Friday, August 22, 2008

THE GIRLS-REUNION, LP, 1986, USA





This staggering and wildly high strung Boston based synth punk unit only managed to eke out one single (1979's Jeffrey I Hear You/The Elephant Man, produced by Pere Ubu's David Thomas) during their brief life span. What we have here is a document of a reunion gig circa '86, though sonically it's entirely of a piece with their initial output. Though the sound of The Girls is virtually definitive synth punk and can be aesthetically situated somewhere between The Screamers and Devo's earliest recordings, it might be more fitting to tag them as art rockers, considering that both guitarist Mark Dagley (who'd move to New York and form Hi-Sherrifs Of Blue after The Girls break-up) and bassist George Condo would both go on to have high profile careers in the visual arts world; particularly Condo, whose work can be found in the permanent collections of modern art museums worldwide, while Vocalist David Hild (whose vocals must rank among the most neurotically wound up ever) would follow his work here with a collaborative LP with Tin Huey's Ralph Carney and Shimmy Disc head honcho Kramer, and Robin Amos would proceed from here to the equally bent and synth punked outfit Shut Up! (available elsewhere on Mutant Sounds) before going on to found the superb Cul De Sac. Absolutely galvanizing shite that'll have you synth punk fanboys out there bouncing off the goddamn walls with idiot glee.

Get it Here

16 comments:

Psyence Guy said...

Wows thanks. Crazy stuff!

Josh said...

this is a great record...

Anonymous said...

if anyone can help me with daved hild rare recordings , please send info

sonicsum1@hotmail.co.uk

Anonymous said...

Ah, wonderful! I lost my burn copy of this a year ago. Thanks a lot. Great album!

-jmurphy

Anonymous said...

This was not a reunion gig. BY 1986 Mark was a Hari Krishna living in the East Village. This was a studio album produced by Someone & the Sombodies Robbie Davis back when the Girls still existed. It just was never released until 86.

mdsgcg said...

thanks tonnes...question: where's the post girls robin amos write up and shut up! information...couldn't find it anywhere. Anything more on Tin Huey or that Tin Huey collaboration would be brilliant as well.

Anonymous said...

Great album, very happy to find this - I'd only heard the single on Hearthan before.

Mark Dagley now runs the Abaton Book Company label releasing all sorts of strange and wonderful music, plays in Pothole Skinny, in addition to being a part of Marianne Nowottny & The All American Band, who made an awesome punky electro EP last year on Sad Gnome.

mdsgcg said...

love this record; if anyone has any recommendations for other albums / eps for people that like this one...then please let us know !

Term Papers said...

The Screamers and Devo's earliest recordings, it might be more fitting to tag them as art rockers, and this band had rocked in many stage that is why we love this band.

Morgan FitzPatrick Andrews said...

Yup. This was from '80, not '86. The "Reunion" title was a gag, printed in 1-point type in the center of te cover. Some copies had the title obscured by animal stickers. A college radio staple for anyone in the Boston area.

friendlier said...

Thanks sooo much for this. I've been looking for it since I bought "Jeffrey" in 1979.

Anonymous said...

any chance you could re-up this? thanks for your sterling work as always !

Anonymous said...

Someone please reup this.
Please!

Unknown said...

Would love to see this re-uploaded. Thanks for running the best music blog on the internet all these years =)

Anonymous said...

well, this one is no longer available; a re-upload maybe ?

Anonymous said...

Links all broken