Gore Gore Girls make rock a go-go
Gore Gore Girls singer-guitarist Amy Surdu, a.k.a. Amy Gore, is jazzed. She's just gotten off the phone with Ike Turner (yes, that Ike), who had called her home in Detroit to talk with a journalist pal of hers. "He pretty much invented rock 'n' roll," says Gore. "If you look at history, Ike was doing stuff a long time before he met up with Tina [Turner]." Gore, who named her band after the title of a 1972 low-budget thriller by Herschell Gordon Lewis and adopted the Gore surname a la Joey Ramone, knows her pop culture history.
So do the Gore Gore Girls, which also includes co-founding guitarist-singer "The Hammer" (true identity unknown) and a revolving cast of willing coconspirators who over the past 10 years have helped make the Detroit outfit one of the most effective -- and fun -- crosses between the Ronettes and Runaways to take a stage. The band's sound is a delicious distillation that combines potent elements of Motor City's signature sounds: the '60s girl group pop of Motown , the gritty garage-rock sensibility of old-guard acts like the MC5, and newer Detroit stars such as the White Stripes and Detroit Cobras.
"When I first formed the band, I was listening to Black Sabbath and the Ventures and wanted to build a creepy, heavy, '60s kind of thing" -- hence the band's preferred onstage uniform of miniskirts, go-go boots, and beehive hairdos -- "and felt that a perfect band is one that looks like the Ronettes but sounds like the Stooges, and has that feral rock 'n' roll sound," says Gore, whose group headlines T.T. the Bear's Place tomorrow, an early stop on its first tour in two years. "That was my idea -- high camp. I remember getting girls-group records as a kid and being fascinated by them and being floored by the images. I just assumed that the girls on those records had played those instruments, and that was not the case. I thought, why not?"
After a long layoff (the band's last full-length CD, "Up All Night," was issued in 2002) due to an extended search for a label that, as Amy Gore puts it, didn't insist that the band give up ownership of its music, the Girls are finally, loudly back. They're slated to release their third full-length, "Get the Gore," this June on the roots and alt-country oriented Bloodshot Records, which Gore claims is a perfect fit.
"As strange as the combination might seem, it's actually a very good pairing," says Gore. "Punk rock is like folk music to me -- we're very punk- and roots- and blues-based, and that's what Bloodshot's put out for years. Once you look past the surface [differences], there's a lot of similarities." In fact, one of the Gores' garage-soul contemporaries, the Detroit Cobras, have their new album, "Tied and True," coming out on Bloodshot this month.
The Gores plan to preview songs from the new album, recorded with old friend producer-engineer Jim Diamond (White Stripes, Ponys), on tour this spring.
"I've always thought Amy had the combination of the girl-group [sound], the hard rock, and that tough '60s sound," says Diamond over the phone from his Detroit studio, Ghetto Recorders. "I love the Shangri-La's and the Ronettes and all that stuff, and so with Amy, I like to throw in sweet harmonies whenever possible, along with the fuzzboxes and the distorted guitars." The approach well suits the Gore Gore Girls, says Diamond. "They've got that good mix of the pop and the rock -- the dirty sex and the sexy dirt."
Amy Gore says she can't wait to hit the road to demonstrate Diamond's point. "It's like a religious thing, where people want to feel you and see that you're real and the genuine product," she says. Despite the instant global access an Internet presence can provide a band, Gore says there's no substitute for strapping on a guitar and plugging in under the hot lights. "Touring is what sets you apart," she says. "We play every night, and that's what makes you a musician and a performer. Your job is to make people feel good, capture their attention, and give them something they're not going to get anywhere else."
Volume? Check. Energy? Check. "Yep, all of those things,' Gore says brightly. "And skirts!"
The Gore Gore Girls headline T.T. the Bear’s Place tomorrow, on a bill with the Midnight Creeps and Vagiant. Show begins at 8:30 p.m. $10, 18+. 