The Girls

Dini and I hamming it up late one Easter night in the ladies room at Sporter's. I had forgotten how convenient that little shelf behind the toilet always was.

Well I suppose now is as good a time as any to start at the beginning. Or maybe not, depending on how linear of a person you are, but anyways here goes. My life in the rock scene was born in Boston in a seedy gay bar on Cambridge Street called Sporter's. Right around the corner from Mass General. Affectionately known to us as Spurter's. Not so hard to do the math on that one. A bar so notorious that when they remodeled the block a few years ago, they moved the entrance of the building to the other corner and gave the building a new number as the street address in an effort to remove the taint. Years later someone told me that Whitey Bulger used to hang out there sometimes, especially when we were serving the cheap three course dinners. That explained why the balding old guy peering out at me from the front page of the Herald so often looked so damn familiar. If only I had known when I was sending out his main course.

As usual, I'm getting way ahead of myself. In around 1975 I was meeting a lot of gay guys when I went to hairdressing school. We started going out to a bar in Tyngsboro. I loved my friends and loved clubbing, but did not love the music. After suffering through a million metal and hippie bands, something worse was afoot. Disco! How I hated it but that was what all the gay boys liked, so I was stuck with it.

Rather, all the gay boys except two. There was a DJ who I became friends with that worked at the bar and I could count on him to play my requests once in awhile, dancefloor-clearing as they might have been. He used to take frequent trips to Jamaica and bring back lots of records. These tunes did not fly at the bar and when he took to the dance floor and started skanking away it was an explosion of leg pumping and flying elbows. Anyone who was left trying to dance moved slowly away and stared at him, as if they were wondering if he be may on the verge of having a medical emergency.

As long as we're here, this is the same fellow who dubbed me Tontileo. He told me it was an American Indian word that meant 'rushing waters' and he had thought of it one evening when I had consumed excessive amounts of beer and spent half the night peeing in the woods. Oh, the fond, fond memories...This was just a couple of years after Jaws had made cinematic history as the first Hollywood Blockbuster ever and my DJ drove a white van that had a painting of a great white on the side that appeared to be lunging for you. The inside was tricked out in an appropriate undersea theme. It was just so over the top and hilarious. I wish I had pics of it. The only thing was missing was a dent.

My other friend with good taste was a rock fan and we found ourselves comparing likes and bitching about the intolerable rubbish we had to listen to there. One night when we were especially sick of it all, we enlisted a third and hit the road for Boston where he had heard about a place called the 1270 that might be more to our liking. It was and it wasn't, and someone there told us about the West End Tennis Club, the name Sporter's used to get around the Beacon Hill Civic Association. They told us there was no disco there and that they had a jukebox with a few decent songs on it, so off we went.

It became a habit. The place was always filled with interesting men. The Cosmic Muffin was a regular, there was even another woman there sometimes. I met my best bud Kennie there. First night I met her she let me crash on her love seat. I became a Sporter's regular, eventually ending up as an employee. The space would have made a great rock bar. Exposed brick painted a dark brick color, go figure, and a few nooks and crannies along with the three main rooms. It was small, but really cozy. I met a lot of life long friends there.

One night I was enjoying myself at the bar and Dini Lamot and Windle Davis walk up to me and introduce themselves and invite me to come and see their band, Human Sexual Response. Of course I would go. I mean c'mon? Dini, dark hair looking a little like Marc Bolan and Windle with his blonde hair reaching past his ass? They were like both sides of a gorgeous coin. These guys were fabulous and they brought me over and introduced me to their friend Slag, a film student at Emerson. I didn't find out until later that it was Slag who had dispatched Dini and Windle to meet me so that they could introduce me to him so that he could ask me to be in his film Straight to Hell. He was afraid I'd think he was some kind of crackpot and turn him down on the spot if he approached me with the request himself. Well, he is a crackpot and that's one of the major reasons I told him I'd do the film and I ended up loving him to death too. One of the funniest bastards you would ever want to meet.

I had told Dini and Windle that I would love to see their band and I did at the first available opportunity. That happened to be a gig that was at an American Legion or VFW somewhere on the way to Cleveland Circle. Here I was, practically fresh off the farm (Did I neglect to tell you that I'm a farmers daughter? That's another story...) about to see a double bill of The Girls and Human Sexual Response.

Girls - Keep it Simple


The gig poster had the slogan 'naked tits and hominy grits' splashed across it, but I saw evidence of neither that night. I was transformed, if you've never seen The Girls it's hard to describe. I guess the fact that I was really into the visual arts and was a particular fan of Dada and the Surrealists prepared me to appreciate the spectacle being laid out before me. They paid attention to every detail and gave excellent show. Smoke, mirrors, tapeloops, explosives, whatever it took. It's kind of scary, but the film does do them justice. Oh yes, this is just what I needed after being trapped on the farm at the very bottom of the swampy Merrimack River Valley for nineteen years having to sift through top 40 on the radio with crappy reception. Here was a whole tribe of spectacular misfits entertaining each other and not caring a whit what anyone else, especially 'normals', thought about it. It was gooood. I was in.

The Girls in the Bathtub


Do yourself a favor and check out their other songs Vietnam Women, Okey Dokey and We're All Living on a Cubist Grid. They put out one single, The Elephant Man/Jeffrey I Hear You. If I ever find my copy I'll try to post it. I wish I could remember the names of all the band members, but alas, demon alcohol has wiped out those brain cells long ago and all that's left is the name David Hild and I think he was the drummer, but I wouldn't bet on that. If anyone has more details, please comment.

to be continued...