On this blog I will talk about Rock´n´Roll women that I love. From Blues and Rockabilly, to Punk passing through 60s Garage Punk and 70s Glam, this is my tribute to the wonderful women of the Rock´n´Roll underground.
Please note that suggestions are welcome but there is no guarantee that I will publish it as this is a personal project.
Jane Aire (real name Jane Ashley) was another talented singer from Akron, Ohio whose career really got started outside her homeland, courtesy of a single on Stiff Records, Yankee Wheels. Jane was the lead singer of the band Jane Aire And The Belvederes.
Aire’s backing group The Belvederes were, in reality, a London group called The Edge, who came about when guitarist Lu Edmonds and drummer Jon Moss left a brief and unrecorded incarnation of The Damned in 1978.
After the Stiff single, Yankee Wheels (1978), Aire moved to Virgin to record an album featuring her backing band plus Chris Payne (trombone), Ray Warleigh (saxophone) and backing singers Rachel Sweet and Kirsty MacColl. The band released 1 LP and 2 singles with Virgin.
In 1980 she assembled a new bunch of Belvederes with Paul Cutler (guitar), Ian Curnow (keyboards), Sam Hartley (bass), Dave Ashley (drums) and former Deaf School saxophonist Ian Ritchie, Jane returned to Stiff to make a further single, a version of Dusty Springfield‘s I Close My Eyes and Count To Ten (1982).
Elda Gentile, AKA Elda Stiletto was a vocalist, songwriter, and artist (born November 7, 1947, died August 6, 2018) and an integral member of the New York City music scene in the early-mid 1970's.
Elda’s foray into the art world began when she attended the School of Visual Arts. Her teacher took her class to Warhol’s factory for a film viewing of Lonesome Cowboys. She was a regular at Max’s Kansas City. She started a band called Holly Woodlawn’s Pure Garbage which then led her to creating the famed punk rock band The Stilettos. Her brother Fast Eddie Gentile played guitar in Pure Garbage. She had a small part in a small play of the Theater of the Ridiculous with Jayne County and Patti Smith.
The Stiletto’s were the band that Elda would make her biggest musical mark with. She formed the band in 1972 with the idea of melding the idea of a Supreme’s like girl group with a pop art sexual rock edge. They were considered a punk band before the word became the official moniker. The original line-up was: Chris Stein (guitars), Fred Smith (bass), Billy O’Connor (drums), Deborah Harry, Rosie Ross, and Elda Stiletto, all on lead vocals. The band rehearsed at the same studio as the Ramones. The group broke up in 1974. Elda continued with a solo career before reforming the band with an all-new line-up in late 1976. Members of this particular incarnation of the group included Cheetah Chrome (Dead Boys), Walter Lure (Johnny Thunder’s Heartbreakers), Billy Rath (Johnny Thunder’s Heartbreakers) and Scheebo Pampillonia. The Stilettos appear in the private eye mystery thriller “Punk Rock” and on the live compilation Max’s Kansas City 1976 and Beyond. The played in Central Park for Rock Against Racism. They eventually broke up a second and final time in the late ’70’s.
After the breakup of the Stilettos, Elda formed the first all kids punk rock band The Bratles with her son Branch on drums. Chris Stein (now of Blondie fame) produced and released a 7″ single from the band. They opened for the Clash twice at the famed Bonds shows. Elda mentored the kids and brought in other musicians like the Ramones, NY Dolls and the Dead Boys to teach them. Elda dressed them for the stage and eventually the band was offered a deal with CBS Records. With all this going on unfortunately at such a young age, the band could not sustain due to parental disagreement.
Catherine Sauvage (26 May 1929 – 20 March 1998) was a French singer and actress. Born Marcelle Jeanine Saunier in Nancy, France, she moved with her family in 1940 to the Free Zone in Annecy. After high school, she turned to the theater, performing under the name Janine Saulnier.
Arriving in Paris, she adopted the surname Sauvage, borrowed from a childhood friend. She joins the artists and writers of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. She meets Léo Ferré and shares a billboard with him. In 1953, she made Paris canaille a popular hit.
She also performed at the cabarets L'Arlequin at 131 bis, boulevard Saint-Germain, then at L'Écluse at 15, Quai des Grands Augustins, in the 6th arrondissement. A demanding artist, Catherine Sauvage represents the provocation of quality in a world conquered by the massive invasion of commercial radio with its imposed singers, its tricked classifications... Sauvage, always left-wing, spent two years on the state radio and television blacklist for having signed the Manifesto of the 121 against the Algerian war.
She represented the spirit of May ´68 in the Bobino music hall. Boris Vian adapted for her in French the Nanas Lied that Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill had given Lotte Lenya as a birthday present.
She died in 1998, aged 68, in Bry-sur-Marne, Val-de-Marne.
Suspiria Franklyn (born 14 January 1979) is a Portuguese singer. She works in different areas, such as music, plastic arts, photography, journalism, poetry writing, production & management, cinema and photographic modelling.
Musically speaking, she is the singer of several bands, such as Les Baton Rouge, Suspicious, Everground, Kiute Loss, Mediatic Slaves and Women Non-Stop. She already recorded seven EPs and eight LP's (official records and studio sessions), that rapidly became worldwide, being noticed from Japan to Brazil.
Suspiria Franklyn extensively toured all over Europe and the United States, sharing stages with Sylvain Sylvain (New York Dolls), Marky Ramone (Ramones), Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys), Tim Kerr (Big Boys), Peaches, Dick Dale, Joan Jett, The Hives, NOFX, Franz Ferdinand, Toy Dolls... among many others. Her work is so versatile that she is invited very often to collaborate with other artists such as "Rockaway Beach" with Marky Ramone (live appearance/2003), Peaches (with whom she started a band and made several jam sessions/2004) or "Im on a High" with the Belgian band Millionaire (MTV video appearance/2005).
In 2002 Suspiria left Lisbon and moved to Berlin, where she lived until 2006. During that period, she had the opportunity to travel a lot and show her work in New York, Los Angeles, London, Amsterdam, Berlin or Vienna. At the moment, Suspiria lives in Portugal and she had been doing several art exhibitions and working on her first book.
Ernie Irawaty Djohan or better known as Ernie Djohan (born 6 April 1951) is an Indonesian singer & actress.
At the age of 11 she was already singing for Radio Talentime 1962 in Singapore. That year Ernie Djohan also won first place in All Singapore's School Talentime. The first recording in Singapore in 1962 was done at Phillips Recording Company. The most memorable songs of all time in the 1960s-1980s era are Teluk Bayur, Kau Selalu Di Hatiku, Mutiara Yang Hilang, Senja Di Batas Kota and many other hits.
Ernie Djohan is also known as the pioneer of the First Child Singer in Indonesia in the 1963-1965 era and was often asked to entertain for State Guests by the First President of Indonesia Bung Karno.Ernie was also the First Indonesian Singer to get a Golden Record from Remaco Records through his all-time hit song in 1965-1966 'Teluk Bayur' breaking the sales of the Best Selling Album of his time.
In 1962, Ernie became a Radio Talentime star. She was then invited to record with the Philips Singapore label singing English and Singaporean songs. In 1968 Ernie went to record abroad with Phillips Recording Holland and was invited to travel around Europe for promotion and even became one of the covers of the famous Entertainment Magazine at that time 'World Pop News' 1968 edition published in the Netherlands, England & Belgium.
7 Year Bitch was an American punk rock band from Seattle, Washington. The band was active between 1990 and 1997 and released three albums over that time. The band formed at the same time as the emergence of the riot grrrl sub-genre, which is a sub-genre of punk music from the early to mid-1990s that emphasized the role of women in rock music. The Riot Grrrl movement began as a feminist response to the violence and misogyny that became more prominent in punk music in the mid-to-late 1980s.
7 Year Bitch was formed in 1990 by vocalist Selene Vigil, guitarist Stefanie Sargent, bassist Elizabeth Davis and drummer Valerie Agnew. Vigil, Sargent, and Agnew had been playing together in the Seattle band Barbie's Dream Car when their bassist left for Europe. They subsequently recruited Davis and renamed their band after the movie The Seven Year Itch.
In 1991 the band released their first single "Lorna" and signed with C/Z Records. Their first album, Sick 'Em, was released in 1992, but it was overshadowed by Sargent's death on June 27, through passing out on her back after returning home from a party where she had drunk alcohol and taken a small amount of heroin. Following a period grieving and uncertainty, the band decided to continue, recruiting guitarist Roisin Dunne as Sargent's replacement later that year.
In July 1993, Gits' frontwoman and long-time friend of the band Mia Zapata was raped and murdered while walking home late at night. This event, coupled with Sargent's death the previous year, had a profound effect on the group. As a reaction, the band recorded and released their second album ¡Viva Zapata! (1994) in tribute to both of their fallen friends. During this time, Valerie Agnew also became one of the primary organizers and co-founders of the anti-violence and self-defence organisation Home Alive. On April 8, 1994, the band played a benefit show for Rock Against Domestic Violence at the Cameo Theatre on Miami Beach, alongside Babes in Toyland and Jack Off Jill. In 1995, the band signed with Atlantic Records and in 1996 released their third album, Gato Negro. Following the tour supporting Gato Negro, guitarist Roisin Dunne left, and was replaced by Lisa Faye Beatty, the band's live sound engineer and long-time friend.
In early 1997, the band began recording material for what was to be their fourth album. The band moved from Seattle to California, Elizabeth Davis and Valerie Agnew to San Francisco and Selene Vigil to Los Angeles. With the recent departure of their guitarist, Roisin Dunne and the geographical separation between bandmates, Seven Year Bitch's career came to a close after a final tour with San Francisco's Lost Goat.
Following the break-up of 7 Year Bitch, bassist Elizabeth Davis joined the San Francisco-based band Clone, with whom she performed until 2003. In 2005, she helped to form the band Von Iva. Guitarist Lisa Faye Beatty became involved with filmography, played for the band Smoochknob, and even held a solo act called Elfay. She went on to open show for the band Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. Vocalist Selene Vigil formed a gothic/psychedelic-influenced band by the name of Cistine in 2000. She later released the solo album That Was Then in 2010. Roisin Dunne joined the band The Last Goodbye in 2006.
Else Marie Pade (2 December 1924 – 18 January 2016) was a Danish composer of electronic music. She was educated as a pianist at the Kongelige Danske Musikkonservatorium (Royal Danish Academy of Music) in Copenhagen. She studied composition first with Vagn Holmboe, and later with Jan Maegaard, from whom she learned twelve-tone technique. In 1954, she became the first Danish composer of electronic and concrete music. She worked with Pierre Schaeffer and Karlheinz Stockhausen, as well as Pierre Boulez. Pade was active in the resistance during the Second World War, and was interned at the Frøslev prison camp from 1944 until the end of the war.
Pade was born in Aarhus. In her childhood, she was often bedridden with pyelonephritis. She listened to the outside world and created "aural pictures" out of the sounds. These sounds, real sounds, became the basis of her actual musical works. The first music lessons took place in the home where the mother tried to teach her piano playing. Later she had music lessons at the People's Music School in Aarhus, where the director, Edoard Müller, a music agent in N. Kochs School, had witnessed Pade's talent and offered her music education at the People's Music School. Else gained insight into jazz thanks to the People's Music School. She borrowed a portable gramophone from a friend and heard New Orleans jazz. When she was about 16 she began playing in a jazz band, "The Blue Star Band", which played at school dances and associations. Pade later took piano lessons with Karin Brieg.
Pade began by distributing illegal newspapers after 20 August 1943, and in 1944 she received training in the use of weapons and explosives. She joined an all-female explosives group aimed at identifying the telephone cables in Aarhus with resistance organiser Hedda Lundh. On 13 September 1944, Pade was arrested by the Gestapo. Through a prison window she saw a star flash and heard music coming from inside herself. Next morning she scratched the tune into the cell wall with a buckle from her girdle. It was the song "You and I and the Stars" ("Du og jeg og stjernerne"). She was sent to Frøslevlejren, where she began composing, and decided to train in music. In Frøslevlejren the prisoners held song evenings to keep their spirits up. The songs included Pade's songs and other songs arranged by Karin Brieg. These works were released on CD on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the liberation: Songs in the Darkness: Music Frøslevlejren 1944–45.
After the war, she read at the Conservatory of Music, first as a pianist, but because of the after-effects of her stay in Frøslevlejren she could not do this and trained instead as a composer. In 1952 she heard a Danmarks Radio programme on Musique concrète and its creator Pierre Schaeffer. It reminded her of her own childhood conception of sounds and timbres. Via family in France, she contacted the French radio RTF and Schaeffer. She got the chance to see studies on RTF and Pierre Schaeffer had his workshop and got an appointment to get sent home material. In the same year she read Schaeffer's book À la Recherche d'une musique concrete (On the trail of concrete music).
A Day at Dyrehavsbakken This, inspired by Pierre Schaeffer, became Denmark's first concrete and electronic music work: A Day at Dyrehavsbakken. After having posted a synopsis for DR, as Jens Frederik Lawaetz read, she agreed to make background music for a TV show for the new Danish television. The background music was Denmark's first practical musical work created by many recordings from Bakken, in which she was assisted by technicians from DR.
Symphonie magnétophonique The work is musique concrète describing everyday life in a day in Copenhagen: morning dawning with its routines, the way to work, time in the office or the factory, then the trip home from school or work to domestic routines in the evening, and finally the day is ending and a new one can begin.
Seven Circles This was composed after visit to the planetarium at Expo 58 in Brussels. The composition shows the night sky with the stars and their movement relative to each other. The work is based on Ligeti's principles of sound colours, Boulez's serialism and Stockhausen's mathematically organized score.
Darmstadt School Her interest in the new music caused her and many other composers to travel to Darmstadt and follow Stockhausen, Ligeti and Boulez's courses at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse. Pade participated in 1962, 1964, 1968, and 1972. Stockhausen has used her Glass Bead Game as an example when he lectured on electronic music.
Marie Michelle Currie (born November 30, 1959) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and artist. Currie is best known for playing in a band with her identical twin Cherie Currie called Cherie & Marie Currie. Their song "Since You Been Gone" charted at number 95 on the US charts. Marie played Singing Maid Marie in The Rosebud Beach Hotel and is now a popular multi-media sculptor and artist.
While her sister Cherie was in the Runaways, Currie worked at a fast food restaurant. Then she started the Marie Currie Band. They never released a record, or received a record deal. However, they managed to receive some press; including a few pictures of the band landed in magazine articles across the U.S. and Japan. She started her career as a singer by singing a duet with Cherie called "Love at First Sight". The song appeared on Cherie's debut album Beauty's Only Skin Deep.
In 1979, Cherie and Marie released two singles "Messin' with the Boys" and "Since You Been Gone". "Since You Been Gone" charted number 95 on U.S. charts.[7] In 1980, Cherie and Marie released their album, Messin' with the Boys the album received more radio play than Beauty's Only Skin Deep. They released another single that year "This Time".
Cherie and Marie performed on television shows in the 1980s including Sha Na Na, The Mike Douglas Show, The Merv Griffin Show, among others. In 1984, they played the singing maids in The Rosebud Beach Hotel. The twins sang, wrote, and produced songs for the film and its soundtrack. That film was Marie's acting debut. In 1991, they performed at the Coconut Teaser which was a tribute concert to Paula Pierce, a member of The Pandoras. For the final performance the remaining Pandoras backed the Curries. Currie performed with her sister's band at the Runaways reunion which included Jackie Fox and Sandy West.
In 1997, Cherie and Marie re-released Messin' with the Boys with seven bonus tracks. In 1998, they held a concert at the Golden Apple, in support of their re-released version of Messin' with the Boys. Cherie's ex-bandmate West joined Cherie on stage to perform some of the Runaways songs. In 1998, Cherie and Marie released a compilation called Young and Wild. In 1999 Rocket City Records released Cherie's album The 80's Collection. The album features guest work done by Marie.
The Chordettes were an American female vocal quartet, specializing in traditional pop music. They are best known for their 1950s hit songs "Mr. Sandman" and "Lollipop".
The group organized in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, in 1946. The original members of the group were Janet Ertel (née Buschmann; September 21, 1913 – November 22, 1988), Alice Mae Buschmann Spielvogel (July 31, 1925 – January 6, 1981), Dorothy "Dottie" (Hummitzsch) Schwartz, and Jinny Osborn/Lockard (April 25, 1927 – May 19, 2003). Alice Spielvogel was replaced by Carol Buschmann, her sister-in-law, in 1947. In 1952, Lynn Evans (née Hargate; May 2, 1924 – February 6, 2020) replaced Schwartz, as Evans described in a 2015 interview. And in 1953, Margie Needham replaced Osborn, though Osborn later returned to the group. Nancy Overton joined the group for live performances in 1957 after Janet Ertel, who was more than a decade older than the other members of the group, decided to retire from touring, although Ertel continued to perform on recorded material. Originally they sang folk music in the style of The Weavers, but eventually changed to a harmonizing style of the type known as barbershop harmony or close harmony.
After performing locally in Sheboygan, they won on Arthur Godfrey's radio program Talent Scouts in 1949. They held feature status on Godfrey's daily program, and in 1950 cut their first LP, a collection of standards titled Harmony Time for Columbia Records. Three more LPs followed. In 1953, Godfrey's music director and orchestra leader, Archie Bleyer, founded Cadence Records. He signed a number of Godfrey regulars and former regulars, including the Chordettes, who had a number of hit records for Cadence. Beginning in January 1954, the group sang on the Robert Q. Lewis Show, a weekday afternoon program on CBS-TV.
The Chordettes had released a couple of singles with Arthur Godfrey on Columbia in 1950-51 but didn't cut a solo single until their breakout hit Mr. Sandman, released in late 1954 and which went on to become a #1 1955 hit. Archie Bleyer himself is on that record along with the group; Bleyer stripped down the sound to highlight the girls' voices. They also hit #2 with 1958's "Lollipop" and also charted with a vocal version of the themes from Disney's Zorro (U.S. #17) (1958) and the film Never on Sunday (U.S. #13) (1961). Other hits for the group included "Eddie My Love" (U.S. #14) (a cover of a song by doo-wop group The Teen Queens), "Born to Be With You" (U.S. #5), "Lay Down Your Arms" in 1956, and "Just Between You and Me" (U.S. #8) in 1957. Their cover of "The White Rose Of Athens" hit the Australian Top 15 in May, 1962. The US single "In The Deep Blue Sea" was a one-week Music Vendor entry four months later (#128). The Chordettes appeared on American Bandstand on August 5, 1957, the first episode of that show to be broadcast nationally on the ABC Television Network. The Chordettes also appeared on American Bandstand on February 22, 1958, and again on April 26, 1958. In 1961, Jinny Osborn again left the group. Unable to find a satisfactory replacement, the group disbanded in 1963.
The group was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2001. Alice Mae Buschmann Spielvogel died in 1981. Janet Ertel Bleyer died on November 22, 1988, at the age of 75. Jinny Osborn (later known as Jinny Janis) died in 2003. Nancy Overton died on April 5, 2009, after a long battle with esophageal cancer. Dorothy "Dottie" (Hummitzsch) Schwartz died on April 4, 2016. Lynn Evans Mand died on February 6, 2020, at the age of 95.
Algia Mae Hinton (née O'Neal; August 29, 1929 – February 8, 2018) was an American Piedmont blues guitarist and vocalist, based in Johnston County, North Carolina, United States.
She was the youngest child of Alexander and Ollie O'Neal and grew up in an area known as the O'Neal Tri-Township, named after the slave-holders who originally owned the land. Her father had been a tenant farmer and eventually earned enough to buy a home and some land in the township. At age nine, Algia Mae learned the guitar from her mother, who was a singer and a guitarist expert in the Piedmont finger-picking style, and who often played at family gatherings, house parties, and services at the local congregation. From her father, who was a dancer, Algia Mae learned buck dancing and the two-step.
Algia Mae married Millard R. Hinton in 1950. They subsequently moved to Raleigh, where they had seven children. The marriage lasted until 1965, when Millard Hinton was killed. At this point, Algia Mae moved with her children back to the O'Neal township and earned income as a field laborer. In the meantime, she played at house parties in Johnston County, North Carolina and for her children.
Hinton met the folklorist Glenn Hinson in 1978, who arranged for her performance at that year's North Carolina Folklife Festival. She subsequently performed at the National Folk Festival, the University of Chicago Folk Festival, and in 1985 at an event called "Southern Roots" at Carnegie Hall that featured Delta and Piedmont blues artists.' In 1998, she made her only trip to Europe performing for the Blues Al Femminile series in Turin, Italy. She became known for her guitar playing and her buck dancing, often playing her guitar behind her head as she danced. In 1983, she demonstrated these skills in the Mike Seeger produced film Talking Feet; Solo Southern Dance - Flatfoot, Buck and Tap released by filmmaker Les Blanks in 1992.
Hinton received a North Carolina Folk Heritage Award from the North Carolina Arts Council in 1992. She was a beneficiary of the Music Maker Relief Foundation, who also released her 1999 release, Honey Babe. She died on February 8, 2018, at home in Middlesex, North Carolina.
Formed in Los Angeles, CA in the early '80s, Leather Angel, an all-female heavy metal foursome, originally went under the moniker Obsession, but were forced to change their name after objections from the same-named east coast outfit.
Leather Angel consisted of Terry O'Leary (vox), Debbie Wolf (guitar), Cathy Amanti (bass), and Krissi North (drums). The band spent a lot of time playing in West Hollywood, where existed a metal/hard rock scene that was becoming known as a budding breeding ground for both up-coming and established acts such as Mötley Crüe, Ratt, W.A.S.P and even Stryper.
We Came to Kill, Leather Angel's 1983 debut (and sole) release, was issued by the Enigma Records-distributed Miami 1992 label. Unlike the aforementioned bands, however, Leather Angel didn't progress very far commercially. With Debbie Wolf''s departure in 1985, the band decided to change names yet again, this time to Jaded Lady, but they broke up after recording three demos and even appearing in the 1988 motion picture The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years.
Fur Dixon is an American singer, songwriter, bassist, guitarist and rock 'n' roll musician. She co-founded the Hollywood Hillbillys with guitarist Gary Dickson in the mid-1980s and was the first bass player in any lineup of The Cramps to appear live in concert with the band.
Prior to the Hollywood Hillbillys, who were known for having live roosters and chickens onstage during their concerts, she was in The Whirlybirds. The Hollywood Hillbillys were active from 1984-1986, disbanding when bass player/singer Fur Dixon joined and toured with The Cramps in 1986.
Dixon joined the band for their 1986 UK "A Date With Elvis Tour." She appears on The Cramps studio album A Date With Elvis, credited as a member of The McMartin Preschool Choir, singing backing vocals on the track "People Ain't No Good."
After leaving The Cramps, she fronted the bands Blow Up and The Dixons and went on to release 3 full-length studio albums with folk/American singer guitarist Steve Werner. The duo also released a live album. She put together a new band called WTFUKUSHIMA! in 2016 and released a new album in 2018.
NQB was a Swedish Glam / Rock band active 1968-1974 and then reformed in two different settings until 1978. It was one of Sweden's first rock group with only female musicians, among others, Py Bäckman. Py became, in 1973, singer in the band as a 25-year-old and was with them some years. The band toured extensively, both in the Swedish national parks and abroad, during that period.
The group Quidesty Blaise was started in 1966 by Barbro Eriksson and Anita (Krüger) Dunell but was disbanded after a few years. In 1968, Elisabeth Åhlander and Eva Norberg sought members for a new band and got hold of Anniqua Andreasson and Barbro Eriksson who had played with Quidesty. The name of the new band was New Quidesty Blaise. In 1971, they took the name NQB because they were tired of misspellings and wanted to simplify.
The band was formed by Ann-Marie Henning, Anniqua Andréasson, Birgitta Pincott, Elisabet Åhlander, Irene Nilsson, Malou Berg, Py Bäckman (who left after a couple of years) and Wiveca Säwén. They released two Lps and five 7"s, all of them on Hendrix Music Production. Their first album "Two Sides Of" came out in 1972. In 1973 they released four singles and in 1974 they released their last single and the second LP "NQB".
In 1974, the NQB was disbanded but re-emerged in two different settings until 1978.
Mercenárias, sometimes referred to as As Mercenárias, are a Brazilian punk rock band formed in São Paulo in 1982, by bassist Sandra Coutinho, vocalist Rosália Munhoz and guitarist Ana Machado. With lyrics that heavily criticized Brazilian government and society (and sometimes the Catholic Church as well), their sonority was constantly compared to Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division, Sex Pistols and above all The Slits.
Mercenárias was founded in São Paulo in 1982, by Sandra Coutinho, Rosália Munhoz and Ana Machado, at the time college students: Rosália studied Psychology at the PUC-SP, while Sandra and Ana were classmates at the ECA-USP, where they studied Journalism. A then-unknown Edgard Scandurra initially served as the band's drummer; however, he would leave the band in order to focus on the incipient Ira!, and was replaced by Lourdes "Lou" Moreira by the time the band released their first album. Sandra would also join Smack in 1983, alongside Scandurra, Sérgio "Pamps" Pamplona and Thomas Pappon, and gothic rock band Cabine C in 1984, alongside former Titãs member Ciro Pessoa. In 1983 they recorded a demo tape, containing eight tracks, but it was never made available to the general public.
The tape caught the attention of famous Brazilian independent label Baratos Afins though, which released Mercenárias' debut album, Cadê as Armas?, in 1986. It was extremely well-received, with the tracks "Inimigo", "Santa Igreja", "Polícia" and "Pânico" becoming underground hits. A music video was made for the latter track.
In 1988, the band released their second (and last) studio album, Trashland, via EMI. It received an even better reception than the first one, and won the prize of "Album of the Year" by magazine Bizz. However, EMI fired the band for unknown reasons, and they disbanded soon after. Ana and Rosália abandoned the musical career, while Sandra, in 1998, went on to live in Berlin for a while, where she formed the short-lived German-Brazilian group Akt, before returning to Brazil in 2005. "Lourdes" underwent a sex reassignment surgery and changed his name to Leonardo, and announced himself to be an LGBT activist.
In 2006, Sandra reformed the band and hired new members Geórgia Branco and Pitchu Ferraz. In 2012, the band celebrated its 30-year anniversary, and performed at the CCJ Ruth Cardoso in São Paulo, for free. The show counted with the participation of Edgard Scandurra and Clemente Nascimento (of the band Inocentes), among others. In November 2013, the band performed at the SESC Consolação, in a show celebrating the 35-year anniversary of Baratos Afins. In early 2015, Branco and Ferraz left the band and were replaced by Sílvia Tape and Michelle Abu. In mid-2017, Marianne Crestani replaced Tape. In March 2015, Mercenárias announced on their official Facebook page that their 1983 demo would be remastered and finally available for purchase. The band's first release in 27 years, it came out on June 27, 2015 by independent label Nada Nada Discos. On August 11, 2018, the band released the box set Baú 83–87, containing previously unreleased demos and rarities recorded between 1983 and 1987.
