All that i need is a beauty and a beat how to#

Though the song failed to take off in Britain, it was big enough back home in California that their audience began to expand beyond the L.A. In 1980, while overseas on tour, the band released a demo for the UK punk label Stiff, led by a rough and tumble version of вЂњ We Got the Beat.вЂќ Composed quickly by Caffey on New YearвЂ™s Day 1980 while вЂњ listening to Motown songs, watching a Twilight Zone marathon, and getting high on a cocktail of stuff,вЂќ the bandвЂ™s first hit is a two-minute ode to lighthearted bliss driven by a supercharged, Duracell Bunny rhythm section. And so the Go-GoвЂ™s began their slow transition away from вЂњ a serious jokeвЂќ to simply serious.

Of the five, Schock had the most experience on her instrument and, sensing the bandвЂ™s potential, she imposed a tighter rehearsal schedule and work ethic. In the summer of 1979, Bello was replaced by Gina Schock, a recent transplant from Baltimore. вЂњOne must admit that the wildly amateurish musical approach of their early days has been replaced by a very competent barrage of near melodic tunes and singing,вЂќ one Slash magazine critic noted in May 1979. Caffey brought in a pop sensibility, and she and Wiedlin quickly became a writing team as the Go-GoвЂ™s became more technically proficient, their music evolved from punk to pop.

All that i need is a beauty and a beat how to#

Yet her presence in the band was transformative, and not just because, as the band often joked, she was the only one who knew how to plug a guitar into an amplifier. punk group the Eyes, had never played lead before. Caffey, who had previously played bass in the L.A. Missing at that debut gig was Charlotte Caffey, who they had invited to join as lead guitarist. Olavarria just wanted to вЂњspit at Valley girls.вЂќДown the street from The Canterbury was The Masque, a ramshackle, heavily graffitied DIY venue in the basement of a porn theater on Hollywood Boulevard where, in May 1978, the Go-GoвЂ™s played their first show. вЂњI wanted to throw up on stage, rip my clothes off, and dye my hair,вЂќ Wiedlin told Flipside in 1979. вЂњSo we figured if they could do it, why couldnвЂ™t we?вЂќ Inspired by the BuzzcocksвЂ™ pop-punk, they wore dresses made of garbage bags and wrote noisy, shambolic songs that celebrated BDSM, taunted music critics, satirized pretentious poseurs, and extolled the grimy hedonism of their digs. вЂњEveryone we hung out with were all in a band and they werenвЂ™t any good,вЂќ Wiedlin later told Sounds. (Subsequent tellings of the bandвЂ™s mythology often ignore OlavarriaвЂ™s contributions, but as Carlisle wrote in her memoir, вЂњshe lit the match that started the fire.вЂќ) The four novice musicians dubbed themselves the Misfits they quickly renamed themselves the Go-GoвЂ™s. As one version of the story goes, outside a house party in Venice, bassist Margot Olavarria invited two girls to join a band she was starting with drummer Elisa Bello: guitarist Jane Wiedlin, a helium-voiced former glitter rocker known as Jane Drano who was studying fashion design, and vocalist Belinda Carlisle, a former high school cheerleader and Monkees fan-club member who was supposed to play drums in the Germs under the name Dottie Danger until she was sidelined by mono. The scene centered largely around The Canterbury, a derelict, roach-infested apartment building where members of the future Go-GoвЂ™s lived. Bands like the Zeros and the Bags spearheaded a community that encouraged the freedom of self-expression and self-celebration. It was a long way from where theyвЂ™d started.ДЄs the Los Angeles punk scene emerged in the late 1970s, it was inclusive, diverse, and pioneered by marginalized voices. Their singles вЂњWe Got the BeatвЂќ and вЂњOur Lips Are SealedвЂќ were international successes, and the bandвЂ™s faces were all over MTV and on the covers of People and Rolling Stone. Unlike the girl groups of the вЂ™60s, the Go-GoвЂ™s operated without any men pulling the strings, without a Svengali figure as their shepherd. While this conveniently ignored the achievements of their pioneering predecessors and contemporaries, there was some truth to the idea.

It was such a big hit that the Go-GoвЂ™s were constantly misnomered as the first successful female band, ever. 1, making the California band the first all-woman group to top the charts with songs theyвЂ™d written and performed themselves. In 1982, the debut album from the Go-GoвЂ™s, Beauty and the Beat, went to No.