Girly Freak Show – Demo (CD)

Girly Freak Show goes down the path of Blondie and Me First, throwing in a little reference here and there to The Donnas. Don’t get me wrong, this is definitely a rougher cut of band than any of those previously mentioned would indicate. With lyrics like “When I stick my face inside his zipper, I just gotta lick it!” (from “My Boyfriend”, we are transferred to the land of Fear-style honestly while being in a Ramones three-chord mindset. Standard rockabilly-styled guitar provides the bridge for the song, as a counterweight to the increasing sine wave of distortion occurring at the same time. What we run into a problem with Girly Freak Show, as well as a number of these poppish-punkish type band, is the desire to go along with the song much too long, even after a good ending time could be found.

We are introduced into a Josie and the Pussycats (the recent movie, not the cartoon) style ditty with straight-forward and female-strengthening (I wouldn’t necessarily call Wendy’s lyrics feminist, but definitely supportive to the movement), in “Too Fat”, a track that details the ever-changing repression of womenkind by the male-led fashion industry. This is detailed in the chorus, “You’re too fat, too small, too black, too white, too short, too tall.”, and really provides one with that shock necessarily to realize that this isn’t some paranoid fantasy – this shit is actually happening to individuals all over the country, all over the world, and it just isn’t right.

To move away from the rant, we are treated next to a song that is ideologically similar to Julie Brown’s “(Everybody Run) The Homecoming Queen’s Got A Gun”, with a tempo that is almost as manic as the feelings that someone feels right after being dumped. Finishing off the disc is “Rain Song”, which begins fairly innocuously, like a song sung by a slightly more feminine Billy Corgan (think “Thirty-Three”) or a sedated Courtney Love (from the “Malibu” period). What really stands out i n this track isn’t Wendy’s vocals, or the strummy acoustic guitar, but the backing violin which weaves itself in and out of the track with the greatest ease. The one thing that I believe that everyone should take from this CD, with its paucity of four songs, is the simple fact is that every track showcases Girly Freak Show in another way. Lets hope to see them on CMJ or M2 in a few months!

Rating: 7.0/10

Top Track : You Can’t Leave Me

Girly Freak Show – Demo / 4 Songs / Self-Released / http://www.girlyfreakshow.com / [email protected] / Reviewed 20 December 2003 / Received 20 November 2003