The Oh Johnny! Girls

I admit i'm not intimately familiar with the metro area's rockabilly scene; other than a performance by the Poison Okies up in the city a few years back, I haven't caught much of any of it live.

This upcoming release from local rockers The Oh Johnny! Girls tells me why i haven't seen too many rockabilly acts around.

They're hiding from the fearsome competition that is The Oh Johnny! Girls.

And many of them should, I think.

From the opening notes of the first track, " Killing Spree," the album pulls the listener into a dark mirror of the early days of rock n roll and never lets go.

No matter what the tempo of a particular song, the level of rocking rebelliousness is present for the duration, in no small part due to the vocals by lead guitarist Sandra D. Hamilton and guitarist Kelli Brooke Haney.

The result is a sexy, ominous, Wanda-Jackson-gone-badass-punk-girl sound that shoulud be appealing to fans of classic country and pun k rock alike; it's the kind of music that can make you feel guilty for not wearing a black leather jacket and jeans, combing butch wax through your pompadour and planning some kind of hooliganism while hearing it.

Especially noteworthy are the wistful "In a Lonley Place," a lament for the ages that leaves you wishing it went on for hours; "Oh Johnny!" a serious retro-rocker with the blues in it's bones that could have been written decades ago and would have been a classic then, too; "Blue Eyes," which evokes lonely high-speed night drives through the middle of nowhere with a haunting feel enhanced by double-barreled vocal work; " House on Fire," an upbeat one sure to get the whole room cutting a rug; title track "You Should've Known," a breathtaking slow song that mourns a lover's ignorance of the vicious cycle of loss, love, and loss; and "Heart Attack Woman," the catchiest of the bunch (which is saying a lot- they are all pretty much toe-tappers).

Themes of love, loss, mischief, and mayhem permeate the album.

It's the kind of music that reminds listeners how much of a debt this new century's music owes to the last one's, and how many gems there are back there to be polished, adapted, and made new, if we just take a minute to look back.

Deft support throughout by bassist Quinn Johnson and drummer Willie V. Haney make this sound possible; just hearing them keep up with the pace and tone the ladies set m,akes me want to catch the whole band live, even if i have to sneak out and hotwire a hot rod to do it. - Pop Magazine - Norman Transcript

The debut LP from Oh Johnny! Girls would make a great 60's era exploitation movie. Their CD release party for "You Should've Known" will be at the Deli, on Friday, November 10.

Kelli Brooke Haney and Sandra D. Hamilton front the group and trade off writing/vocal duties, each taking on a different character. Haney is the goody-goody with the poodle skirt and the guilty penchant for bad boys who inevitably break her heart. Hamilton is the hell raiser who's just looking for a good time or a knife fight, whichever comes first.

The Oh Johnny! Girls are still relative pups to the metro roots rock scene. Over the last year, they've hit the clubs and bars hard, taking only a brief break to record their album. "You Should've Known" displays their continuing maturation.

The opening track, "Killing Spree" could have easily come from a Quentin Tarantino soundtrack, with Hamilton's growling vocals and jangling guitars heralding a Bonnie and Clyde type romance.

While Hamilton's feet are firmly rooted in rock and roll, Haney is dipping her toes in early R & B. "In A Lonely Place" features Haney's honey-soaked voice pining the cruelties of love and fate.

In case the difference between the two styles isn't evident enough, they often cut between the characters from one song to the next like a movie following parallel plotlines.

The album is carefully structured to give equal time to the band's polarized personalities, but it would be interesting to hear those two voices interact within the same song. Regardless, they continue to be one of the most accessible and colorful bands throughout the metro. - OK Gazette

In a dimly lit garage somewhere in Norman The Oh Johnny! Girls are warming up. Guitar cables stretch across the concrete floor and a low buzz can be heard coming from the speakers. Their show tonight at The Deli is a big one. It celebrates the release of their first full-length CD. The CD marks a coming of age for the band, a step toward the ultimate goal: stardom.

"[Releasing a CD] now makes us keep working and not get too comfortable," bassist Quinn Johnson said. "I didn't want to be in a band that talks about putting something out for years and then just breaks up."

The Oh Johnny! Girls seem to be in no danger of breaking up anytime soon, at least not if talent (of which they have an abundance) is the determining factor.

Together now for about a year, The Oh Johnny! Girls got their start when fellow guitarists and vocalists Sandra D. Hamilton and Kelli Brooke Haney met up and began playing together.

"I met Brooke at a Misfits show at the Diamond Ballroom on January 14, 2000," Hamilton said. "A friend introduced us and it's been heaven ever since."

Kelli Brooke had desired to be in a band for a long time, and after meeting Hamilton, her goal was realized.

"I had wanted to start a band for a long time," Kelli Brooke said. "I just decided to do it!"

The pair eventually added Haney's brother, drummer Willie V. Haney and bassist Quinn Johnson to complete The Oh Johnny! Girls line-up. Both had done things musically beforehand, but easily fit into the band's sound. Although the girls right the majority of the band's material, Willie V. and Johnson add their own musical style and spin to the band.

"Brooke and Sandy write all the pretty stuff," Willie V. said. "Quinn and I make up the backbeats.

Kelli Brooke said she also draws musical influence from her Willie V.

"My brother made me listen to really good music at a really young age," Kelli Brooke said. "You should hear his solo stuff- it's really, really weird s***. He goes crazy onstage during solo acts."

The band also draws inspiration from Elvis, Otis Redding, and Johnny Cash. Pulling musical influence from retro rock while still maintaining their own style gives
The Oh Johnny! Girls a voice that's all their own.

Even the band's two lead vocalists each have their own unique sound. Hamilton provides the gritty, aggressive voice of female power while Kelli Brooke supplies a
softer, silkier voice that often drips with heartbreak and longing. The two girls' voices, although drastically different blend to form a sound that is all at once totally
retro and refreshingly new.

Thus far, the band has stayed fairly underground, with a loyal following of Norman and Oklahoma City grass-roots listeners. The new CD, however, offers them a
chance to get their music out into the mainstream. To make this happen, however, The Oh Johnny! Girls are looking to their fans for help.

"Promote us, come to our shows, tell [your] friends about us and write our names on [your] trapper keepers," Willie V. said. "We aren't opposed to Oh Johnny!
Girls tattoos or naming firstborn children 'Willie Sandy Brooke Quinn Oh Johnny.'"

Johnson agreed, and said support of the fans is essential.

"Mostly, it's really important to go to shows and support the scene," Johnson said. "Live music is a democracy- you just pay covers and buy CDs instead of
voting."

After the release of the CD, the band is also looking to go on tour and promote the CD.

"We would like to do a bit of regional touring this winter and just see where the most interest takes us," Johnson said.

The band has also been participating in several other projects, including a spot in a movie.

"We're featured in a movie, due out by the end of the year by Festival City Film' writer/director Dave Smith," Kelli Brooke said. "It's called Manjari Must Die! We
have other opportunities to do some soundtrack stuff for other film projects which might be cool."

The Oh Johnny! Girls are also open to the idea of finding a label before the release of their next CD to assist with distribution and to fund a more widespread tour.

"We want a label that can promote us well and get our CDs to the people who want to hear them," Willie V. said.

The Oh Johnny! Girls express that desire (to get their music out to the fans and have it appreciated) through everything they do.

"We love you," Willie V. said. "Do you love us too?" - The Oklahoma Daily

In the world of the Oh Johnny! Girls, Elvis is still King and reality is seen through the lens of director Russ Meyer. The Oklahoma City band drips vintage style and attitude on stage, and though Elvis has been dead for decades, and the movie "Faster Pussycatt! Kill! Kill!" is fading into obscurity, the Oh Johnny! Girls rock on. They will be playing VZD's on Friday, March 3.

The band joined the small but loyal rockabilly/roots rock scene in OKC last year and quickly built their following. They even cut a two-band EP with The High Pressure Idiots.


"We booked our first show with the Gore Gore Girls when we only had two songs so we had to put the show together fast," guitarist and vocalist Kelli Brooke Haney said. "We put together a secret show here (at the Green Door) that we didn't tell anyone about it because we needed to practice and I'd never been on stage before."


The band features two front women, the silk voiced Kelli Brooke and the more gritty and aggressive Sandy Hamilton. They two women share the songwriting duties and offer a dichotomy of 50's era female icons: the hardened, hot-blooded vixen and the angelic gamine.


Filling out the band are Quinn Johnson in bass, and Willie V Haney(who sported a chocolate brown leisure suit to their gig at the farewell show at the Green Door). Willie V. had been performing prior to the Oh Johnny! Girls' formation, and wanted to form a band with his sister, Kelli Brooke, then a budding musician.


"We all had a background in that kind of music, rockabilly, soul kind of stuff," Kelli Brooke said. "We just like rock and roll and we've all been listening to Elvis. Everything just fell together very fast and purposefully."


The band has been fortunate to get a welcome reception from the Oklahoma crowds, both in the metro and in Tulsa. The rockabilly and roots rock scene is still underground, but they've found that their music translates well to most audiences.


"We appeal to a lot of different crowds, I've had a lot of types of people come up and say they enjoyed our sets," Kellie Brooke said. "Our music is very versatile because we can play with a lot of different bands and the crowds respond well."


"The first thing for us now is getting a proper album recorded, we want to get 12 good songs put together," Willie V. said. "We're aiming for late spring, we want to get it out by mid summer so that in the fall we can run around and tour, have fun and play music for new people."


The band has a legitimate familiarity with the style of music they play, which will help them with the genre's base fans. Kelli and Sandra's sex appeal will reach out to the fringe listeners. They've benefited from being close to the premiere bands in the scene, such as The Starkweather Boys.


"We're really a tight-knit group, as far as rockabilly music goes," Kelli Brooke said, noting that the scene's popularity waxes and wanes. "It helps when we get great touring bands, but when bands like the Starkweather Boys form, it really helps." - OK Gazette

The Oh Johnny! Girls worked furiously all week to record a CD with pals The High Pressure Idiots. Opolis hosted their party show Jan. 20. The hot payload is a seven track disc that's imperfect as your favorite mistake and just as memorable. With Asian, American Indigenous and Anglo representation, it's world punk. Sandra Taylor (vocal/lead guitar), Kelli Brooke (vocals/guitar), Quinn Johnson (bass) and Willie "Thundersticks" V. vowed to make the release party a special event.

High Pressure Idiots's frontman Katusuhiro Hanamura (vocals/guitar) is returning to Japan soon, a recent University of Central Oklahoma graduate. This was Hanamura's American swan song with UCO undergrad homies Masanobu Asai (bass) and Yuki Kuze (drums).

The OJ! Girls are a new project with a dozen or so shows under their bra straps. They had the good fortune to score a definitive gig early on, opening for Detroit alter-egos the Gore Gore Girls (who toured with the Cramps) in 2005.

It's menacing sex kitten allure with fuzzed-out guitar and punked-up retro rock - Dita Von Tease meets Jerry Lee Lewis. No surprise that Taylor's favorite make-out music is The Killer's 'Meat Man.'

Taylor's and exotic Eurasian femme fatale whose writing follows a theme. "My songs are all about killing men. I'm happily married. I love men. I just don't know what it is," said the author of "Heart Attack Woman" and "Killing Spree."

The sound is balanced with Brooke's busted-heart ballads. "Sandy's songs are the bad-ass ones about causing trouble and mine are about being sad and lonely," she observed. Brooke and Willie V. are siblings who share earliest musical memories.

"At the Seminole stomp grounds my tribe has a religious ceremony that goes on all night with dancing around the fire and the songs are sung in Creek," Willie V. said.

"I hear that in your drumming," Brooke said. "Dad used to sing Creek songs in the car all the time and he's not that good of a singer. They're mostly hymns and he would explain the lyrics to me."

The Girls' guilty musical pleasures include Carole King (Brooke), FM 103.5's gansta rap (Willie), and mariachi music (Taylor). Johnson said it was a mean question and declined to answer. This from a bass player whose number one choice of romantic mood music is Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" (no. 1, 1979).

THE OH JOHNNY! GIRLS

"I'm going to the store/to buy a .44," Taylor warned. There were many musical shots in the dark. Better aim is in sight. Saving grace to OJ Girls shotgun approach was their high calibur passion. They shot from the hip both on the alvbum and in concert. It was a blast. They're fast and fun.

Willie V. may be a Svengali of this combo. If so, it wasn't apparent in public. The rhythm section's performance was similarly discreet.

Vocals were oh! so good. Brooke has exceptional country pipes that'll make you dream of red dirt roads to paradise. "It's such a shame/such a shame," the siren sang.

Taylor was felony-bad covering "Cell Block No. 9." She's hotter than a six month conjugal visit. Dale Bozzio-style hiccups punctuated her deadly "Heart Attack Woman." The song is a memorial to all male tickers snapped by a danger doll. Among other cardiac homomicides, Taylor's lyrics clain she roade a horse, causing his sudden arrest. Whoa! Johnny! - POP Magazine - Norman Transcript