write the songs, so they have to shoulder the responsibility.
Loads of good all girl guitar bands.
I listen to Cut by The Slits even now (in fact my partners 9 year old daughter is completely obsessed by it and plays in ALL the time.
The Donna's are great as are Shonen Knife but my favourites are The 5,6,7,8's
Much as most of these..
..seem to confirm the original hypothesis, they are no worse than most of their male contemporaries.
Eh?
What does that mean?
Extrapolating would lead to "All guitar bands are rubbish."
Maybe that is what you mean...
Well. most post punk..
..guitar bands ARE rubbish. (That's what most of these are....)
Oh Shane...
you really don't like bands that can't play very well do you...were you beaten up by a punk rocker once upon a time?
This Blog is great as it is very inclusive, I don't come from a very prog/folk/Beatles/heavy rock background in the slightest...errr I actually formed my first band before any of the members could play a note! Sorry about that pal.
But I love the open mindeness about music on here and I pick up some great tips from everyone and learned about loads of music I wouldn't normally have come across.
But you always gotta have a dig about bands that aren't virtuoso haven't you. I don't go on a thread and moan about people who like the Beatles or Richard Thompson or Eric Clapton.
We all gotta start somewhere mate! ;-)
Retro...
see my PM.
Everybody starts off rubbish, but they shouldn't be making records or playing gigs.
A lot of my favourite music is based on limited ability (In fact, as Pete Townshend says re; The Beatles, as players they were "flippin' lousy")
It's the glorification of incomptetence, a la punk that does my head in..such nonesense.
In fact rock music is the only art form where its ever been acceptable to be lousy.
Imagine if you were looking for an architect.
"Oh, yeah..architecture was getting really stale..all those drawings and plans and sums..how pompous. I didn't have a clue what I was doing, in fact this design is based on a cornflakes box"...
Building art
Isn't architecture really a branch of civil engineering rather than an artform?
I think anyone should be allowed to make records and play gigs but if you're rubbish you shouldn't be surprised if nobody is interested.
I'm not sure that punk glorified incompetance but was rather an attitude that suggested that expertise wasn't necessary in order to get the message across. It accepted and didn't criticise lack of expertise rather than celebrate it.
Punk did..
..glorify incompetence, it was one of its main manifestos.(Here's 3 chords, now go form a band)
One of the main points of Skiffle was that anyone could do it, and many did, without all the tedious "year zero" claptrap that surrounded punk (.. in London..In 1976)
It's not the first music scene where bullshit was disguised as honesty, and it sure won't be the last.
We all know that anyone worthy from the punk scene quickly learned how to play and write songs, but this mythology still persists every time that era is written about.
KISS
If "Here's 3 chords, Now go form a band" glorifies incompetance then I guess a lot of the playing on some of Hank Williams hits would also have to be described as incompetant. The point was that anyone could do it and it didn't have to be elaborate. KISS is the acronym that comes to mind for creating classic pop records and many punk bands did just that to great effect. If you don't like it, that's absolutely fine but when I could provide a long list of records that I think have been ruined by musicians showing off the virtuosity of the performer doesn't define the suitability to produce the required performance.
Yeah..
..exactly what I said above.
Simplicity ain't the issue, the polemic (mainly esposed by arty types like like Bernie Rhodes and the painful pseuds from the NME)surrounding it is.
Thanks for the reply Shane
Definitely a case of we agree to disagree, you can't lock up bands and stop them playing or recording until they can play!
Anyway, these girls really can play...
incompetence
Yeah but many of these so-called incompetent bands created some beautiful noises, unlike the over-earnest wafflings of some of yer virtuosos (I'm looking at you Clapton).
Anyway, as I think we established in the Great War of the Middlerabbits, it's all subjective innit.
A cornflake box
is a perfect thing. Like the best architecture - it is a perfect model of form and function. Industrial design or architecture or a manufactured artefact cannot be flawed. It would - quite literally - defeat the object.
Music - being organic - can be badly played and made and yet hit the sweet spot.
Flawed and yet perfect. Arguably, some of the greatest pop music made is precisley that.
The Like
Famous fathers...!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_like
Um...
Maybe the problem isn't that all girl guitar bands are rubbish, but that there are relatively few anyway so they stick in the mind more? After all, there are hundreds if not thousands of rubbish all bloke bands, across every musical genre.
Non punk. Kinda prog-pop
Operator Please
Nearly all girls and absolutely belting.
all female bands
haven't had the same exposure or opportunities that male bands have had.
But there are some that have been mentioned. Also the bands you mention were as good (with some stand out songs and some messy experiments) as their male punk contemporaries. It's just that punk gave a bit more of a chance for women to create stuff from themselves rather than sing songs written by men.
Female songwriters have certainly proved to be men's equals again and again and again, and as you mention female membership of a band often gives a different flavour than all male bands.
Wait a while and your list will grow year in year out. Assuming the music industry doesn't implode tomorrow. Or next year. Or whatever.
So in conclusion...
When I started this thread, I was playing Devil's advocate regarding girl guitar groups, wanting to hear other people's take on this subject
And thanks to a typically intelligent well-reasoned and non-hysterical debate of The Word Massive , I'm happy to conclude that all-girl guitar bands are NOT all rubbish.
I did intially wonder if any girl guitar band had ever made an album that you'd want to hear all the way through - there's obviously a great double CD compliation to be made from all the suggestions above of girls with guitars.
But now I realise I was a bit of a nozzle-head regarding certain groups - early Bangles and especially The Go-Gos - how did I let them slip through the net?
Thanks again all for a fun and illuminating discussion.