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We're Not Listening

How the Losers Get Their Kicks - Violence Ladies, pt. 2

Brianna and Winter were in their junior year of high school when everything seemed to fall into place. Thankfully, one of those puzzle pieces was in Brianna’s art class – a quiet freshman girl named Hayden Castillo, who was also one of the few band geeks on the school’s drum line. Brianna had seen her practicing after school with the marching band on the way to her car, and the next day in class, she minced no words and didn’t hesitate to judge a book by its cover. Hayden looked like the kind of girl who would fit right into a punk band, and of course Brianna was right in her assumption.

Though she was big into the classic rock gods, Hayden was versatile in her drumming style. She would listen to anything that the other girls threw at her (God knows Brianna loaded her down with more riot grrrl albums than anybody could count) and absorbed all of it like a very talented sponge. Like Winter, she preferred to let her instrument do the talking for her, and if it weren’t for the trio’s eventual bassist, Brianna would just be talking to herself most of the time.

Cue Samantha Armstrong, part-time ska kid and full-time ginger bassist. If it weren’t for the annual talent show at their high school, she probably never would have met the others, but that year, Brianna, Winter, and Hayden figured it was worth a shot to enter. There were two problems, though – they didn’t have a name, and they were missing an instrument that would enhance the music that much more.

Samantha was a senior that year and didn’t have any friends who were into music the way that she was, so like a lucky puzzle piece, the two parties collided in the signup area for the talent show. She overheard the trio talking about putting up posters around the school to find a bassist for the band they were calling Girl Talk, and just out of curiosity she meandered over to them and spoke up.

“Hey, uh,” she started, “I dunno what kind of music you guys do, but I’m a bassist…and I kinda wanted to be in the show, so maybe, like…we could get together?”

She had gone out on a limb, but the way that Brianna smiled over at her had let her know that her efforts had paid off. As it turned out, the band that was then known as Girl Talk played pop-punk tunes with a few funky beats, and it ended up being right up Samantha’s alley. She fit right in with the three of them the first time they decided to practice together after hesitantly signing up, learning the songs with such ease that it felt like they’d been playing together for years.

As is a staple for nearly any story about a young band competing in their school’s talent show, Girl Talk won it, playing their infectious song “Sleep Talk, Sweet Talk” and getting the jam stuck in everybody’s heads. 2003 was a great year, and as 2004 rounded the corner, Girl Talk had settled on a name change, since it just seemed a bit corny at this point in time – from that day forth, they were known as Violence Ladies. Brianna made her mom videotape the stellar performance and they put it on their recently-started Puresound page, along with a few garage recordings.

Samantha graduated high school that spring of 2004, but she didn’t leave the band behind for a college education. She stuck around and took a few courses at a community college, partly due to indecisiveness and partly because there was a lot of faith that went into Violence Ladies. Everyone was pretty confident that they could take it far with a little hard work – there were some rising girl pop stars hitting the airwaves at that point in time and there was always the possibility of sneaking in among them.

The eldest of the bunch was also probably the most optimistic in nature, and maybe that’s what kept her from not listening to the constant nagging from her extended family about going to get a higher education. Samantha got a decent job at a local restaurant and made enough cheddar to score the band some recording time.

It ended up paying off, safe to say. Literally and figuratively. Figuratively in that they were much happier with the way their music sounded when it didn’t sound like it was recorded on a potato, and literally in that it led to the discovery of Violence Ladies by nobody other than Raimundo Asbury’s wife, Annette.
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Puresound = Purevolume
FlySpace = MySpace
SkyPod/SkyTunes = iPod/iTunes
I'm not sure if I cleared that up already, but yeah. It's probably an irrational fear but I just don't wanna get sued. XD