In interviews Hellcat Records punk-metal band Civet {hey check out my review here} imply that there's been a dearth of tough all-girl rock n' roll bands since the Runaways. The Spazzys lay waste to such a self-serving claim. It's not that the Spazzys (who are from Melbourne, Australia) feign a macho-girl stance, as some of their competitors might, they just know how to dig all the best trash from the ruins of rock n' roll. At first appearance, it looks like the went through the Ramones garbage as obsessively as A.J. Weberman dug through Dylan's. To whit, check out out their T-shirts (two out of three), identical surnames (twins Kat and Lucy plus Ally all go by the name Spazzy) and song titles ("I Wanna Cut My Hair Like Marky Ramone").
The current fate of the Spazzys, meshed in some godforsaken legal limo, is so dire that their Wikipedia sounds as it was translated from Swahili, their MySpace remains static and their website in on Angelfire (no, really). So, here at MRML we're left to take a scattered look at their discography, starting with the I Met Her at the 7-11 e.p. It's five Ramones meets Go-Go's songs in ten minutes and there's not a clunker among them. From the first strains of "Surf'n Bird" (an original) the Ramones chug is ever-present but the melodies, the vocal arrangement and the lyrics prove them to be a band unto themselves. Just listen to the Beatles-quoting tale of unrequited love in the international pop underground, "Paco Doesn't Love Me", and you'll know that great rock n' roll doesn't give a shit about gender.
I Met Her at the 7-11 e.p.
Supporting the band is currently next to impossible. If that changes (or if someone credible informs me that these posts would in any way harm the band) then I will update this.
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Sweet find! I've always been a sucker for girl bands like this
ReplyDeleteGreat post !!! Especially after the sweet Shonen Knife posts, These gals know what there doing and they do it f*ck*ing GREAT !!! Gotta burn it and turn it up to 11+ Thanks MRML =)
ReplyDeleteThe vid sold me. Many thanks.
ReplyDeleteThought you might get your kicks watching this killer clip of The Spazzy's performing on Australian television with The Great Man himself, Mr Chris Bailey.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl4BiQG_YOI
Mike
ReplyDeleteYeah I have a weakness for such bands as well, trhere was time in the early nineties where I would every all-girl was automatically worth listening to (until I heard the first Bratmobile album...)
Rev
Yeah, if you go check out my Civet review you'll see how I argued that both SK and the Spazzys have a claim to greatest all-girl rock band ever!
Glad you liked.
Willard
Sometimes you gotta see to believe.
Probably shoulda done this years ago but I added NGOOTB to my blogroll.
Mark
I gotta add that one to the 'My Boyfriend's Back' post that's coming right up.
Thanks.
Do you happen to know in what year this EP was released?
ReplyDeleteI'm usually pretty obsessive about getting the 'when' but for these Spazzys releases I'm stuck saying they all came out in the early-to-mid aughts (about 2003-2006).
ReplyDeleteLike I said, their web presence is pretty outdated.
What do you mean when you say supporting the band is next to impossible?
ReplyDeleteThey have been sitting on an amazing record for 3 years that they have not been able to release because they got screwed over by their management, resulting in protracted legal blah blah blah....you know the story.
it's coming out mid this year if anyone's still interested...
I'm afraid I don't understand the question.
ReplyDeleteYou review the reasons why they're is NO way to support the band (i.e. "buy the music") the band and then tell us that new music is coming later (i.e. "Still can't buy the music YET").
That said, thank you for coming and leaving a comment. If you have a direct connection to the band and believe these links would hurt the band please advise - my ultimate goal is to keep people interested till they return.