#the go go's

[80sheaven]

Belinda Carlisle, 1980s

[punkrockhistory]

Happy Birthday Jane Wiedlin, co-founder, rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist of the all female band The Go-Go's and also the drummer and backup vocalist of the rock band The Hex Girls, born on this day in 1958

[theunderestimator-2]

“Oh, to be young. To still be one's own hero.” (David Guterson): the late Marilyn Dean & Kathy Valentine, drummer & guitarist of The Violators, Austin's 1st (?) punk band, here at Randy's Rodeo for The Sex Pistols show in San Antonio on Jan. 8, 1978, as captured by Tom McMahon.

austinchronicle.com/ :"When The Violators and the Skunks invade Raul's, fourteen days after the Sex Pistols break up and mainstream media declares punk dead, Austin's scene begins at a Tejano bar…", [before a crowd of no more than maybe 50 or 60, since a 100 was a big crowd at Raul's at those first shows.] "The Violators were very young kids," says [The Skunks'] Blackmon. "Marilyn was like 16, Kathy was 16, Carla was probably 21. Jesse was probably the best musician in that band, off the top of my head. Carla was good. They were just kids playing fast English punk music. Those were our influences at that time." "It was mainly people who didn't seem to know what to make of cute girls playing guitars and drums," remembers Valentine. "More than the music, it was the fact that we were female that they had no reference for. The only females in Austin doing this played fiddle – Marcia Ball was the only real musician in a band. Everybody else played fiddle or sang or were folk people." "…More than anything, it was the shock of the new. The Violators were mostly young, attractive women playing loud, fast, Sex Pistols-meets-Ramones punk. And they were doing this in a Tejano bar on the Drag, in a town musically ruled by Cosmic Cowboys and white bluesmen. Everything was changing. You either changed with it, or you opposed it. There was no room for the lukewarm…."

Marilyn & Kathy met in high school & quickly became best friends, the teen kind that does everything together: as Kathy Valentine recalls, they started bands, went to clubs, met boys and dreamt of big things in life, even moved out to LA together in 1978 but as it so often happens in life, they drifted apart after a falling out. Kathy later went on to play bass in The Go-Go's and sadly Marylin Dean passed away in recent years.

Photo & info via Tim Stegall's 'Austin Punk Chronicles' at austinchronicle.com.

(via, via & via)

[the-hottest-band-tournament]

Round Four of The Hottest 80s Band Tournament

Guns N’Roses 

Defeated opponents: ZZ Top, Pantera, A-Ha

Formed in: 1985

Genres: Hard rock 

Lineup: Axl Rose- vocals 

Slash- lead guitar

Izzy Stradlin- rhythmic guitar

Duff McKagan- bass

Steven Adler- drums 

Albums from the 80s: 

Appetite for destruction (1987)

G N’ R Lies (1988)

Propaganda: the sluttiest a man can do is be in the Guns’N Roses’s original lineup 

The Go Go’s

Defeated opponents: Kraftwerk, Commodores

Formed in: 1978

Genres: new wave, power pop, pop rock, punk rock 

Lineup: Belinda Carlisle- vocals 

Jane Weidlin- rhythm guitar

Charlotte Caffey- lead guitar

Gina Schock- drums

Kathy Valentine- bass

Albums from the 80s: 

Beauty and the Beat (1981)

Vacation (1982) 

Talk Show (1984)

Propaganda: While their biggest hits were very bubblegum and upbeat, these girls came up in the LA Punk scene and had the bite to back that up. Rolling Stone ranked the Hardest Partying Bands and The Go Go's came in 3rd, right behind Mötley Crüe and Led Zeppelin. Their songs are certified bops and great to blast on a road trip and their style was pure LA Mall Rat which, frankly, still iconic.

Visual propaganda for Guns N’Roses:

[fangomusic]

Brilliant '80s albums on cassette.

[higherentity]

[emelies80s]

The Go go's

[70s80sandbeyond]

[80s-song-smackdown]

80 New Wave Tournament Side A

[myimaginaryradio]

Our Lips Are Sealed - The Go-Go's

[everydayblog]

The Go Go’s

[musicmusicalme]

The Go Go's

[the-hottest-band-tournament]

Round Three of The Hottest 80s Band Tournament

The Go Go’s

Defeated opponents: Kraftwerk, Commodores

Formed in: 1978

Genres: new wave, power pop, pop rock, punk rock 

Lineup: Belinda Carlisle- vocals 

Jane Weidlin- rhythm guitar

Charlotte Caffey- lead guitar

Gina Schock- drums

Kathy Valentine- bass

Albums from the 80s: 

Beauty and the Beat (1981)

Vacation (1982) 

Talk Show (1984)

Propaganda: While their biggest hits were very bubblegum and upbeat, these girls came up in the LA Punk scene and had the bite to back that up. Rolling Stone ranked the Hardest Partying Bands and The Go Go's came in 3rd, right behind Mötley Crüe and Led Zeppelin. Their songs are certified bops and great to blast on a road trip and their style was pure LA Mall Rat which, frankly, still iconic.

Thin Lizzy

Defeated opponents: The Human League, The Jesus and Mary Chain

Formed in: 1969

Genres: Hard rock, heavy metal

Lineup: Phil Lynott- bass, vocals

Scott Gorham- guitar

Snowy White- guitar

Darren Wharton- keyboards, organ

Brian Downey- drums, percussion

Albums from the 80s:

Chinatown (1980)

Renegade (1981)

Thunder and Lightning (1983)

Propaganda: 

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

The Roches - Metropol, Berlin, Germany, November 3, 1982

Sometimes, nothing but The Roches sounds good. Here, we've got an excellent Rockpalast performance from around the time of the Keep On Doing LP. Maggie, Terre and Suzzy kick things off in fine fashion with that album's "Losing True," sending laser beams of pure harmony out into the crowd of rowdy Berliners. Somehow, that crowd remains a little rowdy throughout the Roches set — how??? Well, it turns out they were waiting for the Go-Go's, who were riding high on a few new wave hits at the time. Can we check out the Go-Go's, too? Oh yeah, we can.

But before you do that, dig the one-two punch that The Roches close with — Dylan's "Clothesline Saga" and "Hammond Song." That Dylan cover is an especially inspired choice, allowing the sisters to inhabit a number of characters and voices, uttering gnomic riddles and otherwise unspeakable truths beneath everyday exchanges. That's kinda the same thing that happens on "Hammond Song," too. Has Bob ever listened to "Hammond Song"? I bet he has.