Fanny, the band

Message Bookmarked
Bookmark Removed
This band first piqued my interest when I read about them in *ahem* "Women Who Rock" and AMG categorizes them as "proto-punk" but based on the two songs I've been able to find, I'm having some serious doubts.

Is this band worth a squirt or what?

may pang (maypang), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 05:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Considering the only thing which is/was readily available is that gigantic Rhino Handmade boxed set, I would say no, but they are certainly not bad and if anyone released the first three albums, I would say that they are worth owning if you are into that sort of thing (power pop, basically).

Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 05:34 (twenty-two years ago)

proto-punk they are not.
you can prob. order from ladyslipper music

Orbit (Orbit), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 05:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Ebay it is then.

may pang (maypang), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 05:46 (twenty-two years ago)

they are historically impt, esp. in the lesbian feminist community.

Orbit (Orbit), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 05:49 (twenty-two years ago)

I want to hear Birtha, myself.

Broheems (diamond), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 05:50 (twenty-two years ago)

also see Alix Dobkin "Lavender Jane Loves Women"

Orbit (Orbit), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 05:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Jewish lesbian folk.

Great.

may pang (maypang), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 06:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Don't forget the Berkeley Women's Music Collective! I have that record. I don't think I've ever made it all the through.

Broheems (diamond), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 06:06 (twenty-two years ago)

an aside, Fanny's June Millington runs a recording school/music co-op in Bodega Bay.

Orbit (Orbit), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 06:11 (twenty-two years ago)

i interviewed her in 1997. they were also starting a distribution co-op, kind of like a mordam for women.

Orbit (Orbit), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 06:16 (twenty-two years ago)

I fear I know too much about Fanny now.

may pang (maypang), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 06:20 (twenty-two years ago)

if i don't shut up, you will know even more!

Orbit (Orbit), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 06:20 (twenty-two years ago)

"Charity Ball" ROXXXX. Glam!

Douglas (Douglas), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 06:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Sold.

may pang (maypang), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 06:30 (twenty-two years ago)

stuff i've heard sounded like soft rock. not bad, but overdone.

el sabor de gene (yournullfame), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 09:08 (twenty-two years ago)

fourteen years pass...

On The Yahoo mainpage today...Fanny Reunion!

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/story-unsung-female-rock-pioneers-fanny-society-not-ready-accept-us-224313039.html

...some of y'all too woke to function (C. Grisso/McCain), Sunday, 4 March 2018 20:22 (eight years ago)

eleven months pass...

This video keeps popping up and I finally watched it. Intrigued, a little.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imZUqkPlUaQ

Only a Factory URL (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 28 February 2019 01:41 (seven years ago)

Kind of surprising how much Fanny footage is out there. Bunch of European TV stuff up on YT.

a large tuna called “Justice” (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, 28 February 2019 21:49 (seven years ago)

Yeah, the whole Beat Club performance is ace - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcb1HpH42N8

MaresNest, Thursday, 28 February 2019 23:31 (seven years ago)

smokin'

calumy (rip van wanko), Friday, 1 March 2019 00:38 (seven years ago)

https://static.messynessychic.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Screenshot-2019-02-22-at-11.16.06.png

a large tuna called “Justice” (C. Grisso/McCain), Sunday, 10 March 2019 00:16 (seven years ago)

I have become addicted to their cover of "Badge" which I put on par w/ the original (high praise from me since the original is pretty much the only thing I rate from Cream).

Standard line on them back in the day-at least from Christgau and Metal Mike-was that they were terrific live but mediocre on record, supposedly the result of R. Perry playing down their rockin' aspects in pursuit of getting them on AM stations. I've only listened to their covers but that's part of what I find intriguing about them: the contrast between slick vocals not far from say Rita Coolidge or Nicolette Larson and a heavier instrumental attack that could fit nicely on any hard rock station.

Also, did they change the gender of the kid married to Mabel from he to she? I believe they did!

gjoon1, Monday, 11 March 2019 02:04 (seven years ago)

That standard line is kind of true. The band's problem--shared with bands like the Raspberries and Badfinger--was negotiating the fine line between FM Rocking and AM Popping. They weren't quite as successful doing so as those aforementioned bands but--I dunno, at almost 50 (!) years remove (and only have YT footage to gauge their considerable live prowess), I find Fanny in the studio rocking satisfactorily, and have more issues w/their ballads, which get quite syrup-y. I have the four Reprise LPs on vinyl; I find Charity Ball to be the most consistent, but they all have their pluses. Mother's Pride, the fourth one, has a big glossy Rock production from Rundgren.

a large tuna called “Justice” (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 11 March 2019 02:44 (seven years ago)

two weeks pass...

Finally made time for that full Beat Club performance...killer stuff.

Here's a slightly later clip w/two songs and an interview from French TV:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNUM-z0xmso

a large tuna called “Justice” (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 27 March 2019 20:39 (seven years ago)

one year passes...

oh shit my kid just played their marvin cover and sent me to the beat club clip. that is the only next step of that song that is permissible. so good.

pence's eye juice (Hunt3r), Thursday, 19 November 2020 18:34 (five years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_O0MQF4ySU

pence's eye juice (Hunt3r), Thursday, 19 November 2020 19:37 (five years ago)

hell yeah

brimstead, Thursday, 19 November 2020 21:05 (five years ago)

June millington’s album Running from 1983 has some jams, it’s pretty smoooooth tho

brimstead, Friday, 20 November 2020 03:36 (five years ago)

I have become addicted to their cover of "Badge" which I put on par w/ the original (high praise from me since the original is pretty much the only thing I rate from Cream).

Standard line on them back in the day-at least from Christgau and Metal Mike-was that they were terrific live but mediocre on record, supposedly the result of R. Perry playing down their rockin' aspects in pursuit of getting them on AM stations. I've only listened to their covers but that's part of what I find intriguing about them: the contrast between slick vocals not far from say Rita Coolidge or Nicolette Larson and a heavier instrumental attack that could fit nicely on any hard rock station.

Also, did they change the gender of the kid married to Mabel from he to she? I believe they did!

Just went down the same path, first listening to “Hey Bulldog,” and tend to agree.

Indieland Phil and Indieland Don (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 20 November 2020 04:09 (five years ago)

ten months pass...

I bought a used copy of Charity Ball 30-35 years ago, shelved it after one play--just not for me. The documentary's pretty good, though. The Millington sisters started out in some all-female band in the mid-'60s called the Sveltes; don't think they ever recorded. One of them, Jean, after dating Bowie, went on to marry Earl Slick (June was already out in the '70s). Suzie's sister Patti Quatro was in the band for a time.

clemenza, Tuesday, 19 October 2021 03:32 (four years ago)

Patti's on their last album, which spun off their biggest hit, "Butter Boy".

Precious, Grace, Hill & Beard LTD. (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 19 October 2021 03:39 (four years ago)

I adore “come and hold me”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UHw0fbZHPE

brimstead, Tuesday, 19 October 2021 03:55 (four years ago)

one month passes...

Beat Club just put this up, one my favorite Fanny things, their cover of Ike & Tina's "Young and Dumb" (a live staple, a studio version came out as b-side I think?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4l6FU74pUY

Precious, Grace, Hill & Beard LTD. (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 22 November 2021 23:50 (four years ago)

Thanks! Also, you've somehow reminded me of Goldie and the Gingerbreads, one of the first all female bands--I only knew of them via mentions and quoted in Scaduto's Mick Jagger---Everybody's Lucifer, from during their tyme as house band(?) in an NYC rock disco, I think---um, point is: I somehow thought they were only that, but just now found a bunch of tracks on YouTube:
https://www.google.com/search?tbm=vid&q=goldie+and+the+gingerbreads&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwitrLv8sK30AhXMQ_EDHauvCaMQ8ccDegQIchAD&biw=1094&bih=510&dpr=1.25

I knew that Goldie was later known as Genya Ravan, promoted as NOO YAWK's answer to Janis, later, Lou Reed showed up on at least one of her tracks.
Goldie history here---origins in Richard Perry's (!) college band, The Escorts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldie_and_the_Gingerbreads
note to self:
Compilation Album

Thinking About The Good Times: Complete Recordings 1964-1966 Compilation, Goldie and the Gingerbreads, 2021 Ace

dow, Tuesday, 23 November 2021 02:15 (four years ago)

Can't resist:
uture careers
Genya Ravan went on to form Ten Wheel Drive and a career in record production and radio. She produced the Dead Boys 1977 debut album Young Loud and Snotty. She now hosts two radio shows on Little Steven's Underground Garage channel on Sirius/XM: Goldie's Garage and Chicks and Broads. Ravan's memoirs, entitled Lollipop Lounge: Memoirs of a Rock and Roll Refugee, were published in 2004 by Billboard Books.[17]

Carol MacDonald and Ginger Bianco later formed the nucleus of jazz-fusion band Isis.[18]

Margo Lewis is owner and president of Talent Consultants International, Ltd., a talent booking agency in New York, and a partner in Talent Source, Ltd, which manages the estate of Bo Diddley. Lewis toured with Diddley as his personal manager and as his keyboard player for the last 10 years of his life.

dow, Tuesday, 23 November 2021 02:17 (four years ago)

It was Trude Heller’s (discotheque) on 6th Avenue and 9th St. in Manhattan where Goldie & the Gingerbreads played in the ‘60s. You can see the place in the Goldie Hawn film Cactus Flower (1969), where it’s renamed The Slipped Disc.

Josefa, Tuesday, 23 November 2021 02:26 (four years ago)

There was a Goldie track on the Rhino Girl Groups box.

Iirc, during one of their British tours, Margo Lewis was brought in to do organ overdubs on "Midnight To Six Man" by the Pretty Things.

Precious, Grace, Hill & Beard LTD. (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 23 November 2021 03:05 (four years ago)

Thanks yall! What Goldie told Scaduto incl. that New York girls would go crazy while the Stones were onstage, dirty as hell, with grease dripping off their hair under the lights. and they'd go strutting off that way---come back way later in tailored suits, perfect hair, shining like they'd been in the shower for hours.
"I said, 'Wow! Why didn't you guys clean up like that before?' 'It's good for business.' What could I say? It was true."

dow, Tuesday, 23 November 2021 03:52 (four years ago)

four months pass...

A friend's Facebook link also sent me down an, er, deep fanny wormhole on YouTube

This is wonderful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YH-MJmWVhw

Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, 21 April 2022 15:15 (four years ago)

Look at the haze over LA haha

Would have been fun to see them at the Whisky.

immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Thursday, 21 April 2022 15:25 (four years ago)

so good. all their live clips are always so much tougher than the records. would love a cleaned-up archival live release from them.

nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Thursday, 21 April 2022 15:35 (four years ago)

I've posted this elsewhere, but their cover of Hey Bulldog is fucking amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdwzko9DZ0s

bookmarkflaglink (Darin), Thursday, 21 April 2022 19:00 (four years ago)

Trailer for doc, finally finished and shown in 2021:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdwzko9DZ0s

dow, Friday, 22 April 2022 18:41 (four years ago)

Sorry! Here tis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zspd9hFRtkw

dow, Friday, 22 April 2022 18:42 (four years ago)

six months pass...

Neat vintage British tea ad w/cool Fanny footage (no sound unfortunately)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRPznaQKtag

an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 9 November 2022 02:16 (three years ago)

six months pass...

Finally on my PBS:https://aptv.org/apt-news/fanny-the-right-to-rock-2/"> https://aptv.org/apt-news/fanny-the-right-to-rock-2/

dow, Thursday, 18 May 2023 23:00 (three years ago)

Dunno why dup--the one after> works.

dow, Thursday, 18 May 2023 23:03 (three years ago)

ten months pass...

https://realgonemusic.com/products/fanny-live-on-beat-club-71-72-cd

Are you ready to hear the best live band of the early ‘70s? We at Real Gone Music have been privileged and proud to release Fanny’s four classic Reprise albums, each a tuneful testament as to why they were the first all-female band signed to a major label. But there has always been a piece missing from the Fanny fable; for while the band hooked up with big-time producers and engineers like Richard Perry, Todd Rundgren, and Geoff Emerick, their studio albums never really were able to capture the sheer excitement they could generate in concert. However, buried away in a vault thousands of miles away from their Los Angeles base there long lay a recording that could make the Fanny myth a reality, one that could provide the emphatic answer as to why these four ladies were the hottest ticket on the Sunset Strip during the early ‘70s. Now, over 50 years later, its time—and their time—has come. Live on Beat-Club ’71-’72 presents the two sets Fanny recorded for the German TV show, mastered by Mike Milchner of Sonic Vision from hi-res mono files taken from the original videotape. Aside from the incendiary and incredibly tight performances, what immediately becomes apparent is that all four of these women were powerhouses in her own right. June Millington’s stringbending Les Paul wizardry, her sister Jean’s driving, melodic bass lines and Janis Joplin-esque vocals, Nickey Barclay’s intricate yet somehow rocking keyboard work, and Alice de Buhr’s precise, piston-like drumming punctuated by ferocious fills—put together Fanny was an overwhelming display of talent, Yet somehow, as these shows reveal, live they were greater than the sum of their parts. That’s why getting these recordings released has long been a crusade for Alice, and why June tells the story in the accompanying liner notes (which feature contributions from June, Jean, and Alice) that the engineer who was assigned to do the transfers of all the Beat-Club material told her that their material was the best in the vault, better even than Hendrix. We are releasing this invaluable archival recording on juicy peach vinyl and on CD with a bonus track of the soundcheck to boot. Essential for a full understanding of ‘70s rock!

1. Charity Ball
2. Place in the Country
3. Hey Bulldog
4. Thinking of You
5. Ain't That Peculiar
6. Blind Alley
7. Special Care
8. Borrowed Time
9. Summer Song
10. Knock on My Door
11. Young and Dumb
12. Soundcheck

an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 16 April 2024 19:19 (two years ago)

Rad, been waiting for somebody to properly issue these, can finally retire the youtube rips i’ve been listening to all this time

waste of compute (One Eye Open), Tuesday, 16 April 2024 19:53 (two years ago)


You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.