Girl
Biography
Though they never found widespread success, the London-based quintet Girl provided a tenuous link between the '70s glam movement and its heavier but no less sleazy late-'80s counterpart. Their brief existence and uneven output notwithstanding, Girl are now best remembered as the starting point for a pair of illustrious musicians who would go on to greater fame and fortune with other acts.
Girl were formed in 1979 by vocalist Philip Lewis, guitarists Phil Collen and Gerry Laffy, bassist Simon Laffy, and drummer Dave Gaynor. Dressed in sharp clothes, covered in makeup, and boldly announcing they wanted to be England's answer to the New York Dolls, the bandmembers were a bit of an oddity at a time when dirty punk was giving way to even dirtier heavy metal (the New Wave of British Heavy Metal was about to take off). As it happened, though, their counterintuitive image and direction were exactly what they needed to get themselves noticed, and a videotaped performance would get them signed by Jet Records (home to Ozzy Osbourne and ELO). A pair of singles preceded their enthusiastic but uneven first album, Sheer Greed, which was released in January 1980, climbed to a respectable number 33 on the U.
Selected Discography
Wasted Youth
1980
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