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The B Girls
Fun at the Beach / B Side - 7"
Bomp - 1979
Michael Panontin
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The B Girls were a product of the relentlessly forward-looking Toronto of the 1970s, a time when the city would see its homely Victorian charm ruthlessly bulldozed and supplanted by a sleek antiseptic modernism. Free love had morphed into the more angular feminism and identity politics, and the city's hippie enclave, Yorkville, was being replaced by the gruffer, punk-friendly Queen West.
Formed there in 1977, the B Girls - Cynthia, Lucasta and Rhonda Ross, along with Xenia Splawinsky - played their first gigs at such venerable venues as the Crash 'n' Burn, Club David's and the Horseshoe. But the Girls were restless and took their blend of punk and sixties girl-group pop to New York in 1978, hooking up with the already vibrant East Village scene (literally as it turned out with Cynthia getting engaged for a spell to Dead Boy Stiv Bators).
Once entrenched in Manhattan, drummer Marcy Saddy was added, replacing Rhonda Ross, and they became regulars at CBGB and Max's Kansas City, sharing bills with the Cramps, the Dead Boys, the B-52s, and perhaps their closest stylistic kin, the sexy and ebullient Nikki and the Corvettes. Such high-profile gigs attracted the attention of Greg Shaw over at Bomp, who issued this excellent double-sider (produced by Bob Segarini and the Girls' only wax at the time), while a coveted slot supporting the Clash on their 1979 London Calling tour no doubt helped shift a few copies of it.
The front side, 'Fun at the Beach', is danceable, effervescent pop, mixing punk's urgency and the adolescent angst of the Shangri-Las with a dollop of surf music folded in for good measure. But the drolly titled 'B Side' over on the back is just as good, ratcheting up the punk a notch with some jumpy guitar chords, a defiant chorus of "Girls, we're girls, B girls, just girls", and a cool, quirky solo at the finish.
The B Girls would ultimately call it a career in 1983, but these two sides did eventually make it into the digital age when they were included on the retrospective 1997 CD, Who Says Girls Can't Rock, remixed by Chris Spedding (Other Peoples Music).
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The B Girls
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