Rock goddess

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Rock goddess
Left to right: Jody Turner, Julie Turner and Tracey Lamb
Left to right: Jody Turner, Julie Turner and Tracey Lamb
General information
origin London , England
Genre (s) New Wave of British Heavy Metal , Hard Rock
founding 1977, 1993, 2013
resolution 1987, 1995 as braindance
Current occupation
Jenny Lane
Julie Turner
Jody Turner
former members
Electric guitar, keyboard
Donnica Colman
E-bass, keyboard
 Dee O'Malley
Electric guitar
 Kat Burbella
Electric bass
 Julia Longman
Keyboard
 Becky Axten
Electric bass
 Aki Shibahara
Drums
 Nicola Shaw
Electric guitar
 Isabella Fronzoni
Electric guitar
 Jackie Apperley
Electric guitar (live)
 Kelly Johnson
Electric bass
 Tracey Lamb

Rock Goddess is a new wave of British heavy metal and hard rock band from London , which was founded in 1977 and has been active since then. For a short time the group also called itself braindance .

history

According to Wandsworth, the group's origins go back to the mid-1970s, when the two sisters Jody (13 years old; vocals, electric guitar) and the younger Julie Turner (9 years old; drums) by their father John Turner, who has already played several times had to do with the music business, were encouraged to express themselves musically. In early 1977 they were joined by their 13-year-old school friend and bassist Tracey Lamb, which led to the founding of Rock Goddess. As a keyboardist and guitarist, Donnica Colman was hardly added shortly thereafter. The group held rehearsals in the rehearsal rooms of the father of the Turner sisters, who owned a music shop. He later became the group's manager. He was also a musician himself in the 1960s. Since not all members were 14 years old, the group was initially denied real performances, which is why they concentrated on rehearsing. The band made their first public appearance in 1980 at the 101 Club in Clapham . Until the beginning of 1981 only a handful of concerts were played, usually with one more person on the drums. It wasn't until Julie Turner reached the age of 14 that Rock Goddess was able to legally perform in clubs and get paid to do so. With a first demo , the band was able to secure a place on the 1981 sampler Making Waves by Girlfriend Records with the song Make My Night , on which other bands with only female members can be heard. Karine from Androids of Mu initiated and produced the sampler.

The release allowed the band to increase their notoriety and to tour with The Gymslips and Androids of Mu, two of the bands included on the sampler. Shortly thereafter, the Kerrang magazine became aware of the band and listed them in their Armed and Ready section at the end of 1981 . As a result, the press tried to build a "friendly rivalry" between Rock Goddess and the better-known female-only metal band called Girlschool , but the former band tried to stay out of it and instead convince musically. In 1982 the band was able to make more money through bigger gigs, performing regularly at the Marquee Club . A new demo, which includes the songs One Hot Night , Heavy Metal Rock 'n' Roll , Make My Night and My Angel , gave the band the chance to perform at the 1982 Reading Festival . The demo was produced by Vic Maile . Before the recordings, Donnica Colman had left the cast. The Turner sisters also contributed backing vocals to the Samson song Living, Loving, Lying , which is on the back of the single Red Skies . Through the festival appearance, the band attracted the attention of various labels such as EMI and CBS , whereupon they signed a recording contract for the release of ten albums with A&M Records . Then the recordings for the debut album began. The group was again supported by the girl school producer Vic Maile. The single Heavy Metal Rock 'n' Roll with the B-side Satisfied Then Crucified was released before the end of the year . The single sparked an increased demand from magazines, radio interviews and television appearances. Among others were live versions of the songs Satisfied Then Crucified , Back to You , Take Your Love Away , To Be Betrayed and The Love Lingers Still , all can be heard on the later appearing debut album for Rock Show Friday the BBC added. The appearance aired on November 26, 1982. The band ended the year with their first club tour, where they performed outside of London for the first time. At that time it was still planned to name the debut album The Goddessa File . In early 1983, however, it appeared self-titled instead. More suggestive songs such as Give Me Sex or I Ain't Got a Man to Love were not allowed to be recorded; they were still only performed live.

Because of the album, the band was able to expand their fame and sales were quite satisfactory. The next appearances followed, including participation in the radio show In Concert by BBC Radio . The band contributed a total of half an hour of material and could be heard next to Chevy . The song My Angel was released as the first single on the album and reached number 75 in the UK single charts . In the Heat of the Night and Our Love Is Gone are also included on the record as further songs . The songs cannot be found on any regular album. Kat Burbella joined the group as the second guitarist for performances in the opening act of a European tour by Iron Maiden in April 1983. Meanwhile, Tracey Lamb let out initial discontent with the band. In the second half of the year, however, work on the second album began at the request of A&M Records. Shortly thereafter, Lamb left the line-up after performing at the Hammersmith Odeon and formed her own, also all-female band called She. As a result, Burbella joined this group a short time later. However, this was a short and unsuccessful project and Lamb later went to Girlschool.

The 19-year-old bassist and keyboardist Dee O'Malley soon joined the Turner sisters and the band continued as a trio. Before O'Malley joined the band, they had one more appearance on German television, with girl school guitarist Kelly Johnson helping out. After the relationship between the three had solidified, work on the second album was finished within a few weeks, so that it could be released towards the end of 1983 under the name Hell Hath No Fury . Chris Tsangarides was the producer here . Jody Turner had only had two weeks to write the album. It sold about as well as its predecessor, benefiting from the US release, which came out in 1984 and has a slightly different track list and a different cover. Overall, the two songs were No More and I've Seen It All Before by the title song and I Did not Know I Loved You (Till I Saw You Rock and Roll) , a cover which originally performed by Gary Glitter comes replaced been . The group had to cancel an eight-day tour with UFO because Julie Turner was still attending school and, according to the law, was not allowed to perform more than six concerts in a row.

To promote the album, followed by appearances in Europe with Def Leppard . The series continued with appearances in the supporting act for Fastway . In addition, a tour through the USA with Y&T was carried out, in which Julie Turner could not participate for legal reasons and instead had to leave the drums to a temporary worker. A concert of this was recorded and used for the second participation in In Concert . In 1984 the band situation calmed down a bit and plans were made for appearances in the USA, although the reactions there had been rather restrained up to now. In the same year A&M Records released the single I Didn't Know I Loved You (Till I Saw You Rock and Roll) with the song Hell Hath No Fury as the B-side. Both tracks were touted as exclusive songs, but had previously been used on the US version of the second album. The image on the back of the single is the front cover of the US version of Hell Hath No Fury . The title song of the single reached number 57 in the British single charts. The release was followed by appearances across the UK, with the group also participating in In Concert for the third time . She also played in mainland Europe, where she presented newer compositions such as Here I Go Again or her version of the Cher song Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) , the release of which was planned for the next album. Saxon and Spider booked the band as opening act for a France tour in 1984 and 1985 . Work on this album began later in 1984 with Paul Samson and Chris Tsangarides. The first set of demo recordings remained unpublished, while the second set Darren Wharton of Thin Lizzy keyboard passages were added and Jon Mikl Thor vocals to an updated version of Rock n 'Roll '85 contributed. However, the recordings were terminated abruptly due to the separation from A&M Records.

For the next six months, the group fell silent before they reported back on the British music TV show ECT and confirmed that they would continue to be active. In the show she played Satisfied The Crucified and the new songs So Much Love and Love Is a Bitch . Then the band continued work on the third album with Paul Samson and his friend, producer Jo Julian . A couple of new songs were used because others that the musicians did not consider good enough had been deleted. The recordings were finished in the second half of 1985, but Rock Goddess was still without a record deal. The search continued in 1986 while concerts continued to be given. In return for the help they had received from Paul Samson, the band members contributed backing vocals for the Samson album Joint Forces . The group then won a contract with the French label Just in Distribution , which was interested in releasing the album in limited numbers in Europe. Meanwhile, Dee O'Malley left the band in 1986 due to her pregnancy. The Turner sisters were unexpectedly informed of the exit at short notice and were compensated for by the addition of bassist Julia Longman and keyboardist Becky Axten. Because of O'Malley's departure, the band had to abandon their plan to perform in the United States. With the new line-up, the group went on tour for a total of six months.

The third album Young & Free was released in early 1987, and the single Love Has Passed Me By had already been released on the same label in 1986 . Another song is Just In on the sound carrier. The release of the album was followed by appearances, but due to the lack of support from a major label, almost exclusively in Great Britain. Since the album was only released outside of Great Britain in small numbers, the release went almost unnoticed, whereupon Rock Goddess disbanded in the fall of 1987. The members tried to found other projects, but only the Turner sisters with the Jody Turner Band succeeded in this. Interest in the band flared up again briefly in 1994 when Young & Free was first released on CD in Great Britain via Thunderbolt Records .

In the second half of 1993 the band came together again and now consisted of Jody Turner, guitarist Isabella Fronzoni, bassist Aki Shibahara and drummer Nicola Shaw. After Fronzoni left the line-up, Turner renamed the band Braindance. After two years and a few rehearsals and concerts, it came to an end.

Tracey Lamb and Jody Turner at Headbangers Open Air 2015

In December 2009, the reformed band could be seen at the Hard Rock Hell Festival . A gig at the Headbangers Open Air was planned for the next year, but it was canceled because the band was no longer active. In March 2013 the band, again consisting of the Turner sisters and Lamb, got together permanently and rehearsed from April 2014 for a new album, which was provisionally called Unfinished Business . In 2015 and 2017 the band managed to get engaged to perform at the Headbangers Open Air. In 2015 she was also seen at the Sweden Rock Festival . The following year the group took part in Keep It True . The band was also looking for the other recordings that had been made between Hell Hath No Fury and Young & Free in order to publish them as an album with previously unreleased pieces. The originally planned fourth studio album failed to materialize. The trio instead recorded and released an EP.

Tracey Lamb left Rock Goddess in July 2018 and was replaced by Jenny Lane three months later. Lamb then reconnected with her girl school bandmates and returned to them in early 2019 to replace bassist Enid Williams, who had left the band permanently. After a delay, the new rock Goddess roster released its fourth album in February 2019 and the first in over 30 years entitled This Time .

style

Malc Macmillan stated in his book The NWOBHM Encyclopedia that Kerrang magazine named groups like Black Sabbath , Led Zeppelin , Iron Maiden, Def Leppard and Kiss as influences of the band. The music of Rock Goddess is “heavier” and slippery than that of the more accessible group Girlschool or that of other bands with front women like Canis Major , After Hours and Thin End of the Wedge . On the debut single, the compositional structure of Girlschool and The Runaways was taken as a basis and enriched with the attitude of The Slits and the aggression of PMT , paving the way for later bands such as L7 , Babes in Toyland and Lunachicks . The music of the debut album is powerful and uncompromising, with many of the songs revolving around sex. Hell Hath No Fury is more "polished" and for the first time also uses keyboard elements, whereby the album penetrates into more ambitious areas. Young & Free is more catchy and cultivated, although some songs seem unidentified and interchangeable.

Otger Jeske wrote in NWoBHM New Wave of British Heavy Metal The Glory Days that the band doesn't sound like a girl school imitation on the debut album, because Jody Turner was heavily influenced by Iron Maiden and Def Leppard when writing the songs. Neil Jeffries found in his book Kerrang! The Direktory of Heavy Metal that the band plays traditional metal, but that doesn't come close to that of girl school. Lee Martyn revealed in his book Masters of Metal that Julie Turner was most heavily influenced by Queen drummer Roger Meddows-Taylor . Overall, the group was inspired by Led Zeppelin, AC / DC , Y&T and Iron Maiden. The rhythm section is very "heavy" in the songs, which means that powerful guitar solos are possible. The singing receives harmonious support from the other two members. The debut album is varied, virtuoso and professional, with songs like Satisfied Then Crucified more reminiscent of macho men wearing leather clothes. You look in vain for soft or sweet looking elements on the album. The second album looks more polished. According to metaladies.com , Jody Turner started the band based on the success of The Runaways. In an interview with Greg Moffitt from ironfistzine.com , the band stated that they came into contact with music primarily through the father of the Turner sisters and that it was thanks to him that the band was founded. Tracey Lamb named AC / DC, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, The Runaways, and Van Halen as influences, while Jody added Kiss. Moffitt noticed a punk influence, especially in the early recordings . Jody confirmed this by saying that the members were fans of the Sex Pistols at the time. In an interview with Dimitris Kazantzis from rockpages.gr , Jody Turner named The Runaways as a major influence on the group and also found sonic parallels to this, while she did not consider a comparison to Girlschool to be meaningful. todestrieb.co.uk reproduced the Kerrang article from the Armed and Ready section , in which it was written that the band was somewhat reminiscent of the raw power of Motörhead , with Girlschool being more melodic, and occasionally showing similarities to Judas Priest .

Martin Popoff wrote in The Collector's Guide of Heavy Metal Volume 2: The Eighties that the band is the sequel to Girlschool. On the debut album there are tonal parallels to this band, but also to The Runaways and Quiet Riot . The band include the whole history of female hard rock bands in their songs and also process elements of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. The band avoid imitating the sound of these genres or that of girl school, however. Hell Hath No Fury have a screaming and silly character and mutate into "garage metal" due to the poor production. There would be too many sounds typical of the 1980s. Charm has been replaced by modern elements, wild elements by synthetic sounding group chants and Raison d'Être by wild party rock numbers. Charly Rinne from Metal Hammer wrote about the single I Didn't Know I Loved You (Till I Saw You Rock and Roll) that he was rather bored with the original by Gary Glitter at the time and that Rock Goddess has now given this song power. According to Matthias Mader from Rock Hard , the band used to be called "Girl Schools Little Sisters". A few years later, Mader referred to the group in another issue as "[t] he NWOBHM's most popular all-girl formation after girl school", with the first two albums being genre classics. The third album is out of the ordinary and can be compared with the “failed” girl school album Running Wild . In an interview with him, Jody Turner stated that she has always viewed rock goddess as a mixture of metal and punk. In an older issue of the magazine Uwe Lerch wrote about Hell Hath No Fury that the band wants to sound harder on this than before, but you can't tell much about it. It doesn't sound any different than girl school. He particularly noticed “Jody Turner's grating voice”, which, however, was reduced in quality by the choir singing.

Discography

  • 1981: Demo 1981 (demo, self-published)
  • 1982: Demo 1982 (demo, self-published)
  • 1982: Heavy Metal Rock 'n' Roll (single, A&M Records )
  • 1983: My Angel (single, A&M Records)
  • 1983: Rock Goddess (Album, A&M Records)
  • 1983: Hell Hath No Fury (Album, A&M Records)
  • 1984: I Didn't Know I Loved You (Till I Saw You Rock and Roll) (Single, A&M Records)
  • 1986: Love Has Passed Me By (Single, Just In Distribution )
  • 1987: Young & Free (Album, Just In Distribution)
  • 1998: Rock Goddess / Hell Hath No Fury (compilation, Renaissance Records )
  • 2007: Anthology (compilation, Renaissance Records)
  • 2017: It's More Than Rock and Roll (single, self-published)
  • 2019: This Time (Album)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Tony Jasper, Derek Oliver: The International Encyclopedia of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal . Facts on File Inc., New York 1983, ISBN 0-8160-1100-1 , pp. 281 .
  2. ↑ a b c d Colin Larkin: The Guinness Who's Who of Heavy Metal Second Edition . Guinness Publishing, Enfield, Middlesex, England 1995, ISBN 0-85112-656-1 , pp. 299 f .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Greg Moffitt: ROCK GODDESS INTERVIEW: “WE WERE LIVING THE DREAM”. ironfistzine.com, accessed March 17, 2018 .
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Malc Macmillan: The NWOBHM Encyclopedia . IP Verlag Jeske / Mader GbR, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-931624-16-3 , p. 484 ff .
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Matthias Mader, Otger Jeske, Manfred Kerschke: NWoBHM New Wave of British Heavy Metal The glory Days . Iron Pages, Berlin 1995, p. 49 ff .
  6. ^ A b c Lee Martyn: Masters of Metal . Zomba Books, London 1984, ISBN 0-946391-48-3 , pp. 88 .
  7. ↑ a b c d e Toine van Poorten: Back To The Past (15): ROCK GODDESS. metalmaidens.com, accessed March 18, 2018 .
  8. ↑ a b ROCK GODDESS. officialcharts.com, accessed March 16, 2018 .
  9. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Biography. rockdetector.com, archived from the original on June 25, 2016 ; accessed on March 17, 2018 .
  10. ↑ a b c Rock Goddess. metaladies.com, accessed March 18, 2018 .
  11. ↑ Jörg Müller: Headbangers Open Air 2010: Rock Goddess out. the-pit.de, accessed on March 17, 2018 .
  12. ↑ ROCK GODDESS Is Back For 'Unfinished Business'. Blabbermouth.net , accessed March 17, 2018 .
  13. ↑ ROCK GODDESS CONFIRMED FOR HEADBANGERS OPEN AIR 2015. 29th October 2014. metaltalk.net, accessed March 17, 2018 .
  14. ↑ Festival: Preview: Headbangers Open Air 2017. Festival from 07/27/2017. metalinside.de, accessed on March 17, 2018 .
  15. ↑ Video: ROCK GODDESS Performs At SWEDEN ROCK FESTIVAL. Blabbermouth.net, accessed March 18, 2018 .
  16. ↑ Video: ROCK GODDESS Performs At Germany's KEEP IT TRUE Festival. Blabbermouth.net, accessed March 18, 2018 .
  17. ↑ a b Matthias Mader: Rock Goddess . Girls, girls, girls. In: Rock Hard . No. 341 , October 2015.
  18. ↑ ROCK GODDESS Parts Ways With Bassist TRACEY LAMB. Blabbermouth.net, July 10, 2018, accessed January 27, 2020 .
  19. ↑ ROCK GODDESS Announces New Bassist. Blabbermouth.net, October 9, 2018, accessed January 27, 2020 .
  20. ^ Girlschool part ways with Enid Williams again. In: Classic Rock. Louder, January 29, 2019, accessed January 27, 2020 .
  21. ↑ Rock Goddess: 'This Time' album Pushed Back To February. Blabbermouth.net, August 31, 2018, accessed January 27, 2020 .
  22. ↑ Neil Jeffries: Kerrang! The Directory of Heavy Metal . Virgin Books, London 1993, ISBN 0-86369-761-5 , pp. 189 .
  23. ↑ Dimitris Kazantzis: Rock Goddess. rockpages.gr, accessed March 18, 2018 .
  24. ↑ 35 Years Ago: ROCK GODDESS release Rock Goddess. todestrieb.co.uk, accessed March 18, 2018 .
  25. ↑ Martin Popoff : The Collector's Guide of Heavy Metal Volume 2: The Eighties . Collectors Guide Ltd, Burlington, Ontario, Canada 2005, ISBN 978-1-894959-31-5 , pp. 290 .
  26. ↑ Charly Rinne: Rock Goddess . I Didn't Know I Loved You… In: Metal Hammer . May 1984, p. 53 .
  27. ^ Matthias Mader: Queens of Noise. Women In The New Wave Of British Heavy Metal . Rock goddesses. In: Rock Hard . No. 371 , April 2018, p. 73 .
  28. ↑ Uwe Lerch: Rock Goddess . Hell Hath No Fury. In: Rock Hard . No. November 3 , 1983.