"Dude Rocks Like a Lady"

I (slowly during my class SSR time) have been reading the collection of essays  IV,by Chuck Klosterman.  One of the more fascinating articles that I read dealt with these all female cover bands playing masculine "crotch-rock." I was fascinated with some of the play on words and pseudo names the bands would take.  For example, the article, early on, focuses on lesbian rockers "Lez Zeppelin."  Back when the article was written, they were sponsored by the Showtime series The L Word to perform. The question remained, are they lesbians, or did they just market themselves to play an angle?

One of my two favorite bands featured had to be AC/DShe, who only perform pre-1980 AC/DC, with stage names like "Bonnie Scott" and "Agnes Young."  What made me chuckle was that AC/DShe had all-female, rival cover bands they had to deal with in the LA area, such as "Hell's Belles" and Zepparella.

The band I appreciated most had to be "Cheap Chick" - the Cheap Trick cover band.  (seriously, an all-female Cheap Trcik cover band?!?!) Someone at Nissan liked them, and felt they would be a good example of viral marketing and gave them a Nissan Quest to tour in.  I wonder how "Bunni" Carlos feels about it.

This is just one of many articles that I appreciated.  Check it out.

Song in My Head

One of the greatest, unheralded bands would be Big Star.  Sure, some of you might know them from their song, "In the Streets" which was the theme song for That 70's Show.  They used the original for the 1st season, and then  Cheap Trick performed it from there on.  I feel Big Star, and more specifically, key songwriter, guitarist, and singer Alex Chilton is one of the great originators of the power pop genre.  Their 1974 song, "September Gurls" is one of those great lost classics. It's one of those songs that when you hear it, you can tell the influence it had on so many other musicians.  Even today, Katy Perry's producer was such a fan, that he asked her to spell out her song "California Gurls" with the "U" as a tribute to the band.

The song is ranked in the top 200 songs of all time by Rolling Stone magazine, but seriously, how many of you truly know it?  I like the studio rehearsal version best, but here is the record version.

Enjoy.

A Not So Super Supergroup

ELP, Asia, Cream, Electronic, Audioslave, Them Crooked Vultures, The Good the Bad and the Queen, The New Pornographers -- let's talk Supergroups. Here's one you might not know about -- Tinted Windows. The band featured guitarist James Iha of Smashing Pumpkins, bassist Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne, drummer Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick and vocalist Taylor Hanson of Hanson. In 2009, they had a single - "Kind of a Girl" - that really didn't go anywhere. Here's the video.