Girls, Girls, Girl Troubles

Jeffrey I Hear U (1979)

This is some serious art damaged synth punk nonsense foisted upon the world by the Girls in 1979 on Hearthan, (Pere Ubu's label and the only non-Cleveland band ever released by them.) 

The title track has but a single chord (an 'E', I believe) and the b-side appears to make fun of a severely deformed Victorian man who would go on to be portrayed by David Bowie on Broadway.

This kind of degenerate forays into our sonic safe spaces cannot be allowed to stand. We must on a sound and moral footing work together to stamp out this kind of debasing poppycock for the sake of good wholesome entertainment.

Perhaps something with puppets. The world needs more puppets.

But not the creepy kind of puppet.
Good happy puppets doing nice wholesome happy puppet shows.

And certainly not this sort of depraved swill thrust upon us by the Girls.

None of that.
Amen.

Girl Trouble (1987)

Girl Trouble are from Tacoma, WA. They are also depraved, but there's nothing  we can do about it anymore. The Pacific Northwest is a lost cause already.

Girl of the World

I got nothing.

I'm going to eat some mochi.

Talk amongst yourselves for a while.

Travel ep (1992)

Girl of the World were from Australia. They made a few records.

Here are two of them.

 

Le Cirque (1992)

Somebody did an interview in 2011.

I didn't actually read it myself.

I was more interested in mochi. 

Mankato's Finest

Back to the States for today.

Minnesota to be precise.

It's the Gestures!

Run Run Run (1964)

Released at the start of the so called British Invasion only much better than most of the crap flooding our shores from across the pond.
The Gestures hailed from Minneapolis suburb Mankato.

This wasn't some lame rehashed watered down British Invasion shit

If you listen to the music and musicianship underneath you can hear a solid underpinning of good old US Prime A Surf in all of it.

And these kids can play. It's tight as fuck and all American,baby

And the songs, Dale Menten (guitar, vocal) originals, are polished and performed perfectly.

I'll take this over just about anything contemporary to it.

Don't Mess Around (1965)

And then they do it again. "Don't Mess Around" is pure fucking genius. There's so much that happens in two minutes and twenty seconds. That bass line. The syncopation. Those guitar tones. All of it.

I love this tune.

B-side is another sweet 1-4-5 stomper.

Four sides of pure wonder.

Fedoras all around

Here we are with Gentle Despite on Sarah Records

The Darkest Blue (1990)

Let's see. Quiet introspective songs about girls with jangling guitars and wispy vocals? Check.

The eternal whinging forsaken love call of the beta male? Check.

 Sarah Records? Check.
 
After listening to limp wristed stuff like this I find it difficult to imagine that there was a time that the English were capable of an empire encompassing half the planet.

I mean, I'm pretty sure that even I could have beaten these guys up for their lunch money.

Torment to Me (1991)

But lo! The title track here has some balls. A bit of distortion! Are they having a breakthrough?

And then it's over and we're back to the friend zone with "Bittersweet Kiss".

On the plus side, "Shadow of a Girl" appears to trying pretty hard to be an Only Ones outtake. It just needs more heroin addiction to succeed.



And thus began and ended the recorded existence of Gentle Despite in 6 songs.

Make Your Own Richard Gere Joke

But now that I think about it, I'd probably have to explain that reference to anybody under the age of 45, so what's the point really ?

Glue (1997)

The Gerbils were one of the bands that appeared on the Elephant 6 recording co. roster in approximately the middle part of the 90's.  Scott Spillane, John D'Azzo and Will Westbrook were the band with Spillane also doing duty in Neutral Milk Hotel.

Looking this shit up on a Neutral Milk Hotel gigography, I see that I saw them perform on the 24th of April in the year 1998 opening up the night at the 400 Bar in Minneapolis to be followed by Elf Power and the fucking be all of Neutral Milk Hotel shows that I witnessed for an "In an Aeroplane Over the Sea" tour.

 I'd even forgotten that Elf Power played. NMH were just so amazing that particular night.

But the Gerbils were good enough as I remember that I got these two singles at some point. (Maybe at least one that night. I know that I got my NMH t-shirt that night)

 

Lucky Girl (1997)

Granted at that point, NMH weren't quite at the same level of revered as they became after Jeff Mangum dropped out of sight for a long while. The they were just another Elephant 6 band with a new and really good record that none of the hip kids wanted to hear about because they were too cool for that shit.
Elf Power had a couple more albums to their name but the Gerbils were the new kids with only a handful of singles. I suppose that's why they opened. 

So here they are. It was really quite nice to listen to these again. It's the magic of the Tascam Porta-One distilled and dispensed at 45 revolutions per minute.