Music
Press
Releasing a debut album on your own record label is not uncommon of Manchester’s DIY culture. Though in this instance is more illustrative of GeEkgiRL’s industrious character, ambition and drive. It’s been 3 years since GeEkgiRL met, playing their first gig after 2 rehearsals. Ask them what their influences are and they’re likely to stare in different directions and pluck something as opposite as the corners they were staring at.
GeEkgiRL’s music is refreshing, as Joel, Fi and Ted, within their own individual musical capacity, echo many different musicians and sounds. As a band, they do not seem content with using someone else’s recipe and have created an inventive blueprint of pop, soul, punk, blues and funk, served with spirit, and seasonings of melancholy.
Having found a sound engineer that could fit all the elements of GeEkgiRL’s sound to desired proportions onto their debut album, GeEkgiRL burst out in jack-in-a-box style with the opening track, ‘Get it on.’ A perfect blend of punk, funk, country and pop with unashamedly fickle, lustful, cheeky lyrics. The bass rubs it’s self infectiously against you, played with the rigor of Flea (RedHotChillis) and catchy sound reminiscent of the Violent Femmes. Listening to just the opening track would create a false impression of who GeEkgiRL really are.
The second track, “Filth,” immediately changes course, bringing us into darker waters, sung with a hint of disdain, and is something you’d get if Patti Smith and Kate Bush had a love child fought over by Chrissy Hynde.
The album pulls you to different areas of a ball park and you feel you experienced a full flavoured meal, batted between genres, realising you cannot predict where it’ll take you next. ‘I wanna be,’ brings you back in the realms of pop and fully acquaints you with Joel and Ted as backing vocalists, to give added elements to this quirky, wistfully forward, up-beat song. ‘Here we go,’ is an amazingly visual song with the parts played to perfection by the funky bass, drums and timed delivery of lyrics. The songs intro lulls you into thinking it might be one of the quieter tracks, but then Fi unleases her voice onto, you armed with angst and hurt and burdened with pride and annoyance.
“You owe me”, swings back round out of pop corner of track 5s, (‘You’re so cool,’) to draw out an uneasy sound to match the bitter lyrics, “you better watch out, ‘cos you owe me.” ‘O!’ is pretty orgasmic.
‘Elvis’ unfolds a picture painted by the delicate, contemplative piano, of sitting alone in a bar, nursing countless glasses of drink and even more memories. “No body asks if I reach for the glass, the liquor here’s easy.’ The music compliments the chorus’s height, with the growling bass and drums…. ‘Save my soul/Won't you save my soul/I need some help baby/But you'd have to be crazy/To want to save my soul.”
The concluding track, “Devil and the dolly,” is the most matured GeEkgiRL song, sculpted along the years into what you hear today. Fi’s theatrical delivery gives even more depth to this beautifully crafted narrative, directed by drums and a bass that has been caressed into producing its sounds. Far from being an end track to stipulate ‘the end,’ of the album, it merely states GeEkgiRL’s arrival. I get the impression that they will stay as long as they like, thank you very much. It’s easy to see why GeEkgiRL were eager to release this album. They believe in their music and that it should be heard. And so it should.
Left Ventricle, beat your heART out, jan 2005
www.beatyourartout.co.uk - Beat your he(art) out
You know a band has made it when their fans are singing their lyrics in the toilets. But with lines like "f*** you for being so cute, f*** you for being so rude" GeEkgiRL have the perfect antidote to heartbreak and angst.
All dressed in white - singer Fi in a tennis skirt and snow-board boots and her band boys Ted and Joel with red ties - the raw passion of the local trio meant they can’t be pigeonholed.
Once described as ‘Alanis Morrissette wrestling with the White Stripes’, the wild-eyed stare of Fi gives them a punky edge while smacking something of Dolly Parton and Cyndi Lauper too. With acoustic rock treat Get it On, they managed to fuse dirty basslines with Country and Western perfectly. Yet heart-wrenching piano songs Valentine and Elvis took the concepts of 'beautiful’ and ‘embittered’ to new levels.
Kate Bradbury, Manchester online - Academy 3, April 2005
www.manchesteronline.co.uk - Manchester Online
Erudition is not a word normally associated with the music scene, that is until GeEkgirl. This Manchester based three piece write and perform with wit, attitude and great style.
GeEkgiRL manage to combine elements of rock, punk, folk and soul without ever imitating, seeming to only enhance their originality.
Originality, another rarity in a scene populated with trite Oasis wannabes and corporate puppet chart blandness. Fi's vocals take you from the heartbreakingly brittle to full blooded rock, Joel's basslines echo everyone from Bootsy Collins through to Jah Wobble and Ted is the power behind the (drum) throne, keeping it tight and incessant.
Their songs range from melancholic to feisty, rambunctious punk, but always with a pop sensibility. It can only be a matter of time before GeEkgiRL become a dominant, lasting force in music.
Always innovative, never derivative, GeEkgiRL are national treasures in the making. Catch them while you can!
Caroline Rennie, All Fm, March 2005
www.allfm.org - All Fm, Manchester
Discography
May contain traces of boy (LP) 2006
Down 2 Size (single) 2004
GeEkgiRL (self-titled LP) 2004
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
GeEkgiRL are a self-signed band working with their own producer and live engineer in Manchester, England.
It all started in the year 2000, in the flat above a pub in Soho while fi was attempting to make her mark in the world of theatre and TV. Sadly for the big screen, fi didn't get much work beyond playing small boys and beatrix potter, but luckily for her she found a friend who thought she should sack that off and do what she was best at: writing and singing.
Her friend found her a like-minded guitarist by the name of Jo Meava. Jo and Fi started jamming with some of fi's songs and eventually got a few gigs on the london scene. The name GeEkgiRL came about because, as they were conjuring up a whole carriageload of crap names (including "stallion" among the worst), her friend bec looked at fi as she was sat making a lampshade out of photographic negatives and declared she was "a right geek girl". And she is.
A year or so later fi moved back home, never to return to London (despite the promise she would), and Jo couldn't move with her. In 2003 she found herself back in Manchester where she had studied a few years earlier, and made the big decision to quit acting and to move forward with the music in her life.
She got a job at a high class stationary store, and there she met ted. Ted was a writer and fellow musician, and he was interested in jamming with fi, but for a few months fi kept putting him off because she had a stupid notion she wanted an all-girl band.
After a few months with no success finding any girls that were good enough (they were all taken), fi had realised that she and ted really did get along very well, and she should find out how good he was. They had one jam, and fi threw her stupid notion out of the window. With a drummer in place all they needed was a bass player. Cue the post office.
Through a bizarre stroke of luck fi was buying her car tax from "cashier number 5 please". She was also sending a demo off to a well known festival. This cashier looked a little surly. She thought he looked like a bass player. She was about to ask him when he noted the address on the package. He asked her if the cd was anything good, she told him yes, it was her band, and then asked if he was a bass player.
The long haired man was a little shocked, "yes," he replied, "how could you tell?"
Fi: "you look like a bass player"
Joel: "I'm not sure whether to be offended or not, since all the best bass players are ugly"
Fi: "I said you looked like a bass player, I didn't say you looked like a GOOD bass player"
(And he is, but that does not mean she thinks he is ugly)
From there on it was fate. She found out he was in a band (in fact maybe two), but he seemed interested and she invited him to a jam. When he asked what kind of music she played and she unashamedly declared it was "indie", the deal was sealed.
Joel turned up for the jam try-out, and both Fi and Ted both decided they HAD to have him in the band (he had left the room to go to the toilet, they didn't say it to his face). They thought the best way to do this was to make it the bestest band he'd ever been in (and he'd seen a few), but more importantly, the busiest.
They played their first gig two weeks later in Manchester at Night and Day after just two rehearsals.
To date GeEkgiRL have played alongside the likes of Charlotte Church (c'mon, she's cool), Ari-Up of The Slits (fi sang with her on stage, we don't talk about it), Nizlopi (big smiles) and even David McAlmont.
GeEkgiRL are continually compared to ANY female fronted band or singer/songwriter. This is probably due to lazy journalism, or perhaps because girl singers rarely get compared to boys; maybe they should.
Nirvana/Elvis/Kate Bush/White Stripes/GeEkgiRL/Violent Femmes...
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