Menu
ELECTRONIC COTTAGE
  • HOME
  • REVIEWS
  • ARTICLES
  • COMMENTS
  • HOME
  • REVIEWS
  • ARTICLES
  • COMMENTS

Guns Don’t Kill People, Rotten Bananas Do

1/9/2019

18 Comments

 
The Re-Discovery and Resurrection of Girls on Fire
Picture
Leslie Singer, 1985
It’s been seven months almost to the day since I received the first email of inquiry and re-introduction from the peerless and fearless artist and intrepid Electronic Cottage editor, Hal McGee.

​Hundreds of emails, questions and answers, photos, fanzines, flyers, 45’s, unearthed cassette tapes, books, cd’s, chicken pot pies and Big Macs (hold the cellulose milk shake, please) later, we now have a site/project that is an organism/artwork of its own.
Girls On Fire archival site
Like two composers working on a single score, Hal and I, to paraphrase John Cage from “A Composer’s Confessions”, experienced the pleasure of continual discovery; undiminished because the possibilities were/are endless.
The blurring of life and art was our inspiration. From an August 11 email from Hal, “When I do research on a subject I immerse myself in as many words, sights, sounds, tastes and smells associated with the subject matter as possible.  No joke. It’s the way my art is too. Immersion.” He wasn’t kidding! Along the way we deeply grooved on Erik Satie, William Burroughs, Vivienne Dick, The Contortions, Julee Cruise’s time in the B-52’s and of course, Allan Kaprow.
Picture
Leslie in Washington, DC, 1982
A true collaboration, embedded in the site/project is all of Hal’s numerous, contributive hyperlinks which further edify and add to a story of US history and culture as told through the journey of Girls on Fire. In the seven sections, from the recession and N-R-Gee (Crises Blues) of a ‘70’s teenage punk girl to the dawn of the Reagan ‘80’s prog-rock/post-punk of DC’s ultra Rip It Up and Start Again Pigpens, Psychodrama, to the discovery and safe packaging and delivery to Gainesville, Florida of a tape of Early Rarities featuring a song destined after 35 years to amazingly get played at least once on the radio, "I’m in Love and on KW", immersion and discovery were our words to live by.
Picture
Picture
With the five sections in one known as
​the Girls on Fire Cassettes,
(from the golden age of cassette music, 1983-1985)
Hal, inventively, came up with cool ways to illustrate the time and place of those songs
—such as using Google Map photos to find the still-existent laundromat of “I Wash and Dry My Clothes”,
​from I Think About Jackson Pollock
​
and the site that sells mugs and t-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “Guns Don’t Kill People, Rotten Bananas Do” to illustrate the song, “Rotten Bananas” from In My Blood.
Picture
Picture
Thanks to Hal, I got back in touch with my ex-husband and cleared out a whole lot of old cobwebs with the Your Mom Too section.
Then we connected it all with my ‘80’s performance/cut up music videos collected in two compilations, Freud’s Snack Bar and Total Eclipse of the Sun.
It’s great to have all this audio and video work up on-line and available for streaming and downloading. The old is new again.
Picture
Leslie with her Fender Stratocaster, age 15
Along the way, it has been wonderful to renew contact and friendships with fellow travelers from the ‘80’s cassette days like Evan Cantor and Little Fyodor of Walls of Genius and Richard “Rick” Franecki of Vocokesh. I also want to thank
Al Margolis, Robin James, and Jerry Kranitz as well for all their contributions and support to this project. It has also been wonderful to meet and be inspired by the work of new listeners and supporters through the Electronic Cottage site. The sense of community that has truly transcended time and space is so life affirming and reminds me once again the positive power of music and art.
What’s next? As I mentioned to Hal in one of my emails during this process, for the past year I had felt something had been missing in my life but couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

​Right from the beginning of our work on the GOF site, I began to get the “itch” again to make sound pieces/songs.  I had been “woodshedding” since 2017 or so by listening to and reading the essays/interviews of John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen. 

My first return to audio was in June 2018 with a brief re-working of John Cage’s “Mesostic 2” that I recorded off the fly with my iPhone. It was a m4a file.
I sent it off to Hal and his response was very encouraging, patient and helpful with audio tips (record in WAV, not m4a) which is very Zen/Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji when I think about it now.
Since then I took his further advice and purchased one of those handy dandy ICD-PX470 digital recorders. The Girls on Fire loony tunes machine is fired up once again!
Stream and download Leslie's new Girls On Fire song, "Purple Tooth".
purple_tooth.mp3
File Size: 3431 kb
File Type: mp3
Download File

After a break of over 35 years, Girls on Fire is excited to be traveling to Gainesville, Florida and performing at the upcoming Apartment Music 32 and 33 shows (January 12-13, 2019).  I very much look forward to meeting and experiencing in-person the music of the great Floridian ECers.
"Florida" from Life is Too Funny — I Think I’ll $hoot Myself (1984)
To paraphrase John Cage, this time from his preface to his 1959 opus, Indeterminacy, “Then I said that I did not see that we were going to a goal, but that we were living in process, and that process is eternal.”
Editor's Note: Here are Leslie's notes on the song "Florida":

​My grandparents, Grandma Sylvia and my Grandpa Louie (my father's parents) moved down to St. Pete from Washington DC circa 1970.  I was very close to them and have a lot of good memories of both of them.  To this day, I still remember advice that both of them gave to me when I was a child and an adolescent.  When I was 11 and 12, I spent both of those summers with them in St. Pete.  I fished, played chess and read library books with Grandpa Louie and Grandma Sylvia taught me America style cooking.  My grandparents were hardcore bridge players and would take me with them to their games.  All kinds of people would be there playing bridge. I used to do small pencil sketches of their faces especially those of the younger hippie looking guys while sitting near my grandparents.  I think that one of them noticed me sketching his face and kind of dug it.  I think that I was supposed to be learning bridge but I could never get that interested in it.  I have fond memories of those summers.  When I first met John Hricko, he showed me photos of his two sisters who both lived in Tallahassee and how whenever he went there to visit, everyone played bridge so thereafter he and I would swap Florida stories.  I did that song for him.  As I recall he really enjoyed it.


Florida is a hot state
Florida, da, da is a long state
Florida is a hot state
Florida, da, da is a long state
Florida is a hot state
Florida is a long state
And Florida is very old to me
Florida is a hot state
Florida is a long state
And Florida is very old to me
Florida is a hot state
Florida is a long state
Florida is a hot state
Florida is a long state
And Florida is very old to me
Florida
Florida
Florida
Da, da, da, da
18 Comments
Chris Phinney
1/9/2019 07:18:36

So glad to see the complete site, I love it & a wonderful history lesson for me. I have been following along since teasers for the site were started. Congratulations to both of you Leslie & Hal for a magnificent site!

Reply
Leslie Singer
1/10/2019 13:48:28

Chris,

Thanks so much! I so appreciate how supportive you've been through the whole project. It's so great to see the EC history/archival projects continue with the first installment of the HRM project. I really enjoyed reading up and listening to your early '80's work and look forward to everything that comes next.

Reply
Rafael González
1/9/2019 08:13:11

Ohhhh I love!

Reply
Leslie Singer
1/10/2019 13:50:46

Rafael,

Thanks so much for your continued enthusiasm and support for the return of Girls on Fire! I really appreciate it especially from such a great fellow sound and visual artist as you!

Reply
Rafael González
1/11/2019 09:11:51

It's a great pleasure for me and thanks for your words

Dylan Houser
1/9/2019 09:19:03

Nice!!! I'm looking forward to meeting you and seeing you perform on Sunday!

Reply
Leslie Singer
1/10/2019 13:52:10

Dylan,

Thanks so much! I too look forward to meeting you and seeing you perform live on Sunday. I'm listening to your new album right-- really cool!!!

Reply
Evan Cantor
1/9/2019 11:29:25

sweet--your memories of Florida jive with my own of the same time. And now--can Hal be our new Florida Granpa!? Nice site, too. Hal certainly does a great job and you can hardly give him more kudos. I don't know where he gets the time to walk Stanley, what with working a job and having haltapes and Electronic Cottage to take care of. Have a great gig in Gainesville!

Reply
Leslie Singer
1/10/2019 13:54:02

Evan, thanks so much for your comments and continued support. I totally agree with you about Hal-- I have to say that his day beats everyone else's year!

Reply
Atomizador link
1/9/2019 12:51:33

So great!!!!! Girls on Fire forever!!!!

Reply
Leslie Singer
1/10/2019 13:57:40

Thank you!!!!!

Reply
Adam J Naworal
1/9/2019 16:30:58

Excellent history and glad to see the genius of GOF is all online for our appreciation! Can't wait to meet ya on Sunday as well, Leslie! (Neither can Aimee!)

Reply
Leslie Singer
1/10/2019 14:04:42

Adam, Thanks so much to you and Aimee for your support during this project and the new GOF songs. I too can't wait to meet the both of you on Sunday and experience Tomokie's Cup in person!

Reply
Richard Franecki
1/9/2019 17:13:20

My parents loved to road trip, so every summer when I was in elementary school, my sister and I and our parents went somewhere. I've been to Florida about 15 or twenty times. One of our favorite places was Clearwater(now taken over by the church of Scientology) I remember there was a bar-b-q place that was shaped like a giant pig.

Reply
Leslie Singer
1/10/2019 14:07:24

Rick, thanks for sharing your childhood memories of Florida. According to Leah Rimini in her escape from Scientology series that Clearwater takeover was a helluva thing. Talk about shock and awe!

Reply
Eduardo GOZNE
1/9/2019 20:33:48

Very good story!!
Success in the return of Girls on Fire

Reply
Leslie Singer link
1/10/2019 14:08:10

Eduardo,

Thanks so much!

Reply
Juan Angel Italiano
1/16/2019 09:23:27

Crear + Compartir + Comunicar = Cultura circula
Create + Share + Communicate = Culture moves

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Leslie Singer

    After high school and a year in the DC noise band, Psychodrama, I moved to SF in 1982.
    From 1983 to 1985, I released five cassette albums under such monikers as Girls on Fire and Sadistic Gossip.

    From 1985 to 2003 my film and video works were exhibited in museums, galleries and festivals throughout
    Europe and the U.S.

    In 2010, a CD compilation of my ‘80’s cassette albums was released as
    “Girls Who Grew Up to Be Arts Administrators”.

    Visit the
    Girls On Fire Archive site featuring detailed info on my cassettes and videos of the 1980s

    email

    Archives

    November 2020
    August 2019
    June 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018

    RSS Feed