GIRLSCHOOL-ABROAD!

GIRLSCHOOL-ABROAD!

FEATURES

J. Kordosh

Things were hectic in Girlschool's dressing room. In an hour or so they'd be opening a show for Deep Purple—a spot previously occupied by Giuffria. But Giuffria had left the tour two weeks earlier, mostly because Ritchie Blackmore had been generously rewriting their set list, in the same sense that Hitler’s Luftwaffe generously plowed the fields of Poland. That Ritchie’s quite a guy...as Gil Weston of Girlschool told me, “Anything we want, we get.” It kind of makes you wonder what they’d get if they asked for a guest guitar solo by Giuffria’s Craig Goldy.

But, like I said, things were hectic. Jackie Bodimead—the lead singer and one of the new members of Girlschool—was fighting a throat infection. Tim Warhurst, the road manager, was also sick. Come to think of it, I wasn’t feeling that great myself. Kim McAuliffe was reading Pet Sematary and was only on page 64.

So there they were, trying to get ready for the show, trying to talk to me and trying to get over being sick. And it’s not that easy to get over being sick after talking to me. But I digress.

Girlschool has a new line-up— besides Ms. Bodimead, Chris Bonnacci has joined as the latest lead guitarist. (Both played in the British group She, although Chris is an Australian, going over to England after being “discovered” by Mike Oldfield.) Jackie and Chris were asked to join Girlschool after Kelly Johnson, the old lead guitarist, “just didn’t want to be in a hard rock band anymore,” and after Girlschool saw She. For literary purposes it would be splendid if Girlschool saw She eating sushi on a see-saw, but—instead—they saw them at London’s Marquee Club. Such is life. Original members Kim McAuliffe (rhythm guitar and vocals) and Denise Dufort (drums) remain, as does bassist Gil Weston, who came aboard several years ago.

They also have an album out— Running Wild—which is their fourth LP in the States, and their third on Polygram. Ostensibly it’s a mixture of "tough and tender,” much like a cheap cut of meat. But it’s certainly not heavy metal.

“Met-al?” they all more-or-less chorused in those charming British accents when I had the temerity to bring it up. “No-oo-oo!” They proceeded to offer a variety of self descriptions: “It’s just rock.” “Hard rock.” And, of course, the muchtreasured, “Rock ’n’ roll.”

These gals are old friends of Motorhead’s—you may recall their 1981 collaboration, “Please Don’t Touch”—so go ahead and find that hard to believe. I know that I found it hard to believe. In fact, I even said I found it hard to believe.

“I don’t believe that you’re not heavy metal because I read about you

in all these heavy metal magazines,”

I said. And I do.

“Yeah, but heavy metal magazines do all sorts of hard rock things,” offered Ms. McAuliffe.

“No they don’t. They write about Venom and W.A.S.P.” Me, I’m partial to those W.A.S.P. stories myself.

“And they also do things like Bon Jovi and Def Leppard and Rush,” rejoined Ms. McAuliffe. Hmm, she be right.

“No, look at all these bands,” she continued. “Rush is even being called heavy metal and they’re, like, completely different. So all sorts of people call all sorts of bands different things.” Hmm, she be right again.

Well, we bandied about this idea of classifying music for awhile and here’s what we came up with: Girlschool thinks Motorhead is most definitely metal and most definitely utterly fabulous. “I like everything Motorhead’s ever done,” said Kim, speaking—no doubt—of their records. “But especially No Sleep Till Hammersmith—\it’s got pictures of us all over the cover!” But she is undoubtedly biased, as they all still hang out together. In fact, they toured with Motorhead and Helix over the

“What difference does it make -with Marshall stacks and Gibsons-if it’s a female person playing guitar?” —Chris Bonnacci

Christmas holidays, the last five days being “absolutely mad.” Gil and Kim, despite their best intentions, didn’t quite make it to midnight on New Year’s Eve in a conscious state. Kim sums up Girlschool’s debt to Motorhead thusly: “They were the first band we ever toured with, right at the beginning—a proper tour, that is—and they taught us everything we know.” And she laughed.

As far as other groups go,

Girlschool certainly have a mixed view. “Madonna—she’s just for laughs,” opined Denise; someone else added that they have a great recording of “Like A Virgin” by the Lords Of The New Church. Chris likes Joan Jett, everybody likes Yngwie Malmsteen, who they recently toured with, and everybody except Kim likes the Beatles. (Denise: “But the Beatles were brilliant\")

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11

I considered this diversity of views. “You want to talk about rock ’n’ roll—OK, let’s talk about rock ’n’ roll,” I said. “Let’s talk about Belfegore.”

“About what?”

“About Belfegore.”

“About who??”

And it was my turn to laugh.

☆ ☆ ☆

Speaking of other bands, as we just were, Def Leppard is one Girlschool would rather not talk about. Oh, they like Def Lep, all right, but—according to Kim—“It’s just that we’re always getting compared to Def Leppard. I think it’s because we’re changing our direction the same way they did.” Maybe so, but not by embellishing their vocals. I mentioned that they didn’t exactly go for a lot of harmonies on Running Wild.

“You’re joking!” exclaimed Kim in mock horror. “We had 36 different parts!

“No, we didn’t go for them this time,” she continued, more reasonably. "It’s just that when we actually did the tracks we didn’t want to sound like angels and choirs. We didn’t want all those massive harmonies; we just wanted it to be sort of raw.”

In a way, it is sort of raw, but some of that is due to the lyrics, which we’ll call minimalist out of sheer critical perversity. I asked Jackie—who writes ’em—if she didn’t feel they were a little repetitious on Running Wild.

“In what way?” she said, somewhere above a whisper.

“In the way that you keep repeating the same thing over and over again.” Let’s face it, how many ways can you be lyrically repetitive?

“Chorus-wise?” she wondered

“Chorus-wise for sure.” However, the astute listener will notice these are all relationship-type songs, which Jackie doesn’t dispute. She wouldn’t dare; I might bring up Belfegore again. I suppose the fact that the song I liked best on the album—“Do You Love Me”—was written by Paul Stanley, my long standing personal idol, just below Mr. T, tells you something.

To be fair, Kim maintained they didn’t have an unlimited amount of time to record the album, unlike—and this is her comparison—Def Leppard might. In fact, they mentioned that they were rushed in the studio so often during our chat that I finally had to wonder what the big hurry was. At which point, they—just like women—changed their minds and decided they weren’t so rushed after all.

“It’s not that we were rushed,” explained Kim. “It’s just that we had to get back on the road. This thing (the tour) was coming up...”

What, does Blackmore send out bulletins whenever somebody in the opening act uses his tremolo bar? No, there are deeper reasons.

“You see, in Britain we’ve still got quite a good following,” Ms. McAuliffe patiently explained. “But we haven’t done anything in such a long time—recordingwise—that we had to build ourselves up over there again.” Well, at least it’s a reason.

Girlschool also need—and intend—to build up an audience in the States. Which explains why they were eager to step into the Deep Purple opening slot. As to whether or not Americans will eventually take to an entire band of wimmen playing this most cherished rock form, Girlschool isn’t worried.

“What difference does it make—with Marshall stacks and Gibsons—if it’s a female person playing guitar?” asked Chris Bonnacci, a pretty fair picker herself.

“Well, rock is suppossed to be aggressive,” I replied. "I guess the question is: can women be as aggressive as men?”

“Then that’s like saying guys can’t be in pop bands,” Chris quipped. I guess she’s got a point there. And the point of Girlschool?

“We say: get out there and have a good time,” offered Kim McAuliffe. Sound advice, one might say.