Friday, February 05, 2010

but he's not evil

Girl group night seems to have descended on me, as happens on occasion. It started on the nefarious FAcebook, that veritable eyesore of horrid grammar. I sometimes just ramble through the Fb bramble, landing where I may.

You might find that looking at pictures sends you to photos at an aunt's profile where she's posted a video that mentions a particular group by name.

You weren't necessarily interested in this band at that moment, but it's a band you've recently discovered, though your own birth happened seven-ish years after their heyday. It seems I should have known of The Shangri-Las at least a little, but I never did till . . . hmm . . . something else to blame on coming out. Maybe I'll write a little something about all that, but this isn't that sometime.

HERE is Give Him a Great Big Kiss, and if you saw me listening to this song you'd probably think I was gay. I can't help it. Also, I'm really falling in love with this group every time I hear them. And Mary Weiss is probably still just as hot.

Oddly enough, we run across another musical reference on the Fb courtesy of someone I know from blogland. Perhaps you already know, but apparently there's a movie about The Runaways. This is another band I was barely familiar with before recently, and it's only barely thanks to the movie.

I've run across a couple of references to a movie in my Google reader thanks to some of the gay centric feeds I enjoy. Apparently there's some lesbianity on display at some point in the film and all the usual anti-gay suspects are up in arms that any one should ever dare present gayfords as a normal every day part of human life.

Which is not to say that a movie about The Runaways is ever going to really represent the normal every day of human life for the most part. I've already mentioned my mostly not familiarity with the band. I have listened to them via our friend YouTube somewhat more than usual recently, and I still can't decide.

Were they a run of the mill band that just happened to be girls? Were they an awesome band that broke stereotypes? Maybe it just takes me listening until I hear the song, that one song that makes me get it. Mama Weer All Crazee Now, apparently, is the name of the song that finally sucks me in. I really do hate it when people intentionally misspell things, but there's really nothing I can do. The song is still amazing, or maybe I just love a great sing-a-long chorus.

I haven't really got much more that stems directly from this line of reasoning. I've run into The Bangles because somebody in one band was in another and eventually whatever. I'm hearing them right this moment, but I'm not really feeling The Bangles right now. You can google them yourself if you want.

So where do I go? Well, we could end up with a video of a 78, its slow spin and an earlier musical revolution that allowed Mary Ford to sing backup for herself doing Tennessee Waltz, a song I truly love. I'm not entirely convinced it's a Tennessee thing, and I'm not entirely convinced it's not. Either way, HERE it is.

So, who are your favorite women in rock? Or better yet, who in rock and roll do you think did their part to tear down gender based nonsense that allows or even necessitates the need to point out when girls rock?