Out now on Dionysus Records!
Guitarist Paula Monarch and bass player Chela La Rue have come a long way since their first band, the Peeps emerged from the Phoenix, AZ music scene in the late 90's. Releasing a full-length album on Sympathy For The Record Industry in 2000, the all-girl trio’s bratty Donnas meets Bikini Kill sound earned the Peeps a bit of regional fame and a slot at the 2002 Las Vegas Shakedown before the band disintegrated later that year.
Following a side project with the Short Fuses’ Georgia Peach and Travis Ramin (the Runaways-style American Foxes released in 2004 on Thunderbaby Records), Paula and Chela started Hell On Heels. The more garage rock oriented style of this line up attracted the attention of Bomp Records mastermind Greg Shaw who quickly signed the band and released their debut, Les Hell On Heels, in 2004. "I feel the same way that Phil Spector must have felt when he first saw the Ronettes" Shaw told the Phoenix New Times in March, 2004. The record was well received over all by the underground press, garnering accolades that described their music as "Well written and energetically played punk ‘n roll."(Punknews.org) Sadly, Shaw passed away shortly before the release of the album and never got to see his final discovery embark on a series of U.S. promotional tours that found them opening for the likes of Gas Huffer, the Epoxies, the Reigning Sound and the Detroit Cobras even as the band’s version of the Jeff Dahl penned "Ain’t So Cool" found its way to the nation’s satellite airwaves via Little Steven’s Underground Garage as the "coolest song in the world" and played on an episode of Queer Eye For The Straight Guy.
2006 found Paula and Chela revamping their line up and their sound as the band welcomed Helene 33 of the Tucson, AZ band the Okmoniks on organ. Together with drummer Jessica Roe, (Who replaced Machynski before the band’s initial tour while Rose left in 2005.), the new version of Hell On Heels began recording demos that combined some of Paula’s more diverse influences such as the Damned, the Lunachicks, The Animals and the Brood with a 60's girl group sound.
Like the band’s debut release, Dogs, Records & Wine was produced and engineered in Seattle by Jack Endino (Whose previous credits include SubPop efforts by the likes of Mudhoney and Nirvana) and at first listen, the change in direction is quite apparent. While the tough-girl vocals, gritty guitar sound and vaguely psychedelic organ that permeates tracks like "Send Him" and "Made Like No Other" fondly recall the sixties punk inspired sound of the early Pandoras, the tracks also have a pop feel reminiscent of the earlier sounds of The Peeps and American Foxes. The album also boasts a variety of vocals with Chela singing lead on "C’mon Turn Me On", Helene on the bouncy "I’ll Come Runnin’" and "Matter Of Time" and original bad girl Nikki Corvette provides guest vocals on "Pretty Mess".
"What I wanted to do was make a record that sounded like some freaky love-child of Paula Pierce and Dave Vanian with Mary Weiss as my step-sister," says Paula "and here it is."
Dogs, Records & Wine out on Dionysus.
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