Last we heard, The Vivian Girls were fighting the losing fight for Abbieannian freedom in the war against the godless Glandelinian overlords in Henry Darger’s idiosyncratic 15,000 page epic “In the Realms of the Unreal.”
But now, The Vivian Girls are back as Brooklyn trio Katy, Frankie and Cassie who are setting out to fight for Eugene’s freedom from another boring month without a quality punk rock show. After only a year as a band and fresh off of the release of their first LP, The Vivian Girls just inked a deal with garage rock powerhouse In The Red Records and will be pushing through a ragtag U.S. tour that stops here with Japanther next Tuesday.
The Vivian Girls’ elegant harmonies might sound a little too sweet to be called punk rock, but their energy is certainly too raw not to be. They’re like a modern day Phil Spector girl group yolked out on speed – and they just stole your last beer. The collective vocal harmony of all three of the girls’ ethereal voices collide with reverbed, shoegazing bass and guitar to fortify a huge wall of sound that only Frankie’s drums can hop, skip and jump across. Their straight-ahead pop mentalities may have caught the ear of In The Red, the launching pad for big timers Jay Reatard and The Black Lips, but it was their weirder stuff that had some other labels smiling. The psychedelic Woodsist Records recently released the Vivian Girls’ unpolished and gritty 7″ that was entirely self-recorded.
“Jeremy, who runs Woodsist, is a good friend of ours and just really loves those recordings. They are a little bit more garage-y,” Frankie said. “They’re recorded kind of, very shittily – but in a really good way. They’re really different from the ones on the LP which are actually mixed very well.”
The 7″ and the LP are both available on this tour that is hitting some very unusual spots. After already playing Jackson, Miss., and Las Cruces, N.M., the Vivian Girls are going to sweep up the west coast and play such gems as Boise, Idaho; Missoula, Mont.; and Des Moines, Iowa.
“Some of the best shows we’ve ever played were in small towns – the kinds of places that you would never think of,” said bassist Katy. “Driving from coast to coast involves long drives unless you stop in the small spots in between, but I think it’s always ended up being better because those shows really are the best”
The Vivian Girls plan to cut their debut single with In The Red this summer with a repress of the LP to follow. After that, it might just get a little bizarre.
“We are planning on recording a really weird cassette later this year,” said guitarist Cassie. “It will be two really long songs on each side with experimental stuff galore and we’re going to call it ‘Scavenger Hunt.’ It’ll have little soundbytes of like, people talking and telephones and birds chirping and possibly hitting the water. It’s going to be really fun for the listener.”
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