(Reviews of Kathleen Is Here; Head South; Every Little Thing; and Since Yesterday: The Untold Story of Scotland’s Girl Bands)
KATHLEEN IS HERE.
Expanding on her 2020 short, Kathleen Was Here, actress Eva Birthistle makes her feature bow with Kathleen Is Here, which reunites the Wicklovian with Dublin-based cinematographer Burschi Wojnar and star Hazel Doupe, who made such a fine impression in Carmel Winters's Float Like a Butterfly (2018) and Kate Dolan's You Are Not My Mother (2021).
Leaving a care home to return to her mother's old house in Kilcaren, 18 year-old Kathleen (Hazel Doupe) loses her temper at the depot after missing the bus. But she settles in to the satisfaction of social worker Damian (Aaron Monaghan), who suggests it's time `to be a grown up'. Getting a shelf-stacking job in a supermarket, Kathleen pals up with Yvonne (Liadan Dunlea), who is obsessed with celebrity culture and invites her new workmate out for a night's drinking.
In the pub, Kathleen poses as an American named Kimmie and records a faux social media message on Yvonne's phone. They dance to a jive track on the jukebox and Kathleen feels queasy. A couple of likely lads drive them home and Kathleen is embarrassed when she trips and bangs her head on the driveway of new neighbour, Dee (Clare Dunne), who lives with her husband, Rory (Peter Coonan), and tweenage son, Conor (James McGowan). She enjoys Dee fussing over her and comes to apologise next morning in order to reinforce the bond forged when Dee learns that Kathleen is living alone at such a young age.
Waking from a dream of mum Carol (Conor (James McGowan) locking her in her bedroom when she was a child, Kathleen is dismayed to discover that Yvonne has posted the Kimmie video. As she is scared of rejection, she's dismayed by the vehemence of some of the comments left on the site and resents the fact that one of the lads calls at the shop to see Yvonne.
Faking a near miss with Conor and a passing car to make herself look heroic, Kathleen gets herself invited to a day on the beach. She monopolises Dee and grabs lots of photos on her phone. When she suggests a visit to a nail bar, Kathleen gets peevish when a bored Conor misbehaves and Dee decides to take him home.
So, when she spots Dee crying in her car outside the house, Kathleen provides a shoulder, as the older woman tells her about a lost daughter whose presence sometimes feels so real that it's unbearable. Kathleen says the child was lucky to have had such a loving mother and her gauche attempts to cheer Dee up result in a dinner invitation, even though she would prefer chips with her curry to rice.
Rory jokes about his prowess as a singer and cook and Conor snitches when Kathleen says a bad word. He claims Dee to help him with his homework and Kathleen breaks his toy bi-plane when she leaves in revenge. She's soon back to give Dee a makeover and tells her a story about bringing a pony into the tent during a camping trip with her mother. But Kathleen struts off the moment Rory gets home and he questions whether Dee should be spending so much time with waifs and strays.
Yvonne catches Kathleen in a fib about living in the city with her father, when she reveals she had never met him. She has also spotted Kathleen in a café with Damian and reminds her that they live in a small town where secrets are tough to keep. While babysitting Conor, Kathleen overhears Rory and Dee arguing and she wonders if she can drive a wedge between them. Dozing off wearing Dee's charm necklace, Kathleen hugs her when she's told to keep it and make a wish.
Learning about Dee's birthday when Rory buys flowers at the supermarket, Kathleen interrupts a family moment with a panic call designed to lure Dee to her bathroom for a rose petal bath and a pedicure. But Dee despairs at the deception and Kathleen smashes up Carol's bedroom during a screaming fit after Rory warns her not to interfere in family time.
Seeking revenge, Kathleen takes Yvonne to the open mike session at the pub and pretends that Rory has bought her a glass of wine after she sings. Kathleen sends Dee a selfie knowing Rory and Yvonne are flirting behind her. She also videos the confrontation when she calls Yvonne's boyfriend and she kisses Rory after his pint gets smashed in a skirmish.
It backfires when Kathleen shows Dee the footage, but she locks Rory out of the house and comes to the shop to ask Yvonne to show some self-respect. Bringing pizza and wine, Dee apologises to Kathleen for doubting her motives and reveals that they moved to Kilcaren because of Rory's philandering. As a tipsy Dee dozes off, Kathleen confides that she used to think that she made her mother smile until she realised she was only happy because of the drink. Covering Dee with a blanket, Kathleen snuggles down beside her on the sofa. But Dee feels uncomfortable when she wakes up next morning and creeps away.
Furious, Rory comes to the shop and demands that Kathleen gives him the tape. Yvonne is also angry and breaks into the house to try to grab the footage. She finds a camcorder with images of a drunken Carol with her boyfriend on a young Kathleen's birthday and also a social media post of Kimmie pretending that Dee's belongings are her own. Kathleen gets home before Yvonne can escape and they fight on the kitchen floor, leaving Kathleen with a bloody nose when Damian makes an unexpected call.
He is concerned by the warmth of Dee's greeting because Kathleen has a history of forming unhealthy attachments to her foster mothers. As she has asked Kathleen to collect Conor from school, Dee (who has just discovered she's pregnant) worries when she doesn't answer her phone. Rory goes looking for them and finds them on the lighthouse where Kathleen had gone when bunking off school. Dee arrives to try to talk Kathleen down by letting her call her `mammy'. But she can't bring herself to make a promise she can't keep to go away together and Kathleen falls backwards into the sea, pulling Conor down with her.
A fade up from black shows Kathleen in the back of a police car watching stretcher being loaded into an ambulance. Damian gets in beside her and, when she realises that Dee won't be coming with them, Kathleen rips off the wish chain and lets it fall. Staring ahead, her expression remains unchanged, as the car drives away.
Very much an actors' piece and played superbly by both Hazel Doupe and Clare Dunne, this character study holds steady for the first third, as Kathleen comes home and tentatively starts to re-acclimatise to her vaguely familiar surroundings. These are impeccably photographed to capture the small-town atmosphere, while also conveying how exposed and alone Kathleen is in such a confining space, with the house/home contrasts between her basic amenities and Dee's cosy nest being cannily achieved by production designer Anna Carney. The script makes its points about the flaws in the Irish care home system with restraint and insight, while the flashbacks and video clips are incorporated with a deftness that sketches in Kathleen's backstory without any undue emphasis.
Then, however, the action starts to slip inexorably into stalker thriller territory and Eva Birthistle is unable as either writer or director to prevent proceedings from becoming increasingly melodramatic, even though Doupe and Dunne remain firmly in character and the score by Sam Thompson and Amelia Warner manages to be melancholic without becoming mawkish. Part of the problem lies with the contrivances on which the narrative becomes dependent once it becomes clear that Kathleen's plan is to steal Dee from her family. But the unpersuasive nature of some of the secondary playing exposes the novelettish tone the storyline takes after Rory buys some flowers as an unworthy last-minute gesture on Dee's birthday.
Shifting between naivety, anxiety, and deviousness, Doupe expertly conceals and discloses Kathleen's psychological fragility, with the little tantrums alerting the viewer that she can be vicious, as well as vulnerable. However, her Kimmie fantasies never ring true, as she is too cautious, self-contained, and misanthropic to seek the online approval of strangers. Given that she has proven so unpredictable before makes the decision to return her to her former home with only periodic supervision and nothing by way of accessible support all the more questionable. We're not told why she can no longer contact her previous case worker, but Damian appears out of his depth, in spite of his measured approach and clear commitment.
It might have been more interesting had Dee not lost a child or been serially cheated on, as not everyone in a social realist film has to come with emotional baggage, although this has increasingly become a trend in recent years. Of course, ordinary people have their problems, but they come to seem like inauthentic convolutions within the confines of what's supposed to be what's still called `a slice of life'. This is a shame, as things start so promisingly. But Birthistle's direction of her leads remains astute, as Kathleen and Dee remain credible while the surrounding machinations becomes less so.
HEAD SOUTH.
Having worked as a crew member on several films, including being part of the effects team on Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (1987), New Zealander Jonathan Ogilvie trained at the Australian Film Television and Radio School. After completing five shorts, he made his feature bow with Emulsion (2006). Subsequently, Ogilvie has directed The Tender Hook (2008) and the futuristic Joseph Conrad adaptation, Lone Wolf (2021). Now, he returns to his youth for the semi-autobiographical Head South.
Teenager Angus (Ed Oxenbould) is having a tough time in 1979 Christchurch. His mother has gone to a hotel for a spell, leaving him at home with his civil engineer father, Gordon (Marton Csokas) and a fortnight's worth of pre-cooked dinners in the freezer. He has also hacked off best mates Jamie (Trendall Pulini) and Stuart (Oscar Phillips) by selling them parsley and claiming it's pot. However, things change when his brother in Britain sends him a copy of Public Image Ltd's first single and Fraser (Jackson Bliss), the owner of Middle Earth Records, compliments him on his taste. He also makes the acquaintance of Holly (Roxie Mohebbi), a bottle blonde who claims to be from London and lives with Andy (Arlo Gibson), a photographer who drips cool.
Pharmacy assistant Kirsten (Stella Bennett, aka Benee) is impressed when Angus buys the PiL album and his new spiky haircut is admired by Malcolm (Demos Murphy), a bully who hangs out at the record shop and invites him to see his band, The Cursed. Sneaking out while Gordon is watching Scott of the Antarctic (1948), Angus embarrasses himself at the gig by applauding at the end of the set. But he arranges to borrow Andy's bass guitar and tells the sceptical Jamie and Stuart that he has formed a band named The Daleks.
Having agreed to pose nude for Andy's camera to get the bass, Angus annoys Gordon by plugging it into the stereo system (having earlier broken his new hover-mower). He keeps getting calls from Aunt Jessica (Janice Gray), who reckons her house is haunted, while he keeps a promise with his late mother to buy her a cream bun on the anniversary of her death. As Angus snoops with opera glasses, he sees Holly eat the bun after a rendezvous with a shady character named Fergus (Orion Carey-Clark).
Convinced he's spotted his mother with another man, Angus is surprised when Gordon buys a flashy new car. He persuades Kirsten to play guitar in Daleks and she lets him use her amp and Zachary, the drum programme on her family's chord organ. When Malcolm makes them the support act for a gig, they have two days to come up with songs and Angus is blown away when Kirsten sings one about heading south and reveals that Malcolm is claiming to have written songs he's nicked from a rare punk album she just happens to own.
With Gordon away for the weekend (supposedly with his wife), Angus borrows his other car to transport Zachary to the venue (in defiance of Kirsten's mother). Unfortunately, he doesn't tie it down properly and it's barely hanging together by the time Daleks go on. He has stage fright and thinks he sees his parents through the glass fire door, as Kirsten urges him to start playing his own song, `Boxed In'.
Jamie jumps up and starts playing The Cursed's drums and Angus is joined on impromptu vocals by Stuart and Holly using a spare microphone that just happens to be live. The audience begins to warm to them until the drummer throws Jamie off his kit and Malcolm calls them out for being rubbish, But Kirsten announces that he's a plagiarist and the sound engineer plays a tape of the original album through the speakers so that Malcolm has to flee in humiliation.
Everyone goes back to Angus's house, but Kirsten is hurt when she sees him chatting to Holly in the garden. They go off together and she reveals that Fraser had bought the nude photos. Holly is so grateful to Angus for defending her against Fergus when he orders her to get in his car that she takes him home to bed. He gets nervous when she prepares to shoot up and swears at him when he leaves, having discovered she's really from Auckland.
Thinking nothing of passing Gordon on the train tracks or his father climbing into an uncoupled engine, Angus gets home to discover from a policeman that his parents were killed in a car crash around the time Daleks were playing. Kirsten comes to leave Angus's shoes on the step (he had borrowed his father's wedding shoes because he thought they looked cool with his stapled drainpipes) and she hugs him when he asks if she will sit with him while he phones his brother.
Although this lurch into tragedy feels abrupt, the fact that the names of Gavin and Joan Ogilvie head a closing in memoriam list underlines the shocking way in which life creeps up with its low blows. The business with the cream bun is also a tribute to Ogilvie's father, but the posing nude (albeit to get his hands on an 8mm camera rather than a bass) and the playing in a post-punk band (named Youth For Christ rather than Daleks) are all the work of the director, who started out making music videos for local bands on the Flying Nun record label.
Notwithstanding the odd bit of self-reflexive technique, such as the Academy ratio screen expanding sideways when Angus first hears `Public Image', there's not a lot of depth to the story, with too many characters being ciphers. But Ed Oxenbould dextrously prevents Angus from being a thorough prat, even though he repeatedly lets people down in his naive ambition to be cool. His love of punk feels superficial and the ease with which he acquires a bass, finds a guitarist, and lands a gig feels far-fetched (particularly after watching Since Yesterday). But such is the brisk confidence of Ogilvie's direction and the adroitness of the support playing that it's easy to be swept along without being bothered by too many flaws. The ever-dependable Marton Csokas proves a great asset, as he conveys the flashes of an old self that have been subsumed by world-weariness, as his marriage stalls. Angus doesn't seem to notice the strain his father in under, as, like most teens, he is too self-obsessed to realise his own loneliness.
A fascinating aspect is the prevalence of UK culture in the New Zealand of the time, with Doctor Who and old Ealing flagwavers on telly and musical trends landing long after they've become passé in the Old Country. The songtrack is also intriguing, as is the fact that the score was composed by Shayne Carter of the Kiwi band, Straitjacket Fits. Ogilvie himself wrote the Daleks numbers performed with a gusto that will resonate with anyone who lived through punk or spent their afternoons after school riffling through secondhand LPS hoping that no one would comment on their blazer. More details like that and some bolstering backstory might have made this ring true more consistently and feel less politely nostalgic.
EVERY LITTLE THING.
Two years ago, Shaunak Sen profiled Mohammad Saud and Nadeem Shehzad, the New Delhi brothers who devoted their time to rescuing injured birds. Following on from the Oscar-nominated All That Breathes, Sally Aitken's Every Little Thing seeks out Terry Masear, who has been running Los Angeles Hummingbird Rescue since 2005 and has written about her experiences in Fastest Things on Wings (2016).
Chatting to a tiny bird named Wasabi, as she drives through Los Angeles, Terry Masear operates a phone helpline to advise people on how to deal with stricken hummingbirds. Some bring the foundlings to her rented home, while others are talked through how to use a paper bag to catch a female who has flown into a house seeking spider web gossamer for its nest. She's kind and calm, as she passes on her instructions and as she uses tiny drippers to feed charges like Jimmy, who she predicts will cope well with returning to the wild because he's an aggressive insect eater.
We meet Charlie and see a young female practicing feeding babies before learning about Cactus, who got spines in her back after a fall that damaged a wing. Masear isn't sure she will recover, but handles her gently while coaxing her into moving and feeding. But her anger is evident when she explains how the finders of Sugar Baby allowed their kids to play with her and damaged her wings by dousing them in sugar water. She's not certain she will survive and deeply resents the lies the finders told her, which she sees as symptomatic of humanity's attitude to the natural world.
Masear is amused by Mikhail and Alexa, as he is besotted with her and is forever touching her with his bill, while she seems more aware that they are a different species and are never going to become an item. This prompts her to talk about her own relationship with Frank, a white-bearded free spirit, who was forever finding new fascinations. This enticed her, as she had come from southern Wisconsin farming stock and had endured what she called `a nail-biting childhood' before having a wild time at college. She remained in education, amassing four graduate degrees. But her spare time was increasingly being devoted to the tiny hummingbirds she felt compelled to protect and rehabilitate so they were ready to take their second chance.
The twins brought in by a woman named Sidney are making progress and we see them quivering as they scarf down insects from a dropper before going outside for some sunshine. However, Cactus is still struggling to use her wings and Masear fears that she will not be able to fly. Even the bullish Raisin is taking his time, but Masear is hopeful that he can go into the outdoor aviary, where birds learn to feed from flowers, sleep while perching, and defend themselves - because not all hummingbirds get along and she's unsentimental about the fact that weaker birds are targeted in a cruelly competitive world.
The equivalent of a teenager, Larry Bird is brought in and Masear notes that he keeps drifting in and out of consciousness with a back injury. The finder hopes he can pull through, but she faces up to the reality that not everyone makes it. Raisin is a case in point, as he has internal injuries and has been falling off his perch. As she buries him in the garden, Masear reveals that a hummingbird's bones are so light that they disintegrate in a couple of days, as though they had never been there in the first place.
This section is cross-cut with details of Frank's cognitive decline and sad passing after a 33-year relationship. Masear had been haunted by a dream of a white marble spiral staircase and she had the intimation that something was about to happen. She explains how odd it was, as she nursed him, to become the senior member of their partnership, as he had always been so vital. But she had her vocation to see her through and her pride when Cactus manages to hop from her `magic wand' to a branch during flight therapy is deeply moving.
As is the death of Sugar Baby, which prompts Masear to confide about the abuse she had suffered at the hands of her mother. She had been hospitalised as a child and came close to death. But she has come to accept that her mother had had demons of her own. The pain has not gone away and the memory causes Masear to cry. Yet she acknowledges that her experiences shaped her for tending to injured birds, as she has a large well of empathy to draw on.
As Jimmy is building up strength, Masear decides to put him in a cage with the Wild Boys so he can develop his social skills. However, he does a flit and explores the room before tuckering out enough for Masear to catch him. Alexa and Mikhail also take to their new outdoor aviary, while Cactus surprises Masear by showing she can fly between perches in her cage. Such moments of triumph are shared with Frank, whose presence can still be felt.
Wasabi is placed in a cage with Cactus and they feistily introduce themselves. But the story rushes forward to show Masear opening the aviary door to let Jimmy, Wasabi, Cactus, Charlie, Alexa, and Mikhail fly away. She is happy to see them embark upon their new lives in the wild and celebrates the compassion she invested in her birds rather than her success in rehabilitating them.
A UCLA academic who taught English as a second language, Terry Masear doesn't waste words. There's a precision to everything she says in this heart-warming documentary, whether she's addressing the camera or coaxing the waifs and strays in her care. The same degree of control is evident in the way she tends to the hummingbirds at various stages of their treatment, as Masear strives to keep her emotions in check and not become too attached to the likes of Sugar Baby and Cactus, who seem set to share the same fate on their arrival. But, even though she doesn't appear to have had any specialist training, Masear knows what she's doing and this sense of self-assurance conveys itself to those finders who continue to take an interest in the birds they rescued.
While Masear makes a fascinating subject, the real stars of the film are the hummingbirds and Aitken owes a considerable debt to Nathan Barlow and Dan Freene, who filmed inside the house, and Ann Johnson Prum, who captures the birds in outdoor flight. The images of the birds hovering in slow-motion to dip their bills in flowers are compelling. But it's the shots of these tiny creatures looking down the lens that most impress, as they seem to capture the personality of the birds, as well as their beauty and fragility.
Having previously directed Playing With Sharks: The Valerie Taylor Story (2021), Aitken knows how to balance the human and wildlife elements of the story. She might have gone into more detail about Masear's professional life and sources of income, if only to reveal how much time she actually devotes to the birds. A bit more on her relationship with the finders might also have been valuable, especially when she considers them to have been derelict in their duty. But, even though the odds must be high that these tiny birds may not last very long in the wild (do any return of their own volition or as second-time patients?), this is a poignant and inspirational portrait and one can only hope that Masear can continue her quietly heroic work for some time to come.
SINCE YESTERDAY: THE UNTOLD STORY OF SCOTLAND'S GIRL BANDS.
In 2018, Carla J. Easton and Blair Young started to interview Scottish women who had been in girl bands. Fans responding to social media appeals sent in 15,000 artefacts that had been stashed away over the decades, while radio and TV archives yielded priceless performances that had been unseen since their original transmission. Having crowdfunded £30,000 to licence these landmark clips, the directorial duo was able to collate their findings in the chronological documentary, Since Yesterday: The Untold Story of Scotland's Girl Bands.
Growing up in the 1990s, Carla J. Easton wanted to make music with her friends. But, while Scottish female solo artists had enjoyed success alongside the odd girl-fronted band, there were no all-girl bands to provide inspiration. Determined to find some pictures to put on a studio set bedroom wall, Easton returns to 1964 to discover sisters Sheila and Jeanette, who sang as The McKinleys. Having won a talent contest in Edinburgh, they were signed by Iver Music in London, where they recorded `Someone Cares for Me' on Columbia. Brian Epstein liked them and had them open for The Beatles. Jeanette Gallacher remembers them watching from the wings, even though John Lennon was a bit aloof and snarky.
Further appearances followed with The Hollies, Manfred Mann, and Freddie and The Dreamers, while the pair got to perform the singles `When He Comes Along' and `Sweet and Tender Romance' on shows like Ready, Steady, Go. They even became the first girl band to play at Wembley, when they guested alongside The Rolling Stones at the NME Poll-Winners Concert at the Empire Pool. Despite Epstein's hopes of managing The McKinleys, they were dropped by Iver when the Donovan-penned `Give Him My Love failed to chart in 1965 and they were left high and dry. As Jeanette reflects, they had barely been able to afford a bag of chips when shivering in a Sussex Gardens flat, as they were exploited by male executives who never bothered to pay them, let alone promote them. They couldn't even spell their name correctly, as they were often billed as `The McKinlays'.
In fact (as the film doesn't say), they had more luck in Germany, where Jeanette scored a No.1 as one half of Die Window in 1972. Sheila did session work with the likes of Ringo Starr and Wings and married saxophonist Howie Casey, who was recently seen with Paul McCartney in One Hand Clapping. She died in 2012, but Jeanette lives on to sing her praises and get this documentary off to a rousing and wonderfully nostalgic start - while also sounding a note of caution for all the London-centric misogyny to come.
Coming forward to 1979, Dumbarton's Patricia `Trash' Brown and Anne Morrison formed The Ettes with Christine Bailey and became the first Scottish girl punk band. They recorded a demo in order to send it to John Peel at Radio One and endured sexual abuse backstage to play with some of Scotland's biggest bands of the time. Their songs also had an activist undercurrent to reflect the experience of young women at the time. But, while they were pioneers who proved that women could get on stage, they were never picked up, even by the label run by Morrison's sister and her husband.
Easton was obsessed as a kid with the animated combo, Jem and The Holograms. But she didn't know that there were several Scottish girl groups seeking success around the same time. Among them were Sophisticated Boom Boom, who took their name from a Shangri-Las track and were comprised of Irene Brown, Jacqueline Bradley-Heeps, Laura Mazzolini, Libby McArthur, and Tricia Reid. The latter two recall the poppy approach that earned them a slot on Something Else in 1982.
Over in Glasgow, sisters Louise and Deirdre Rutkowski formed Sunset Gun, while Gayle and Rachel Bell were joined in The Twinsets by Christine Bailey from The Ettes. But it was Jill Bryson and Rose McDowall who formed the most successful combo of this time, Strawberry Switchblade. They recall how they came together almost by accident, as Bryson had started listening to music while recovering from agoraphobia at 15 and began writing songs at art school.
The base of operations for these bands to rehearse was The Hellfire Club, which also had a small studio. The three bands began playing gigs and writing their own songs. It was all a bit harum scarum, but they each had followings, with The Twinsets being asked by Jimmy Boyle to play a prison gig to 400 lifers (and getting tea and biscuits afterwards). They recorded the old Shangri-Las song and made a video before eventually getting on to John Peel on the same night as Sophisticated Boom Boom. They supported Echo and The Bunnymen and The Clash and were interviewed for The Tube by Jools Holland. But they felt the resentment of local non-girl bands, who had slogged for years without getting anywhere.
Signed to a major label on the strength of a single gig, Sunset Gun became a three piece when Ross Campbell was added for the album, An Ideal World. The Rutkowskis loved being in the studio in Chipping Norton, but they were dropped when sales disappointed and they were left to deal with the fallout alone. Strawberry Switchblade were signed by Warners and became the only Scottish girl band to make the UK Top 30, when `Since Yesterday' got to No.5 during a 20-week run on the charts (after a very slow start, which the film omits to mention). A nice Saturday Superstore piece shows Delia Smith finding it `boring', while Ric Ocasek from The Cars liked it. But being described as looking like `Christmas trees' by Frank Bough on Breakfast Time summed up the media's lack of comprehension and need to pigeonhole. It wasn't until 2015, therefore, that McDowall revealed that `Since Yesterday' wasn't a love song, but a Cold War lament about the threat of nuclear war.
Success in Japan proved problematic for Bryson because of her agoraphobia, while McDowall disliked the synth-pop vibe the record label was trying to impose upon them for the album. As a consequence, they broke up and both look back with sadness on how things turned out. Libby McArthur still feels hurt at being fired by her bandmates for getting pregnant before a gig with Simple Minds at Barrowland in Glasgow. She took the name Sophisicated Boom Boom with her and Moira Rankin (now Tateo) replaced her in the newly minted, His Latest Flame. They had a nice run and were signed to the London label, But Armstrong decided to leave to raise her child and Bradley-Heeps was pushed when she also became pregnant. Now a threesome, the band landed some prestigious TV slots and released the album, In the Neighbourhood. But the writing was on the wall, as the label (searching for a Tartan Bananarama) didn't know what to do with them and they were dropped and all memory of them slipped through the cracks.
In the 1990s, Easton formed her own group, TeenCanteen, and embraced the girl band label, while also being wary of its limiting associations within the patriarchy that was the music business. Sunni Caro from Hello Skinny jokes about using the term `girl power' because of its Spice Girls connection, but there was a sense of independence and empowerment about trying to do things in a different way. This coincided with the riot grrrl boom in the US, although several of the new Scottish bands were more interested in making music together than getting record deals and finding fame.
Jane McKeown (aka Jane Egypt) and Ann Lafferty (aka Annie Spandex) from Lung Leg recall how each band had their own fanzine and there was a camaraderie rather than a rivalry between the bands. Maureen Quinn and Amanda Doorbar completed their line-up, while bedroom combo Hello Skinny was made up of Sunni Caro, Lucy McKenzie, and Fabi Lazzurri. The latter recalls the excitement of playing gigs at The Cathouse and King Tut's and sharing the bill with other local groups.
A buzz developed around Lung Leg, as they put out a single and played in London, but other combos developed at a venue run by Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand. Among them were Pink Kross - Vic Boyd (aka Vic Blue), Jane Chalmers (aka Jane Strain) and Jude Boyd (aka Jude Fuzz) - and Sally Skull, whose members were Clare Scrivener, Saskia Holling, and Phil Bull. Holling put together lots of all-girl gigs, while some found a home at Vesuvius Records, which was run by Pat Crook, who was also part of Melody Dog.
The label release Lung Leg's debut album, Made to Minx, in 1997 and they did a Peel Session, in the face of mockery from the New Musical Express. Southern Records asked them to re-record the album prior to a US tour, which happened without Quinn, who was pregnant. Selling out their merchandise knickers on the second night, Lung Leg returned home to sign on the dole and plead with the label for food money. Unwilling to fund trips to London to record a follow-up LP, the group was forced to disband just as t was on the up and Easton laments in narration that so many Scottish girl bands were unable to take the next step because the structures weren't in place to accommodate them.
A decade later, The Hedrons got to release the next Scottish girl band album, One More Won't Kill Us, in 2007. Yvonne `Tippi' Tipping, Rosie McClune, Gill Bickerstaff, and Lesley `Soup' McLaren sit together to reminisce about touring Europe and the US and Tippi ignoring a warning at the Isle of Wight festival not to use Mick Jagger's walkway into the crowd. Sounding much tighter than their predecessors, they were touted for a move to a major label and the chance to become the first Scottish girl band to make a second album, when the A&R people confessed that labels were shying away because they feared a pregnancy would ruin everything.
Shocking statistics flash up about the discrimination against women musicians and songwriters and the harassment endured in a misogynist industry. However, Arusa Qureshi and Halina Rifai are attempting to level the playing field with AmPLiFi, which seeks to encourage women and non-binary artists, as well as Black performers and musicians of colour. Tamara `Malka' Schlesinger has set up the Hen Hoose collective to encourage songwriters, while Rachel `Kohla' Johnson and Josephine Sillars have used PopGirlz to provide a safe space for hopefuls to make contacts and get themselves heard. Marie Williamson of Fanny Riot appreciates the supportive network, as they seek to make festivals safer for women. Bands like Hairband, Sacred Paws, Honeyblood, Bdy Prts, 4Tune, Uninvited, Tough Love, Yoko Pwno and The Honey Farm, The Van T's, Brenda, Heir of the Cursed, Elisabeth Elektra, Bratakus, Flinch, Shears, Just Someone Who Cares, The Suits, and The Cords all get a video shout-out in a rushed section about the need for change and for the white men who control things to see what's happening at a grassroots level.
This all makes sense, but rather leaves the viewer short-changed, as clearly the number of Scottish girl bands has increased dramatically, but we're not told whether any have recorded singles or albums or are just gigging or using online spaces to promote themselves. More needs to be done, but while sisters are doing it for themselves (as Scot Annie Lennox might say), they still have obstacles to overcome - the majority of them having been placed in their way by blokes.
Closing captions note the passing of certain band members, while providing updates on those featured in the film. Amidst the reunions, new combos, solo careers, and changes of direction, it emerges that many of the speakers are still making music and have no intention of stopping, as they are aware that the past and future depend on what they can achieve in the here and now.
Regardless of the gallop in the final furlong, this is a highly informative and enjoyable survey of Scottish girl bands. Nothing is said about the lack of racial diversity before the modern era, but the attempt to rectify the situation is covered in the closing remarks. It's good to see that so many of those involved in this first-hand account are still strutting their stuff and one can only hope that the film introduces them to new audiences.
Given the significance of her own career, Carla J. Easton is winningly modest about her own contribution. But her narration is eager to give credit to those who came before and co-director Blair Young and fellow editor, Lindsay Watson, do a marvellous job of stitching together the wealth of audiovisual material that intersperses interviews that are notable for their geniality and generosity, considering how so many bands were marginalised and misunderstood. There's lots of factual detail to digest, but recollections of using felt pens for make-up and rehearsing in front rooms binds the story around the origanisational conceit of finding pin-ups to adorn an everygirl's bedroom wall. When there isn't any found footage available, animation is judiciously used to recreate episodes such as the Saughton Prison gig. Labelling a bit more of the music playing in the background might have helped those looking for tracks online, though.
Some enterprising label should put out a soundtrack album to support a film that feels a natural for television. But young people don't watch TV in the way they did when these estimable women were looking for role models. So, one is left to wonder how else those who would be inspired by this fascinating feature will get to discover it and the music it showcases.
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