Music
Press
Everybody knows it's uncool to smile in rock, but who gives? This is pop with guitars, anyway (and she's from Kansas City). So rarely does an album-perfect 40 minutes of dazzling tunefulness, gleeful, wide-horizon jangly-guitar road-tripping roll around, that you have to smile about it. Strap yourself in behind a big chrome bumper and bring nothing waterproof whatsoever. - Pamela Mullinger
Sweet '60s pop from Kansas chameleon
On previous releases, Kansas-born, London-based songwriter Angela Penhaligon (aka Piney Gir) has explored country music with mixed results, having started out doing electro-dance. You might, then, doubt the sincerity of her take on sweet, 1960s-influenced girl pop, but such scepticism would be challenged by the opening 'Outta Sight" - a straightforward, finger-clicking paean to instant love. There are echoes of Jenny Lewis, or perhaps the Swedish pop of Hello Saferide (notably on "Stay Sweet") but the mix of sass and vulnerability adds a melancholy twang on "It's Our Time" (Alastair McKay) - IPC Media
Long-exiled American takes delightful retro-pop turn.
Kansas-born, London-based Angela Penhaligon, aka Piney Gir, if full of surprises. After off-kilter dabbles with electronica and country she has moved on again, back to a world of jangling guitars and femme-pop innocence of effervescent '60s beat and cut-price Spector-esque melodramatics, complete with clicking castanets. It's a dangerous game that could easily slide into irony-laden pastiche, but playing everything dead straight and lyrically as guileless as ever, even tossing in an odd yodel when the mood takes her, the result is a charming little diversion from the cares of the modern world. (Peter Kane) - Bauer Media Group
There's more to London-based Kansas' gir' Angela Penhaligon than her spunky cowgirl image suggests. With at least one yodel and a "yippy-l-yay", there may be more Western Swing here than 99 per cent of albums reviewed this month, but her fifth offering's boosted pop chops and the deeper pockets of her girlish delivery are game-changers. The '60s girl-group leaning on show are more Lesley Gore than Amy Winehouse, fed by surfin' twang and and other upbeat tributaries as Would You Be There borrows The Byrds' 12-string chime, The Gift gets infused with mariachi trumpets and the tear-jerking Oh Lies gives Twinkle a run for her money. Let's Get Silly is an invitation to a barndance but the album's varying emotions and mutations are part of its unexpected strength. (Martin Aston) - Bauer Media Group
Angela Penhaligon, from Kansas, though long settled in London, isn't afraid to swap styles. Her debut album dealt in electronic music, before she formed Piney Gir's Country Roadshow and put her money on twangy guitars. Her fifth album, by contrast, takes its cues from mid-60s pop, with a hint of new wave. The opening pair of Outta Sight and Here's Looking at You are spritely and brisk, guitars fizzing and jangling, and uncluttered enough for Gir's clean, true voice to mix sweet and tart. For five songs, in fact, Geronimo! promises to be a retro delight. Then, sadly, it fades: not catastrophically, but the focus dissipates, the melodies weaken, the energy lessens. The Gift, River Song and Let's Get Silly return to an arch version of country, but the highlight of the second half comes with It's Our Time, a song that seems torn from the poppier run at the start of the record. - Guardian Media Group
Discography
Peakahokahoo - Truck Records UK Release 2004
Hold Yer Horses - Truck Records UK Release 2006
The Yearling - Hotel Records UK Release 2009
Jesus Wept - Damaged Goods Records UK Release 2010
Geronimo - Damaged Goods Records UK Release 2011
Peakahokahoo - Grey Day Records - USA Release 2005
The Yearling - Grey Day Records - USA Release 2010
Hold Yer Horses - Grey Day Records - USA Release 2011
Jesus Wept - Grey Day Records - USA Release 2011
Geronimo - Highline Records - USA release - October 2012
Photos
Bio
Piney Gir was born in a thunderstorm in the middle of May in Kansas City, Kansas. It was tornado season, the sky was green and angry; in a bath of blood out she popped.
Piney grew up in isolation in the American Midwest, this isolation was reinforced by her strict religious upbringing. She went to a special Christian school (no Darwin, no sex education) and attended church 4-5 times a week; no sinful TV, no secular music… this left a lot to young Piney’s imagination which flourished to fill in all the gaps.
One gift the church did give Piney was musical training, the Pentecostal charismatic Christians knew how to worship and they sang, a lot! There was speaking in tongues,
dancing and fainting, church was never really boring, and the early choir days may have given Piney her first taste of drama in performance. She was always given the solos and she became very adept at vocal harmonies which were a firm foundation for what was to come.
In 1989 everything changed as her father went to Seattle to start up a prison ministry and Piney’s mom kept her in Kansas where she was suddenly sent to a normal, non-Christian, junior high and was exposed to music, lots of music… new music with lyrics that Piney would listen to, convinced that in doing so she was sealing her fate in hell. It was culture shock, terribly naughty, but she loved it and channelled her rebel within.
Playing piano from the age of 4, Piney wrote her first song at 9 years old; she then took up the drums at 10 years old and kept writing songs in her bedroom. She went on to Uni to study percussion, but her shabby, ghetto apartment was robbed and they took her drums. So she changed her major to voice “They can’t steal your voice” she reckoned. However, Piney never had the voice for Verdi and came to London to work in a cocktail bar and figure things out.
She joined her first band, a synth pop duo (Vic Twenty) who released a single on Mute an toured Europe with Erasure. She saw the world and realised the road was in her blood, music was her sense of purpose and so she released her debut album Peakahokahoo on Truck Records in 2004. She was then the founder; singer and guitar player of all-girl, artrock, cult-classic group The Schla La Las. Alongside that, she released Hold Yer Horses, the first Country Roadshow album in 2006 and then released her 3rd album (another solo album) The Yearling on Hotel Records in 2009. She came back with a vengeance with the Country Roadshow on Damaged Goods in 2010 for her 4th album Jesus Wept which was critically acclaimed… and now she's bringing you Geronimo! from the starry hills of Hollywood.
Why Hollywood? Piney wanted to get out of the familiar London routine and go to a studio far away in the land of dreams to work with rock ?n' roll producer Rob Campanella (from the Brian Jonestown Massacre) and a few special guests too, from Brian Wilson's band to the Beatles' brass section. It's a star studded album saturated with pure sunshine and golden pop nuggets to make your heart sing.
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