Gina Volpe (Lunachicks, BANTAM)
"I feel like I grew up on that [CBGB] stage. I know every splinter and every warp of every floorboard in that club by heart. It's ingrained in my memory."
Perhaps it’s because of the urban density, or the abundance of public transportation, or the palpable “make it here/make it anywhere” ambition emanating off of recent transplants, but New York’s musical landscape has always been uniquely accessible and open to people who are underage. From teenage doo-wop groups singing on street corners in the ‘50s to Todd P.’s defiantly all-ages shows in the ‘00s, the city’s seen DJ Nicky Siano midwife the birth of disco at the Gallery when he was 17, LL Cool J record “I Need a Beat” when he was 16, Simon & Garfunkel perform as “Tom & Jerry” when they were 15, Grand Wizzard Theodore invent record scratching when he was 12, Harley Flanagan drum in the Stimulators when he was 11, and Freddy Cricien sing in Agnostic Front when he was all of 7 years old.
And then there’s Lunachicks, who formed in 1987 when guitarist Gina Volpe, bassist Sydney “Squid” Silver, and singer Theo Kogan were students at LaGuardia High School of Music, Art, and Performing Arts; their first original song imagined the killing of Kogan and Silver’s English teacher. Forming a garage band with your high school friends and writing songs about your teachers is, generally speaking, rarely a recipe for musical success or longevity, but from the get-go, Lunachicks were driven to defy the odds. After being spotted by Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore during a show at the Limelight, they were signed to Blast First Records in 1989. Over the course of the ‘90s, they released six fantastic albums, toured the world, and wound down operations in 2001 (without ever officially breaking up).
Silver and Kogan pursued other careers, but Volpe has remained musically active, fronting the power trio BANTAM and releasing multiple solo records, most recently Delete the World , which came out in February (for those of you in NYC, there’s a belated record release show at the Sultan Room on June 15th, with the fantastic Leathered opening). Though she could easily rest on her punk laurels, Volpe’s solo work finds her experimenting with electronic textures. When established rock artists “go electronic,” they risk seeming touristic, but in Volpe’s case, it’s comes across as a natural and comfortable evolution of the sound she’s been honing since high school.
We spoke over the phone in late April.
What part of the city did you grow up in?
So, truth be told, in my early early childhood, I was in Westchester - Mount Vernon, which is right outside the Bronx. But then when I was 11 or 12, we moved to Chelsea. We lived there for a couple years, and then we moved to the Upper West Side. Those were my stomping grounds as a teenager.
What was your introduction to the punk scene in the city?
I remember very explicitly my first hardcore matinee at CBGB’s. I was 13 or 14. I didn't know any of the bands that were playing; I didn't listen to hardcore, I was really into punk. I just knew that these were all ages shows. So my friends and I went down there, and I was like, wow, this is quite a scene. The funny thing is, on that day, there just happened to be a photographer taking photos of all the kids hanging out at the matinee - and, of course, there's not that many girls, mostly dudes. But I was with my two friends, and we all had mohawks and miniskirts, and so the photographer's like, “Let me take your pictures.” So I actually have that day documented. People were like, “Who are these newcomer posers taking photos?” [laughs]
It was quite the scene, though. There were a lot of people, and it was a little bit crazy and a little bit wild and a little bit violent, but a little bit exciting and thrilling - all those emotions. The dirty Bowery, it was all bombed out lots and graffiti and broken cars. There was a men's shelter right above CB’s, so there were always a few men [who were] either drunk or crazy or both, intermingling with all the punks and the hardcore kids.
I remember when I went inside, there wasn't really anybody in there. Everybody was outside on the street. It kind of seemed like a lot of the kids just came to hang out outside of CB’s and not actually go inside. At least that first day that I went there, there was more action on the sidewalk than there was inside the club.
When you're young, you're trying to find your tribe. I was new to the city, and this was my freshman year in high school. So I was making new friends and looking for my tribe and looking for my identity. Like, what's gonna grab my attention? Where do I want to be? So there was all this novelty to it. And then after that, it was like, “Okay, what are we gonna do this weekend?” “We're gonna go to the matinee!” It was something you did every weekend. That was the scene.
When you say you started high school, that was LaGuardia, right?
Yeah, although when I started it was called [the High School of] Music and Art, and then the next year it changed into LaGuardia. The first year when I went it was up in Harlem, and then it moved and merged with the Fame school and became LaGuardia.
And that was where you met the other members of Lunachicks.
Actually, no, I met them up at the Harlem school. Well, Syd went to the Fame school for acting, so her school was in Midtown. Theo and I were both art students and our school was up in Harlem. Theo introduced me to Syd, and we would go visit each other at each other's schools. When we found out the schools were merging and we'd all be in the same building together, we were thrilled beyond.
Were they also plugged into the scene at that point?
Because they grew up in Brooklyn, they did not go to the hardcore matinees. They had their own thing going on in Brooklyn, so they would take me to their Brooklyn friends’ houses - one of which was Sindi [Benezra], who was the other guitar player in Lunachicks. The people in Brooklyn, they were a little older, and they were all punkers. They weren't hardcore kids.
Were there shows in Brooklyn that they were bringing you to?
No. The only [venue] I can think of that was in Brooklyn was L’amour’s. L’amour’s was a really cheesy club in Bay Ridge. It was totally Saturday Night Fever. We actually did play L’amour’s once, and we did see bands there later on, but not in the ‘80s. This is like, mid to late ‘80s. It was still kind of cheesy, maybe hair metal. I always think of it as a strip club, [even though] it wasn't a strip club. But it had that vibe.
Were there other places besides CB’s where you were going to see shows at that point?
Eventually. I went to the hardcore matinees, but I wasn't really into the music. I do love some hardcore, but a lot of it I don't like. I prefer punk over hardcore. But the hardcore matinees were all ages, that's why we would go there. But when there were shows that were all ages, I would be there for sure.
There was the Rock Hotel, and they had all ages shows; I saw GBH there, I saw the Bad Brains there. There was Lismar Lounge, where they didn't check IDs, so you could get in. The Ritz would have all ages shows or 16 and over shows.
What led you to start the band?
Going to matinees, it was always boys [in the bands]. I say boys, because it was a very youth[-oriented] culture. Like everybody was under the age of 20; the average age seemed to be 16 or 17. And all the bands were all dudes. I remember the first time I saw [this] one band, they were all women. And I was like, oh, wow, that's so cool. I always wanted to play music anyway, and I was trying to teach myself guitar. But then, when I saw other women up there doing it, it really inspired me, because it was a rare sight to see other women in punk bands or hardcore bands. [I figured,] if they can do it, I can do it.
So I had already been making plans to start a band. Theo and Syd, who weren't musicians - not that I was a musician, but I was aiming, and they were not - we were all obsessed with music. We would just hang out and listen to music, that's all we did every weekend, or we’d cut school and just play records. But they were like, “We should start a band. Let's all start a band together.” And I was like, “Well, yeah, okay. I've been trying to do that.”
Were there particular bands or particular women that you were really inspired by or trying to emulate?
Elyse [Steinman] from Raging Slab. She played slide guitar, and I am a blues freak and I also play slide. And so when I saw her bust out the slide, I was like, that's so cool. I was a big fan of Raging Slab. That was just by accident, too [that I got into them]. There was a record store called Sounds, and I happened to be flipping through the bin one day and I came across this record called Assmaster, and I just bought it because it was called Assmaster. I didn't know anything about the band. I got really into the album, and then I saw the play live. I was like, there's a chick! She's a guitar player! She's playing slide! That's really cool.
When you started playing together, where did you rehearse?
We got a room in the Music Building. Reportedly, we got Madonna's old room. I don't know if it's ever been verified, [but] everybody always said that that was her room. And oh god, it was so gross. But we spent a lot of time there rehearsing or trying to learn how to play. We were terrible.
Where was your first show?
The first show was actually at some loft. It wasn't a venue, it was just some space. But Raging Slab was on the bill, the Freaks were on the bill - it was all these fabulous New York bands on the bill, and they invited us to join.
It must have felt pretty amazing to have your first show be with this band that you were really looking up to. How did that come about?
It really was. So the Freaks, that was Howie Pyro’s band. Howie Pyro’s amazing. He's a legend. We lost him last year, sadly. But he had this band, the Freaks, with Andrea [Kusten]; they were married at the time. They were very encouraging to us. They took us under their wing, and they're like, “Here, play the show with us. This is where you're going to rehearse. This is how you're going to get to this.” Like they really showed us the ropes about how to be a band and where to play. They were just so behind us. They believed in us. Andrea was even our drummer for a little while.
When you start playing around regularly, is there a venue that you felt especially embraced by or that became a home base for the band?
We played Lismar Lounge a bunch of times, and we played Pyramid a lot. But then when we passed our audition for CB’s - because you used to have to audition on Sunday nights for CBGB if you wanted to play there - once we passed our audition by bringing in a gaggle of teenage girls, we played there more than any other venue that I can think of. I feel like I grew up on that stage. I know every splinter and every warp of every floorboard in that club by heart. It’s ingrained in my memory. I can recall how it smelled, how it felt under my feet. I can recall the way that the stage would bounce as you jumped on it.
We got to know Hilly [Kristal, CBGB’s owner], and we knew Louise [Parnassa Staley, CBGB’s manager]. She was very good to us. It was the kind of thing where [for] any show we wanted to go to, we would just show up at the door and they would let us in. We felt like royalty, in a way. Not royalty, but it just felt good to be seen and acknowledged.
Weird story: Years and years later, when CB’s was in the throes of closing, or maybe it had already closed, my dad was in the hospital on the Upper East Side. I got in the elevator after visiting him, and I saw Hilly in the elevator. I was like, “Hilly, what are you doing here?” It was such a weird, out of context kind of place, because I only ever saw him in CBGB’s, and here we were in an elevator at Columbia Weill Cornell. He was having some heart problems; he died not not too long after. I’m glad I got to see him in the elevator, at least.
Where was it that Kim and Thurston saw you play?
That was at the Limelight, which is a place we used to also play. We played there several times. I've seen a lot of bands there too. And yeah, that was only our third or fourth show. I think that they happened to be there. I had no idea who they were. Sydney was older than us, so she knew who they were. She was like, “Kim and Thurston from Sonic Youth are here,” and we're like, “Yeah, who's that?”
Apparently they were hoping to find a young all-female band to work with. I can't say that for sure, but I got this sense that that was maybe the case. That's probably what brought them to our show. I didn't have the wherewithal to think about it back then. But now in hindsight, I'm sure Kim was trying to get more women into the fold. Good for her for doing that.
It’s too bad we were brats. She was like, “You’re so annoying. I can't deal with you anymore!”
A lot of the places you were playing were in the East Village, and there was still a lot happening there. But this is also at a point where the East Village is very actively starting to gentrify. I'm curious how much you noticed it or if experienced that tension around the scene.
Well, I was there the night of the Tompkins Square riots. I was still living uptown with my mom, and I think I was still in high school, or maybe I’d just graduated high school. I remember going down with a friend to go hang out in Tompkins Square Park. I just remember there was a lot of police and smoke and screaming and yelling. I think we were in the park and it sort of erupted, and it got really chaotic. I remember being afraid. I was like, “I think maybe we should get the hell out of here. This is getting really intense.” Eventually we ran out of the park, because the cops had surrounded the park, and there's barricades and smoke bombs. It was turning into a riot.
I was young, so I really couldn't appreciate…or I guess I could, because we had been gentrified out of our neighborhood in Chelsea. But at the time, thinking about gentrification wasn't something that was high on my list of priorities. I understood what the riots were about. You couldn’t miss it. All those people that would hang out in the park with the t-shirts and said “Die Yuppie Scum.”
But honestly, I didn't feel like Avenue A changed all that drastically in the next few years to come. When I saw Avenue A transform, I think it was really kind of starting to be in your face at the end of the ‘90s and in the 2000s. And, of course, now it's fully unrecognizable in some spots. But there was still a thriving scene on Avenue A throughout the ‘90s. You still had the Pyramid, you had Brownies, you had Sidewalk Cafe, there was King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, which was our local hangout. There was 7A where all of our friends worked. There was this whole strip of restaurants and bars along Avenue A. For most of the ‘90s that's just where we were centralized.
Is there a turning point in your mind where things starts to shift?
I really felt like 2000 was a turning point. But there's a lot of other variables in that: It was the new millennium, and I was at a turning point in becoming an adult. But I really did feel like a lot of the youth and the electricity and the excitement started moving to Williamsburg, and the East Village was kind of for the older crowd. All the clubs were in Williamsburg in the early aughts. It was a thriving music scene. Which is weird, because my first apartment was in Williamsburg for a few years in the late ‘80s, ‘early 90s.
What was Williamsburg like at that point?
It was crazy. If it was after 9:00, my boyfriend would have to pick me up from the L train at Bedford, because we lived on the corner of Wythe and Grand, and that was one of the main hubs for the prostitution ring. There was a huge prostitution ring [which] mainly serviced the Hasidic men. So the Hasidic men would drive up and down Grand Street and try to get me to go in their car, asking “How much?” Any woman walking down the street was fair game for solicitation.
It was intense. My neighbors got held up at gunpoint. My car got stolen. There wasn't much [around].
I wanted to also ask you about Squeezebox [the long-running drag/punk night at Don Hill’s], because I know you ended up playing in the house band there for a little while. How did you that come about?
We were good friends with Mistress Formika and Lady Bunny. We had a lot of ties in with the drag scene, so when Michael Schmidt and company decided to do this rock ‘n’ roll party at Don Hill’s, they asked us to play opening night. We were literally the opening of the party. It just kind of became a mainstay for us, and then when [the house band] needed a good sub for a guitar player, they would call me. Eventually I started doing almost every week there for a while. And that's where I met Pete [Asarisi], the drummer for my other band BANTAM, and then from there we formed BANTAM.
How did that drag side of things enter into your orbit?
We loved drag from the get go. We love camp and we love kitsch and we love humor. We love getting dressed up and we love being in character. So there was that crossover, like the makeup and the wigs, the props and the humor and the performance and the music. And then Theo especially was very tight with a lot of drag queens. It was a natural crossover for us to be kind of tied in with that.
I also once backed up Jean Hill [at Squeezebox], who was in Desperate Living, the John Waters movie. We were obsessed with John Waters too, and we're obsessed with Divine. If you’ve seen Desperate Living, Jean Hill plays a Grizelda, one of the main characters. She came up and did some songs, and I got to back her. I also got to back [the Runaways’] Cheri Currie. And also just backing all the drag queens - Lady Bunny is just one of the funniest people you'll ever meet. We would all be on the floor in tears crying.
Where does Meow Mix factor in?
Meow Mix was the dyke version of Squeezebox. They asked me to be in the house band, so I was at Meow Mix a lot actually. I even painted the Meow Mix sign! It was the first sign I ever painted. I was friends with Brooke [Webster, the owner], and she was like, “We need a sign, will you paint this sign?” I was like “Okay, I don't know how to paint a sign, but I'll figure it out.” So yeah, I painted that terrible sign. [laughs]
So as things progress, you're hanging out at Meow Mix and Squeezebox and all these other places. Did CB’s recede in its primacy for you, or was it still the main place you were drawn to?
I guess it did kind of recede a little bit at that time, because now we're talking about the mid to late ‘90s, right? There was Coney Island High, there was Continental, there was Squeezebox. There was just a lot more going on. We at that time also were touring a lot, so we just weren't around as much.
But CB’s did go through some changes. They opened up the pizza place and they opened up the gallery. We would still go there all the time to see shows, but as far as it being the constant in our lives as it was kind of early on…
I still had and always will have CB’s in my heart. I went to the John Varvatos store, and I actually got teary eyed. I was like, oh my god, I can't believe this.
Were you surprised when CB’s closed?
There was a series of benefits for CB’s closing, and it seemed to go on forever, like year after year. We were like, “Are you closing or what? Or are you just milking this closing thing?” It seemed like that, because they were getting all the bands to play for free. So them closing, in my memory, took a few years. By the time it closed, it was like, “Okay, come on already!”
You talked before about there not being a lot of women in bands when you were starting out. Is that something that you saw start to change at all?
In the ‘90s, there seemed to be a whole spate of women in bands, and we were friends with them. L7, we're good friends with, and Babes in Toyland. We would play with the Red Aunts. So there did seem to be more women popping up. But it was still a small percentage compared to all the guys playing music. I am happy to say though, that I really do feel like that's changed a lot now. Playing at festivals now, I see so many more mixed gender bands, and so many more women. It's not equal, but still, there's more representation. Let's just hope that we keep pointing in that direction.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity and brevity.
Learn more about Gina Volpe here, and follow her on Instagram.
Come to the record release show at the Sultan Room on June 15.
Read the Lunachicks’ autobiography, Fallopian Rhapsody
Buy a signed copy of my book This Must Be The Place: Music, Community, and Vanished Spaces in New York City here.
Great piece, Jesse!