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News flash for July...
it's hard to stay cool as our song "Hope has Nine Lives" has been firmly
lodged at #1 on MP3.com's power pop chart... until July 26th when Hope was
knocked into number #2 by dragster barbie's
song "He's a Vegetarian"... AND "Heavy in Numbers" grabbed #3,
followed by "Helium" at #5. Meet Amy : "One night, a ghost travelled to his house... and boo! Was scared right out of his house!" I jumped high in my feet pajamas to emphasize the last words.In my mind I saw a rickety pale-moon-blue cartoon car, travelling up a hill to a scary bat-infested haunted mansion, a trembling ghost at the wheel. I was three, and my trolls and garage sale barbies clapped in adoration, knowing just what I meant. My favorite toy was the record player, and my earliest dreams were spun around starting then, at 45 rpm.
I took up drums, percussion, piano, and sang in choir. We were one of the first generations of televison re-run children. Banana Splits, the Jeffersons, Gilligan's Island. Later, I craved the flesh-and-blood sounds of Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan, Punk. Whenever a song captured a I grew up. I learned what I loved (the 2 acres left of my family's orange grove, the ocean, the blue hills of the desert, old cars) and I learned what I hated (fast-food bags in the sand, senseless rules, beautiful facades). I adored older high-school girls who played the songs they wrote on piano. I was too shy to ever do that.
But that's what I wanted, so I learned. I first sang in front of people in kaffehauses in Germany. Picked up a guitar and learned it as I sang in front of latte thinkers and coffeehouse drinkers. Started a band called dragsterbarbie.
dragsterbarbie has turned into a sisterhood of girls who have found their strength and sense of humour. It extends beyond our little trio to 15 year old girls sneaking e-mails to us in study hall, to a woman who overcame an accident by teaching herself to drag race, to my little 3-year old niece who insists playing the sticker-covered guitar I gave her, everyday. dragsterbarbie at this very moment might be you clicking around on this page. You might see us on television one day... but then again, you probably won't. If you do, I'll write another paragraph after this one.
Meet Teresa : I spent the first couple of decades of my life on the east coast sub-tropical peninsula of Tampa, Florida. Thanks to my mother's insatiable love for music and singing, I was constantly surrounded by music from day one. From being dragged to countless fairs and carnivals to see pre-Garth cowboys without the headsets and flying harnesses; to a short-lived bout with piano lessons that ended when the teacher figured out I was memorizing everything and faking the reading part; to Jr. High Symphonic Marching Band where the 1st chair drummer, Johnny Gatto, forgot his sticks, forcing me to be the martyr and march in the prestigious Plant City Strawberry Festival without mine; to the part-time grunt job in college as an in-house roadie for the college sports and music arena... the music was always there for me.
I somehow found myself in Los Angeles a few months after having a semi-nervous breakdown/must find myself episode and taking a trip to San Francisco to visit friends. On a whim I rented a car and drove alone down the coast all the way to San Diego and totally fell in love. I knew I had to live in California. Didnt care where - none of it was flat - so any part was fine with me. I flew back to Florida, dropped out of grad school, dumped my college boyfriend, and the first chance I got packed my stuff and headed to Los Angeles. Over the next few years I've helped run a music studio, plowed through several tedious rent paying office jobs, learned to play a little guitar, learned I was much better on the bass, met Amy Hartman, loved her songs and imagined how great they'd sound with bass and drums accompanying her Silvertone, and the rest is dragsterbarbie history. Meet Kelly : It's funny how things work out. I wasn't the one into music when I was
growing up in New York City. Yeah, I had guitar and piano lessons as a young
teenager, but I didn't keep up with them. I liked writing poetry and short
stories more.
My sister was the one into music. She always wanted to start a band. When
she got her first amp for Christmas I decided I'd better learn to play the
drums or I'd be left behind! (Why drums? Because they looked like more fun.
Physical, noisy and just plain cool!)
After a few false starts we formed a post-punk girl-pop band called
Wednesday Week. By now we were living in Los Angeles and it was a great time
for alternative music in the clubs. We put out an E.P., played tons of local
shows, toured the Southwest, finally got signed, recorded an album, then
toured the U.S. and Canada. We even made a couple of videos and had airplay
on MTV! It was an exciting time. But then our bass player, Heidi Rodewald,
left and we lost momentum. We continued on for another year or so, released
a cassette-only album but eventually broke up.
At that point I actually sold my drum kit. I was done with music.
Not! I ended up playing in two more bands before dragsterbarbie. Briefly I
played with The Mistaken (post-Angry Samoan Gregg Turner's band) and helped
them finish their album, "Santa Fe." I then got back together with my sister
and we formed Lucky, a coffee-house semi-accoustic duo with guitar, snare
drum and hi-hat. Lucky eventually turned into a full-on electric band
(w/David Nolte on guitar and Mike Lawrence on bass) and we released a CD
called "Live A Little." After a couple of years and some minor touring we
disbanded.
Ironically, it was a Wednesday Week reunion show that connected me to Amy
and Teresa. I was all set to sell my drums (yes, again!) but they came up
after our show and gave me their tape. They were looking for a girl drummer.
It took four days for me to get around to listening to their cassette, but
finally curiosity got the better of me. What kind of music are
twentysomethings into, I wondered? Boy was I surprised!
I was quite impressed but hesitant to join another band. Wasn't I planning
on selling my drums and slipping back into obscurity? Thankfully my husband,
Don, urged me to give it a try. Three weeks after my try-out/rehearsal with
Amy and Teresa, I played my first show with dragsterbarbie!
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fragment of life and turned it into a prism I saw the light, every color. Music was the spirit of everything you could ever hope for and the consolation for everything you were going to lose. Growing up in Southern California, there was a lot of sunshine, and a lot of coldness when you were in a shadow. It begged perfection, tans and Disneyland at gunpoint.
