Typical Girls: Women in Punk/Post-Punk/Underground Music (Circa 1975-1980s)

[Larry-bob Roberts <larrybob AT gmail.com>]

Press release may be of interest...


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:  <howard AT howlinwuelf.com>
Date: Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 1:02 PM
Subject: original female rockers from Fanny releasing new album
To:



"Play Like a Girl"  is a new studio album from Jean and June Millington,
the founding members of Fanny. The sisters have been making music together
since they were children playing ukuleles in the Philippines. Within a few
years of coming to the U.S. in 1961 the pair traded in their ukes for
acoustic and then electric guitars and formed a succession of all-girl
bands in Sacramento: the culmination was ”Fanny,” one of the first
all-female rock bands to sign to a major label ,Warner Brothers.

>From 1969 until1974, Fanny released albums and toured internationally,
sharing stages with Chicago, Dr John, the Staple Singers, Jethro Tull and
many others.  David Bowie said of the group: “They were one of the finest
fucking rock bands of their time ...  They were extraordinary:  They wrote
everything, they played like motherfuckers ... They are as important as
anyone else who’s ever been, ever ...” (Rolling Stone, January 2000).
While recording with engineers like Geoff Emerick at the Beatles’ Apple
Studios, the Millingtons learned the art of recording and producing.

When June left Fanny in 1974, Jean continued with the group for one more
album, Rock ‘n Roll Survivors, which yielded the Top 40 hit “Butterboy.”
At the same time June became a key contributor to the early Women’s Music
movement, playing on and touring behind Cris Williamson’s The Changer and
the Changed, the definitive album in the genre.  Jean married David
Bowie’s guitarist Earl Slick in 1978 (having sung on Bowie’s “Fame”) and
raised two children. June went on to pursue a solo performing career and
began producing. She and Jean began playing together again in 1984.

The third key member of the Play Like a Girl  ensemble is Jean’s son Lee
Madeloni who picked up his first album credit when he was fourteen,
playing drums on the song “Welcome (to the Real World)” on June and Jean's
Melting Pot. Lee is a multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter and has
recently released his debut recording project, Everything on Fire.  He has
also engineered and produced several album projects. Lee’s the drummer
throughout Play Like a Girl and will be touring with his mother and aunt.

In 1987, June co-founded the non-profit Institute for the Musical Arts
with her partner Ann Hackler, as a means of nurturing a new generation of
female musicians.  In 2001 IMA bought a site outside of Northampton, MA,
and a year later inaugurated the “Girl's Rock Camp” pilot program. Yurts
were built, a bunkhouse installed and finally their state-of-the-art
recording studios were completed. Studio designer John Storyck (Jimi
Hendrix's Electric Ladyland) and his wife Beth Walters contributed the
designs of the studios and control rooms. The studios play host to a
Recording Camp each August headed by Grammy-award-winning engineers Leslie
Ann Jones and Roma Baran. The Institute for the Musical Arts is now a
fully functioning teaching, performing, and recording facility dedicated
to supporting women and girls in music and music-related business.

Play Like a Girl  is a direct result of experiences of over 45 years since
starting an all-girl band themselves - and helping other girls learn music
today; mentoring, supporting, teaching, and helping them organize
themselves in the world of music.

www.junemillington.com
www.ima.org

For more information and materials contact:


Howard Wuelfing
Howlin' Wuelf Media
215-428-9119
http://howlinwuelf.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/howlinwuelf
http://howlinwuelf.blogspot.com/

"You've got all that is really needed,
to save this dying world
from it's funkless self" - Parliament