April 26, 2024 • 43 mins
Remembering a 2016 song from Book of Love titled "All Girl Band," We at the Outhouse Lounge invited some of the great female rockers who influenced rock, punk and new wave artists of the future while they performed at a time those genres were men's clubs. Host Chris Cordani talks with a panel of ultra-cool and influential women from the music industry in the Lounge:
Nancy Quatro Glass: Lead Singer, Co-Founder, Cradle; Managed several bands in the Rock world
Nikki Corvette: Lead Singer, Founder, Nikki and the Corvettes
Donna Destri: Solo Artist, New Wave Pioneer, former singer with Blondie
Caron Maso Murray: Co-Lead and Co-Founder, The Little Girls
(Apologies for the sound - there was a glitch which has since been handled) We talk about how these extremely talented ladies embarked into the normally male-dominated-at-the-time harder corners of their respective genres, who influenced them, how they were treated by male counterparts (the bad and the good), Today, looking at what's left of the rock and alternative music landscape and the long-believed thought of the entertainment industry being a "great equalizer," it might be hard to believe for younger fans there was a time male artists refused to share a stage or bill with women or when female artists were shoved in musical pigeon holes and not thought of as hard rockers. Perhaps if it were not for the likes of Cradle, Bertha, Fanny, The Pleasure Seekers, The Runaways, Suzi Quatro, Nancy, Nikki, Donna and Caron leading the way, we would have missed out on some spectacularly talented all-female solo artists and bands. Nikki, Donna, Caron and Nancy share their experiences, thoughts and discuss how differently (or not so differently in many ways) women are treated in the music business.
Also joining us in the lounge are: Tony Shaffer - Host, The Hard Truth, former US Intelligence Officer
Elizabeth Breckenkamp: Co-Host, Co-Producer, The Hard Truth
Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OuthouseLounge
Follow Chris on Twitter at @ChrisCordani1
Our website; outhouselounge.com
Nancy Quatro Glass: Lead Singer, Co-Founder, Cradle; Managed several bands in the Rock world
Nikki Corvette: Lead Singer, Founder, Nikki and the Corvettes
Donna Destri: Solo Artist, New Wave Pioneer, former singer with Blondie
Caron Maso Murray: Co-Lead and Co-Founder, The Little Girls
(Apologies for the sound - there was a glitch which has since been handled) We talk about how these extremely talented ladies embarked into the normally male-dominated-at-the-time harder corners of their respective genres, who influenced them, how they were treated by male counterparts (the bad and the good), Today, looking at what's left of the rock and alternative music landscape and the long-believed thought of the entertainment industry being a "great equalizer," it might be hard to believe for younger fans there was a time male artists refused to share a stage or bill with women or when female artists were shoved in musical pigeon holes and not thought of as hard rockers. Perhaps if it were not for the likes of Cradle, Bertha, Fanny, The Pleasure Seekers, The Runaways, Suzi Quatro, Nancy, Nikki, Donna and Caron leading the way, we would have missed out on some spectacularly talented all-female solo artists and bands. Nikki, Donna, Caron and Nancy share their experiences, thoughts and discuss how differently (or not so differently in many ways) women are treated in the music business.
Also joining us in the lounge are: Tony Shaffer - Host, The Hard Truth, former US Intelligence Officer
Elizabeth Breckenkamp: Co-Host, Co-Producer, The Hard Truth
Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OuthouseLounge
Follow Chris on Twitter at @ChrisCordani1
Our website; outhouselounge.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Welcome to the Outhouse Lounge. Whenwe relax and talk about shaving cream something
like that. I know I haveto change the tagline because you two won't
let me say the word, andI like it. I have a very
special episode today. I've always wantedto do a very special episode of the
Outhouse Lounge. In twenty sixteen,Book of Love wrote a rather keton song,
(00:29):
and I think that's what the kidsare saying today, right, Keene,
or I think they're saying spank right. I don't know what the kids
are saying today. But either way, these kids in their my space and
their ataris, I don't know whatthey're changing their words through these days.
The lead line in the song thatBook of Love recorded back in two sixteen
was called all girl band. Thesecond verse was the Shankri Lines came to
(00:53):
town and gave us great big kisses, a track with several of the great
all female band from the Slits tothe X Ray Spex. Looking at music
history, it took some real innovatorsin some big leaps by female musicians earlier
to let's just say jump into thesemale dominated hard rock, hard punk and
new wave worlds. So I thoughti'd bring in some of my favorite all
(01:18):
lady, all female band rockers withme as well. And here they are
with me. Nancy quatro Glass,Nancy Quatroglass, of course, who led
Cradle among other projects, and managebands and rockers throughout her career. Nicki
Corvette, the Nikki of Nicki andthe Corvettes. As you can see,
Detroit's well represented in this program.Also in the lounge Don Edestri, solo
(01:42):
artists and punk pioneer who also sangwith Blondie and many other artists and really
did one of my favorite renditions ofI Got You Babe with Paul Zone.
That and Kara Maso Murray, whowith her sister Michelle, led the Little
Girls and by the way, sheas a killer on elk impersonation under her
(02:04):
belt. I just love the bestone ever. So welcome to the program,
ladies. Hi, Welcome to thelounge. It's nice seeing a lot
of you. It's it's sort ofa reunion of sorts because I've had many
of you on past programs that I'vedone. But I wanted to talk about
all female bands because a lot ofwomen today are are are out there there
(02:27):
in public. There there there's alot of great artists who are who are
doing the rock and roll, doingthe new wave, doing the pop thing
right now. But it wasn't aseasy as it might look now back for
all of you, especially because you'vedone this at a time where the industry
was male dominated. It still is. I guess you're right. I guess
(02:51):
I can put it that way.A large part it still is now.
It is to me, there's nodoubt that it's still male down. Well,
Metcy, let's start with you,because from me, from the days
of the early days of hard rock, you were, you doing that kind
of music with Cradle was absolutely virtuallyunheard of when it came to women in
(03:13):
music, definitely, right, definitely. So who got you and your sister's
influence and doing the hard stuff,Well, they were in the pleasure Seekers.
I'm the youngest of the families,so they they were in the pleasure
Seekers doing the normal what women shoulddo, wearing many skirts, blah blah
blah blah blah. And I wastwelve when they started their band, and
(03:37):
then they I entered at fifteen yearsold, and that's when music was really
getting much heavier, really changing.You know, you had cream all the
bands that came out Love Zeppelin,all those bands. Basically when I got
in the band is when they decidedto change the whole direction. They wanted
to stop wearing all the same outfitsand skirts and blah blah blah, just
(04:00):
saying the direction of our music orof their music. So we we all
really liked the heavier sound and startedgetting on the pop festivals and the bigger
shows that really focused on that kindof sound. Was not what's funny to
(04:21):
me is for us, we neverlooked at it like we're females playing heavy
music. We didn't even look atthe fact that we're females. For us,
it wasn't even in our thought processuntil people told us, oh,
your girl, Oh you guys playedgood for girls, you'd hear those kind
of kind I didn't know there wasa distinction or a difference, you know
(04:46):
that, because you're a girl,you might oh, you actually played good.
So that's when it became. Becausemy dad didn't our mom didn't raise
us like that either. We didn'thave those restrictions in our heads. But
there there's no doubt about it.I had no problem ignoring it. But
(05:08):
you became very aware that I startednoticing like Cream Magazine, Rolling Stone,
Oh, there's never females on thereever, not as musicians, you know,
they do Janis Joppa, Well,she's a singer, so you could
be accepted as a singer. Uhbut uh, they're definitely And I start,
(05:29):
I'm sorry. I think it's stillthe same, not as bad,
but I do think it's still thesame. When I see some of these
death metal female bands that come out, you know, I like to pop
in and see all the different genresof them. Definitely, yeah, and
there are This is gonna sound reallylike, oh, she's not a feminist,
(05:53):
but it doesn't look it doesn't looknatural to me when I see the
death metal girls. Uh, it'slike, to me, it looks like
they're trying to be guys. Interesting. It is interesting because I'm not that
way. I don't even think thatway. But yet I'll look and I'll
go, okay, but females.I think there's a few females that did
(06:16):
actually kick down the door for musicians. And I'm not just saying this because
she's my sister, but she isone of them. Susie Potro is one
of them that did kick down thedoor for a girl being a musician,
there are up a lot for womenbecause if you think about it without without
(06:39):
her out front and and again shewas very famous in Britain of course,
brought back to the US again,you know, back and forth here and
there. But you had the Runawaysafter that. Then you had a lot
more female leg bands and all femalebands coming on after that. But really
the pleasure seeker is Cradle or FannyA Bertha. Early bands were there when
(07:01):
you weren't getting the publicity or attentionthat you probably could have gotten eight to
ten years later if you started.Am I far off here? No,
there's a whole movement now about getFanny into the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame. Those girls were great.Mm yeah they were. I think they're
still doing some work now too becausewith Fanny, so she's doing a whole
(07:25):
bunch of podcasts and yeah, shejust did a little short little tour with
them, two three, two orthree little tours with them. Yeah,
actively they got a documentary out andblah blah blah. My sister Patty played
guitar form after Cradle broke up,she went out to California got into Fanny.
Not right away, but she gotinto Fanny. I went out there
(07:46):
to try to do a solo career. That's when I decided I'm done.
LA did it for me? Wellhe did. I'm so not an La
girl. I'm just not so.I just couldn't wait to get back to
Detroit. I didn't like the waythe business worked out there. Uh.
(08:07):
I didn't like the casting couch.I was hit up. I was guaranteed
a career if I did this orthat, and I just thought, you
know what, uh huh, Ijust so that's so not me. Was
that was that prevalent? I know, the Harvey Weinstein thing and the whole
big deal about the kisting couch inHollywood? How about for you ladies?
(08:28):
So were there were there were theresnakes in the business. I know there
were snakes in the I don't wantto name names, but yeah, I
think it's easier to say, whowasn't a snake? There? You go?
That's a shorter I suppose. Yeah. It's a dirty, dirty world.
(08:50):
I mean I was probably that's whenSusie was hitting it so big and
I went out there, Like Isaid, I had Bill Cosby's Bill Cosby's
Bill Cosby's manager was manager. Uhhe was he was put me in the
studio blah blah blah for a solocareer, and Susie had had her hit,
She had had a couple of hitsby them, and I was promised
going to uh did take me toLondon if I'd sleep with the guy.
(09:16):
That happened more than once, andI was just like, Wow, this
could I didn't experience that being inCradle because I wasn't in Hollywood. M
It's a different world, Nikki.When you started out in Detroit again,
it was still like the the theman's world. It was the more the
punk power pop world. But again, women weren't doing what you were doing
(09:41):
by then, and we're we're howdid the men treat you early days of
the non existent You know a lotlike I was saying earlier, a lot
of times we would get thrown offshows when they found out there were girls
in the band, and guys justdidn't want to play with us. Yeah,
(10:03):
and he's not instrumentally, and like, I didn't care. I just
I was going to do what Iwanted to do and if it didn't work
out that way, I'd find myown way to do it. But yeah,
(10:24):
second class citizen definitely. What's funnyis when I moved back to Detroit,
all the same guys would come upto me and say, oh,
if you ever need a drummer,bass player. I'm like, if I
ever do, I remember everything yousaid about me, and it won't be
you. And you know, allof them who had never done anything,
(10:46):
suddenly suddenly I was cool. ButI got the chance to say, yeah,
it's okay, I don't need youdidn't then, don't know. Actually,
I'll interject real quickly. We hadwhen Cradle was before Susy went to
England and left the band we hadwe actually started truly getting some respect in
(11:09):
the male world. We had JerryNoan of the drummer of the New York
Dallas join our band. We actuallyput a man in the band because our
female drummer had quit and we hadshows and we just had to have someone.
But he joined our band and hereally loved it. That's well,
(11:30):
he loved being around women. Yeah, he loved that too. Well,
at least he was at least heplayed with the band. I'm sure a
lot of guys were, like yousaid, weren't weren't up for that.
No, there were a lot ofpioneer women, even before both of you,
and before Donna and before Karen.I'm sure there were influences you all
had. Who were your favorites growingup and who are your favorites when you
(11:54):
were getting into the music business.Who may have influenced you a bit more
than maybe a thought. I alwayswanted to be the Ramones meets the run
at the Shanglas. The Runts weregreat, and the Shangri Las and we
just lost Mary Wise m lovely ladyfor Rebels. They were cool, they
(12:22):
were like it. That's the archetypaltough girls, you know. They were.
The Hives are so cool. Iloved them. Yeah, mine weren't
anyone female. Uh, honestly,my influences were Jimmy Hendrick, what's that
(12:43):
one? I I just liked thehardcore. I like Janice Chaplin. I
loved her. But I don't thinkI don't have really any female influences.
There weren't a lot of them outthere. Oh there were so many out
there. Well, I don't meanthere were a lot that you've heard about,
(13:05):
and I see we play tours withother female groups, but I can't
say any of them ever influenced me. Oh, yeah, we got Elizabeth
here. Well, I yuess thatmakes a lot of sense, and joining
us right now was a fellow podcaster, a friend of mine here and she's
a voice actress. She's an actressand of course co host of The Hard
Truth with Tony Shaper, another showI work with and also done a lot
(13:28):
of lounges. Elizabeth Breckencamp, welcometo the program. And we're talking about
great influential female, all female bands. And by the way, I have
four of them with me right here, so I think we're going to have
a good time in the outhouse lounge. But we were talking about some of
the some of our favorites, andKaren, I haven't heard of some of
(13:48):
your influences. Well, I lovedJoan Baez and Judy Collins, but my
favorite bands were the Beatles and Stones, and later of course Jimmy Hendrickson led
Zepp or in Love that was totallyinto that Humble Pie. A model for
(14:09):
my band, I think was thisall girl group or a girl fronted group
with two sisters in front called theHeaters. Oh, the Heaters, that's
right, with Naggie Cano, that'sright. Yeah, And I used to
go they used to play in thevalley a lot. I can't remember the
name of the club, but Iused to go see them and I loved
them. That was right before Istarted my band. Now, were there
(14:33):
men who were again, we allknow there were a lot of snakes.
I talked about the snakes. Iwant to see if there were any men
in the business who actually were lookingforward to seeing more females. We're all
women bands or female fronted bands,or or you ladies in particular succeed.
Did you get a lot of helpfrom some of the male artists or male
(14:54):
managers in the business, or anyhelp we did with Bobe Mamis who worked
with Blondie and he's with Alice Cooperand now he's with Alice Cooper. Yeah,
yeah, but your manager. Ihad Tony Dfries for a while I
was with Maine Man. He wasa great help. He was a great
(15:16):
help. In fact, he lentme a lot of money that I never
made that quite honestly, when heyou know, he decided it was no
more for him in the music business. And now he's a physicist. It's
so weird, but he you know, he did lend me some money when
he decided to you know, dissolveMaine Man, which was very nice.
(15:39):
So we had Budd Prager who wasmanager of Mountain and Cooper and he just
he full his day. He's apowerhouse, so we had him. We
had interest from him death back.We had quite a few, ah,
but it was a matter of puttingyour money where your mouth is too.
Yeah. Well, one thing Inoticed when I asked about your influences is
(16:03):
you had a lot of male bandinfluences. You ladies are actually influences to
younger bands. We're going to getinto that in the near future on this
program. But I wanted to askit's funny because you didn't have, especially
your era Nancy right around there.You didn't have a lot of even female
guitarists or drummers who were prominent.Maybe maybe that there was Honey Lantrie in
(16:26):
nineteen sixty seven, who I alwaysfound great and people might have looked at
her as a novelty, but Igot to listen to some of her drum
solos and drum work on YouTube,and it's worth listening to how great she
was. But women never had gota chance to actually pick up their own
guitars. You had your outliers,You had your Roseanne Cashes, you had
your great country guitarists. But it'salmost like women weren't allowed to do certain
(16:52):
things back then. Am I faroff there too? No, you're not
at all. I don't think youare. I mean, now you have
Orianze and you know the who's thegirl that plays with Alice Cooper right now?
Because she's phenomenal, she is what'sher name? Here we go with
the names. Now we have totry to remember things. Yeah, she's
(17:15):
amazing. Blinde starts with an end, doesn't it? Anyway? You do
have now I have to say,there's more female musicians now. To me,
Michael Jackson was a big part inbringing more female musicians out, like
when he did Oriancee, that waslike a big deal. And she's a
(17:37):
great guitarist. I mean, there'sa lot of great bass players, great
girl guitarists. I mean, butthat's just it. We're actually discussing trying
to think of names. So themale domination, I'm telling you because I'm
(17:59):
up. Carlos Santana, his wifeis a phenomenal drummer. I can't think
of her name. We were justwatching a concert with Carlos last week and
his wife is amazing. She's anamazing drummer. But I can't think of
her name either. My husband whoknows her name, and I can't think
of it. She's awesome, Ohmy gosh, she's awesome. And she's
(18:23):
smoking hot too, So you knowthat helps you anyway. Well, i'll
tell you what. If you geton YouTube, you'd be shocked at some
of the female musicians that are notknown that put their own little videos up.
And I've watched so many and I'mjust like, oh, they rival
any guy for sure. They arethat good. They're doing like cover songs,
(18:47):
you know, like they'll do Pantera, they'll do something from Diame Bad
Daryl, but they'll do It's amazingto me. And it's like you said,
kind of a novelty that you,oh, a girl get how she's
playing that language is still there.It's funny. Again, this is an
(19:07):
all girl, all female artists andall girl bands special, So I don't
want to fall into that trampling.It just said that that mindset where oh,
she plays well for a girl.They played great for a girl.
But the idea was if you're ayoung if you're a young woman, let's
say, twelve thirteen years old,looking to pick up an instrument. In
nineteen seventy two, bands like Yours, Nikki and Nancy didn't get publicity,
(19:33):
and groups like Yours, Nikky,Karen and Donna you guys were still kind
of getting your footing. A littlebit later on in that decade, the
Runaways came out, and finally youngwomen were allowed to were able to see
a fully promoted, mainstream all femaleband, and that was game changing.
(19:55):
I was influenced by that, youknow, and I was excited about The
Runaways, but I wasn't as intotheir music at the time, but I
loved their image. I liked theirimage too. I loved Joan Jet's image,
(20:18):
and of course there was, youknow, the whole thing that she's
a carbon copy of my sister,which they said. She admits that at
first what that she haircut, wearingleather, it was yeah, but I
(20:38):
loved her look. I thought shelooked. I liked her presence on stage.
So the Runaways I liked. They'reone of the few girl bands.
I actually really liked. Nicky I'veheard Ben's I just thought I'm sorry.
Chris Nita Strauss is the guitarist withAlice Coopers. We were now see this
(21:03):
is we come up. We'll learna new thing every day, Niki,
something that was really amazed me.I've done a lot of interviews with people.
I I really enjoyed talking to NaokoYamano from from Shown a Knife,
and she is among a very afew people who I've talked to female musicians
who have said, Nikki Corvette isone of my big influences. They you
(21:26):
were absolutely one of the one ofthe women who a lot of the girl
groups of the eighties and nineties reallyfollowed and and and looked to you for
for that kind of or that kindof I would I wouldn't I guess that
kind of Oh gosh, I'm notsure if I can use the word properly,
but look to you as as areal influence to what they did and
(21:47):
what they plan to do in thefuture. Yeah. And when when I
first said that, I I justthought, you know, you know,
when you meet somebody, you seea band, and you're like, oh,
I love this, you were great, and you just say it so
to be nice. And I justthought that everybody was saying that. And
then I started hearing their songs andyou know, being name checked by the
(22:11):
Donnas and you know them sending mecovers of my songs, and oh,
people do know who I am.And because I was influenced by women,
I like the fact that I caninfluence women and just just keep it going
and building on it. And youknow I I'm doing a show June eighth
(22:33):
and New York Festival called Oh BondageUp Yours and it's all female or female
fronted bands, and it's not thefirst all female, female friended festival I've
done. And I like the factthat it happens. It shouldn't have to.
It shouldn't have to be a thingwhere it's a special thing because it's
(22:59):
all female, Right, it shouldjust be. That's my point that we're
still having this conversation. Right,how much as I like the title,
Oh Bondage of Yours, it's definitelythe reference to Strong by the X SpaceX
with this now is another good friendof mine, a friend of the show
of his, Lieutenant Colonel Tony Schaeffer. He's a real special ops and of
(23:22):
course intelligence officer host of The HardTruth, who I work with as well.
But if I told you anything else, you'd have to kill all of
us. I don't what any ofyou do. That's right. No,
I've I've actually done. I've doneI've gone under cover as Srey Sir Curry
before. No, it's a joke. I've never done that. I'm sure
Curry would like me to do that. You don't have the legs for it.
I'm sorry, I don't have thelegs for it. No, I
(23:45):
don''t know about that. I meancan well. No, I'm I'm thank
you all for having me just fora moment. I got to go back
to work in a second. Thisis kind of a break for me.
Look, I'm just blown away byChris allowing me to be with you guys
on occasion. Know, Schary andI are close friends now, and I'm
just fascinated by the artistry you allbring to the table. I mean,
(24:06):
it's just is you are just We'rejust saying. Nikki is like, hey,
you're just rock and rollers, andyou should be recognized as rock and
rollers no matter who you are,sex or anything. So it's just amazing
what you all do. So kudosto everything you've done. And then I
see Nancy there, Hey, Nancy, Nancy Tex texts me on occasion,
(24:29):
so you know, we're all alllooking for try to figure out how things
are going these days. But it'sit's just I think we have a little
reception to shoot there. But we'llwork on that. Mine's breaking up.
Yeah, well look here's here.It is Nikki apparently when around, when
(24:49):
you around, when Nicky and theCorvette started, And that's again another mark
in history because from there on thepresence of female all female bands and female
artists rocking and doing punk music,that just skyrocketed. Right from that point
forward. You had your go Gos, you had your Josie Cottons of the
World, you had your a littlebefore that was X ray specs, but
(25:11):
you also had shown a knife.We started, we actually started in Japan
as a around that era, theearly eighties, as a Ramones cover band,
and they got into their own StrawberrySwitch played the duo you had.
Uh. It just it just skyrocketedfrom there. It was it's it's nice
to it's nice to know that youngerwomen nowadays can look and say, hey,
(25:36):
we see you, we see youladies on stage, we can see
you all now. But you didn'thave that, and it just it must
have been what was the word,It must have been tough to find some
other females in the industry that youcould work with and maybe uh kind of
network with. At the time,how how was that we didn't have any
(25:56):
We really didn't have anyone that wehonestly we were and I think part of
it's because we were hard rock,so it was such a departure for what
girls do. And I do thinkthat's part of the problem is that we
were We didn't know any hard rockbands female. We just didn't know any.
(26:17):
We played with all dudes, andthe girls play with they were much
softer than us, So you hadto create the standard. Yeah, I
mean we didn't give us ship.Oh sorry, I think we could say
it once. We didn't. That'sthe thing is, we didn't look at
(26:42):
any of that. We it wasnot in our mindset until people would come
up and tell us that after oh, you were good for girls, you
know, then it was a wewere for girls. It just was such
a strange concept to us to betold we were good for girls. So
I just did not have a lotof female band influences. And then I
(27:07):
was happy when I started seeing youknow, the runways, and when they
started coming out there were more becomingmore in the forefront. By then,
I was well out of the performingpart of the business. I was managing
by them, and I used toactually want to look for a girl band
that I thought, what would measureup to the standard of book how the
(27:33):
male world looked at female musicians.And then you notice someone like a Jeff
Back. These guy bands started puttinglike female guitarists in their band, and
I thought, wow, there's alittle movement, a little bit of movement
here that a female can get respectas a musician. Well, that there
had to be first too, becauseyou'd have to think a lot of women
(27:55):
who wanted to play guitar ten yearsago or ten years before that are saying,
I don't know, maybe I won'tmake in the business if I play
guitar, because I don't see anyfemale guitarists out there. I used to
hang out with my like, Iused to date guys and bands and they
would and I would learn how toplay guitar from them. That was my
(28:17):
thing, is that. And Iwould go and dance at their shows and
then they would and then I learneda lot about playing guitar, mostly from
this one guy I was dating,and and then I just really got into
guitar and that was my thing.Guitar was my thing too. Techn Agent
(28:37):
was my forads to guitar, andhe was from Detroit, you know,
and we all played together so andhigh speed chases, if I remember the
best night of my life. It'sinteresting that Madonna started out as a guitar
player. She was in a rockband and she played guitar. Not a
(29:00):
lot of people know that, butshe to rehearse in a studio, you
know, in Chelsea and we wouldsee her, you know, playing guitar.
She started out as a rock androller and then that all changed when
you know, in the early eightieswhen she started doing her on a disco
thing, you know or whatever youwant to quote what she was doing at
(29:23):
the time, but dance music orwhatever. But she started out playing guitar
and she really worked hard. Ihave to say, you know, in
the beginning, she was playing gigsat Maxis Kansas City, and yeah,
really to playing guitar. Now,some of the most respected guitarists are female,
and looking back, they still havePoison Ivy, you have Kate Satan
(29:45):
John. There are plenty of femaleguitars that have the notoriety, but they
didn't have the publicity back in thesixties, seventies and part of the early
eighties. They still don't. Ijust looked at at who was it blabbermouth
or someone came out with a listof your name the top the top two
(30:06):
hundred guitar and I looked through everyname. There wasn't one female on there,
not one. And there were maleguitars founders that I had never heard
of, and I just went,wow, not one. I always thought
leader Ford was a great guitar player. Yeah, there you go, but
they don't make the list. Yeah, that's unfortunate because it's the way happened.
(30:30):
I perfectly look, I want tothrow some questions that I'm want to
throw one to each of you,all six of you here. We talked
about great female bands of the past. I want to ask what some of
the bands that you hear nowadays ormay have heard in the nineties, two
thousands and maybe twenty Ten's some ofthe great girl bands, whether it be
(30:51):
famous or whether it be garage bandthat you guys kind of like, you
ladies kind of like, and ofcourse gentlemen. I liked very Gasolt,
I like the name too, that'sanother great name. Female bands have great
names. I want to go througha few of those. Yeah, they
do. I agree good names.I'm a shaggs guy myself, to be
honest with you, I love theI like there's there's a lot of good
(31:18):
all female female fronted bands now.Amal and the Sniffers. I love her
is like going to take over everything. I play with the Japanese female guitarist
whose band the Let's Go? Isthat the greatest punk band in Tokyo right
(31:44):
now? There's there's there's so many. I just saw a girl Kate Clover
there. There are so many punk, bubblegum, punk, power, pop
raj bands now that are female.All are female fronted, and I just
(32:08):
like the fact that a lot ofthem. It doesn't they're not They're not
a female band. They're not afemale fronted band. They're just, you
know, a punk band, andthey're making people look at them that way.
That's true. Japan has a lotof a great all girl bands too,
(32:28):
by the way, we always have. Yeah, I have six seven
eighths shown the knife. I don'tknow. There's there's a lot of new
ones to this one called to beyep, Beaver. I don't know how
you say their name. There area lot, especially female punk bands,
and they love the American female actstoo. I know you're very popular in
(32:51):
Japan. I remember you talking tome during one Revenge of the Eighties radio
show where you were saying you weredoing a concert down there, and the
female the fans knew the words toyour Nicki and the Corvette songs were singing.
They know their version of them,but yeah, they do. They
know the words to all the songs. See that's cool and the five six
(33:15):
seven as the first time I metYoshiko, the singer guitar player, she
told me that they started out asNicki in the Corvette's cover band doing my
songs, which they're not at alllike Nicki and the Corvettes. But I
just thought that was really cool.I do a killer cover of Woohoo.
(33:37):
By the way, that was That'sa great song. It was fifty seven
to fifty eight. I love thesong whoo Who. I had to throw
that in there because I just likeit. Donna, Karen, any of
any of the bands of today,or anybody even listening to my good friend
what was it? I don't know, My dear friend Cynthia Ross, who
(34:00):
was with the b Girls, isyou know, reunited with them and they're
doing gigs again. I love thatthat they're playing out. I did say,
I did say I enjoyed the Shags, which are they know? They
had a newer band. They're fromnineteen sixty seven sixty eight. They're they're
the sisters that were just thrown togetherby their father and the music is way
(34:22):
out there. It's it's like vocalizingapropol. Yeah. Well, I have
to say, I can't give youone name. Okay, that's partly because
I don't even focus on I don'tlook for them or who are they now?
(34:45):
And now said that I'm actually gonnaget I'm gonna uh, I'm going
to see what's out there now.The last female band that I liked a
lot was Runway. That that tellsyou how long ago that was great female
bands. And I appreciated the Bengals. Uh, they weren't my type at
(35:06):
all, happy for me, butI definitely appreciated that they had great songs.
They did have great song. Theyhad another The Pandoras were actually very
good too. The Pandora's were right. Yeah, that's another Yeah, one
band I found was really avant gardein THEE in the mid nineteen eighties,
(35:27):
and the name stuck out to meback when I was a team growing up,
but I didn't hear much of themuntil later on. I just remember
the name and I started listening tothem. Uh, They're called the Holy
Sisters of the God God Data,and they were really way out there of
more experimental there, but they're there. They they were something different and I
(35:49):
like that too, and a lotof and being that being it used to
be a lot of only male bandscould break them mold, but then after
a while, female brands, femalebands are female artists were breaking different molds,
even their own molds. At thispoint, they more equal opportunity here.
(36:09):
Yeah, I just I still findit amazing that we're in twenty twenty
four and we're having this discussion aboutfemales. I mean, really, it's
truly amazing to me that it didn'tgrow any further. And I only say
(36:30):
that because when I look at anyof the rock magazines, like I said,
or the lists, there's just nevera female on them, and I'm
just like, wow, how canthat be. There's plenty of great musicians
out there who Nikki. Who wasthat band they came on tour with us
(36:51):
or they were and they were allgirls. And when we went with Travis,
what was the name of that,I can't think the West Coast tour.
Yeah, no, it was itwas us and you and the Makeout
Party, the Makeout Party. Butthere was this girl band with us as
(37:15):
well, and I feel so badI can't remember their name. They covered
my song Bandana. I was justlooking on iTunes. Oh it was the
Riff Randalls, the Riff Randas.Yes, there they are a lot of
fun. I was like Donna wastalking about Cynthia. My band used to
(37:37):
play with the be Girls a lotin the late seventies early eighties. We
played Toronto, we played New York, we played Detroit, and I truly
appreciate the fact that Cynthia is stilldoing stuff, and you know, we
we get up and sing with eachother. I've gotten up at b Girls
(38:00):
reunions. She's gotten up and sangwith me. And the fact that,
you know, bands that started along time ago we're still doing stuff and
still still building each other up andsupporting each other. I think that's important.
It's really important because the guys aren'tgoing to do it really important,
(38:22):
all right, guys. The youngerguys now are so much more accepting and
supportive to them. It isn't itisn't oh girls and a band thing.
It's just a band thing. Sothe younger guys get it. Next thing,
you know, you're gonna want yourown basketball league. That's what That's
(38:44):
what they're thinking right now. Justkidding, But it's more their world now.
Like we were saying before, itwasn't part of the world of the
sixties and seventies that much. Nowit's like, hey, you want female
bands. I'm sure a lot ofthe male bands were influenced by female artists
at this point if you think aboutit. But I have to say a
lot of the female bands have moreinventive names. I was looking over some
(39:05):
of the great or the lesser knownbut cool punk bands. I love these
names. Androids of Mew from thelate seventies early eighties. The Aquanetta's another
great name and taken from the greatHairspray Love the be Girls of course,
Betty Blowtorch another great name. Imean, if anything, women are more
creative with their names. Sometimes Yeah, and Malaria the German Ben malaria.
(39:30):
You gotta like that. Yeps,good names. I love these days.
So here's a question for eachie.We're going to be winding down the show
pretty soon. I'm very happy tohave you all on. Nicky, Nancy,
Karen, and Donna. What wouldyou say to a female, a
(39:52):
young, aspiring female artist who says, I want to get into something hard,
I want to be a rocker,I want to be a punker.
I would say, don't let anybodystop. You, don't listen to what
anybody says. Believe in yourself,get out there and do it. I
probably would say the same, Justgo with your heart and do it.
(40:14):
If that's your passion, just gofor it. You know, absolutely,
I can't swear, so I wouldsay that everybody pursue it with all your
all the passion you can muster.Yeah, I would say, you have
to have a lot of passion,passion for you have to really want it,
(40:36):
and and then you know, there'sall kinds of other things that go
along. You know, you've gotto have good friends, and you know,
good luck and all kinds of stuff. Right, definitely, good luck,
Karen, I did I didn't askthis. I have to ask this,
Okay, How did you and yoursister keep so much energy on stage?
You don't jumping around with the armsand everything. I would have been
(40:59):
tired after so number three that Iwas in shape. What we we just
did? We still both of usstill have a lot of energy. I
don't know. We had a goodtime. It was always because you're doing
on stage, there's an energy thatkind of out your audience. So that's
what I was just gonna say.It's that I've gone out there with a
(41:22):
broken leg, and you forget youhave a broken leg. You're not there
anymore. You're in a different strandosphere. You see. I could I could
see you guys getting that that highwith the with the playing, the guitar,
playing singing. I know, Nikki, your your high energy when you
sing Donna, you two, Karenall the dancing. Me. On the
(41:43):
other hand, I get that samesensation walking up a flight of stairs.
Radio, but it's not as muchfun. Music takes you just to a
whole other planet. It just does, even if it as a listener.
If I'm just listening to something thatreally gets to me, I literally like
leave my body absolutely, I'm justnot here anymore. That's the beauty of
(42:07):
music. Well, I want tothank all of you for being with me
in the Outhouse lounge here and talkingabout the great female artists of the past,
present, and of course hopefully we'llsee more in the future. We
want to see some great stuff andof course you check out YouTube check out.
I guess I can invite everybody tosee my record collection, but I
(42:28):
have a lot of good ones ifyou will, so again, check out
check out stuff from Nikki, checkout Cradle, check out Nancy. Obviously
Karen. The Little Girls have anew collection album out. Check that out.
Donna, You've been putting out singlesright and left over the last many
years, so all this great stufffrom you ladies. Thank you for the
great music all these years. Iwant to thank you for your conversations in
(42:51):
the past, and I really hopeyou all can come on the lounge in
the future and just have some fun, maybe talk about other things with us.
Now that we're not again, you'reall in the lounge family, Thanks
and bank meeting everybody. Thank youfor having us. Thank you very much,
and of course you too, andfor all of you out there,
(43:15):
thank you for being with us.Stay uh, stay tuned for our next
episode. And I and we're gonnahave a little fun here. We have
a fake band competition, and we'realso going to be talking about one of
the great TV series of all time, The Prisoner. And yes, Tony
and I will be dressed. Itwould be fun. H
Welcome to the Outhouse Lounge. Whenwe relax and talk about shaving cream something
like that. I know I haveto change the tagline because you two won't
let me say the word, andI like it. I have a very
special episode today. I've always wantedto do a very special episode of the
Outhouse Lounge. In twenty sixteen,Book of Love wrote a rather keton song,
(00:29):
and I think that's what the kidsare saying today, right, Keene,
or I think they're saying spank right. I don't know what the kids
are saying today. But either way, these kids in their my space and
their ataris, I don't know whatthey're changing their words through these days.
The lead line in the song thatBook of Love recorded back in two sixteen
was called all girl band. Thesecond verse was the Shankri Lines came to
(00:53):
town and gave us great big kisses, a track with several of the great
all female band from the Slits tothe X Ray Spex. Looking at music
history, it took some real innovatorsin some big leaps by female musicians earlier
to let's just say jump into thesemale dominated hard rock, hard punk and
new wave worlds. So I thoughti'd bring in some of my favorite all
(01:18):
lady, all female band rockers withme as well. And here they are
with me. Nancy quatro Glass,Nancy Quatroglass, of course, who led
Cradle among other projects, and managebands and rockers throughout her career. Nicki
Corvette, the Nikki of Nicki andthe Corvettes. As you can see,
Detroit's well represented in this program.Also in the lounge Don Edestri, solo
(01:42):
artists and punk pioneer who also sangwith Blondie and many other artists and really
did one of my favorite renditions ofI Got You Babe with Paul Zone.
That and Kara Maso Murray, whowith her sister Michelle, led the Little
Girls and by the way, sheas a killer on elk impersonation under her
(02:04):
belt. I just love the bestone ever. So welcome to the program,
ladies. Hi, Welcome to thelounge. It's nice seeing a lot
of you. It's it's sort ofa reunion of sorts because I've had many
of you on past programs that I'vedone. But I wanted to talk about
all female bands because a lot ofwomen today are are are out there there
(02:27):
in public. There there there's alot of great artists who are who are
doing the rock and roll, doingthe new wave, doing the pop thing
right now. But it wasn't aseasy as it might look now back for
all of you, especially because you'vedone this at a time where the industry
was male dominated. It still is. I guess you're right. I guess
(02:51):
I can put it that way.A large part it still is now.
It is to me, there's nodoubt that it's still male down. Well,
Metcy, let's start with you,because from me, from the days
of the early days of hard rock, you were, you doing that kind
of music with Cradle was absolutely virtuallyunheard of when it came to women in
(03:13):
music, definitely, right, definitely. So who got you and your sister's
influence and doing the hard stuff,Well, they were in the pleasure Seekers.
I'm the youngest of the families,so they they were in the pleasure
Seekers doing the normal what women shoulddo, wearing many skirts, blah blah
blah blah blah. And I wastwelve when they started their band, and
(03:37):
then they I entered at fifteen yearsold, and that's when music was really
getting much heavier, really changing.You know, you had cream all the
bands that came out Love Zeppelin,all those bands. Basically when I got
in the band is when they decidedto change the whole direction. They wanted
to stop wearing all the same outfitsand skirts and blah blah blah, just
(04:00):
saying the direction of our music orof their music. So we we all
really liked the heavier sound and startedgetting on the pop festivals and the bigger
shows that really focused on that kindof sound. Was not what's funny to
(04:21):
me is for us, we neverlooked at it like we're females playing heavy
music. We didn't even look atthe fact that we're females. For us,
it wasn't even in our thought processuntil people told us, oh,
your girl, Oh you guys playedgood for girls, you'd hear those kind
of kind I didn't know there wasa distinction or a difference, you know
(04:46):
that, because you're a girl,you might oh, you actually played good.
So that's when it became. Becausemy dad didn't our mom didn't raise
us like that either. We didn'thave those restrictions in our heads. But
there there's no doubt about it.I had no problem ignoring it. But
(05:08):
you became very aware that I startednoticing like Cream Magazine, Rolling Stone,
Oh, there's never females on thereever, not as musicians, you know,
they do Janis Joppa, Well,she's a singer, so you could
be accepted as a singer. Uhbut uh, they're definitely And I start,
(05:29):
I'm sorry. I think it's stillthe same, not as bad,
but I do think it's still thesame. When I see some of these
death metal female bands that come out, you know, I like to pop
in and see all the different genresof them. Definitely, yeah, and
there are This is gonna sound reallylike, oh, she's not a feminist,
(05:53):
but it doesn't look it doesn't looknatural to me when I see the
death metal girls. Uh, it'slike, to me, it looks like
they're trying to be guys. Interesting. It is interesting because I'm not that
way. I don't even think thatway. But yet I'll look and I'll
go, okay, but females.I think there's a few females that did
(06:16):
actually kick down the door for musicians. And I'm not just saying this because
she's my sister, but she isone of them. Susie Potro is one
of them that did kick down thedoor for a girl being a musician,
there are up a lot for womenbecause if you think about it without without
(06:39):
her out front and and again shewas very famous in Britain of course,
brought back to the US again,you know, back and forth here and
there. But you had the Runawaysafter that. Then you had a lot
more female leg bands and all femalebands coming on after that. But really
the pleasure seeker is Cradle or FannyA Bertha. Early bands were there when
(07:01):
you weren't getting the publicity or attentionthat you probably could have gotten eight to
ten years later if you started.Am I far off here? No,
there's a whole movement now about getFanny into the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame. Those girls were great.Mm yeah they were. I think they're
still doing some work now too becausewith Fanny, so she's doing a whole
(07:25):
bunch of podcasts and yeah, shejust did a little short little tour with
them, two three, two orthree little tours with them. Yeah,
actively they got a documentary out andblah blah blah. My sister Patty played
guitar form after Cradle broke up,she went out to California got into Fanny.
Not right away, but she gotinto Fanny. I went out there
(07:46):
to try to do a solo career. That's when I decided I'm done.
LA did it for me? Wellhe did. I'm so not an La
girl. I'm just not so.I just couldn't wait to get back to
Detroit. I didn't like the waythe business worked out there. Uh.
(08:07):
I didn't like the casting couch.I was hit up. I was guaranteed
a career if I did this orthat, and I just thought, you
know what, uh huh, Ijust so that's so not me. Was
that was that prevalent? I know, the Harvey Weinstein thing and the whole
big deal about the kisting couch inHollywood? How about for you ladies?
(08:28):
So were there were there were theresnakes in the business. I know there
were snakes in the I don't wantto name names, but yeah, I
think it's easier to say, whowasn't a snake? There? You go?
That's a shorter I suppose. Yeah. It's a dirty, dirty world.
(08:50):
I mean I was probably that's whenSusie was hitting it so big and
I went out there, Like Isaid, I had Bill Cosby's Bill Cosby's
Bill Cosby's manager was manager. Uhhe was he was put me in the
studio blah blah blah for a solocareer, and Susie had had her hit,
She had had a couple of hitsby them, and I was promised
going to uh did take me toLondon if I'd sleep with the guy.
(09:16):
That happened more than once, andI was just like, Wow, this
could I didn't experience that being inCradle because I wasn't in Hollywood. M
It's a different world, Nikki.When you started out in Detroit again,
it was still like the the theman's world. It was the more the
punk power pop world. But again, women weren't doing what you were doing
(09:41):
by then, and we're we're howdid the men treat you early days of
the non existent You know a lotlike I was saying earlier, a lot
of times we would get thrown offshows when they found out there were girls
in the band, and guys justdidn't want to play with us. Yeah,
(10:03):
and he's not instrumentally, and like, I didn't care. I just
I was going to do what Iwanted to do and if it didn't work
out that way, I'd find myown way to do it. But yeah,
(10:24):
second class citizen definitely. What's funnyis when I moved back to Detroit,
all the same guys would come upto me and say, oh,
if you ever need a drummer,bass player. I'm like, if I
ever do, I remember everything yousaid about me, and it won't be
you. And you know, allof them who had never done anything,
(10:46):
suddenly suddenly I was cool. ButI got the chance to say, yeah,
it's okay, I don't need youdidn't then, don't know. Actually,
I'll interject real quickly. We hadwhen Cradle was before Susy went to
England and left the band we hadwe actually started truly getting some respect in
(11:09):
the male world. We had JerryNoan of the drummer of the New York
Dallas join our band. We actuallyput a man in the band because our
female drummer had quit and we hadshows and we just had to have someone.
But he joined our band and hereally loved it. That's well,
(11:30):
he loved being around women. Yeah, he loved that too. Well,
at least he was at least heplayed with the band. I'm sure a
lot of guys were, like yousaid, weren't weren't up for that.
No, there were a lot ofpioneer women, even before both of you,
and before Donna and before Karen.I'm sure there were influences you all
had. Who were your favorites growingup and who are your favorites when you
(11:54):
were getting into the music business.Who may have influenced you a bit more
than maybe a thought. I alwayswanted to be the Ramones meets the run
at the Shanglas. The Runts weregreat, and the Shangri Las and we
just lost Mary Wise m lovely ladyfor Rebels. They were cool, they
(12:22):
were like it. That's the archetypaltough girls, you know. They were.
The Hives are so cool. Iloved them. Yeah, mine weren't
anyone female. Uh, honestly,my influences were Jimmy Hendrick, what's that
(12:43):
one? I I just liked thehardcore. I like Janice Chaplin. I
loved her. But I don't thinkI don't have really any female influences.
There weren't a lot of them outthere. Oh there were so many out
there. Well, I don't meanthere were a lot that you've heard about,
(13:05):
and I see we play tours withother female groups, but I can't
say any of them ever influenced me. Oh, yeah, we got Elizabeth
here. Well, I yuess thatmakes a lot of sense, and joining
us right now was a fellow podcaster, a friend of mine here and she's
a voice actress. She's an actressand of course co host of The Hard
Truth with Tony Shaper, another showI work with and also done a lot
(13:28):
of lounges. Elizabeth Breckencamp, welcometo the program. And we're talking about
great influential female, all female bands. And by the way, I have
four of them with me right here, so I think we're going to have
a good time in the outhouse lounge. But we were talking about some of
the some of our favorites, andKaren, I haven't heard of some of
(13:48):
your influences. Well, I lovedJoan Baez and Judy Collins, but my
favorite bands were the Beatles and Stones, and later of course Jimmy Hendrickson led
Zepp or in Love that was totallyinto that Humble Pie. A model for
(14:09):
my band, I think was thisall girl group or a girl fronted group
with two sisters in front called theHeaters. Oh, the Heaters, that's
right, with Naggie Cano, that'sright. Yeah, And I used to
go they used to play in thevalley a lot. I can't remember the
name of the club, but Iused to go see them and I loved
them. That was right before Istarted my band. Now, were there
(14:33):
men who were again, we allknow there were a lot of snakes.
I talked about the snakes. Iwant to see if there were any men
in the business who actually were lookingforward to seeing more females. We're all
women bands or female fronted bands,or or you ladies in particular succeed.
Did you get a lot of helpfrom some of the male artists or male
(14:54):
managers in the business, or anyhelp we did with Bobe Mamis who worked
with Blondie and he's with Alice Cooperand now he's with Alice Cooper. Yeah,
yeah, but your manager. Ihad Tony Dfries for a while I
was with Maine Man. He wasa great help. He was a great
(15:16):
help. In fact, he lentme a lot of money that I never
made that quite honestly, when heyou know, he decided it was no
more for him in the music business. And now he's a physicist. It's
so weird, but he you know, he did lend me some money when
he decided to you know, dissolveMaine Man, which was very nice.
(15:39):
So we had Budd Prager who wasmanager of Mountain and Cooper and he just
he full his day. He's apowerhouse, so we had him. We
had interest from him death back.We had quite a few, ah,
but it was a matter of puttingyour money where your mouth is too.
Yeah. Well, one thing Inoticed when I asked about your influences is
(16:03):
you had a lot of male bandinfluences. You ladies are actually influences to
younger bands. We're going to getinto that in the near future on this
program. But I wanted to askit's funny because you didn't have, especially
your era Nancy right around there.You didn't have a lot of even female
guitarists or drummers who were prominent.Maybe maybe that there was Honey Lantrie in
(16:26):
nineteen sixty seven, who I alwaysfound great and people might have looked at
her as a novelty, but Igot to listen to some of her drum
solos and drum work on YouTube,and it's worth listening to how great she
was. But women never had gota chance to actually pick up their own
guitars. You had your outliers,You had your Roseanne Cashes, you had
your great country guitarists. But it'salmost like women weren't allowed to do certain
(16:52):
things back then. Am I faroff there too? No, you're not
at all. I don't think youare. I mean, now you have
Orianze and you know the who's thegirl that plays with Alice Cooper right now?
Because she's phenomenal, she is what'sher name? Here we go with
the names. Now we have totry to remember things. Yeah, she's
(17:15):
amazing. Blinde starts with an end, doesn't it? Anyway? You do
have now I have to say,there's more female musicians now. To me,
Michael Jackson was a big part inbringing more female musicians out, like
when he did Oriancee, that waslike a big deal. And she's a
(17:37):
great guitarist. I mean, there'sa lot of great bass players, great
girl guitarists. I mean, butthat's just it. We're actually discussing trying
to think of names. So themale domination, I'm telling you because I'm
(17:59):
up. Carlos Santana, his wifeis a phenomenal drummer. I can't think
of her name. We were justwatching a concert with Carlos last week and
his wife is amazing. She's anamazing drummer. But I can't think of
her name either. My husband whoknows her name, and I can't think
of it. She's awesome, Ohmy gosh, she's awesome. And she's
(18:23):
smoking hot too, So you knowthat helps you anyway. Well, i'll
tell you what. If you geton YouTube, you'd be shocked at some
of the female musicians that are notknown that put their own little videos up.
And I've watched so many and I'mjust like, oh, they rival
any guy for sure. They arethat good. They're doing like cover songs,
(18:47):
you know, like they'll do Pantera, they'll do something from Diame Bad
Daryl, but they'll do It's amazingto me. And it's like you said,
kind of a novelty that you,oh, a girl get how she's
playing that language is still there.It's funny. Again, this is an
(19:07):
all girl, all female artists andall girl bands special, So I don't
want to fall into that trampling.It just said that that mindset where oh,
she plays well for a girl.They played great for a girl.
But the idea was if you're ayoung if you're a young woman, let's
say, twelve thirteen years old,looking to pick up an instrument. In
nineteen seventy two, bands like Yours, Nikki and Nancy didn't get publicity,
(19:33):
and groups like Yours, Nikky,Karen and Donna you guys were still kind
of getting your footing. A littlebit later on in that decade, the
Runaways came out, and finally youngwomen were allowed to were able to see
a fully promoted, mainstream all femaleband, and that was game changing.
(19:55):
I was influenced by that, youknow, and I was excited about The
Runaways, but I wasn't as intotheir music at the time, but I
loved their image. I liked theirimage too. I loved Joan Jet's image,
(20:18):
and of course there was, youknow, the whole thing that she's
a carbon copy of my sister,which they said. She admits that at
first what that she haircut, wearingleather, it was yeah, but I
(20:38):
loved her look. I thought shelooked. I liked her presence on stage.
So the Runaways I liked. They'reone of the few girl bands.
I actually really liked. Nicky I'veheard Ben's I just thought I'm sorry.
Chris Nita Strauss is the guitarist withAlice Coopers. We were now see this
(21:03):
is we come up. We'll learna new thing every day, Niki,
something that was really amazed me.I've done a lot of interviews with people.
I I really enjoyed talking to NaokoYamano from from Shown a Knife,
and she is among a very afew people who I've talked to female musicians
who have said, Nikki Corvette isone of my big influences. They you
(21:26):
were absolutely one of the one ofthe women who a lot of the girl
groups of the eighties and nineties reallyfollowed and and and looked to you for
for that kind of or that kindof I would I wouldn't I guess that
kind of Oh gosh, I'm notsure if I can use the word properly,
but look to you as as areal influence to what they did and
(21:47):
what they plan to do in thefuture. Yeah. And when when I
first said that, I I justthought, you know, you know,
when you meet somebody, you seea band, and you're like, oh,
I love this, you were great, and you just say it so
to be nice. And I justthought that everybody was saying that. And
then I started hearing their songs andyou know, being name checked by the
(22:11):
Donnas and you know them sending mecovers of my songs, and oh,
people do know who I am.And because I was influenced by women,
I like the fact that I caninfluence women and just just keep it going
and building on it. And youknow I I'm doing a show June eighth
(22:33):
and New York Festival called Oh BondageUp Yours and it's all female or female
fronted bands, and it's not thefirst all female, female friended festival I've
done. And I like the factthat it happens. It shouldn't have to.
It shouldn't have to be a thingwhere it's a special thing because it's
(22:59):
all female, Right, it shouldjust be. That's my point that we're
still having this conversation. Right,how much as I like the title,
Oh Bondage of Yours, it's definitelythe reference to Strong by the X SpaceX
with this now is another good friendof mine, a friend of the show
of his, Lieutenant Colonel Tony Schaeffer. He's a real special ops and of
(23:22):
course intelligence officer host of The HardTruth, who I work with as well.
But if I told you anything else, you'd have to kill all of
us. I don't what any ofyou do. That's right. No,
I've I've actually done. I've doneI've gone under cover as Srey Sir Curry
before. No, it's a joke. I've never done that. I'm sure
Curry would like me to do that. You don't have the legs for it.
I'm sorry, I don't have thelegs for it. No, I
(23:45):
don''t know about that. I meancan well. No, I'm I'm thank
you all for having me just fora moment. I got to go back
to work in a second. Thisis kind of a break for me.
Look, I'm just blown away byChris allowing me to be with you guys
on occasion. Know, Schary andI are close friends now, and I'm
just fascinated by the artistry you allbring to the table. I mean,
(24:06):
it's just is you are just We'rejust saying. Nikki is like, hey,
you're just rock and rollers, andyou should be recognized as rock and
rollers no matter who you are,sex or anything. So it's just amazing
what you all do. So kudosto everything you've done. And then I
see Nancy there, Hey, Nancy, Nancy Tex texts me on occasion,
(24:29):
so you know, we're all alllooking for try to figure out how things
are going these days. But it'sit's just I think we have a little
reception to shoot there. But we'llwork on that. Mine's breaking up.
Yeah, well look here's here.It is Nikki apparently when around, when
(24:49):
you around, when Nicky and theCorvette started, And that's again another mark
in history because from there on thepresence of female all female bands and female
artists rocking and doing punk music,that just skyrocketed. Right from that point
forward. You had your go Gos, you had your Josie Cottons of the
World, you had your a littlebefore that was X ray specs, but
(25:11):
you also had shown a knife.We started, we actually started in Japan
as a around that era, theearly eighties, as a Ramones cover band,
and they got into their own StrawberrySwitch played the duo you had.
Uh. It just it just skyrocketedfrom there. It was it's it's nice
to it's nice to know that youngerwomen nowadays can look and say, hey,
(25:36):
we see you, we see youladies on stage, we can see
you all now. But you didn'thave that, and it just it must
have been what was the word,It must have been tough to find some
other females in the industry that youcould work with and maybe uh kind of
network with. At the time,how how was that we didn't have any
(25:56):
We really didn't have anyone that wehonestly we were and I think part of
it's because we were hard rock,so it was such a departure for what
girls do. And I do thinkthat's part of the problem is that we
were We didn't know any hard rockbands female. We just didn't know any.
(26:17):
We played with all dudes, andthe girls play with they were much
softer than us, So you hadto create the standard. Yeah, I
mean we didn't give us ship.Oh sorry, I think we could say
it once. We didn't. That'sthe thing is, we didn't look at
(26:42):
any of that. We it wasnot in our mindset until people would come
up and tell us that after oh, you were good for girls, you
know, then it was a wewere for girls. It just was such
a strange concept to us to betold we were good for girls. So
I just did not have a lotof female band influences. And then I
(27:07):
was happy when I started seeing youknow, the runways, and when they
started coming out there were more becomingmore in the forefront. By then,
I was well out of the performingpart of the business. I was managing
by them, and I used toactually want to look for a girl band
that I thought, what would measureup to the standard of book how the
(27:33):
male world looked at female musicians.And then you notice someone like a Jeff
Back. These guy bands started puttinglike female guitarists in their band, and
I thought, wow, there's alittle movement, a little bit of movement
here that a female can get respectas a musician. Well, that there
had to be first too, becauseyou'd have to think a lot of women
(27:55):
who wanted to play guitar ten yearsago or ten years before that are saying,
I don't know, maybe I won'tmake in the business if I play
guitar, because I don't see anyfemale guitarists out there. I used to
hang out with my like, Iused to date guys and bands and they
would and I would learn how toplay guitar from them. That was my
(28:17):
thing, is that. And Iwould go and dance at their shows and
then they would and then I learneda lot about playing guitar, mostly from
this one guy I was dating,and and then I just really got into
guitar and that was my thing.Guitar was my thing too. Techn Agent
(28:37):
was my forads to guitar, andhe was from Detroit, you know,
and we all played together so andhigh speed chases, if I remember the
best night of my life. It'sinteresting that Madonna started out as a guitar
player. She was in a rockband and she played guitar. Not a
(29:00):
lot of people know that, butshe to rehearse in a studio, you
know, in Chelsea and we wouldsee her, you know, playing guitar.
She started out as a rock androller and then that all changed when
you know, in the early eightieswhen she started doing her on a disco
thing, you know or whatever youwant to quote what she was doing at
(29:23):
the time, but dance music orwhatever. But she started out playing guitar
and she really worked hard. Ihave to say, you know, in
the beginning, she was playing gigsat Maxis Kansas City, and yeah,
really to playing guitar. Now,some of the most respected guitarists are female,
and looking back, they still havePoison Ivy, you have Kate Satan
(29:45):
John. There are plenty of femaleguitars that have the notoriety, but they
didn't have the publicity back in thesixties, seventies and part of the early
eighties. They still don't. Ijust looked at at who was it blabbermouth
or someone came out with a listof your name the top the top two
(30:06):
hundred guitar and I looked through everyname. There wasn't one female on there,
not one. And there were maleguitars founders that I had never heard
of, and I just went,wow, not one. I always thought
leader Ford was a great guitar player. Yeah, there you go, but
they don't make the list. Yeah, that's unfortunate because it's the way happened.
(30:30):
I perfectly look, I want tothrow some questions that I'm want to
throw one to each of you,all six of you here. We talked
about great female bands of the past. I want to ask what some of
the bands that you hear nowadays ormay have heard in the nineties, two
thousands and maybe twenty Ten's some ofthe great girl bands, whether it be
(30:51):
famous or whether it be garage bandthat you guys kind of like, you
ladies kind of like, and ofcourse gentlemen. I liked very Gasolt,
I like the name too, that'sanother great name. Female bands have great
names. I want to go througha few of those. Yeah, they
do. I agree good names.I'm a shaggs guy myself, to be
honest with you, I love theI like there's there's a lot of good
(31:18):
all female female fronted bands now.Amal and the Sniffers. I love her
is like going to take over everything. I play with the Japanese female guitarist
whose band the Let's Go? Isthat the greatest punk band in Tokyo right
(31:44):
now? There's there's there's so many. I just saw a girl Kate Clover
there. There are so many punk, bubblegum, punk, power, pop
raj bands now that are female.All are female fronted, and I just
(32:08):
like the fact that a lot ofthem. It doesn't they're not They're not
a female band. They're not afemale fronted band. They're just, you
know, a punk band, andthey're making people look at them that way.
That's true. Japan has a lotof a great all girl bands too,
(32:28):
by the way, we always have. Yeah, I have six seven
eighths shown the knife. I don'tknow. There's there's a lot of new
ones to this one called to beyep, Beaver. I don't know how
you say their name. There area lot, especially female punk bands,
and they love the American female actstoo. I know you're very popular in
(32:51):
Japan. I remember you talking tome during one Revenge of the Eighties radio
show where you were saying you weredoing a concert down there, and the
female the fans knew the words toyour Nicki and the Corvette songs were singing.
They know their version of them,but yeah, they do. They
know the words to all the songs. See that's cool and the five six
(33:15):
seven as the first time I metYoshiko, the singer guitar player, she
told me that they started out asNicki in the Corvette's cover band doing my
songs, which they're not at alllike Nicki and the Corvettes. But I
just thought that was really cool.I do a killer cover of Woohoo.
(33:37):
By the way, that was That'sa great song. It was fifty seven
to fifty eight. I love thesong whoo Who. I had to throw
that in there because I just likeit. Donna, Karen, any of
any of the bands of today,or anybody even listening to my good friend
what was it? I don't know, My dear friend Cynthia Ross, who
(34:00):
was with the b Girls, isyou know, reunited with them and they're
doing gigs again. I love thatthat they're playing out. I did say,
I did say I enjoyed the Shags, which are they know? They
had a newer band. They're fromnineteen sixty seven sixty eight. They're they're
the sisters that were just thrown togetherby their father and the music is way
(34:22):
out there. It's it's like vocalizingapropol. Yeah. Well, I have
to say, I can't give youone name. Okay, that's partly because
I don't even focus on I don'tlook for them or who are they now?
(34:45):
And now said that I'm actually gonnaget I'm gonna uh, I'm going
to see what's out there now.The last female band that I liked a
lot was Runway. That that tellsyou how long ago that was great female
bands. And I appreciated the Bengals. Uh, they weren't my type at
(35:06):
all, happy for me, butI definitely appreciated that they had great songs.
They did have great song. Theyhad another The Pandoras were actually very
good too. The Pandora's were right. Yeah, that's another Yeah, one
band I found was really avant gardein THEE in the mid nineteen eighties,
(35:27):
and the name stuck out to meback when I was a team growing up,
but I didn't hear much of themuntil later on. I just remember
the name and I started listening tothem. Uh, They're called the Holy
Sisters of the God God Data,and they were really way out there of
more experimental there, but they're there. They they were something different and I
(35:49):
like that too, and a lotof and being that being it used to
be a lot of only male bandscould break them mold, but then after
a while, female brands, femalebands are female artists were breaking different molds,
even their own molds. At thispoint, they more equal opportunity here.
(36:09):
Yeah, I just I still findit amazing that we're in twenty twenty
four and we're having this discussion aboutfemales. I mean, really, it's
truly amazing to me that it didn'tgrow any further. And I only say
(36:30):
that because when I look at anyof the rock magazines, like I said,
or the lists, there's just nevera female on them, and I'm
just like, wow, how canthat be. There's plenty of great musicians
out there who Nikki. Who wasthat band they came on tour with us
(36:51):
or they were and they were allgirls. And when we went with Travis,
what was the name of that,I can't think the West Coast tour.
Yeah, no, it was itwas us and you and the Makeout
Party, the Makeout Party. Butthere was this girl band with us as
(37:15):
well, and I feel so badI can't remember their name. They covered
my song Bandana. I was justlooking on iTunes. Oh it was the
Riff Randalls, the Riff Randas.Yes, there they are a lot of
fun. I was like Donna wastalking about Cynthia. My band used to
(37:37):
play with the be Girls a lotin the late seventies early eighties. We
played Toronto, we played New York, we played Detroit, and I truly
appreciate the fact that Cynthia is stilldoing stuff, and you know, we
we get up and sing with eachother. I've gotten up at b Girls
(38:00):
reunions. She's gotten up and sangwith me. And the fact that,
you know, bands that started along time ago we're still doing stuff and
still still building each other up andsupporting each other. I think that's important.
It's really important because the guys aren'tgoing to do it really important,
(38:22):
all right, guys. The youngerguys now are so much more accepting and
supportive to them. It isn't itisn't oh girls and a band thing.
It's just a band thing. Sothe younger guys get it. Next thing,
you know, you're gonna want yourown basketball league. That's what That's
(38:44):
what they're thinking right now. Justkidding, But it's more their world now.
Like we were saying before, itwasn't part of the world of the
sixties and seventies that much. Nowit's like, hey, you want female
bands. I'm sure a lot ofthe male bands were influenced by female artists
at this point if you think aboutit. But I have to say a
lot of the female bands have moreinventive names. I was looking over some
(39:05):
of the great or the lesser knownbut cool punk bands. I love these
names. Androids of Mew from thelate seventies early eighties. The Aquanetta's another
great name and taken from the greatHairspray Love the be Girls of course,
Betty Blowtorch another great name. Imean, if anything, women are more
creative with their names. Sometimes Yeah, and Malaria the German Ben malaria.
(39:30):
You gotta like that. Yeps,good names. I love these days.
So here's a question for eachie.We're going to be winding down the show
pretty soon. I'm very happy tohave you all on. Nicky, Nancy,
Karen, and Donna. What wouldyou say to a female, a
(39:52):
young, aspiring female artist who says, I want to get into something hard,
I want to be a rocker,I want to be a punker.
I would say, don't let anybodystop. You, don't listen to what
anybody says. Believe in yourself,get out there and do it. I
probably would say the same, Justgo with your heart and do it.
(40:14):
If that's your passion, just gofor it. You know, absolutely,
I can't swear, so I wouldsay that everybody pursue it with all your
all the passion you can muster.Yeah, I would say, you have
to have a lot of passion,passion for you have to really want it,
(40:36):
and and then you know, there'sall kinds of other things that go
along. You know, you've gotto have good friends, and you know,
good luck and all kinds of stuff. Right, definitely, good luck,
Karen, I did I didn't askthis. I have to ask this,
Okay, How did you and yoursister keep so much energy on stage?
You don't jumping around with the armsand everything. I would have been
(40:59):
tired after so number three that Iwas in shape. What we we just
did? We still both of usstill have a lot of energy. I
don't know. We had a goodtime. It was always because you're doing
on stage, there's an energy thatkind of out your audience. So that's
what I was just gonna say.It's that I've gone out there with a
(41:22):
broken leg, and you forget youhave a broken leg. You're not there
anymore. You're in a different strandosphere. You see. I could I could
see you guys getting that that highwith the with the playing, the guitar,
playing singing. I know, Nikki, your your high energy when you
sing Donna, you two, Karenall the dancing. Me. On the
(41:43):
other hand, I get that samesensation walking up a flight of stairs.
Radio, but it's not as muchfun. Music takes you just to a
whole other planet. It just does, even if it as a listener.
If I'm just listening to something thatreally gets to me, I literally like
leave my body absolutely, I'm justnot here anymore. That's the beauty of
(42:07):
music. Well, I want tothank all of you for being with me
in the Outhouse lounge here and talkingabout the great female artists of the past,
present, and of course hopefully we'llsee more in the future. We
want to see some great stuff andof course you check out YouTube check out.
I guess I can invite everybody tosee my record collection, but I
(42:28):
have a lot of good ones ifyou will, so again, check out
check out stuff from Nikki, checkout Cradle, check out Nancy. Obviously
Karen. The Little Girls have anew collection album out. Check that out.
Donna, You've been putting out singlesright and left over the last many
years, so all this great stufffrom you ladies. Thank you for the
great music all these years. Iwant to thank you for your conversations in
(42:51):
the past, and I really hopeyou all can come on the lounge in
the future and just have some fun, maybe talk about other things with us.
Now that we're not again, you'reall in the lounge family, Thanks
and bank meeting everybody. Thank youfor having us. Thank you very much,
and of course you too, andfor all of you out there,
(43:15):
thank you for being with us.Stay uh, stay tuned for our next
episode. And I and we're gonnahave a little fun here. We have
a fake band competition, and we'realso going to be talking about one of
the great TV series of all time, The Prisoner. And yes, Tony
and I will be dressed. Itwould be fun. H
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