Girls On Fire
Join us in our collaborative look into the past as we strive to connect it all
with an ever-present NOW Read detailed accounts, commentaries, and liner notes by Leslie Singer herself For the first time in more than three decades you will be able to listen to Girls On Fire tapes in versions that Leslie has approved and authorized |
Girls On Fire archival site
table of contents
Early GOF
childhood, artistic beginnings, and early groups
Psychodrama
Brett Kerby, Rob Lippard and Leslie Singer
Early Rarities Tape
includes earliest Leslie Singer solo recordings
Five Girls On Fire Cassettes
Leslie's five cassettes that she created in San Francisco 1983-85
Your Mom Too
Leslie and Frank Kogan, and their "England's Newest Hit Makers" cassette
GOF Videos
documentation of Leslie's extensive involvement in underground film and video
Bonus GOF
stuff that does not fit elsewhere
We want to thank
Frank Kogan, Evan Cantor, Little Fyodor, Al Margolis, Jerry Kranitz, and Robin James
for their generous donations of recordings and other documents
and Jack Hertz and Arthur Harrison for their advice, thoughts, and technical knowledge.
table of contents
Early GOF
childhood, artistic beginnings, and early groups
Psychodrama
Brett Kerby, Rob Lippard and Leslie Singer
Early Rarities Tape
includes earliest Leslie Singer solo recordings
Five Girls On Fire Cassettes
Leslie's five cassettes that she created in San Francisco 1983-85
Your Mom Too
Leslie and Frank Kogan, and their "England's Newest Hit Makers" cassette
GOF Videos
documentation of Leslie's extensive involvement in underground film and video
Bonus GOF
stuff that does not fit elsewhere
We want to thank
Frank Kogan, Evan Cantor, Little Fyodor, Al Margolis, Jerry Kranitz, and Robin James
for their generous donations of recordings and other documents
and Jack Hertz and Arthur Harrison for their advice, thoughts, and technical knowledge.
recapturing the Past ...
in search of
Girls On Fire
in search of
Girls On Fire
an introductory essay by Hal McGee
about rediscovering
the cassette audioworks
of a heroine of Cassette Culture
about rediscovering
the cassette audioworks
of a heroine of Cassette Culture
In HalZine 12, the special TAPE ART issue of my personal print zine, I published a review I wrote of Confessions Of A Shit Addict, a cassette that was originally issued by Leslie Singer on her Girls On Fire label in 1983, during the early years of the Cassette Culture Underground. The 30-minute first side of the homemade tape featured recordings by Sadistic Gossip and Mary Davis Kills Mary Davis Kills, and the second side was blank.
For some reason, it is a tape that has always stuck in mind! The opening minutes are astonishing and totally freaked-out noise.
As I wrote in HalZine 12:
'The tape starts with Singer screaming each of the four song titles plus other words over maxed-out feedback and swollen tape distortion and it all sounds like it's going to erupt from the tape deck and shred speaker cones and eardrums. Some of the wildest crazy-as-shit noise I've ever heard. Merzbow wasn't THIS noisy in '83! Then we listen to less blown-out but equally painful versions of the same four songs with Singer chanting the lyrics as she accompanies herself on guitar in a way that it DESERVES to be played...'
As I wrote in HalZine 12:
'The tape starts with Singer screaming each of the four song titles plus other words over maxed-out feedback and swollen tape distortion and it all sounds like it's going to erupt from the tape deck and shred speaker cones and eardrums. Some of the wildest crazy-as-shit noise I've ever heard. Merzbow wasn't THIS noisy in '83! Then we listen to less blown-out but equally painful versions of the same four songs with Singer chanting the lyrics as she accompanies herself on guitar in a way that it DESERVES to be played...'
Confessions Of A Shit Addict, along with Gaia, La Terre by Pierre Perret and Under Wartime Conditions by Cleaners From Venus, was one of those cassettes that was ubiquitous in the mid-1980s Cassette Scene! It seemed like everybody that knew had copies of all three of those tapes. Leslie probably sent Confessions to every single person that she read about in every mid-1980s Cassette Era contact list and zine.
Debbie Jaffe and Iisted the cassette in our first Cause And Effect Cassette Distribution Service catalog in January 1985 for $3.75. I have no access to information about how many copies we sold, but I seriously doubt that we sold very many because everybody already had Confessions Of A Shit Addict! Over the years, from time to time, I have pulled the cassette out of my cassette wall racks, looked at it, and I played it on my Homemade Alien Music podcast several years ago. I have always thought of it as one of my favorite cassettes. |
For more than three decades Confessions was the only Girls On Fire tape in my collection. Actually, I have two copies, but the second copy does not have a cover, and the tape itself sounds like it got magnetized because it sounds nearly completely blank, except for a faint residue of the sounds that had been recorded there. From my catalog listing in the CAE catalog it is apparent that I had owned other GOF tapes, but I did not remember them.
In January 2016 I went looking for cassettes by Leslie Singer at Discogs.com. I found scanty, incomplete information about her, her GOF label, and her tape releases. I did find a copy of her fifth and final cassette, In My Blood (Vita Nova label, France, 1985), which I bought from a seller named sonowax for $23 plus shipping. Such an odd, seemingly incongruous photo of Leslie on the cover! There she was, with neatly-coiffed hair, dressed in a business jacket and smiling calmly and assuredly at the camera! I say 'incongruous' because this image contrasted so sharply with the image of her that I had in my head.... based on what little I actually knew about her!
In January 2016 I went looking for cassettes by Leslie Singer at Discogs.com. I found scanty, incomplete information about her, her GOF label, and her tape releases. I did find a copy of her fifth and final cassette, In My Blood (Vita Nova label, France, 1985), which I bought from a seller named sonowax for $23 plus shipping. Such an odd, seemingly incongruous photo of Leslie on the cover! There she was, with neatly-coiffed hair, dressed in a business jacket and smiling calmly and assuredly at the camera! I say 'incongruous' because this image contrasted so sharply with the image of her that I had in my head.... based on what little I actually knew about her!
This is an important point to understand about the early and mid-80s Cassette Days. All we knew about each other was what we wrote to each other in lengthy letters that accompanied the tapes that we sent to each other. Images of other artists in promotional materials and cassette covers were often purposely shrouded in mystification and obscured by high contrast black and white xerography. A lot of people I wrote to and traded cassettes with seemed very very mysterious, almost like supernatural beings! Aside from what they chose to reveal to us in their missives, we knew nothing. I am sure that I received letters from Leslie Singer circa 1984-85, but sadly I am no longer in possession of these. Many of my compadres probably have letters from Leslie locked away in storage, tucked away deep down in trunks and cabinets and attics and sheds.
In 2014 when I was working on the Walls Of Genius Archive Site here at haltapes.com I discussed Leslie with Evan Cantor and Little Fyodor of WoG, who had included her Girls On Fire cover version of the Talking Heads' song "Electric Guitar" on their Madness Lives compilation (1986).
At that time Evan recalled that "We met Leslie Singer (who was Girls On Fire and had made a video rubbing a fish over her naked body) when we played a gig in San Francisco, organized by William Davenport of Unsound magazine (June 1985)."
In 2014 when I was working on the Walls Of Genius Archive Site here at haltapes.com I discussed Leslie with Evan Cantor and Little Fyodor of WoG, who had included her Girls On Fire cover version of the Talking Heads' song "Electric Guitar" on their Madness Lives compilation (1986).
At that time Evan recalled that "We met Leslie Singer (who was Girls On Fire and had made a video rubbing a fish over her naked body) when we played a gig in San Francisco, organized by William Davenport of Unsound magazine (June 1985)."
We all wondered what had happened to her...
I started concentrating on trying to contact her. I was curious to know what she had been doing since she made her five cassette releases in the mid-1980s. She had blazed and shined so brightly for a couple of years, and then dropped out of sight. I needed to know what had happened! I also figured that if I was able to contact her, and if she would agree to be interviewed, that I would uncover and discover happenings, events, and stories of our underground cultural history that had been forgotten. Plus of course it would be a great excuse to educate myself about her and her work, and I knew that in the process I would learn about not only her but much more! I have always had a deep interest in our subcultural history of homemade art and music, and I love digging deep for details! I think of this work as a form of archaeology. I was shocked at how much info was uncovered and revealed during my investigations into Walls Of Genius a few years ago, and I hoped for the same if I could ever contact Leslie.
I searched the Internet and found little information, aside from some documentation of films that she created in the late 1980s, her involvement in a film called Joe-Joe, and small mentions of her in various arts productions. Leslie Singer is a fairly common name, and I came across some possibilities but nothing seemed solid.
On May 22, 2018 I posted this message in 1980s-1990s Cassette Culture Archives discussion group on Facebook:
'Does anybody here know what happened to Leslie Singer of Girls On Fire? I cannot find any info on her past 1987.'
Discussion group member Stephen Boyle pointed me toward a listing for her in the Staff Members at Creative Capital. From the photo and the brief biographical description I knew that I had found the Leslie Singer I was looking for!
I started concentrating on trying to contact her. I was curious to know what she had been doing since she made her five cassette releases in the mid-1980s. She had blazed and shined so brightly for a couple of years, and then dropped out of sight. I needed to know what had happened! I also figured that if I was able to contact her, and if she would agree to be interviewed, that I would uncover and discover happenings, events, and stories of our underground cultural history that had been forgotten. Plus of course it would be a great excuse to educate myself about her and her work, and I knew that in the process I would learn about not only her but much more! I have always had a deep interest in our subcultural history of homemade art and music, and I love digging deep for details! I think of this work as a form of archaeology. I was shocked at how much info was uncovered and revealed during my investigations into Walls Of Genius a few years ago, and I hoped for the same if I could ever contact Leslie.
I searched the Internet and found little information, aside from some documentation of films that she created in the late 1980s, her involvement in a film called Joe-Joe, and small mentions of her in various arts productions. Leslie Singer is a fairly common name, and I came across some possibilities but nothing seemed solid.
On May 22, 2018 I posted this message in 1980s-1990s Cassette Culture Archives discussion group on Facebook:
'Does anybody here know what happened to Leslie Singer of Girls On Fire? I cannot find any info on her past 1987.'
Discussion group member Stephen Boyle pointed me toward a listing for her in the Staff Members at Creative Capital. From the photo and the brief biographical description I knew that I had found the Leslie Singer I was looking for!
I immediately sent an email to her at her email address at Creative Capital. I re-introduced myself, gave her a link to the Electronic Cottage website, and told her that I was interested in interviewing her about her cassettes of the 1980s.
About 10 days went by with no reply, and I started to think that maybe she just didn't want to talk about the old days. That happens! People sometimes just do not want to talk about stuff that happened 30-35 years ago. They have moved on to different parts of their lives, and in some cases have tried to forget about their involvement in the cassette scene.
I was very happy when on June 3rd she wrote to me that it would be cool to talk about those old days via her personal email address.
In our first exchange of emails via our personal addresses I wrote that "If at some point in the future you would like to contribute articles, essays, reviews, whatever, that would be great. It's an open, standing offer, with no expectations." I decided to go easy and start with basic stuff, just to establish trust, and wrote: "I guess to get the ball rolling in terms of the interview, is it true that you were a member of Psychodrama, and that you were originally from the East Coast? Virginia?"
A few hours later she wrote back that ... "Yes, I was in Psycodrama and grew up in Northern Virginia.😜" ... and "Looking forward to your next questions!"
I hoped that we were on the way!
Since then we have been exchanging emails nearly every day and going in-depth, digging deep not only into Leslie's own artistic history, but also the sociocultural history of the Washington, D.C. area, and the experimental and electronic music scene there in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Along the way I have contacted and found out about some very interesting people, and have deepened my own understanding about a corner of the 1980s Cassette Scene about which I had previously known next to nothing for all practical purposes.
As of July 29, 2018 Leslie and I have already amassed about 70 pages of raw interview materials, as well as dozens of tape covers, show posters, videos, photos, reviews and interviews from zines, and other memorabilia and documents that have been tucked away in storage, not totally forgotten by Leslie, but unknown to me certainly!
And we are not yet finished. Far from it. It seems like we are only about a third of the way through. But I am in no hurry! I am savoring the experience.
Over the next several weeks we are going to construct at my HalTapes website an extensive archival mini-site that will be loaded with recollections and commentaries; photos from Leslie's childhood and her first beginnings as an artist; info about her first bands, From Far Away, Beauty? and Psychodrama; detailed descriptions and histories of her tape releases; audio files (including downloads and streaming audio); video; and much more. We are going to talk about and tell you about the ideas behind her essential audio and film and video works.
I think that you will be as amazed and thrilled as I am!
To me these kinds of efforts have great meaning and significance because I am proud of my hometaper heritage. In the Internet Age we write our own history. Our history is what we make of it. It is up to us to preserve our underground DIY homemade music history and culture, because nobody knows it and understands it as well as the people who have lived it and created it. Like always, we are doing it ourselves. From a personal standpoint, endeavors such as this project with Leslie enrich my life, make it more meaningful. I have often written and said aloud, often within my own audio artworks themselves, that my art and my life are the same.
Getting to know Leslie, sharing her artistic history, re-discovering it along with her, has been, quite frankly, I will say it again, a thrill. I am always learning something new, something that I did not know before, deepening my own personal understanding of the art of my peers, collaborators, and co-conspirators.
In the last 10 weeks I have learned more about her and about her involvement in the cassette scene than I ever knew back then. The Internet has made that possible, quite honestly.
Leslie's work in the 1980s incorporated elements of pop, conceptual and performance art; as well as doses of hardcore punk and lo-fi experimentalism; and even contains traces of progressive rock. Her music and films prefigured Harsh Noise and Riot Grrrls. But it's ALL LESLIE. Nobody else sounded like this back then! Her personality and life are stamped all over this!
About 10 days went by with no reply, and I started to think that maybe she just didn't want to talk about the old days. That happens! People sometimes just do not want to talk about stuff that happened 30-35 years ago. They have moved on to different parts of their lives, and in some cases have tried to forget about their involvement in the cassette scene.
I was very happy when on June 3rd she wrote to me that it would be cool to talk about those old days via her personal email address.
In our first exchange of emails via our personal addresses I wrote that "If at some point in the future you would like to contribute articles, essays, reviews, whatever, that would be great. It's an open, standing offer, with no expectations." I decided to go easy and start with basic stuff, just to establish trust, and wrote: "I guess to get the ball rolling in terms of the interview, is it true that you were a member of Psychodrama, and that you were originally from the East Coast? Virginia?"
A few hours later she wrote back that ... "Yes, I was in Psycodrama and grew up in Northern Virginia.😜" ... and "Looking forward to your next questions!"
I hoped that we were on the way!
Since then we have been exchanging emails nearly every day and going in-depth, digging deep not only into Leslie's own artistic history, but also the sociocultural history of the Washington, D.C. area, and the experimental and electronic music scene there in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Along the way I have contacted and found out about some very interesting people, and have deepened my own understanding about a corner of the 1980s Cassette Scene about which I had previously known next to nothing for all practical purposes.
As of July 29, 2018 Leslie and I have already amassed about 70 pages of raw interview materials, as well as dozens of tape covers, show posters, videos, photos, reviews and interviews from zines, and other memorabilia and documents that have been tucked away in storage, not totally forgotten by Leslie, but unknown to me certainly!
And we are not yet finished. Far from it. It seems like we are only about a third of the way through. But I am in no hurry! I am savoring the experience.
Over the next several weeks we are going to construct at my HalTapes website an extensive archival mini-site that will be loaded with recollections and commentaries; photos from Leslie's childhood and her first beginnings as an artist; info about her first bands, From Far Away, Beauty? and Psychodrama; detailed descriptions and histories of her tape releases; audio files (including downloads and streaming audio); video; and much more. We are going to talk about and tell you about the ideas behind her essential audio and film and video works.
I think that you will be as amazed and thrilled as I am!
To me these kinds of efforts have great meaning and significance because I am proud of my hometaper heritage. In the Internet Age we write our own history. Our history is what we make of it. It is up to us to preserve our underground DIY homemade music history and culture, because nobody knows it and understands it as well as the people who have lived it and created it. Like always, we are doing it ourselves. From a personal standpoint, endeavors such as this project with Leslie enrich my life, make it more meaningful. I have often written and said aloud, often within my own audio artworks themselves, that my art and my life are the same.
Getting to know Leslie, sharing her artistic history, re-discovering it along with her, has been, quite frankly, I will say it again, a thrill. I am always learning something new, something that I did not know before, deepening my own personal understanding of the art of my peers, collaborators, and co-conspirators.
In the last 10 weeks I have learned more about her and about her involvement in the cassette scene than I ever knew back then. The Internet has made that possible, quite honestly.
Leslie's work in the 1980s incorporated elements of pop, conceptual and performance art; as well as doses of hardcore punk and lo-fi experimentalism; and even contains traces of progressive rock. Her music and films prefigured Harsh Noise and Riot Grrrls. But it's ALL LESLIE. Nobody else sounded like this back then! Her personality and life are stamped all over this!