40 Year Itch: When Living Is All Uphill

[OUT OF PRINT]


One of the most important female bands in American rock has been buried without a trace. And that is Fanny. They were extraordinary.  They played like motherf*ckers. Revivify Fanny. And I will feel that my work is done.
 — David Bowie

Produced in the wilds of New York by Todd Rundgren ( on the condition he could mix the album without interference), the all-girl rock band Fanny scored their best album with Mothers Pride, released in March of 1973. By then, Fanny had been together three years. That's three years of answer questions about being an all girl rock band and "Feminism". As founder June Millington tells Gillian G Gaar in She's A Rebel : The History of Women in Rock and Roll:

     When the band broke up, I can't say that any of could say that we were 'feminists' by any stretch of the imagination. It was such a dirty word! My mindset was like 'Hey man, I have put myself out on the line here, just holding this fucking electric guitar. Don't put me in any more spots."



June's lyrics reveal some of the frustration she was experiencing as the band toured the world, with the likes of Slade, Jethro Tull and Humble Pie. After the album's release, she left the band. "I didn't have a personal life, and I fell apart."



Trivia:  Keith Moon covered album track "Solid Gold" on his 1975 album Two Sides of the Moon. And , I'd add, the Fanny version sounds like it inspired Liz Phair's entire career.

40 Years Ago This Month: Brinsley Schwarz and Others I Missed

Brinsley Schwarz Silver Pistol


[Buy It]

Four English guys (including bass player Nick Lowe) find the sweet spot between The Band and The Byrds and invent "pub rock". This is Brinsley Schwarz's third album, and the first to feature a fifth member,  guitarist and songwriter Ian Gomm. "Merry Go Round" is a good example of the band's blue collar pop sensibilities. Makes you want to quaff a beer just listening to it.





Eric Andersen Blue River

[Buy It]

As beautiful and well crafted an album as Blue River is said to be, I have to admit I haven't listened to it all that much. Let's call it a "grower". After all The Rolling Stone Record Guide called Blue River "the best example of the 70's singer/songwriter movement" and Andersen did get Joni Mitchell to contribute some ethereal vocals on the title cut ( which I could listen to all day). Somehow the record company lost all the tapes to Andersen's 1973 follow-up album so any momentum Andersen created with Blue River was lost by the time 1975's Be True To You came out.


Fanny Fanny Hill

[Buy The Box Set]

Before the Runaways, The Go Go's or Bangles, there was Fanny, an all chick rock band made up of the two Millington sisters, Nickey Barclay on keyboards and Alice de Buhr on drums.  Richard Perry ( who would later oversee albums by Carly Simon and Ringo Starr) produced the first three Fanny albums, including Fanny Hill from which we're showcasing "Sound And The Fury", a rock n roll road song as told from a woman's point of view. The Go Go's played this live every so often.