Lips Unsealed by Belinda Carlisle

her as our drummer. Something about that attitude appealed to us, and we invited her to one of our rehearsals. Obviously we made sure Elissa wasn’t there, but that wasn’t hard since part of our problem with Elissa was that she frequently missed rehearsals and didn’t seem to be taking the band seriously enough.
    When Gina walked in, I saw her frizzy hair and overalls and thought, wow, she doesn’t look like a punk rocker. She definitely didn’t look like a Go-Go. But that could be rectified with a trip to the thrift store and some hair dye, and it wasn’t nearly as important as how she played. It turned out Gina played phenomenally well, and we invited her to join the band.
    We broke the news to Elissa, who was understandably upset and ended up telling people that she’d been booted because she was dating a girl whose ex was our manager, and blah blah blah. It wasn’t true. Elissa was fired because she wasn’t reliable and it became obvious we needed a drummer with serious talent and attitude. Gina filled that role.
    It was a really hard thing to do and forced us to deal with the gossip she put out there, but we got over it, and Gina really did, as she had promised, make us sound dramatically better. She pulled us all together. We finally sounded like we were playing the same song. As we went into summer, we made a significant leap musically. Our songs got tighter and though they still had a punk edge they sounded more pop.
    Above all else, with Gina on drums, we really did have the beat; it wasn’t only apparent to us.
    A
Los Angeles Times
review of our July show at the Hong Kong Café noted that six months earlier all the group “had going for it was an all-girl novelty status and lots of enthusiasm. [But] it’s since grown into a fine rock band. Friday’s show introduced a better repertoire of material, a new drummer (Gina Schock—a feisty addition), and reveals the group to be steadily gaining control of its instruments. Guitar leads are still a bit ragged, but no matter—if it has managed to come this far in six months, its future seems more than good.”
    The review went on to say the band’s “ace-in-the-hole is its attitude, refreshingly free of the chip-on-shoulder butch stance commonly assumed by women rockers. The Go-Go’s don’t trade their girlish charms, but neither do they deny them. They are young and cute and enjoy being cute.
    “The focal point of the five-girl crew is singer Belinda Carlisle, anenergetic beauty with bee-stung lips and a Monroe-esque vulnerability. Carlisle’s voice is adequate, but her charm as a performer lies in revealing that she cares. You like her for that.”
    We played there again two months later with the Bags, Fear, Extremes, and Gear, and a review in the local punk magazine
Flipside
said we delivered “an excellent set even if Belinda was drunk off her ass.” I was guilty as charged. Unaware that we were playing two sets, I took a quaalude after the first show and then slurred my way through the second set while sitting in a chair.
    Hey, those things happened.
    Once, to spice up a long drive to San Francisco in a rental van, I took a big dose of speed and put the pedal to the metal. Somewhere in the middle of California, a cop pulled me over and I broke into a fit of uncontrollable nervous laughter. Obviously it wasn’t funny, but I was imagining how the cop was going to react when he came over and saw that in addition to being high, I was dressed in a hot-pink, Indian-style dress with fringe, pink moccasins, and a pink headband.
    I turned to the girls in the back and asked, “What if he makes me get out of the car?”
    “He might,” someone said.
    “Then I’m probably going to piss my pants,” I said, laughing.
    Fortunately, as the cop checked my ID, I kept it together. He was a pleasant guy and allowed me to stay in the car even after glancing in the back at my snickering cohorts. In the end, he advised me to stick to the speed limit and let me off