April 21, 2025 • 46 mins
From the moment she heard a guitar being played in an empty classroom at her convent school in the Philippines in 1961, June Millington knew what she wanted to do with her life: rock and roll.
So when a girl called up June and her sister and asked if they wanted to start a band, the answer was hell yeah.
They went on to become Fanny, the first all-female rock band to release an album with a major record label. June and her bandmates moved into a house in LA, toured the world and won fans like David Bowie. But they were also up against sexist stereotypes, skeptical audiences and critics who couldn’t believe that a group of women could rock just as hard as any guy.
But June wasn’t about to let that stop her. This is the story of how she stuck it to the man and blazed a trail for generations of female musicians to come.
June is the co-founder of the Institute for the Musical Arts, which offers workshops and events for women in music: https://ima.org/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey listener.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
This episode, we're heading into the world of late nineteen
sixties rock and roll to meet a real musical icon.
Expect killer outfits, face melting guitar solos, and.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Some real rock and roll bad language.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
It's nineteen sixty one and June Millington is twelve years
old at a strict Catholic convent school in the Philippines.
She's sitting in a school hall with an open air
verandah along one side. June can smell the trees and
the tropical air drifting in from the outside. Mother Milagros,
who's one of the nuns who teach us there, drones
(00:41):
on and on to the class, holding a ruler in
her hand, but June isn't listening.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
I heard the sound coming down the hall and I
literally like I was in a dream. I stood up.
I followed that sound, and Mother Milagros, who was the
strictest of strict I didn't seemly notice.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
The sound is coming from a room a couple of
doors down. June reaches the doorway and stops still.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I saw this girl on the far corner, facing the
corner playing I didn't know what, but it was a
guitar and I remember exactly what I thought. Every shred
of DNA in my body just popped up and went,
what what? What is this? You know? I need to know?
And I've been spending the rest of my life answering
(01:29):
that question.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
June didn't just follow the sound of that guitar to
the empty classroom, She followed it all the way to
LA and into rock and roll history. June and her
sister Jean started a band called Fanny. They were one
of the first all female rock bands to release an
album with a major record label.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
They toured all over.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
The world, shaken venues and blowing minds with their epic
guitar riffs. David Bowie even called them one of the
finest fucking rock bands of their time.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
In short, they're legends.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
But making it big as an all female rock band
in the early nineteen seventies wasn't easy. At the time,
women in the USA couldn't even open a bank account
without their husband's permission. The idea of girls rocking out
with electric guitars was seen as completely laughable. But June
wasn't going to let that stop her. She knew this
(02:31):
was her calling the moment she heard the first notes
of the guitar back in that convent school, Fanny were
on a mission for world domination. I'm Anisinfield and from
the teams at Novel.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
And iHeart podcasts.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
This is the Girlfriend's Spotlight, where we tell stories.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Of women winning.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Today.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
June Rox America, would you be able to tell me
when you first picked up an instrument?
Speaker 3 (03:26):
I think I was about seven and I was at
a family gathering and either a cousin or an uncle
shoved a ukulele right at me and said, you know,
I think you should play this. And he said, look,
this is how you tuned it. My dog has fleas,
which I understood immediately because I can remember that melody.
(03:48):
And he showed me my first song, which is how
much is that Doggie in the Window?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
A classic?
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Yes, and it is actually the basis of so many songs.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Before breaking into the devastatingly cool career of podcasting, I
spent my entire life wanting to be a rock star.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
I've had my taste of it.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I started gigging when I was fifteen, and I've worked
as a professional blues singer. I've been invited to palaces
and flown around the world to do cool things like
perform on a suspended plinth in the middle of a
Moroccan swimming pool. My all female jazz trio held a
residency at a club in London where we played a
businessman three nights a week in exchange for a few
(04:31):
hundred quid each a glass of wine and some pasta.
I also have spent a lot of nights sleeping on floors,
and I once played at a toilet manufacturer's Christmas party,
which was really, really glamorous. I did what I needed
to keep the dream alive, until eventually, one day I
threw in the towel. But I have always wondered what
(04:53):
could have happened if I just stuck it out. Talking
to June is like talking to the woman that I
always wanted to become.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I feel like I'm really topped off on a wealth
of musical knowledge, both in my body and in listening
to music. You know, Let's say you pick up the
ukulele and you're singing, hang down your head, Tom Dooley,
hang down your head and cry now you then another
chord there. We understood that in our bodies it was
(05:20):
our destiny.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Jing grew up playing Harry Belafonte songs on the ukulele
with her sister Jean and all their family gatherings. They're
raised in Manila with a Filipino mum and a dad
in the US Navy. June was the eldest of seven
kids and a tomboy who spent all the time she
could climbing trees. And in nineteen sixty one, only a
few weeks after that fateful day in the convent school,
(05:44):
the family were getting ready to move to Sacramento in California.
But while her family were packing up their belongings, all
June could talk about was the guitar.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Maybe two months before we moved, my mother made a
last strip to the Southern Philippines. She got us small
handmade mother of pro guitar, and that, oh wow, was
my blessing.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yes, by the time the family boar was the USS
President Cleveland. Eight weeks later, Jean has a guitar too,
and they're hooks. The sisters then spend the entire journey
playing songs for the other passengers.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
We stopped in Yokohama, Kobe, and Hawaii. And I'll tell
you when that ship approached the Golden Gate Bridge, it
was just after dawn morning light that Golden gate Bridge
was shining in the sun. It really affected me, It
(06:41):
really meant something to me. It was really awesome.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
The change between the Philippines and Sacramento. That must have
felt massive for you, and that age of Teenagehod is
tough as well.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Uh huh, yeah, yeah. Well there are a lot of
brown people in Sacramento. There are you know, Latinos, there's Japanese,
they're Chinese and so on. But nobody, not one single
one of our classmates knew where the Philippines was. They
never even heard of it. They didn't know that it
had been bombed essentially the same day as Pearl Harbor.
(07:13):
They hardly knew that we were in World War Two.
We'd come from the Philippines hearing all those terrible stories
about the war, you know, that's what we came in with.
And the kids at our junior high had no clue.
So we just shut up about it and we just
what do we do? We transferred our attention to songs
that were on the radio.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
June and Jean practiced hour after hour perfecting each song
and arrangement.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
What is that one note you can add to that
one chord that's gonna give it that zing, you know,
that's going to give it that color. Maybe only just
stay there for a second and maybe just a few
people notice it, But hey, I love it and it
felt great. You know.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
June can't get enough of that feeling. She and Jean
take that gars everywhere. They even bring them to jam
when they go swimming at the YWCA. And it's there
that the singing sisters attract the attention of a local
women's group.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
You could not get more girlfriends than this.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
They hoard us and went, oh my god, these girls
are great. And they had this sewing club where they
would sew every week, get together every week, and then
they would donate whatever they sold. The prophets they were
donated to a worthy cause, and they decided that me
and Jean were the worthy cause, so they would book
gigs for us.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I love the idea of this sewing club becoming their
band manager, and they put them gigs in all kinds
of places.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
We became just kind of fearless about playing anywhere. I mean,
we played a mental institution. So I was thirteen, Jeene
was twelve. Wow, we played a mental institution. We played parties,
We played political parties actually where we'd just be singing
for these folks in the living room. We were raising
money for the state senator or whatever. We just were
(09:03):
thrown into all these circumstances and listen, we didn't say
a word. We were so shy.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Jane and Jeane are outside as in Sacramento. But the
more they play together, the more that confidence grows.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
We enjoyed it so much, and then we realized other
people were enjoying it, and they were talking to us.
All the kids who just weren't even looking at us.
All of a sudden they would stop me in the
hall and say, hey, I really like that song and
just walk on. And that changed my life. Jeans as well,
because now we realized that we were human beings to
(09:39):
these kids, we were people, and that just meant so much.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
And was that your kind of ticket to having friends? Therefore,
is that.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
You're in exactly exactly that was our ticket, and that
was our connection to humanity. That was the thing, man.
We just wanted to have a connection. We wanted to
make a friend.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
By the time June seventeen, she and her sister have
graduated onto gigs at bowling alleys and youth centers. They've
teamed up with two other girls and started singing motown
songs together. One day when June is at home, the
phone rings.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Gene and I were in the kitchen because all of
us were painting the kitchen, so our brothers were up
on ladders and it was, you know, all this bustle.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
June answers the phone. It's a girl from another local
high school.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
She said, hey, I heard you play, and I heard
you good. I'm a drummer. Do you want to start
a band? And I looked at Gene and I said,
I mouthed it, you know, you want to start a band?
And about a second and a half later she yeah,
She kind of nodded, yeah, kind of, you know, nonchalantly. Well,
(10:48):
that was the start of it.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
They called any band the Spelts and they start rehearsing
in their friends living room.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
We had to teach ourselves the mechanics, because there are
mechanics and together in a band, you know, you have
to give each other signals. You have to play on
the same beat, you have to try to sing in tune,
you have to learn the songs. We did motown and
certain rock tunes, you know, so anything that was popular
(11:15):
on the radio. We did it and that was our training.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Oh, there's no better training than letting some of the
best songs of all time, right.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
The best songs of all time? Absolutely, Oh my goodness.
I was serious about music, you know. I didn't want
to make any mistakes, and so I have this reputation
of being hard on the band.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Any band, you gotta be a bit hard.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
They say, those dirty looks you would give me when
I missed a chord. I didn't realize I did that, but.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
I used to be in a band and the guys
always said whenever I turned around with the tambourine and
gave them the stink ki, they need that done something wrong.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Exact the tambourine. Wow, that's a position of power.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
It's sure. It tasts a lot to be accepted in
the music world.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
I mean it did for me in the noughties and
the twenty tens, so I can't imagine what it was
like for June.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Of course, she got a reputation for being a bit hard.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
I spent nine years in a band of mostly blokes,
but I always did our sound I got them to
sound check in time, I got them to stop playing
those annoying riffs when we were figuring out the beat. Hell,
I even collected our money. They'd jokingly referred to me
as the boss. Because June's right, if you're serious about music,
there is no room for flowering up the walls. And
(12:38):
the Spelts were serious. They started experimenting with electric guitars
and bass and playing at local clubs. June could feel
that they were getting better and she knew they were
doing something different. The local scene didn't have any all
female bands like them. But being a pioneer isn't always easy.
(12:58):
You were an all girl band that you were playing guitar.
I mean, how are people reacting to you? I'm thinking not.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Very well, not very well at all. I mean, the
whole world was against us. I might as well have
said we're gonna walk on the moon as say we're
starting a band. I mean, was that ridiculous? You know?
And every single audience when we walked on stage with
simper and sneer at us, you know, and we knew it.
(13:27):
We knew it. So what did we do? We just
got better and better and we'rein hitting it. They just
couldn't believe that we were good. They were just would
be gobsmacked, and they would rush up after the set
and say, not bad for chicks. That was the best
they could do. Four years.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
One time, Jane and the Spouts are playing a set
at teen Center down by San Jose. The audience is
bouncing and swaying, and June is shredding on the guitar.
She's in the zone, but then something catches her eye.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
We were on a raised stage, so this boy was
standing looking up my skirt and I didn't say anything
to him, but I moved sideways right. He invited his
friends over to look up my skirt as well, and finally,
after a few minutes, I just kicked him in the
(14:22):
face with my heels and I had think heels on
and I had a guitar. Okay, a deadly combination. He
had that Oh absolutely, you have to have your pride.
I mean, we took a lot of terrible comments, a
lot of them, but after a while we were in
our own orbit. We didn't listen to them. We were
(14:43):
a proud band. We never apologized for ourselves. Don't sneer
at us, don't laugh at us. We knew we were
good motherfuckers.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
I love that confidence.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I mean, it takes a lot of strength to really
back yourself when the rest of the world and believe
in you. And I think June and her bandmates got
it from each other. They were a proper team. They
looked out for each other and did their makeup together
on the way to gigs in this old converted school
bus that June and Jean's dad had fixed up.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
It was blue on the outside and yellow, yellow and
orange on the inside, really psychedelic.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
They'd play shows to soldiers recently back from Vietnam at
the local army base or at clubs that they were
still too young to go into officially. Each night, after
their set, they'd load the bus back up with their
gear ready for the next time.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
It was dark and we were parked in the alley.
I'm sure the only reason that we didn't get savagely
attacked by some weirdo is that it was we were
always hanging out together. We were doing it all together. So
you're not going to attack four girls filled with estrogen.
You're just not going to do it, you know. So
(15:55):
we were also saved by circumstances.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah, and pissy the man who tries to attack you. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Most of the other bands on the circuit were all men,
so June had to make female friends in other places.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
We had go go girl cages on either side of
the stage. Every gig, every club had those cages that
were hanging from the ceiling and.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
The girls in it.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Oh yes, absolutely yeah, And it was normal and we
like them and they liked us. I never met a
mien go go girl never. They were always really nice
and they could really dance. They could shame Shammy Bop,
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
June also got to know the waitresses when they played
gigs at the local casino.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
They were so nice to us, and they would give
us these tips, like, you know your old stockings that
have runs in them, don't throw those away. Stuff those
in your bras and believe me, it'll make a difference.
Let me tell you, we did it, and it really
made us more popular. They taught us how to use
makeup and mascara and false eyelashes. I remember one game
(17:09):
one evening where we were playing, I couldn't see my
guitar becas my fake eyelashes were so thick, you know,
so I had to brain it in. But they taught
us how to be not just girls, but young women.
You know, there's a certain thing that you got to
go through. Yeah, Fortunately we had these great women to
(17:31):
just sort of show us the ropes.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
I love the sound of the sisterhood between the band
and the go go dancers and the waitresses sharing tips
and tricks in the dressing room. But I can also
really relate to the feeling of being under pressure to
look a certain way on stage. You may not know
what I look like, but let's just say you'd sooner
catch me in a clown suit than a spring dress.
But for nine years, multiple times a week, I'd slick
(17:56):
my fringe into some cinnamon swell, and I'd powder my
face into the vision of Betty Boop. And occasionally, I'll
be honest, it was really fun. It was liberating even
to don that costume. I'd bat my eyelashes for a
free drink kind of tip. But other times it made
me feel used. I'd get annoyed that the guys just
(18:17):
would roll off the van straight to the stage, and
frustrated that people would think I'd let myself go if
I did the exact same as them. It just goes
to show that although a lot has changed obviously since
the days when June first started playing gigs. Some things haven't,
but Fanny weren't about to let double standards stop them
from making it.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
And when did you get your big break?
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Well that happened in early fall of sixty eight. We
went down to Los Angeles and we did open hoot
Night at the Troube Door. That's the place where Elton
John by the way, broke himself in.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yeah, hoot Night was the place to be if you
were an unsigned artist in Hollywood at the time. It
was an open mic night, so anyone could sign up
to play and you could rub elbows with all kinds
of music industry suits in the audience. Producers, promoters, talent
scouts all there to schmooze and look for new artists.
(19:16):
But when June and the band arrived to set up,
the welcome is less than warm.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
The guy who around the club he was steering at us.
He did not want us to play, but we were
signed up and he said, well, you only got I
forget like ten minutes. You can only play for ten minutes, okay,
So we played for ten minutes and the audience started clapping.
They went crazy. They went more and more and more.
(19:43):
Not only that, but they all jumped down to their
tables and stamped their feet, were clapping and yelling more
and more and more. It was complete pandemonium. I can
barely describe it to you. It was unbelievable. I was
a rhythm guitar player at the time, and I remember
looking at Eddie, who was a lead guitar player. We
just looked at each other and it's like, yeah, right,
(20:06):
they got it.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
That moment must have been so satisfying, especially after all
the heckling and shit talk their faced over the years.
But that standing ovation wasn't the end of it. Two
days later, June and the band are getting ready to
head out on the road again. They've already loaded all
their gear into the school bus and they're about to
(20:28):
set off.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
The phone rang and I picked it up and it
was a woman on the other line. She said, what
are you doing? And I said, well, we're getting ready
to leave, and she said, no, no, no, no, don't
do that. I'll call you right back, you know. So
about five minutes later she called back and she told
us to go to a small recording studio in Hollywood,
(20:49):
close to the Capitol Building, and we were going to
audition for her boss.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
The women had seen them play at the Troupe Door.
She was there scouting out unsigned bands for hot shot
record producer Richard Perry. He's the guy who produced hits
like I'm So Excited or You're So Vain, both excellent
karaoke tracks.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
By the way, Basically, he's a big fucking deal.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
We went to that studio, we set up our gear
and we played for Richard Berry and he was so
blown away they signed us.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
No more gigs at Bowling Alley's or sewing clubs. June,
Jean and the band have just signed a record deal
with Reprise Records at Warner Brothers, one of the biggest
record labels in the world. They're on the same label
as artists like Fleetwood, Mac, Jimi Hendrix, and The Beach Boys.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
It's life changing.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
In May of nineteen sixty nine, they leave sleepy Sacramento
behind to move into a house in La just off
Sunset Boulevard.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Of course, we drove down there in our bus. Are
dead drove it. He dropped us off and rock and
roll his story began.
Speaker 5 (22:04):
Next up, June takes on La.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
By the time June and the band move into that
new rock and roll sorority, house in La. The lineup
has undergone a few changes and they've got a brand
new name, Fanny.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
And why Fanny? I'm sure you're asked this all the time.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
I heard of the band called Daisy Chain, so I
heard that name, and I said to the girls, while
we were thinking of names, I said, why don't we
try to think of a girl's name. Wouldn't that be nice?
Speaker 4 (22:52):
You know?
Speaker 3 (22:52):
They could just call us Betty or we came up
with Fanny as one of the names. We just thought
it was a funny double and and people would remember us,
which they did. And we named our house Fanny Hill,
and we were really proud of it, and we practiced
night and day. Everyone wanted to go to this house
and see these chicks who could play. You know, we
(23:14):
were like the fable. We had the colored pebbles that
led to the house. We were like the fairy tale.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Other rock stars on the Rise would come to Fanny
Hill to hang out and jam with the band, But
Jean tried not to get too caught up in the
Hollywood lifestyle.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
We played, practiced and wrote night and day. That's what
we did. We did not party. We knew about drugs
before we went down to La. We didn't do that.
I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We got stoned, sure,
but we didn't stay stoned for that long. We're Philippine glasses,
me and Jean. We know how to work. We were
(23:51):
taught how to work, how to study in the Philippines,
and that's largely the secret to our success and to
the success of the band.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Fanny spent long days in the studio working on that
first album.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
When you're a band that's going to go on on
the road, you have to develop a larger sound. And
how we did that was we practice that Warner Brothers
movie sound lots, which red huge stages and high ceilings.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Their first big gig is opening up for the Kinks.
When the stage lights come up, Fanny just go for it.
June's sister, Jean is on the base and center stage,
with long dark hair parted at the center.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
When we played, she was definitely the center of the action.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Alice, the drummer, is at the back. She drives them
forward with a pounding rhythm. Nikki is stage right, wearing
a short, spiky mullet and bouncing between two different keyboards.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
She would kind of fling herself around the keyboard she'd
loved attention. And I, because I'm deaf in one ear,
I always had to be on left hand side of
the stage, so everyone was on my right, so not
only see but feel them. I'd be in this vortex
of sound. I would hear the wham bam and Jeane
(25:12):
and I would be you know, there were no thing
and you know when you got to that place where
you knew you were killing it, you had it was hot,
it was on fire, you know, and you were doing
it and nobody else could do it.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Before long, Fanny are touring all over the world living
the dream. They play with legendary rock bands like Slade
and Jeff Rotel, and they're not phased by any of
the sizeable egos that they encounter along the way.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
They didn't scare us at all. I knew what they
were doing. You know, they're doing that guy thing and
doing it well.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Fanny are rocking on their own terms. They can win
over any audience at a live show, but becoming a
mainstream household name, well that was something else.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
The guys that we did gigs with loved us, They
loved us, but we just couldn't get it past the
bigger crowd.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
It's such a shame, Like, you know, there's nothing cooler
than being a musician's band, but it also, I guess
doesn't pay.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
And to tell you the truth, I think it was
a misogyny.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
When Fanny start releasing albums, it's like those early days
back in the Spelts. Once again, the girls with guitars
I met with sneers and condescension.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
The reviews would always start with like, kind of a
nice statement, but then would come all these you know,
kind of snide little oh but you know, I it's
kind of hard for me to see girls dressed up
and playing in a band just these snide kind of
put downs. They just couldn't say they're amazing, they're gonna
(26:52):
make it. We didn't get that from the reviews. Now,
we got that from our audiences, but it wasn't enough.
And after a while, even though we were selling I
think sixty or seventy thousand units per album, it wasn't
enough of the record company. The record company wasn't believing
in us, and they made us a new where, new outfits.
(27:13):
They gave us each a designer. I just hated that
because not only was the world not seeing us for
who we were, but the record company was trying to
change so that even I didn't recognize who I was
while I was playing. And that just wrecked me. That
just wrecked me. I know it might seem like a
(27:36):
small thing, but to me it was not.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
I think it's a really big thing.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
And a lot of times I would get on a plane,
I didn't even know where it was going. I didn't care,
and so they would pour us into the car and
we'd go to the airport and I didn't know where
we were going. I just fall asleep.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Was there a point when it just started to take
too much of a toll?
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Yes, yes, definitely. I remember our last tour in England,
but I just was not happy. I just I'd lost something.
I'd wandered from the center. All these disappointments, you know,
had caused me to just start wandering around. It was
(28:17):
like a bad acid trip, because what was is that
we were walking through. We had ashes in our mouths,
it didn't taste good. We had just the next gig
and the next gig and the next gig, and we
weren't having the record company give us a hug and
say you're doing great. You know, if they just would
have given us that hug. It would have helped so much.
(28:39):
But we were out there on our own, in the
middle of the universe. We didn't have that hug. I
got to tell you, that's that's really big.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
When I go back and I plot myself backstage at
your gigs and give you a hug.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
This oh, I know, I know. I wish I could
have given my.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Cel phone one easy intervention.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
I had to leave Fanny. My mom was begging me
to eat and sleep. She was just begging me. I
couldn't sit still. I was just so agitated and I
knew I couldn't survive that.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
One day, when the band are in Liverpool, June Pool's
assist Jane aside.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
I don't know if Geane and I were sharing a
room or I asked her to come over to my
room and I said to her, I have to leave,
I can. She totally could see it. She didn't. She
didn't try to talk me out of it. That's one
of the hardest things I've ever had to do in
(29:43):
my life, because we had that dream since we were teenagers,
and we'd worked so hard. I really feel that in
misogyny was that impenetrable wall that I just couldn't figure out.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
After the break, June starts over.
Speaker 4 (30:15):
Got You, I've got you, got You, I've got you.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
What I did when I left was I went to
a house by the sea on Long Island. It was
a summer home that I rented in winter, and I
listened to Stevie Wonder and I walked by the beach
and I calmed my nerves down.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
June began to study Buddhism and reflect on her experiences
in this new light.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
I was going into New York to Jam. I had
no money, so I gosh. I remember being in Manhattan
one time and the wind was blowing down the avenues.
I don't even think I had a coat, and I
had maybe three or five dollars, and I had to
decide whether or not I could buy a cup of
(31:05):
coffee or take a cab to wherever I was going.
And I remember thinking myself, June, you can never let
this happen to yourself again, because you know, when I
was in Fanny, there was always a road manager. They
always had everything planned out, and you'd get in the car,
you'd go. I wasn't used to being on my own
in the world anymore. I hadn't actually learned how to
(31:28):
be a person. That's why, that's why I quit the band.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
In Port June hangs out in clubs playing the guitar.
She doesn't have to fit her style into some box
dictated by record label anymore, so she starts experimenting with
new sounds.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
You know, what was happening in New York at the
time was disco and reggae, And in all these jams,
I learned a lot of that, you know, I learned
how you could get into these crews. And I also
tried to find as any other women to play with
it as I could. So I found other women who
were in Brooklyn and where these enclaves were, where they
(32:07):
were rehearsing and forming their bands.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Fanny broke down the door for women in rock, and
now other like minded women were following in their footsteps.
One day, June got a call from a singer songwriter
called Chris Williamson. She wanted June to play on her
new album and come on tour. And if you don't
know who Chris is, she's another musical legend. She was
(32:32):
part of this radical feminist group in Washington, DC and
a couple of years earlier that had this really cool idea.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
They had gathered some money and they wanted to start
something that would not rely on men at all. That
was at the heart of feminism, Like they didn't want
the help of men at all, and so they were
maybe going to start a you know, a restaurant or
a bowling alley or whatever. And Chris, because she had
(33:01):
done gigs for them, she said, well, why don't you
start a women's record company music combined with feminist rhetoric literature.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
The group called themselves Olivia Records, after a novel from
nineteen forty nine about a young woman who falls in
love with the headmistress of her French finishing school, Oula La.
The idea was to provide a platform for lesbian artists.
It was the start of what's now called the women's
music movement, a genre of music written for and by women.
(33:32):
You'd think that'd be right up June Street. But at first,
when Chris called in nineteen seventy five to ask her
to get involved with her album, June wasn't sure this
was for her.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Sure she'd stuck it.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
To the man all her life, but she hadn't called
that feminism at the time, June was just focused on
the music, but after another project fell through, she had
a bit of time.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
On her hands.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
So finally I said it, Chris, Okay, I'll go with you.
I thought it was going to be the most warring
thing in the world, and I would just be marking
time until the next thing that came up, you know.
But I mean we played the first gig in Salt
Lake City, and I mean it was like the whole
hall was on fire.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
The venue is packed to the rafters with women. June
looks out at the up turned faces in the crowd
and tries to process what she's saying.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
I realize, oh, this is so much bigger than me.
I'm just going to try to understand it and try
to hold onto the coattails. You know. Was the wind
was big. It was moving so fast and growing so fast.
It was out of my control. I could barely keep
up with it.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
You know.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
That's how I got introduced to feminism. It was a
live It wasn't a theory. It was alive and it
was consuming me as well.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
The album June played on with Chris is Cool, The
Change and the Changed appropriate right. It became one of
the biggest selling independent records of.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
All time being on the road. City after city, living
room after living a house after house that I stayed at,
and we talked to the women who were living in
the house or the apartment, the count or whatever. They
started telling us stories. I remember that first tour we
stayed at a house an apartment in Ohio where one
(35:29):
of the women there was fighting for custody of her
children and was going to the Supreme Court. And she
was fighting for custody because just because she was a woman,
they took away custody of her kids. Her husband was
automatically going to get the kids just because she was
a woman, and the fact that she was a lesbian
was even worse, you know.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
The women's music movement also crossed over with black feminism.
June became friends with activists like Angela Davis and a
poet Lord.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
They brought the civil rights into it, so now we
were understanding civil rights along with women's rights, and we
realized it's all the wise they were being told about
women in the past and in real time, you know,
and we were upset about that. Feminism is something that
we need right now. It's not of the past, and
(36:23):
it's not a story. Feminism is you right now, it's
you trying to figure out, well, I got some rights here,
why why aren't they being given to me? Or why
are they being taken away? It's us, you know. So
I never see it as being separate from anything, and
(36:45):
I see it as being a huge contributing factor in
my life. And I will be forever grateful that Chris
asked me to play on that album.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Since nineteen eighty six, June and her partner An Hackler
have run a nonprofit called the Institute for the Musical Arts,
supporting the next generation of women in music.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
We do a lot of events here. We have shows
and workshops, and we have our Rock and Roll Girls Camp.
So it's twenty five acres, a house and two barns
with a lot of events. And now we're growing old together.
We said when we were what what was I? I
think I was thirty four or thirty six and she
was twenty eight. When we got together, we said, let's
(37:26):
grow old together. I never thought that was gonna happen.
I'm turning seventy seven this year.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
You know what, Like guys in a flash, doesn't that.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
It really does. But I feel lucky because I've been
able to learn all these lessons, and I've you know,
the latest lesson I've learned is how to be so
close to death and how to deal with it because
I'm dealing with cancer part two. Oh wow, Yeah, and
now it becomes life, it becomes real life in some
(37:59):
of my friends have begun to die and so dealing
with grief, you know, and realizing okay, yeah, I really
am at the last part and what am I going
to do with it? Well, part of it is talking
with you and telling the absolute truth. I'm not gonna
lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
I wanted to just touch on something you just said
about kind of being in a new stage of your
life where you're processing being closer to death than the
beginning of your life. It's such a profound point of
life to be at. Do you have any sort of
words of wisdom to share to other people who are
(38:41):
always struggling.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
With that chapter?
Speaker 3 (38:43):
Yeah? Well, I'm not afraid of death anymore in any
sense of the word. I mean, I don't want to
have pain, but you know, if that happens, it happens.
But my words of wisdom would be to just say
be in your moment, be authentic in your moment, and
further forgive yourself. That is a big one. You have
(39:09):
to try to help as much as you can because
helping it it ripples out, you know, ripples out to
other people. So you can always smile at someone, touch
someone's hand.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Give that girl a hug, Give that hug.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Yeah, life here is so hard. It's just a hug,
just a little, that's all. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
I had no idea that this episode was going to
become just like us trying to prove to everyone that
hugs already great.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
Give them the universe. God. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Well, I guess, like you know, part of this reflective
period where you're kind of thinking about the life that's
come before what potentially is to come, you must look
back at your time in Fanny and be really proud
of everything that you did.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
And seriously bra that we worked so hard. We were
not laggards. You know, we knew the importance of what
we were doing. We admitted it to each other that
we were doing this for the girls in the future,
so that was nice. I think we did a great job.
We made a lot of mistakes, but who cares, you know,
we had a good time. Yeah, we had a really
(40:24):
good time.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Thanks so much to June Millington for sharing what it's
like to be a literal rock star. To check out
what Fanny are up to, you can find them on
Spotify or their website, which is Fannyrocks dot com. But actually,
I think the best way to learn about what they're
doing is through their videos on YouTube. The guitars, the flares,
(40:52):
the hair.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
It's all chef's kiss.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
And if you've got a budding girl rocket in your
family and you want to learn more about June and
A's workshops and events, check out the Institute for the
Musical Arts.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
There's links in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Oh and hey, listener, just a quick one, go give
someone a hug. Coming up next on the Girlfriend's Spotlight,
Rosev's at least eighty six cold cases.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
And I'm telling you, I've never had this feeling before
in my life. They're here on the back of my neck.
Was starting to see now because this.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Was the guy.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
I mean, it was unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Hey, it's Anna, you've reached the girlfriend's hotline. Leave your
story after the tone. Okay, gotta go love you.
Speaker 6 (41:55):
The girlfriend I want to celebrate is someone I've known
since I was twenty one. She was at our wedding,
she's got mother to our eldest child, and she's always
been there for all the important times in our lives
since then. But as we hit our early thirties, my
life and hers hit the bumpers. Our second son died
suddenly and unexpectedly when he had an unstoppable asthma attack
(42:18):
at just under eighteen months old. At the same time,
her marriage was breaking down, and we spent many days
and evenings together over the months that followed trying to
work out why, how, and struggling to bear any of it,
and gradually learning how to live with what had happened
to us. As the months moved on, quite naturally, we
(42:38):
were receiving less attention. At the beginning, I confided one
of my fears to her. I told her that if
anything happened to my husband, then nobody would remember the
birth day of our son and the anniversary of his death,
and that would be a sorrow I would have to
bear on my own. She listened, and she told me
that she would always remember. In those first couple of years,
(43:00):
friends and family did remember. We were also lucky to
go on and have two daughters, and understandably the focus
love and support we received turned towards our surviving children.
But for over thirty years, our special friend has sent
us flowers on the anniversary of our son's death. A
couple of years ago, I suggested it was incredibly kind
(43:21):
of her to send us flowers every year, but we
were okay, and she shouldn't feel she needed you anymore.
I know her wealth, and she looked at me very
directly and told me she couldn't stop sending them. I
promised you I would always remember. Bless you, dear girlfriend.
Your lifelong friendship and commitment means the world to me.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
If you have your own story like the one you
just heard, and you'd like the whole girlfriend's going to
hear it, then please send it to us. You can
record it as a voice memo under ninety seconds. Please
and email it straight to the girlfriends at novel dot org.
Please don't include your name. We're keeping things a little anon.
(44:05):
We want stories like, say that one time you faked
an emergency on an awful date and your bestie bailed
you out with a phone call we love her, Or
that time when all of your girls showed up on
your doorstep with five pizzas, two tups of ice cream,
and three bottles of Savenure Blanc because the man of
your dreams just dumped you. I want stories that are
(44:27):
meaningful or silly. I want big, I want small. I'm
desperate to hear them, so send them over. This season,
The Girlfriend's Spotlight is supporting the charity Womankind Worldwide. They
do amazing work to help women's rights organizations and movements
to strengthen and grow. If you'd like to find out
(44:49):
more or donate to help them secure equal rights for
women and girls across the globe, you can go to
Womankind dot org dot UK. The Girlfriend's Spotlight is produced
by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit
(45:13):
novel dot Audio. This episode was written and produced by
Caroline Thornham. Our assistant producer is Lucy Carr. Our researcher
is Seyana Yusuf. The editor is Hannah Marshall. Max O'Brien
and Craig Strachan are our executive producers. Production management from
Joe Savage, Srie Houston and Charlotte Wolfe. Sound design, mixing
(45:37):
and scoring by Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempson. Music supervision
by Jako Taivich, Nicholas Alexander and Anna Sinfield. Original music
composed by Louisa Gerstein and Jemma Freeman. The series artwork
was designed by Christina lemcol Willard Foxton is creative Director
of Development and Special thanks to Trina Norvelle, Carrie Lieberman,
(46:02):
and Will Pearson at iHeart Podcasts, as well as Carl
Frankel and the whole team at w M E.
Hey listener.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
This episode, we're heading into the world of late nineteen
sixties rock and roll to meet a real musical icon.
Expect killer outfits, face melting guitar solos, and.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Some real rock and roll bad language.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
It's nineteen sixty one and June Millington is twelve years
old at a strict Catholic convent school in the Philippines.
She's sitting in a school hall with an open air
verandah along one side. June can smell the trees and
the tropical air drifting in from the outside. Mother Milagros,
who's one of the nuns who teach us there, drones
(00:41):
on and on to the class, holding a ruler in
her hand, but June isn't listening.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
I heard the sound coming down the hall and I
literally like I was in a dream. I stood up.
I followed that sound, and Mother Milagros, who was the
strictest of strict I didn't seemly notice.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
The sound is coming from a room a couple of
doors down. June reaches the doorway and stops still.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I saw this girl on the far corner, facing the
corner playing I didn't know what, but it was a
guitar and I remember exactly what I thought. Every shred
of DNA in my body just popped up and went,
what what? What is this? You know? I need to know?
And I've been spending the rest of my life answering
(01:29):
that question.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
June didn't just follow the sound of that guitar to
the empty classroom, She followed it all the way to
LA and into rock and roll history. June and her
sister Jean started a band called Fanny. They were one
of the first all female rock bands to release an
album with a major record label.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
They toured all over.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
The world, shaken venues and blowing minds with their epic
guitar riffs. David Bowie even called them one of the
finest fucking rock bands of their time.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
In short, they're legends.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
But making it big as an all female rock band
in the early nineteen seventies wasn't easy. At the time,
women in the USA couldn't even open a bank account
without their husband's permission. The idea of girls rocking out
with electric guitars was seen as completely laughable. But June
wasn't going to let that stop her. She knew this
(02:31):
was her calling the moment she heard the first notes
of the guitar back in that convent school, Fanny were
on a mission for world domination. I'm Anisinfield and from
the teams at Novel.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
And iHeart podcasts.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
This is the Girlfriend's Spotlight, where we tell stories.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Of women winning.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Today.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
June Rox America, would you be able to tell me
when you first picked up an instrument?
Speaker 3 (03:26):
I think I was about seven and I was at
a family gathering and either a cousin or an uncle
shoved a ukulele right at me and said, you know,
I think you should play this. And he said, look,
this is how you tuned it. My dog has fleas,
which I understood immediately because I can remember that melody.
(03:48):
And he showed me my first song, which is how
much is that Doggie in the Window?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
A classic?
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Yes, and it is actually the basis of so many songs.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Before breaking into the devastatingly cool career of podcasting, I
spent my entire life wanting to be a rock star.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
I've had my taste of it.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I started gigging when I was fifteen, and I've worked
as a professional blues singer. I've been invited to palaces
and flown around the world to do cool things like
perform on a suspended plinth in the middle of a
Moroccan swimming pool. My all female jazz trio held a
residency at a club in London where we played a
businessman three nights a week in exchange for a few
(04:31):
hundred quid each a glass of wine and some pasta.
I also have spent a lot of nights sleeping on floors,
and I once played at a toilet manufacturer's Christmas party,
which was really, really glamorous. I did what I needed
to keep the dream alive, until eventually, one day I
threw in the towel. But I have always wondered what
(04:53):
could have happened if I just stuck it out. Talking
to June is like talking to the woman that I
always wanted to become.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I feel like I'm really topped off on a wealth
of musical knowledge, both in my body and in listening
to music. You know, Let's say you pick up the
ukulele and you're singing, hang down your head, Tom Dooley,
hang down your head and cry now you then another
chord there. We understood that in our bodies it was
(05:20):
our destiny.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Jing grew up playing Harry Belafonte songs on the ukulele
with her sister Jean and all their family gatherings. They're
raised in Manila with a Filipino mum and a dad
in the US Navy. June was the eldest of seven
kids and a tomboy who spent all the time she
could climbing trees. And in nineteen sixty one, only a
few weeks after that fateful day in the convent school,
(05:44):
the family were getting ready to move to Sacramento in California.
But while her family were packing up their belongings, all
June could talk about was the guitar.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Maybe two months before we moved, my mother made a
last strip to the Southern Philippines. She got us small
handmade mother of pro guitar, and that, oh wow, was
my blessing.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yes, by the time the family boar was the USS
President Cleveland. Eight weeks later, Jean has a guitar too,
and they're hooks. The sisters then spend the entire journey
playing songs for the other passengers.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
We stopped in Yokohama, Kobe, and Hawaii. And I'll tell
you when that ship approached the Golden Gate Bridge, it
was just after dawn morning light that Golden gate Bridge
was shining in the sun. It really affected me, It
(06:41):
really meant something to me. It was really awesome.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
The change between the Philippines and Sacramento. That must have
felt massive for you, and that age of Teenagehod is
tough as well.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Uh huh, yeah, yeah. Well there are a lot of
brown people in Sacramento. There are you know, Latinos, there's Japanese,
they're Chinese and so on. But nobody, not one single
one of our classmates knew where the Philippines was. They
never even heard of it. They didn't know that it
had been bombed essentially the same day as Pearl Harbor.
(07:13):
They hardly knew that we were in World War Two.
We'd come from the Philippines hearing all those terrible stories
about the war, you know, that's what we came in with.
And the kids at our junior high had no clue.
So we just shut up about it and we just
what do we do? We transferred our attention to songs
that were on the radio.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
June and Jean practiced hour after hour perfecting each song
and arrangement.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
What is that one note you can add to that
one chord that's gonna give it that zing, you know,
that's going to give it that color. Maybe only just
stay there for a second and maybe just a few
people notice it, But hey, I love it and it
felt great. You know.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
June can't get enough of that feeling. She and Jean
take that gars everywhere. They even bring them to jam
when they go swimming at the YWCA. And it's there
that the singing sisters attract the attention of a local
women's group.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
You could not get more girlfriends than this.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
They hoard us and went, oh my god, these girls
are great. And they had this sewing club where they
would sew every week, get together every week, and then
they would donate whatever they sold. The prophets they were
donated to a worthy cause, and they decided that me
and Jean were the worthy cause, so they would book
gigs for us.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I love the idea of this sewing club becoming their
band manager, and they put them gigs in all kinds
of places.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
We became just kind of fearless about playing anywhere. I mean,
we played a mental institution. So I was thirteen, Jeene
was twelve. Wow, we played a mental institution. We played parties,
We played political parties actually where we'd just be singing
for these folks in the living room. We were raising
money for the state senator or whatever. We just were
(09:03):
thrown into all these circumstances and listen, we didn't say
a word. We were so shy.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Jane and Jeane are outside as in Sacramento. But the
more they play together, the more that confidence grows.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
We enjoyed it so much, and then we realized other
people were enjoying it, and they were talking to us.
All the kids who just weren't even looking at us.
All of a sudden they would stop me in the
hall and say, hey, I really like that song and
just walk on. And that changed my life. Jeans as well,
because now we realized that we were human beings to
(09:39):
these kids, we were people, and that just meant so much.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
And was that your kind of ticket to having friends? Therefore,
is that.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
You're in exactly exactly that was our ticket, and that
was our connection to humanity. That was the thing, man.
We just wanted to have a connection. We wanted to
make a friend.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
By the time June seventeen, she and her sister have
graduated onto gigs at bowling alleys and youth centers. They've
teamed up with two other girls and started singing motown
songs together. One day when June is at home, the
phone rings.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Gene and I were in the kitchen because all of
us were painting the kitchen, so our brothers were up
on ladders and it was, you know, all this bustle.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
June answers the phone. It's a girl from another local
high school.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
She said, hey, I heard you play, and I heard
you good. I'm a drummer. Do you want to start
a band? And I looked at Gene and I said,
I mouthed it, you know, you want to start a band?
And about a second and a half later she yeah,
She kind of nodded, yeah, kind of, you know, nonchalantly. Well,
(10:48):
that was the start of it.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
They called any band the Spelts and they start rehearsing
in their friends living room.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
We had to teach ourselves the mechanics, because there are
mechanics and together in a band, you know, you have
to give each other signals. You have to play on
the same beat, you have to try to sing in tune,
you have to learn the songs. We did motown and
certain rock tunes, you know, so anything that was popular
(11:15):
on the radio. We did it and that was our training.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Oh, there's no better training than letting some of the
best songs of all time, right.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
The best songs of all time? Absolutely, Oh my goodness.
I was serious about music, you know. I didn't want
to make any mistakes, and so I have this reputation
of being hard on the band.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Any band, you gotta be a bit hard.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
They say, those dirty looks you would give me when
I missed a chord. I didn't realize I did that, but.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
I used to be in a band and the guys
always said whenever I turned around with the tambourine and
gave them the stink ki, they need that done something wrong.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Exact the tambourine. Wow, that's a position of power.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
It's sure. It tasts a lot to be accepted in
the music world.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
I mean it did for me in the noughties and
the twenty tens, so I can't imagine what it was
like for June.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Of course, she got a reputation for being a bit hard.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
I spent nine years in a band of mostly blokes,
but I always did our sound I got them to
sound check in time, I got them to stop playing
those annoying riffs when we were figuring out the beat. Hell,
I even collected our money. They'd jokingly referred to me
as the boss. Because June's right, if you're serious about music,
there is no room for flowering up the walls. And
(12:38):
the Spelts were serious. They started experimenting with electric guitars
and bass and playing at local clubs. June could feel
that they were getting better and she knew they were
doing something different. The local scene didn't have any all
female bands like them. But being a pioneer isn't always easy.
(12:58):
You were an all girl band that you were playing guitar.
I mean, how are people reacting to you? I'm thinking not.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Very well, not very well at all. I mean, the
whole world was against us. I might as well have
said we're gonna walk on the moon as say we're
starting a band. I mean, was that ridiculous? You know?
And every single audience when we walked on stage with
simper and sneer at us, you know, and we knew it.
(13:27):
We knew it. So what did we do? We just
got better and better and we'rein hitting it. They just
couldn't believe that we were good. They were just would
be gobsmacked, and they would rush up after the set
and say, not bad for chicks. That was the best
they could do. Four years.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
One time, Jane and the Spouts are playing a set
at teen Center down by San Jose. The audience is
bouncing and swaying, and June is shredding on the guitar.
She's in the zone, but then something catches her eye.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
We were on a raised stage, so this boy was
standing looking up my skirt and I didn't say anything
to him, but I moved sideways right. He invited his
friends over to look up my skirt as well, and finally,
after a few minutes, I just kicked him in the
(14:22):
face with my heels and I had think heels on
and I had a guitar. Okay, a deadly combination. He
had that Oh absolutely, you have to have your pride.
I mean, we took a lot of terrible comments, a
lot of them, but after a while we were in
our own orbit. We didn't listen to them. We were
(14:43):
a proud band. We never apologized for ourselves. Don't sneer
at us, don't laugh at us. We knew we were
good motherfuckers.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
I love that confidence.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I mean, it takes a lot of strength to really
back yourself when the rest of the world and believe
in you. And I think June and her bandmates got
it from each other. They were a proper team. They
looked out for each other and did their makeup together
on the way to gigs in this old converted school
bus that June and Jean's dad had fixed up.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
It was blue on the outside and yellow, yellow and
orange on the inside, really psychedelic.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
They'd play shows to soldiers recently back from Vietnam at
the local army base or at clubs that they were
still too young to go into officially. Each night, after
their set, they'd load the bus back up with their
gear ready for the next time.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
It was dark and we were parked in the alley.
I'm sure the only reason that we didn't get savagely
attacked by some weirdo is that it was we were
always hanging out together. We were doing it all together. So
you're not going to attack four girls filled with estrogen.
You're just not going to do it, you know. So
(15:55):
we were also saved by circumstances.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah, and pissy the man who tries to attack you. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Most of the other bands on the circuit were all men,
so June had to make female friends in other places.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
We had go go girl cages on either side of
the stage. Every gig, every club had those cages that
were hanging from the ceiling and.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
The girls in it.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Oh yes, absolutely yeah, And it was normal and we
like them and they liked us. I never met a
mien go go girl never. They were always really nice
and they could really dance. They could shame Shammy Bop,
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
June also got to know the waitresses when they played
gigs at the local casino.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
They were so nice to us, and they would give
us these tips, like, you know your old stockings that
have runs in them, don't throw those away. Stuff those
in your bras and believe me, it'll make a difference.
Let me tell you, we did it, and it really
made us more popular. They taught us how to use
makeup and mascara and false eyelashes. I remember one game
(17:09):
one evening where we were playing, I couldn't see my
guitar becas my fake eyelashes were so thick, you know,
so I had to brain it in. But they taught
us how to be not just girls, but young women.
You know, there's a certain thing that you got to
go through. Yeah, Fortunately we had these great women to
(17:31):
just sort of show us the ropes.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
I love the sound of the sisterhood between the band
and the go go dancers and the waitresses sharing tips
and tricks in the dressing room. But I can also
really relate to the feeling of being under pressure to
look a certain way on stage. You may not know
what I look like, but let's just say you'd sooner
catch me in a clown suit than a spring dress.
But for nine years, multiple times a week, I'd slick
(17:56):
my fringe into some cinnamon swell, and I'd powder my
face into the vision of Betty Boop. And occasionally, I'll
be honest, it was really fun. It was liberating even
to don that costume. I'd bat my eyelashes for a
free drink kind of tip. But other times it made
me feel used. I'd get annoyed that the guys just
(18:17):
would roll off the van straight to the stage, and
frustrated that people would think I'd let myself go if
I did the exact same as them. It just goes
to show that although a lot has changed obviously since
the days when June first started playing gigs. Some things haven't,
but Fanny weren't about to let double standards stop them
from making it.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
And when did you get your big break?
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Well that happened in early fall of sixty eight. We
went down to Los Angeles and we did open hoot
Night at the Troube Door. That's the place where Elton
John by the way, broke himself in.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yeah, hoot Night was the place to be if you
were an unsigned artist in Hollywood at the time. It
was an open mic night, so anyone could sign up
to play and you could rub elbows with all kinds
of music industry suits in the audience. Producers, promoters, talent
scouts all there to schmooze and look for new artists.
(19:16):
But when June and the band arrived to set up,
the welcome is less than warm.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
The guy who around the club he was steering at us.
He did not want us to play, but we were
signed up and he said, well, you only got I
forget like ten minutes. You can only play for ten minutes, okay,
So we played for ten minutes and the audience started clapping.
They went crazy. They went more and more and more.
(19:43):
Not only that, but they all jumped down to their
tables and stamped their feet, were clapping and yelling more
and more and more. It was complete pandemonium. I can
barely describe it to you. It was unbelievable. I was
a rhythm guitar player at the time, and I remember
looking at Eddie, who was a lead guitar player. We
just looked at each other and it's like, yeah, right,
(20:06):
they got it.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
That moment must have been so satisfying, especially after all
the heckling and shit talk their faced over the years.
But that standing ovation wasn't the end of it. Two
days later, June and the band are getting ready to
head out on the road again. They've already loaded all
their gear into the school bus and they're about to
(20:28):
set off.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
The phone rang and I picked it up and it
was a woman on the other line. She said, what
are you doing? And I said, well, we're getting ready
to leave, and she said, no, no, no, no, don't
do that. I'll call you right back, you know. So
about five minutes later she called back and she told
us to go to a small recording studio in Hollywood,
(20:49):
close to the Capitol Building, and we were going to
audition for her boss.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
The women had seen them play at the Troupe Door.
She was there scouting out unsigned bands for hot shot
record producer Richard Perry. He's the guy who produced hits
like I'm So Excited or You're So Vain, both excellent
karaoke tracks.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
By the way, Basically, he's a big fucking deal.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
We went to that studio, we set up our gear
and we played for Richard Berry and he was so
blown away they signed us.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
No more gigs at Bowling Alley's or sewing clubs. June,
Jean and the band have just signed a record deal
with Reprise Records at Warner Brothers, one of the biggest
record labels in the world. They're on the same label
as artists like Fleetwood, Mac, Jimi Hendrix, and The Beach Boys.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
It's life changing.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
In May of nineteen sixty nine, they leave sleepy Sacramento
behind to move into a house in La just off
Sunset Boulevard.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Of course, we drove down there in our bus. Are
dead drove it. He dropped us off and rock and
roll his story began.
Speaker 5 (22:04):
Next up, June takes on La.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
By the time June and the band move into that
new rock and roll sorority, house in La. The lineup
has undergone a few changes and they've got a brand
new name, Fanny.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
And why Fanny? I'm sure you're asked this all the time.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
I heard of the band called Daisy Chain, so I
heard that name, and I said to the girls, while
we were thinking of names, I said, why don't we
try to think of a girl's name. Wouldn't that be nice?
Speaker 4 (22:52):
You know?
Speaker 3 (22:52):
They could just call us Betty or we came up
with Fanny as one of the names. We just thought
it was a funny double and and people would remember us,
which they did. And we named our house Fanny Hill,
and we were really proud of it, and we practiced
night and day. Everyone wanted to go to this house
and see these chicks who could play. You know, we
(23:14):
were like the fable. We had the colored pebbles that
led to the house. We were like the fairy tale.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Other rock stars on the Rise would come to Fanny
Hill to hang out and jam with the band, But
Jean tried not to get too caught up in the
Hollywood lifestyle.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
We played, practiced and wrote night and day. That's what
we did. We did not party. We knew about drugs
before we went down to La. We didn't do that.
I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We got stoned, sure,
but we didn't stay stoned for that long. We're Philippine glasses,
me and Jean. We know how to work. We were
(23:51):
taught how to work, how to study in the Philippines,
and that's largely the secret to our success and to
the success of the band.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Fanny spent long days in the studio working on that
first album.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
When you're a band that's going to go on on
the road, you have to develop a larger sound. And
how we did that was we practice that Warner Brothers
movie sound lots, which red huge stages and high ceilings.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Their first big gig is opening up for the Kinks.
When the stage lights come up, Fanny just go for it.
June's sister, Jean is on the base and center stage,
with long dark hair parted at the center.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
When we played, she was definitely the center of the action.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Alice, the drummer, is at the back. She drives them
forward with a pounding rhythm. Nikki is stage right, wearing
a short, spiky mullet and bouncing between two different keyboards.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
She would kind of fling herself around the keyboard she'd
loved attention. And I, because I'm deaf in one ear,
I always had to be on left hand side of
the stage, so everyone was on my right, so not
only see but feel them. I'd be in this vortex
of sound. I would hear the wham bam and Jeane
(25:12):
and I would be you know, there were no thing
and you know when you got to that place where
you knew you were killing it, you had it was hot,
it was on fire, you know, and you were doing
it and nobody else could do it.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Before long, Fanny are touring all over the world living
the dream. They play with legendary rock bands like Slade
and Jeff Rotel, and they're not phased by any of
the sizeable egos that they encounter along the way.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
They didn't scare us at all. I knew what they
were doing. You know, they're doing that guy thing and
doing it well.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Fanny are rocking on their own terms. They can win
over any audience at a live show, but becoming a
mainstream household name, well that was something else.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
The guys that we did gigs with loved us, They
loved us, but we just couldn't get it past the
bigger crowd.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
It's such a shame, Like, you know, there's nothing cooler
than being a musician's band, but it also, I guess
doesn't pay.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
And to tell you the truth, I think it was
a misogyny.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
When Fanny start releasing albums, it's like those early days
back in the Spelts. Once again, the girls with guitars
I met with sneers and condescension.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
The reviews would always start with like, kind of a
nice statement, but then would come all these you know,
kind of snide little oh but you know, I it's
kind of hard for me to see girls dressed up
and playing in a band just these snide kind of
put downs. They just couldn't say they're amazing, they're gonna
(26:52):
make it. We didn't get that from the reviews. Now,
we got that from our audiences, but it wasn't enough.
And after a while, even though we were selling I
think sixty or seventy thousand units per album, it wasn't
enough of the record company. The record company wasn't believing
in us, and they made us a new where, new outfits.
(27:13):
They gave us each a designer. I just hated that
because not only was the world not seeing us for
who we were, but the record company was trying to
change so that even I didn't recognize who I was
while I was playing. And that just wrecked me. That
just wrecked me. I know it might seem like a
(27:36):
small thing, but to me it was not.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
I think it's a really big thing.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
And a lot of times I would get on a plane,
I didn't even know where it was going. I didn't care,
and so they would pour us into the car and
we'd go to the airport and I didn't know where
we were going. I just fall asleep.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Was there a point when it just started to take
too much of a toll?
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Yes, yes, definitely. I remember our last tour in England,
but I just was not happy. I just I'd lost something.
I'd wandered from the center. All these disappointments, you know,
had caused me to just start wandering around. It was
(28:17):
like a bad acid trip, because what was is that
we were walking through. We had ashes in our mouths,
it didn't taste good. We had just the next gig
and the next gig and the next gig, and we
weren't having the record company give us a hug and
say you're doing great. You know, if they just would
have given us that hug. It would have helped so much.
(28:39):
But we were out there on our own, in the
middle of the universe. We didn't have that hug. I
got to tell you, that's that's really big.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
When I go back and I plot myself backstage at
your gigs and give you a hug.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
This oh, I know, I know. I wish I could
have given my.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Cel phone one easy intervention.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
I had to leave Fanny. My mom was begging me
to eat and sleep. She was just begging me. I
couldn't sit still. I was just so agitated and I
knew I couldn't survive that.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
One day, when the band are in Liverpool, June Pool's
assist Jane aside.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
I don't know if Geane and I were sharing a
room or I asked her to come over to my
room and I said to her, I have to leave,
I can. She totally could see it. She didn't. She
didn't try to talk me out of it. That's one
of the hardest things I've ever had to do in
(29:43):
my life, because we had that dream since we were teenagers,
and we'd worked so hard. I really feel that in
misogyny was that impenetrable wall that I just couldn't figure out.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
After the break, June starts over.
Speaker 4 (30:15):
Got You, I've got you, got You, I've got you.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
What I did when I left was I went to
a house by the sea on Long Island. It was
a summer home that I rented in winter, and I
listened to Stevie Wonder and I walked by the beach
and I calmed my nerves down.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
June began to study Buddhism and reflect on her experiences
in this new light.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
I was going into New York to Jam. I had
no money, so I gosh. I remember being in Manhattan
one time and the wind was blowing down the avenues.
I don't even think I had a coat, and I
had maybe three or five dollars, and I had to
decide whether or not I could buy a cup of
(31:05):
coffee or take a cab to wherever I was going.
And I remember thinking myself, June, you can never let
this happen to yourself again, because you know, when I
was in Fanny, there was always a road manager. They
always had everything planned out, and you'd get in the car,
you'd go. I wasn't used to being on my own
in the world anymore. I hadn't actually learned how to
(31:28):
be a person. That's why, that's why I quit the band.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
In Port June hangs out in clubs playing the guitar.
She doesn't have to fit her style into some box
dictated by record label anymore, so she starts experimenting with
new sounds.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
You know, what was happening in New York at the
time was disco and reggae, And in all these jams,
I learned a lot of that, you know, I learned
how you could get into these crews. And I also
tried to find as any other women to play with
it as I could. So I found other women who
were in Brooklyn and where these enclaves were, where they
(32:07):
were rehearsing and forming their bands.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Fanny broke down the door for women in rock, and
now other like minded women were following in their footsteps.
One day, June got a call from a singer songwriter
called Chris Williamson. She wanted June to play on her
new album and come on tour. And if you don't
know who Chris is, she's another musical legend. She was
(32:32):
part of this radical feminist group in Washington, DC and
a couple of years earlier that had this really cool idea.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
They had gathered some money and they wanted to start
something that would not rely on men at all. That
was at the heart of feminism, Like they didn't want
the help of men at all, and so they were
maybe going to start a you know, a restaurant or
a bowling alley or whatever. And Chris, because she had
(33:01):
done gigs for them, she said, well, why don't you
start a women's record company music combined with feminist rhetoric literature.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
The group called themselves Olivia Records, after a novel from
nineteen forty nine about a young woman who falls in
love with the headmistress of her French finishing school, Oula La.
The idea was to provide a platform for lesbian artists.
It was the start of what's now called the women's
music movement, a genre of music written for and by women.
(33:32):
You'd think that'd be right up June Street. But at first,
when Chris called in nineteen seventy five to ask her
to get involved with her album, June wasn't sure this
was for her.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Sure she'd stuck it.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
To the man all her life, but she hadn't called
that feminism at the time, June was just focused on
the music, but after another project fell through, she had
a bit of time.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
On her hands.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
So finally I said it, Chris, Okay, I'll go with you.
I thought it was going to be the most warring
thing in the world, and I would just be marking
time until the next thing that came up, you know.
But I mean we played the first gig in Salt
Lake City, and I mean it was like the whole
hall was on fire.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
The venue is packed to the rafters with women. June
looks out at the up turned faces in the crowd
and tries to process what she's saying.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
I realize, oh, this is so much bigger than me.
I'm just going to try to understand it and try
to hold onto the coattails. You know. Was the wind
was big. It was moving so fast and growing so fast.
It was out of my control. I could barely keep
up with it.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
You know.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
That's how I got introduced to feminism. It was a
live It wasn't a theory. It was alive and it
was consuming me as well.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
The album June played on with Chris is Cool, The
Change and the Changed appropriate right. It became one of
the biggest selling independent records of.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
All time being on the road. City after city, living
room after living a house after house that I stayed at,
and we talked to the women who were living in
the house or the apartment, the count or whatever. They
started telling us stories. I remember that first tour we
stayed at a house an apartment in Ohio where one
(35:29):
of the women there was fighting for custody of her
children and was going to the Supreme Court. And she
was fighting for custody because just because she was a woman,
they took away custody of her kids. Her husband was
automatically going to get the kids just because she was
a woman, and the fact that she was a lesbian
was even worse, you know.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
The women's music movement also crossed over with black feminism.
June became friends with activists like Angela Davis and a
poet Lord.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
They brought the civil rights into it, so now we
were understanding civil rights along with women's rights, and we
realized it's all the wise they were being told about
women in the past and in real time, you know,
and we were upset about that. Feminism is something that
we need right now. It's not of the past, and
(36:23):
it's not a story. Feminism is you right now, it's
you trying to figure out, well, I got some rights here,
why why aren't they being given to me? Or why
are they being taken away? It's us, you know. So
I never see it as being separate from anything, and
(36:45):
I see it as being a huge contributing factor in
my life. And I will be forever grateful that Chris
asked me to play on that album.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Since nineteen eighty six, June and her partner An Hackler
have run a nonprofit called the Institute for the Musical Arts,
supporting the next generation of women in music.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
We do a lot of events here. We have shows
and workshops, and we have our Rock and Roll Girls Camp.
So it's twenty five acres, a house and two barns
with a lot of events. And now we're growing old together.
We said when we were what what was I? I
think I was thirty four or thirty six and she
was twenty eight. When we got together, we said, let's
(37:26):
grow old together. I never thought that was gonna happen.
I'm turning seventy seven this year.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
You know what, Like guys in a flash, doesn't that.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
It really does. But I feel lucky because I've been
able to learn all these lessons, and I've you know,
the latest lesson I've learned is how to be so
close to death and how to deal with it because
I'm dealing with cancer part two. Oh wow, Yeah, and
now it becomes life, it becomes real life in some
(37:59):
of my friends have begun to die and so dealing
with grief, you know, and realizing okay, yeah, I really
am at the last part and what am I going
to do with it? Well, part of it is talking
with you and telling the absolute truth. I'm not gonna
lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
I wanted to just touch on something you just said
about kind of being in a new stage of your
life where you're processing being closer to death than the
beginning of your life. It's such a profound point of
life to be at. Do you have any sort of
words of wisdom to share to other people who are
(38:41):
always struggling.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
With that chapter?
Speaker 3 (38:43):
Yeah? Well, I'm not afraid of death anymore in any
sense of the word. I mean, I don't want to
have pain, but you know, if that happens, it happens.
But my words of wisdom would be to just say
be in your moment, be authentic in your moment, and
further forgive yourself. That is a big one. You have
(39:09):
to try to help as much as you can because
helping it it ripples out, you know, ripples out to
other people. So you can always smile at someone, touch
someone's hand.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Give that girl a hug, Give that hug.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Yeah, life here is so hard. It's just a hug,
just a little, that's all. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
I had no idea that this episode was going to
become just like us trying to prove to everyone that
hugs already great.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
Give them the universe. God. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Well, I guess, like you know, part of this reflective
period where you're kind of thinking about the life that's
come before what potentially is to come, you must look
back at your time in Fanny and be really proud
of everything that you did.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
And seriously bra that we worked so hard. We were
not laggards. You know, we knew the importance of what
we were doing. We admitted it to each other that
we were doing this for the girls in the future,
so that was nice. I think we did a great job.
We made a lot of mistakes, but who cares, you know,
we had a good time. Yeah, we had a really
(40:24):
good time.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Thanks so much to June Millington for sharing what it's
like to be a literal rock star. To check out
what Fanny are up to, you can find them on
Spotify or their website, which is Fannyrocks dot com. But actually,
I think the best way to learn about what they're
doing is through their videos on YouTube. The guitars, the flares,
(40:52):
the hair.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
It's all chef's kiss.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
And if you've got a budding girl rocket in your
family and you want to learn more about June and
A's workshops and events, check out the Institute for the
Musical Arts.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
There's links in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Oh and hey, listener, just a quick one, go give
someone a hug. Coming up next on the Girlfriend's Spotlight,
Rosev's at least eighty six cold cases.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
And I'm telling you, I've never had this feeling before
in my life. They're here on the back of my neck.
Was starting to see now because this.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Was the guy.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
I mean, it was unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Hey, it's Anna, you've reached the girlfriend's hotline. Leave your
story after the tone. Okay, gotta go love you.
Speaker 6 (41:55):
The girlfriend I want to celebrate is someone I've known
since I was twenty one. She was at our wedding,
she's got mother to our eldest child, and she's always
been there for all the important times in our lives
since then. But as we hit our early thirties, my
life and hers hit the bumpers. Our second son died
suddenly and unexpectedly when he had an unstoppable asthma attack
(42:18):
at just under eighteen months old. At the same time,
her marriage was breaking down, and we spent many days
and evenings together over the months that followed trying to
work out why, how, and struggling to bear any of it,
and gradually learning how to live with what had happened
to us. As the months moved on, quite naturally, we
(42:38):
were receiving less attention. At the beginning, I confided one
of my fears to her. I told her that if
anything happened to my husband, then nobody would remember the
birth day of our son and the anniversary of his death,
and that would be a sorrow I would have to
bear on my own. She listened, and she told me
that she would always remember. In those first couple of years,
(43:00):
friends and family did remember. We were also lucky to
go on and have two daughters, and understandably the focus
love and support we received turned towards our surviving children.
But for over thirty years, our special friend has sent
us flowers on the anniversary of our son's death. A
couple of years ago, I suggested it was incredibly kind
(43:21):
of her to send us flowers every year, but we
were okay, and she shouldn't feel she needed you anymore.
I know her wealth, and she looked at me very
directly and told me she couldn't stop sending them. I
promised you I would always remember. Bless you, dear girlfriend.
Your lifelong friendship and commitment means the world to me.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
If you have your own story like the one you
just heard, and you'd like the whole girlfriend's going to
hear it, then please send it to us. You can
record it as a voice memo under ninety seconds. Please
and email it straight to the girlfriends at novel dot org.
Please don't include your name. We're keeping things a little anon.
(44:05):
We want stories like, say that one time you faked
an emergency on an awful date and your bestie bailed
you out with a phone call we love her, Or
that time when all of your girls showed up on
your doorstep with five pizzas, two tups of ice cream,
and three bottles of Savenure Blanc because the man of
your dreams just dumped you. I want stories that are
(44:27):
meaningful or silly. I want big, I want small. I'm
desperate to hear them, so send them over. This season,
The Girlfriend's Spotlight is supporting the charity Womankind Worldwide. They
do amazing work to help women's rights organizations and movements
to strengthen and grow. If you'd like to find out
(44:49):
more or donate to help them secure equal rights for
women and girls across the globe, you can go to
Womankind dot org dot UK. The Girlfriend's Spotlight is produced
by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit
(45:13):
novel dot Audio. This episode was written and produced by
Caroline Thornham. Our assistant producer is Lucy Carr. Our researcher
is Seyana Yusuf. The editor is Hannah Marshall. Max O'Brien
and Craig Strachan are our executive producers. Production management from
Joe Savage, Srie Houston and Charlotte Wolfe. Sound design, mixing
(45:37):
and scoring by Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempson. Music supervision
by Jako Taivich, Nicholas Alexander and Anna Sinfield. Original music
composed by Louisa Gerstein and Jemma Freeman. The series artwork
was designed by Christina lemcol Willard Foxton is creative Director
of Development and Special thanks to Trina Norvelle, Carrie Lieberman,
(46:02):
and Will Pearson at iHeart Podcasts, as well as Carl
Frankel and the whole team at w M E.
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