Hit Girls Women of Punk in the USA, 1975-1983 by Jen B. Larson

Author:Jen B. Larson
Format: epub

Spock, Marina, and Genny of Backstage Pass playing live. Photo by Donna Santisi.

Genny dressed as half feminine, half masculine. Splitting her clothing in half—one side a bra and garter belt, and the other, a vest and jeans—as well as half-face makeup. “It was a yin/yang kind of thing…” she says, “a psychic they/them kind of thing…My thought process was, I’m gonna play guitar, I don’t care that I’m a girl playing guitar. I want to play electric guitar, too.”

Growing up, Genny Body, the band’s guitarist, had been playing guitar since age eight and picked up the electric guitar in high school, and as she recalls, the people at her school thought she was a freak.

“I don’t remember getting a lot of love playing electric guitar as a girl…There were a lot of guys in bands, and they were kinda like, ‘no.’ But then I met these kids who lived in Hollywood, and they were way more into it.”

To find her kind, she would travel to Hollywood, frequenting Rodney’s English Disco and the Rainbow. She even auditioned for the Runaways while still in high school (Kim Fowley told her, “yeah, you need to lose weight”) and years later was considered to play bass in the Go-Go’s during one of their transition phases (she said, “They ended up with Kathy, which was the better choice”).

She says, “The punk scene was the perfect scene for me to express myself—I really needed it—I had a lot of hurt and anger that I needed to release in some kind of way… Anybody was accepted in that scene…so it was happening organically; we were coming from this glam and dinosaur rock…” After her mother’s death, the guitar is what pulled her through.

Influenced by the Kinks and the Beatles, Genny and Spock co-wrote and co-sang most of the songs. They played extensively up and down the California coast (with Devo, the Mumps, Wall of Voodoo, the Nuns, and opening for Elvis Costello’s first U.S. tour), were featured in seminal punk publications (Back Door Man, Slash Magazine, and Flipside), and captured by luminary rock photographers (Jenny Lens, Brad Elterman, and Donna Santisi).

Other Backstage Pass members included Ché Zuro (of the Orchids) and Holly Beth Vincent, who later went on to create Holly and the Italians (and also sang in the Waitresses for a short spell). With Holly and the Italians, Holly Beth Vincent is known for the song “Tell That Girl to Shut Up.”

Outside of the band, Spock also played bass in MnMs and managed Redd Kross; in fact, the band’s song “Legend (Come on Up to Me)” was covered by Redd Kross in the underground cult film Desperate Teenage Lovedolls (made by SIN 34 drummer David Markey) with Spock singing lead. Marina Del Rey played in the Vidiots and formed Vivabeat, which got signed and toured the world. Genny was in the first lineup of Screamin’ Sirens and became a wardrobe stylist, co-founding Strait Jacket and working as a personal stylist for Linda Ronstadt and working with the Bangles.

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