Tere González - Desechables

The year is 1981, the place, Vallirana, a small town in Barcelona. Jordi Solá -Dei Pei-, Miguel González -No-, Tere González, Siscu and Jaime start to play together. They are only kids. Desechables was influenced by bands like the New York Dolls, Ramones, Iggy Pop and, above all, the Cramps. In fact, they came to be considered the Spanish Cramps because of the fact that both bands lacked a bassist. At the beginning, Siscu, Jaime and Tere were all sharing vocal duties, but soon Tere became the only singer in the group. At the age of 14. Tere González became Tere Desechable.

By the summer of 1983, as a trio and with a few songs developed from the first sessions in which they covered The Cramps, Jordi, Miguel and Tere played at the II International Rock Competition in Lyon. There they shared the stage with Killing Joke, among others. The experience turned out to be a success. So much so, that they were invited to continue playing around Paris and Rennes. Things were getting really good for the band. But the bad luck that was to accompany them throughout their career, made their first and most devastating act of presence here. Just when they were getting ready to record an LP at the mythical Rock Ola in Madrid -the demo "Maqueta" (Anarchi, 1982) and the EP "La Oración" (Tres Cipreses, 1983)-, Miguel, the guitarist, died when he tried to rob a jewelry store with a toy gun, shot by the jeweler himself in Villafranca del Penedés. Desechables ceased to exist.

The following year saw the release of the album "Golpe tras Golpe" (Desechables, 1984), which was put together using songs from French live shows and a performance at the Diario Pop party on Radio 3. The back cover includes a drawing of the band members made by Miguel. A little later Desechables return to the stage. Miguel is replaced on the guitar by Jordi's brother, Marcelo -El Enano-, who hadn't missed a single rehearsal and had been playing since 1984 with the group, so he knew the songs perfectly. Carlos also enters and they are established as a quartet.

The band recorded their live album at the end of December 1984 in the Rock Ola hall and it is called "Buen Ser-Vicio" (Tres Cipreses, 1985) and the provocative cover leaves no one indifferent. However a mistake in the pressing of the vinyl meant that the recording lacked capturing the forcefulness and rawness of that concert. In any case, the first and only print run was quickly sold out.




In 1986 Desechables recorded their first studio LP under the orders of Angel Altolaguirre. The album, "Nadaquentender" (Radio Nacional de España, 1987) would not be released until the following year, and was preceded by the single "Ábreme". The single anticipated what was to come: a good production work but one that perhaps overshadowed the quartet's characteristic pointy sound. Poor distribution made the record a flop. In 1987 Jack joins th band as a bass player and Altolaguirre becomes a permanent member, although shortly after he starts his personal project Angel y Las Güais and is replaced by Raul. That same year they recorded the album "Amor Pirata" (Recordings Interferences, 1988). Just when Desechables were beginning to sound on the radio and to have some fame, the band broke up. They would do so after their performance at the KGB in Barcelona, on November 17, 1988.

Stevie Nicks

Stephanie Lynn Nicks (born May 26, 1948) is an American singer and songwriter. Nicks is best known for her work as a songwriter and vocalist with Fleetwood Mac, and also for her chart-topping solo career. She is known for her distinctive voice, mystical stage persona and poetic, symbolic lyrics. Collectively, her work both as a member of Fleetwood Mac and as a solo artist has produced over forty top 50 hits and sold over 140 million records, making her one of the best-selling music acts of all time with Fleetwood Mac. She is the only woman to have been inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a member of Fleetwood Mac in 1998 and as a solo artist in 2019.

With the Goya guitar that she received for her 16th birthday, Nicks wrote her first song, "I've Loved and I've Lost, and I'm Sad But Not Blue".  While attending Arcadia High School in Arcadia, California, she joined her first band, the Changing Times, a folk rock group focused on vocal harmonies. Nicks met Lindsey Buckingham, during her senior year at Menlo-Atherton High School in Atherton, California. He was in a psychedelic rock band, Fritz, but two of its musicians were leaving for college. He asked Nicks in mid-1967 to replace the lead singer, guitarist Jody Moreing. For the next three years, Fritz was composed of Nicks on lead vocals, Buckingham on bass and vocals, Brian Kane on lead guitar, Javier Pacheco on keyboards, and Bob Aguirre on drums. Pacheco was the main songwriter, with a psychedelic bent, but Nicks's compositions brought a country rock flair. Fritz became popular as a live act when it opened for Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin from 1968 until 1970.

After Fritz disbanded in 1972, Nicks and Buckingham continued to write as a duo, recording demo tapes at night in Daly City on a one-inch, four-track Ampex tape machine Buckingham kept at the coffee-roasting plant belonging to his father, Morris. They secured a deal with Polydor Records, and released the album Buckingham Nicks in 1973. The album was not a commercial success, despite the live shows that Nicks and Buckingham performed together to support it, and Polydor dropped the pair.   On December 31, 1974, Fleetwood called Buckingham to ask him to replace Welch, but Buckingham insisted that Nicks and he were "a package deal". A few days later, Nicks and Buckingham discussed the offer over dinner with Fleetwood and the McVies. The group decided that incorporating the pair would improve Fleetwood Mac, making the British band into an Anglo-American one. The first rehearsals confirmed this feeling, with the harmonies of the newcomers adding a pop accessibility to the hard rock. Buckingham Nicks was called to perform three sold-out dates in Birmingham, Alabama – the one area in which their album had seen success. During these final performances as Buckingham Nicks, the duo told their fans that they had joined Fleetwood Mac.

In 1975, Fleetwood Mac achieved worldwide success with the album Fleetwood Mac. Nicks's "Rhiannon", which appeared on the album, was eventually voted one of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time by Rolling Stone. Her live performances of the song throughout the decade began to take on a theatrical intensity not present on the album's single.  Also included on the album was "Landslide", which achieved over three million airplays and spawned multiple cover versions. The band  began recording their follow-up album, Rumours, in early 1976 and continued until late in the year. Among Nicks's contributions to Rumours was "Dreams", which became the band's only Billboard Hot 100 number-one hit single. Nicks had also written and recorded the song "Silver Springs", but it was not included on the album because the early versions of the song ran too long, the album was getting to be longer than the producer's target of 22 minutes per side, and the band was also concerned that the album had too many slow songs. "Silver Springs" was released as a B-side of the "Go Your Own Way" single. Copies of the single eventually became collectors' items among fans of Fleetwood Mac. 

After the success of the Rumours album and tour in 1977 to 1978, Fleetwood Mac began recording their third album with Buckingham and Nicks, Tusk, in the spring of 1978. By 1978, Nicks had amassed a large backlog of songs dating back to her Buckingham Nicks days that she had been unable to record and release with Fleetwood Mac because of the constraint of having to accommodate three songwriters on each album. Nicks wrote and recorded demos for a solo project during Tusk sessions in 1979 and the Tusk world tour of 1979–80. Nicks, Danny Goldberg, and Paul Fishkin founded Modern Records to record and release Nicks's material. Nicks recorded the hit duets "Whenever I Call You Friend" with Kenny Loggins in 1978, and "Gold" with John Stewart in 1979. Fleetwood Mac's Tusk was released on October 19, 1979. During 1981, Nicks made occasional guest appearances with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on their Hard Promises tour. Nicks's first solo album, Bella Donna, was released on July 27, 1981, to critical and commercial acclaim, reaching number one on the Billboard 200 chart, with four singles making the Billboard Hot 100, and Rolling Stone deeming her "the Reigning Queen of Rock and Roll". Nicks released her second solo album, The Wild Heart, on June 10, 1983. The album went double platinum, reached number five on the Billboard 200 albums chart, and featured three hit singles. She has released seven more solo studio albums, with her most recent, 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault, released in October 2014.

Koko Taylor

Koko Taylor (born Cora Anna Walton, September 28, 1928 – June 3, 2009) was an American singer whose style encompassed Chicago blues, electric blues, rhythm and blues and soul blues. Sometimes called "The Queen of the Blues", she was known for her rough, powerful vocals. 

Born on a farm near Memphis, she moved to Chicago in 1952. In the late 1950s, she began singing in blues clubs in Chicago. She was spotted by Willie Dixon in 1962, and this led to more opportunities for performing and her first recordings. In 1963 she had a single on USA Records, and in 1964 a cut on a Chicago blues collection on Spivey Records, called Chicago Blues. 

In 1964 Dixon brought Taylor to Checker Records, a subsidiary label of Chess Records, for which she recorded "Wang Dang Doodle", a song written by Dixon and recorded by Howlin' Wolf five years earlier. The record became a hit, reaching number four on the R&B chart and number 58 on the pop chart in 1966, and selling a million copies. She recorded several versions of the song over the years, including a live rendition at the 1967 American Folk Blues Festival, with the harmonica player Little Walter and the guitarist Hound Dog Taylor. 

Taylor became better known by touring in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and she became accessible to a wider record-buying public when she signed a recording contract with Alligator Records in 1975. She recorded nine albums for Alligator, eight of which were nominated for Grammy awards, and came to dominate ranks of female blues singers, winning twenty-nine W. C. Handy/Blues Music Awards. She survived a near-fatal car crash in 1989. In the 1990s, she appeared in the films Blues Brothers 2000 and Wild at Heart. She opened a blues club on Division Street in Chicago in 1994, which relocated to Wabash Avenue, in Chicago's South Loop, in 2000. Taylor's final performance was at the Blues Music Awards, on May 7, 2009. She suffered complications from surgery for gastrointestinal bleeding on May 19 and died on June 3.

Calypso Rose

Calypso Rose or Linda McCartha Monica Sandy-Lewis (born April 27, 1940 in Bethel Village, Tobago) started writing songs at the age of 13; over the years, she has composed more than 1000 songs and recorded more than 20 albums. Considered the "mother of calypso", Rose was the first female calypso star and her lyrics frequently address social issues like racism and sexism. Her influence over the calypso music genre forced the renaming of the Calypso King competition to the Calypso Monarch instead. In 2012 at Chutney Pride, Calypso Rose revealed that she is a member of the LGBT community and has been married to a woman for 17 years. In addition to writing songs about social issues, Rose is also an activist and was given the title of UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for former child soldiers along with performing at numerous events for social change.

At the beginning of her music career, the singer originally took the name Crusoe Kid but later changed it to Calypso Rose. This occurred when she auditioned for the managers of a calypso tent called Young Brigade. The name Crusoe Kid was meant to signify her origins in Tobago, and a reference to the novel Robinson Crusoe. After hearing her perform, the managers at Young Brigade renamed her Calypso Rose because a rose is considered the mother of all flowers and she considers herself the mother of female calypsonians that came after her. She grew up in a small village on the island of Tobago called Bethel, one of the two Caribbean islands forming Trinidad and Tobago and the birthplace of calypso.  

When she went to live with her uncle and aunt, her aunt was a big influence on her love of calypsos because of the many records that she owned and the freedom she would give her. Rose then began to write her first calypso called "Glass Thief" which signified her shock to Trinidad after her aunt gave her money and told her to go to the market when she saw boys stealing glasses from someone's eye. This was the start of her voicing her opinion on gender equality and later on writing her second calypso that empowered women to dance. Calypso Rose began singing at calypso tents in the 1950s at the age of 15 going against her harsh critics, and had the opportunity to perform in different places from Grenada, St. Vincent to the US Virgin Islands .From 1963 to 1965, she would continue to perform in his tent. She knew Lord Kitchener from the age of 9 and he was known for his in fluence on many young calypso singers because of the songs he would make. Even with many of the religious elders in Trinidad's disapproval for Rose's participation in calypsos, she was able to win them over with her song "Abide With Me" which is about hurricane Florence that hit Tobago and Grenada in 1964. In 1966 she would perform with a very well known calypsonian in many occasions by the name of the 'Mighty Sparrow' (Slinger Francisco). With her song "Cooperation", she was able to compete outside of Tobago and Trinidad against other male calypsonians and win her first tile as Calypso King in the Virgin Islands and win Virgin Island's Road March in the same year. In 1966, she wrote the song "Fire in Meh Wire" that had gone international and was translated into eight different languages, and was the first calypso to run two years in a row at the Trinidad Carnival.

 With the making of another song called "Tempo", Rose was able to become the first female to win the national Road March title. Soon after, in 1978, she performed "Her Majesty" and "I Thank Thee" and was able to win another national Road March and became the first to win Calypso King which changed to Calypso Monarch because of the successful integration of females in a male-dominated competition. In 2016 she released a song titled "Calypso Queen" in which she confirms her reign.

With Rose's success she was able to work alongside many artists. One of many would be Bob Marley and Micheal Jackson. In 1967, Rose and Marley performed together in the Grand Ballroom in New York City and later they got to perform together once again in Miami. Rose's relationship with Marley was very close that she named him her inspiration. Other music legends that she got to meet are Michael Jackson and Miriam Makeba in 1978 when she won Trinidad Road March. Her album "Far From Home" led her to collaborate with French/Spanish singer Manu Chao who sang three songs from her album 'Leave Me Alone", "Far From Home", and "Human Race". The album was produced by Ivan Duran. The two were first introduced when her manager, Mr. Jean Micheal invited Chao to the Carnival season in 2015 where Calypso Rose recounted that they spoke for 3 hours about music. She gave him an early copy of the album which he later mixed and added in his own vocals. Calypso Rose has continued to collaborate with other artists. One of her recent collaborations was with Machel Montano in a song called "Young Boy". Another one would be with Kobo Town in a song called "Scarborough Girl" in 2018 with home she performed with in 2019, and helped co-write some of her songs from her album "Far From Home". Calypso Rose is still actively writing new music, even telling a reporter that she carries around a tape recorder with her to keep track of her ideas. In October 2019, she released a song titled "Baila Mami" from the new Calypso Rose & Friends EP featuring Nailah Blackman, Lao Ra, Manu Chao, Machel Montano, Patrice, Tim Armstrong & The Interrupters and King Doudou. The song is a mix of Spanish and English encouraging women to break free and dance. 

G.L.O.S.S.

G.L.O.S.S. (Girls Living Outside Society's Shit) was a trans-feminist hardcore punk band based out of Olympia, Washington. The group formed in 2014 and consisted of members Corey Evans (drums), Sadie "Switchblade" Smith (vocals), Jake Bison (guitar), Tannrr Hainsworth (guitar), and Julaya Antolin (bass guitar).

In 2011, Bison and Smith formed a punk band called Peeple Watchin'. Not long after forming the band, the two moved from Boston, Massachusetts to Olympia, Washington. When they met Evans, Hainsworth and Antolin G.L.O.S.S was formed.

In 2015 their Demo tape came out, Girls Living Outside Society's Shit, on Not Normal Tapes in the USA and as a 7" on Sabotage Records in Germany. The same year the band self released a cassette single,  Fight b/w We Live. In 2016 a 7" called Trans Day Of Revenge came out on Sabotage, Total Negativity and Nervous Nelly Records.

In the summer of 2016 G.L.O.S.S. was offered a record deal by the well known punk rock label Epitaph Records. Smith expressed on her Instagram account that the band considered taking the $50,000 deal because it would present them with an opportunity to donate a percentage of the money to social and economic causes that the band supports, such as Black Lives Matter, helping the homeless, disabled queers, etc. However, because of Epitaph's affiliation and distribution deal with Warner Bros., the band decided to turn down the offer because they did not want to contribute financially to a large corporation.

 

 

Soon after announcing that they would not be signing a deal with Epitaph Records the band gave a statement to popular punk and hardcore zine Maximum Rock and Roll stating that they had decided to end the band. The reason for the breakup revolved around the mental and physical stress that being in a touring band involves, and the toll this has taken on their home lives, community involvement, and personal growth. They felt that the large amount of visibility and attention the band had gained made it difficult for them to stay "honest and inward". The statement also explained that the buzz around the band and the polarizing effect that it had on people was beginning to overshadow the band itself, and that this was not a healthy position for the band and its members to be in. All the members in G.L.O.S.S. remain friends and the breakup was a mutual decision between all the members. The band's records will remain in print after the breakup. G.L.O.S.S. will be donating all the money they make on Bandcamp post-breakup to a homeless shelter in Olympia, Washington called the Interfaiths Works Emergency Overnight Shelter.

 

 

Smith cites Massachusetts hardcore punk staples Bane and Reach the Sky as bands that she felt she had a connection to lyrically, because the "emotional vulnerability" of these bands' lyrics set them apart from many bands within the scene in the early 2000s. She goes on to say that many of the bands at the time were made up of straight, white males from the suburbs. She thought that the lyrical content of most of the bands during this time did not really reflect the issues or opinions of the people on the margins of the hardcore punk scene and society as a whole, such as people of color, women, transgender people, disabled people, or anyone who identifies as a queer person. Smith explains that G.L.O.S.S. is a reaction towards cisgender people in popular culture, society, pacifism and the hardcore punk scene. G.L.O.S.S.'s lyrics range from police brutality and corruption to being a proud trans person living in today's society. Smith expressed that she was tired of feeling unwelcome and feeling like she should stick to the back of the room at the largely straight white male dominated hardcore shows that she was attending. In a Maximum Rock and Roll interview, the band talks about how they were tired of seeing the identities of straight white males reflected in a scene that claims to be full of outcasts. In an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine, Bison says that the band is "intentionally antagonistic" and is not interested in fitting into or being "tolerated" by society or any scene. Their intention is to carve out a new space for themselves and the groups they advocate for. 

Debbie Harry

Deborah Ann Harry (born Angela Trimble; July 1, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter, model and actress, known as the lead singer of the new wave band Blondie. Her recordings with the band reached number one in the U.S. and UK charts on many occasions from 1979 to 1981.

Born in Miami, Florida, Harry was adopted as an infant and raised in Hawthorne, New Jersey.  Before beginning her singing career, she moved to New York City in the late 1960s, and worked there as a secretary at BBC Radio's office for one year. Later, she was a waitress at Max's Kansas City, a go-go dancer in a Union City discothèque, and a Playboy Bunny.  In the late 1960s, Harry began her musical career as a backing singer for the folk rock group The Wind in the Willows, which released an eponymous album in 1968 on Capitol Records. In 1974, Harry joined the Stilettoes with Elda Gentile and Amanda Jones. Shortly thereafter, the band added guitarist Chris Stein. After leaving the Stilettoes, Harry and Stein formed Angel and the Snake with Tish Bellomo and Snooky Bellomo. Shortly thereafter, Harry and Stein formed Blondie, named after the catcall men often directed at Harry after she bleached her hair blonde. The band quickly became regulars at Max's Kansas City and CBGB in New York City.

Blondie released their self-titled debut album in 1976; it peaked at No. 14 in Australia and No. 75 in the United Kingdom. Their second album, Plastic Letters, garnered some success outside the United States, but their third album, Parallel Lines (1978), was a worldwide hit and catapulted the group to international success. It included the global hit single "Heart of Glass". Riding the crest of disco's domination, the track made No. 1 in the US and sold nearly two million copies. It also reached No. 1 in the UK and was the second highest-selling single of 1979. The band's success continued with the release of the platinum-selling Eat to the Beat album (UK No. 1, US No. 17) in 1979. Autoamerican (UK No. 3, US No. 7) was released in 1980. Blondie had further No. 1 hits with "Call Me" (American Gigolo soundtrack) (US No. 1), "Atomic" (Eat to the Beat album) (UK No. 1), "The Tide Is High" (US No. 1), and "Rapture" (US No. 1). During this time, both Harry and Stein befriended graffiti artist Fab Five Freddy, who introduced them to the emerging hip-hop scene in the Bronx. Freddy is mentioned in "Rapture" and also makes an appearance in the video. Through him they were also able to connect with Grandmaster Flash.

Harry began her solo career with the album KooKoo (1981). Produced by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of Chic, the album peaked at No. 25 in the US and No. 6 in the UK;[30] and was later certified gold in the US and silver in the UK. The album's cover art was controversial, and many stores refused to stock it. "Backfired", the first single from the album, had a video directed by H. R. Giger (who also created the album's front cover featuring Harry's face with metal skewers through it). The single reached No. 43 on the Billboard Hot 100, No. 29 on the Hot Dance Club Songs, and No. 32 on the UK Singles Chart.[30] "The Jam Was Moving" was lifted as the second single and peaked at No. 82 in the US. 

After a year-long hiatus, Blondie regrouped and released their sixth studio album, The Hunter (1982). The album was not as successful as their previous works, and a world tour was cut short due to slow ticket sales. It was around this time that Stein also fell seriously ill with the rare autoimmune disease pemphigus. His illness, along with declining record sales and internal struggles, caused the band to split up.

Blondie reunited in the late 1990s, releasing No Exit (1999), followed by The Curse of Blondie (2003). The band's eleventh studio album, 2017's Pollinator, charted at number 4 in the United Kingdom. In October 2019.

 

The Flirtations

The Flirtations (previously The Gypsies) are an all-female musical group who have recorded since the early 1960s. 

In 1962 in New York City, Lestine Johnson and sisters Ernestine Pearce, Shirley Pearce and Betty Pearce from South Carolina formed The Gypsies. In 1964 they signed to Old Town Records, where they released their debut single "Hey There, Hey There". The song achieved airplay only on local radio stations, but their next single — the J.J. Jackson-written "Jerk It" — was more successful, reaching #111 (pop) and #33 (R&B) in the spring of 1965. Despite the relative success of "Jerk It", Lestine Johnson left the group, replaced by Viola Billups. The Gypsies released only two singles on Old Town Records in 1966, giving them a total of four. That year, now on Josie Records, the four women renamed themselves The Flirtations and released the well-regarded northern soul dancer "Change My Darkness Into Light". It was ignored by DJs and sales suffered. The quartet then moved to Festival Records, where they released "Stronger Than Her Love" and "Settle Down" as a single, which failed to spark much interest. Betty Pearce left the group, reducing the Flirtations to a trio. After winning a small local talent contest in 1968 to see who could sound the most like the Supremes, they packed their bags and headed for England, where they signed to the Parrot label and in the fall of 1968 supported the label's star act Tom Jones on his European tour. The Flirtations' sole Parrot release was "Someone Out There", backed with "How Can You Tell Me?" "Someone Out There" rose to second place on the "Bubbling Under" list in September 1968, and the track did afford the Flirtations a chart hit in the Netherlands with a No. 25 peak.

In late 1968 the trio signed with Deram Records and released what would become their signature recording, "Nothing But A Heartache" - a dense, dynamic, earth-shattering melodrama produced by Englishman Wayne Bickerton and written by Bickerton with Tony Waddington. The B-side was a Christmas song, "Christmastime Is Here Again". "Nothing But a Heartache" rose to first place on the "Bubbling Under" list in December 1968 and gave the Flirtations a second Top 40 hit in the Netherlands, reaching No. 36 in early 1969. "Nothing But a Heartache" was re-issued in the US in early 1969, with "How Can You Tell Me?" now replacing the original seasonal B-side. "Nothing But a Heartache" debuted at No. 93 on the Billboard Hot 100 on 8 March 1969. The single reached the Top 20 in several US markets - its chart peak in Boston was No. 3 - but the staggered regional success indicated by its 14-week Hot 100 run dictated that its national peak - achieved on the 24 May 1969 Hot 100 - would be No. 34. Somewhat reminiscent of mid-1960s Supremes - particularly "Stop! In the Name of Love" - the single is now generally regarded as a pop and Northern soul classic.   

The follow-up was less of a dance tune than the previous single. "South Carolina" was a ballad that reached only No. 111 pop in July 1969. In 1970, "Keep On Searching" was released. In July 1970 the trio scored another hit with another Bickerton and Waddington song, "Can't Stop Loving You". The song made No. 96 in Cash Box. The same year, Tom Jones also released a version of the song that reached US AC No. 3 and CAN AC No. 5.

1971 saw their sixth and last Deram single, "Give Me Love". The rest of their singles were not released in the U.S. Misty Browning, from Texas, replaced Viola Billups in 1972. Viola Billups embarked on a solo career as Vie and as Pearly Gates. Browning was followed by Loretta Noble. During 1972, the group were the resident vocal band on the long running BBC TV series It's Cliff Richard, backing Cliff Richard on various numbers, performing their own songs and supporting other guests on the show.



Throughout the 1970s the Flirtations released material on various labels. Polydor titles in 1971 and 1972 included "Little Darling (I Need You)", "Take Me In Your Arms (& Love Me)", "Hold On To Me Babe" and "Love A Little Longer". In 1973, their Mojo Records releases included "Why Didn't I Think of That". In 1975 it was RCA's turn: "Dirty Work", "Mr. Universe", and "One Night of Love", which gained enough sales and airplay for another LP, Love Makes the World Go Round, just before 1976.

The Flirtations recorded Hi-NRG tracks such as "Earthquake" (1983), "Read All About It" (1986) and "Back On My Feet Again" (1989), the latter reuniting Viola with the Pearce sisters. The track became a major hit in South Africa in 1984 reaching No. 6.



With Ian Levine forming his label Centre City Records, 2007, the ladies recorded regularly for the label compilations. In 2009, they released their first single in 20 years, "Roulette",[5] produced by Soren Jensen for Night Dance Records, including mixes and a music video. The track peaked at No. 10 in Music Week's Commercial Pop Club Chart by December 2009.

The Pretty Kittens

The Pretty Kittens was an american band formed in the mid.sixties and led by drummer Dianne Cameron -- a resident of Gardena, California. They played shows in Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe, and Vietnam, promoted by Jack Galardi -- one day strip club baron implicated in Operation G-Sting.

In 1967 they went to Southeast Asia to perform 150 shows, mainly in Vietnam. I can't find any songs, recordings or videos from them, but they are on the cover of many compilations such as Girls In The Garage or Girls with Guitars.

The Raincoats

The Raincoats are a British post-punk and experimental rock band. Ana da Silva (vocals, guitar) and Gina Birch (vocals, bass) formed the group in 1977 while they were students at Hornsey College of Art in London. da Silva and Birch were inspired to make a band after they saw The Slits perform live earlier that year.

For the band's first concert on 9 November 1977 at The Tabernacle, the line-up included Birch, da Silva, Ross Crighton (guitar) and Nick Turner (drums). Kate Korus (from The Slits and later the Mo-dettes) joined briefly but was replaced by Jeremie Frank. Nick Turner left to form the Barracudas, and Richard Dudanski (ex-The 101ers and later Public Image Ltd.) sat in on drums, while filmmaker Patrick Keiller replaced Frank on guitar. 

Late in 1978, the Raincoats became an all female band as they were joined by The Slits' ex-drummer Palmolive and the classically trained violinist Vicky Aspinall, with this line-up making their live debut at Acklam Hall in London on 4 January 1979. Managed by Shirley O'Loughlin, the band went on their first UK tour with Swiss female band Kleenex, in May 1979 after Rough Trade Records released their first single, "Fairytale in the Supermarket". On 21 November 1979, Rough Trade released the band's self-titled debut album, which received considerable acclaim from the press. Palmolive had left the band in September, shortly before The Raincoats came out, and teenager Ingrid Weiss joined the band on drums. The Raincoats' second album, Odyshape, was released in 1981 and featured Weiss as well as drumming contributions from Dudanski, Robert Wyatt (The Soft Machine) and Charles Hayward (This Heat). The Raincoats employed a diverse selection of cheap second-hand instruments such as the balophone, kalimba and gamelan on Odyshape, and the album incorporated British folk, dub basslines, polyrhythmic percussion and elements of free jazz among other world music influences. Its eclectic mix of musical genres has been described as one of the "great lost moments of women-in-rock".

In December 1982, the Raincoats recorded a live album at The Kitchen arts space in New York. The Kitchen Tapes was released on cassette by ROIR in 1983. A year later Moving was recorded. Tired of constant touring and "pulling in different musical directions", the band members began work on solo projects shortly after the album's release. Birch and Aspinall formed Dorothy, while da Silva worked with choreographer Gaby Agis on a series of dance projects and formed Roseland with Hayward.




O'Loughlin persuaded Birch and da Silva to play a show at The Garage in London in March 1994 with Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) on drums and Anne Wood on violin to celebrate the album re-releases. They recorded a session for BBC Radio 1's John Peel, which was released as Extended Play on Paul Smith's Blast First and Shelley's label Smells Like Records. Cobain invited them to play on Nirvana's planned UK tour in April, but he died a week before the tour began. The Raincoats released Looking in the Shadows on Rough Trade/Geffen in 1996, produced by Britpop producer Ed Buller. Musicians included Wood (violin, bass), Heather Dunn (drums) and Pete Shelley (Buzzcocks).




Since 1996, the Raincoats have played some special events such as Wyatt's Meltdown in 2001, and Chicks on Speed's 99 Cents album release party in Berlin in December 2003. Birch and da Silva recorded a cover version of "Monk Chant" for a tribute album of Monks songs called Silver Monk Time, and performed the song live with the Monks at Berlin's Volksbühne in October 2006. They played at Ladyfest in Leeds in April 2007, and the Nuits Sonores Festival in Lyon on 18 May 2007. On 28 March 2009, The Raincoats-Fairytales-A Work in Progress, directed by Birch and produced by the Raincoats, was screened at the British Film Institute in London.

Cordell Jackson

Cordell Jackson (July 15, 1923 – October 14, 2004) was an American guitarist thought to be the first woman to produce, engineer, arrange and promote music on her own rock and roll music label. 

She was born Cordell Miller in Pontotoc, Mississippi, where her father led a string band, the Pontotoc Ridge Runners. As a child she learned guitar, piano, and double bass, and soon began performing in her father's band and on radio in Tupelo. In 1943 she settled in Memphis, Tennessee, where she joined the Fisher Air Craft Band and wrote songs. After installing recording equipment in her home, she recorded demo records for Sam Phillips before he set up Sun Records.

Jackson founded the Moon Records label in Memphis in 1956. Unable to break into the Sun label's stable of male artists, she received the advice and assistance of RCA Records' Chet Atkins in forming this new label to release her music. She began releasing and promoting on the label singles she recorded in her home studio, serving as engineer, producer and arranger. The artists recorded included her and a small family of early rock and roll, rockabilly, and country music performers she recruited from several Southern states.  

Tav Falco's Panther Burns and Alex Chilton helped create new interest in her career in the 1980s when they began covering some of her Moon label's old singles such as "Dateless Night", a song she originally wrote in the 1950s for Florida artist Allen Page. Jackson then began playing occasional shows in the 1980s with her signature red Hagstrom electric guitar as a solo artist in Memphis, Hoboken, New York, and Chicago nightclubs. She recorded new material on her label with Memphis musicians Colonel Robert Morris and Bob Holden, becoming known as a "rock-and-roll granny" solo guitar instrumentalist. She appeared in 1991 and 1992 on national talk shows like Late Night with David Letterman and in a television commercial duelling with rockabilly artist Brian Setzer on guitar. 




In the late 1990s, Cordell co-wrote and played with the Rockabilly icon, Colonel Robert Morris in Memphis. Colonel Robert also helped edit the book based on her life and career. Her Moon Records label was the oldest continuously operating label in Memphis at the time of her death in 2004. The 50's Rock on the Moon of Memphis, Tennessee + an Oddity, a compilation album of the label's 1950s singles, was released on vinyl in the early 1980s and was later sold on compact disc until her death in 2004. The original 1950s vinyl singles compiled on that album have been displayed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. She also released video singles through her label in the 1990s, including "Football Widow" and filmmaker Dan Rose's production of "The Split." Her marketing of her own video singles, as opposed to marketing them in multiple-song video collections, is reputed to be another first in her innovative lifetime of doing things her own way, bucking the trends of standard industry practice. Jackson's only solo full-length album to date, Cordell Jackson — Live in Chicago was released on Bughouse Records in 1997. Information and memorabilia about Jackson is included in the Memphis Rock N' Soul Museum in Memphis. 




She died in Memphis in 2004, aged 81.

Bessie Smith

Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 - September 26, 1937) was an American blues singer. Nicknamed the Empress of the Blues, she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s. She is often regarded as one of the greatest singers of her era and was a major influence on fellow blues singers, as well as jazz vocalists.

To earn money for their impoverished household, Smith and her brother Andrew began busking on the streets of Chattanooga. She sang and danced as he played the guitar.  Smith's recording career began in 1923. Despite her success, neither she nor her music was accepted in all circles. She once auditioned for Black Swan records and was dismissed because she was considered too rough. 

Bessie Smith was signed to Columbia Records in 1923 by Frank Walker, a talent agent who had seen her perform years earlier. Her first session for Columbia was on February 15, 1923; it was engineered by Dan Hornsby. For most of 1923, her records were issued on Columbia's regular A-series. When the company established a "race records" series, Smith's "Cemetery Blues" (September 26, 1923) was the first issued. Both sides of her first record, "Downhearted Blues" backed with "Gulf Coast Blues", were hits. Smith became a headliner on the T.O.B.A. circuit and rose to become its top attraction in the 1920s. Working a heavy theater schedule during the winter and performing in tent shows the rest of the year (eventually traveling in her own railroad car), Smith became the highest-paid black entertainer of her day. Columbia nicknamed her "Queen of the Blues," but the press soon upgraded her title to "Empress of the Blues". Smith's music stressed independence, fearlessness, and sexual freedom, implicitly arguing that working-class women did not have to alter their behavior to be worthy of respect.

Smith had a strong contralto voice, which recorded well from her first session, which was conducted when recordings were made acoustically. The advent of electrical recording made the power of her voice even more evident. Her first electrical recording was "Cake Walking Babies [From Home]", recorded on May 5, 1925. Smith also benefited from the new technology of radio broadcasting, even on stations in the segregated South. For example, after giving a concert to a white-only audience at a theater in Memphis, Tennessee, in October 1923, she performed a late-night concert on station WMC, which was well received by the radio audience. She made 160 recordings for Columbia, often accompanied by the finest musicians of the day, notably Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Fletcher Henderson, James P. Johnson, Joe Smith, and Charlie Green.

 Songs like Jail House Blues, Work House Blues, Prison Blues, Sing Sing Prison Blues and Send Me to the 'Lectric Chair dealt critically with important issues of the day like the chain gang, the convict lease system and capital punishment. Poor Man's Blues and Washwoman's Blues are widely considered to be an early form of African American protest music. What becomes evident after listening to her music and studying her lyrics is that Smith emphasized and channeled a subculture within the African American working class. Additionally, she incorporated commentary on social issues like poverty, intra-racial conflict, and female sexuality into her lyrics. Her lyrical sincerity and public behavior were not widely accepted as appropriate expressions for African American women; therefore, her work was often written off as distasteful or unseemly, rather than as an accurate representation of the African-American experience. Her work challenged elitist norms by encouraging working-class women to embrace their right to drink, party, and satisfy their sexual needs as a means of coping with stress and dissatisfaction in their daily lives. Smith advocated for a wider vision of African-American womanhood beyond domesticity, piety, and conformity; she sought empowerment and happiness through independence, sassyness, and sexual freedom. Although Smith was a voice for many minority groups and one of the most gifted blues performers of her time, the themes in her music were precocious, which led to many believing that her work was undeserving of serious recognition. 

On September 26, 1937, Smith was critically injured in a car crash on U.S. Route 61 between Memphis, Tennessee and Clarksdale, Mississippi. She  was taken to the G. T. Thomas Afro-American Hospital in Clarksdale, where her right arm was amputated. She died that morning without regaining consciousness.

 

The Anemic Boyfriends

The Anemic Boyfriends hailed from Anchorage, Alaska and there were three enigmatic sisters in the band, Maggie Johnson, Ellen and Louise Disease. The band was first called The Blond Bitches from Hell and Their Anemic Boyfriends.

Their family moved to Anchorage in 1963, when Louise was 4, Ellen 6 and Maggie 16.  Maggie moved out of the house at 17 to go to college and then lived in Berkeley from 1969 to 1970.  In 1979 Maggie and he husband John Firmin returned to Alaska to visit their families and when they were hanging out with John Lee they were talking about the male dominated rock scene, and their comments on, attitudes about and activities with women and Maggie made the comment "Guys are not proud, they'll stick it anywhere". Maggie did the lyrics and was recorded in the basement of a fur store in downtown Anchorage in the winter of 1978-1979. The guitarist, drummer and bass player were people that played in bands around town. Louise did the vocals. Ellen and Maggie did the minimalist cover art and lettering and the record came out on Red Sweater Record in 1980.

The B side was a song that John Firmin did called Bad Girl in Love. The single was a small hit on college radio and John started trying to form a band to perform in San Francisco. 

In the summer of 1980, they got a band together consisting of guitarist Dave Jones, drummer Dave Tremper, guitarist Chris Goddard, Louise Disease on vocals, saxophonist Miriam Cutler and back-up singer Nancy Bromberg they played some punk festival in San Francisco and they recorded a full album on cassette tape. They also released another single, Fake ID. 

The band played The Mabuhay Gardens and The Stone in San Francisco, opening for Flock of Seagulls in 1982 and after that the group fell apart and disbanded in 1983.