Episode #5 - Girls Are Loud

Oh yes it’s Ladies’ Night, And the feeling’s right, Oh yes it’s Ladies’ Night, Oh what a night, crooned Lemmy. Or Kool and the Gang. Hell, sometimes it’s hard to tell them apart.

Don’t worry, Enter Sadmen hasn’t gone all disco on you – Rage Against The Machine’s funk-metal fusion from Episode 4 is about as dance-hall as we’re gonna get, let me tell you – but ‘tis true that we have gone girlie.

Yes, simmer down lads but episode five of the coolest podcast around is a paean to the fairer sex as we assess the merits of a trio of vinyl throwbacks from Girlschool, Vixen and Phantom Blue.

An inferior outfit might be tempted to hail the majesty of these rock goddesses by souring the airwaves with an invective of sexism and smut, but that’s not our way, Jose. Our wives insisted not a single double entendre so we aren’t going to give them one.

Girlschool – Demolition (1980)

Girlschool have served up 13 albums so far and Mark, entirely predictably, has selected the one closest to the 1970s.

Yes, our man in flares thought all hope was gone when the Seventies came to an abrupt if inevitable end. Glory be then to Kim McAuliffe and the gals for putting joy back into this tragic figure’s soul and persuading him there was life beyond gammon and pineapple nights down the Berni and Kojak reruns on Betamax (just Google all that, kids).

But what was it about this groundbreaking gaggle which prompted Mark to run to the hills and swear his undying affection for these iron maidens?

Apparently the lightbulb moment came when thumbing through a magazine on a school bus (no, not that sort of magazine) and before long he was banging his head with vim and vigour to the crushing riffs of Girlschool’s strictly no-nonsense calling card.

Vixen – Vixen (1988)

Anything went in the decade that introduced us to Roland Rat, Pot Noodle and David Icke, but an all-girl hair metal band? Now that was unusual.

And Vixen weren’t only all girl (that was beyond debate), they were also very good, or at least so Steve thought as he gleefully embarked on a fawning appreciation of their debut album. Sadly for him, that wasn’t beyond debate and after some serious scrutiny Steve was left a broken man, grovelling to retrieve a lead balloon and wondering if Roxy Petrucci would still love him.

So what was it that prompted Steve’s sad chums to decry Jan Kuehnemund and friends as “easy on the ear”, “inoffensive” and, worse still, the One Direction of their generation? God, it’s the little things that hurt, isn’t it?

Phantom Blue – Built to Perform (1993)

Typing “all girl” and “acts” into an internet search engine is fraught with danger and often ends up with a trip to the Magistrates Court, but Richard took that chance and was rewarded handsomely when Phantom Blue appeared at the top of the page.

Phantom Who, he said, before wisely deciding to ignore option A (move on to some of the other choices on his search page) and plump for Option B (head for YouTube and give them a spin).

No sooner was he sitting comfortably than he was sitting uncomfortably having fallen off his chair, not something Rich is unaccustomed to though this time not a shot of Tennessee mouthwash had passed his lips. These balance issues were caused by the raucous grind of Time to Run, the runaway train which thunders into life to join up tracks one and three off Phantom Blue’s second album.

So did the rest of the album pass muster and if so, might this band just be one of hard rock’s best-kept secrets?