Various Artists
Venus Envy: Women Who Rock
Envy Records
Every morning in our e-mail inbox, we're hit with an onslaught of horribly sexist spam, with subject headers such as: “Pregnant sluts thirsty for liquid jizz diet!” “Huge clits—lick 'em like juicy oysters!” “Lactating nymphos squirt milk on your cornflakes!” And “Crazy lesbian action with double-dildo penetrations!” (Never anything we'd wanna see, like “Hairy bears and chubs fraternity initiation party!”—noooo.) And then one day, we rip open a Locals Only package, and expecting to ogle at some inoffensive homemade CD-cover art, we're instead hit with tits, tits, tits! But just when we're about to launch into an angry tirade, we realize that the mammary-laden disc in question is actually Venus Envy, a compilation of tracks from mostly OC- or Long Beach-based women and woman-fronted bands. (The multitude of knocker shots on the cover are, we assume, a form of female empowerment or something.) Put together by local guitar-wielder Jennifer Corday, who released it on her own label (she also snagged the leadoff track for herself—that's savvy marketing!), Venus Envy, like any compilation, has some things to love and some to not. We're nuts about already-familiar cuts such as Sideswipe's “Crucify,” Sparklejets UK's “Real Nice Time,” and Corday's “I Rule the World,” as well as the usual good stuff from such folks as Kerry Getz, Niki Smart and the Halo Friendlies (loooove the rowdy riff on the Halos' “Just Like You”), but we were smitten by the lesser-heard, too. Sublime stuff like Starcrasher's “Everything,” with its deliciously loud, snotty guitars. And Yvonne Perea's terrific blues-belting set of pipes. And the vitriolic pissiness of the Zoey's Trip song “Your X.” And Sunset Room's classy cabaret/techno dabbling. And our favorite new tune, Shitting Glitter's beautifully raunchy “Strapping,” a hot sonic genderfuck with lines about “Making the scene with our secret machine” and “Looking like boys/And proving that we can play with their toys.” (Hey, The L Word producers: here's one for your soundtrack album!) The music on Venus Envy flows heavy in the pop/folk-rock vein, which is our main qualm—surely not this many people want to emulate Melissa Etheridge, and where are all the younger, girl-fronted punk bands? But on the whole, there's still a lot of sweet ear candy for the licking here.
Contact:
OC and Long Beach bands and
musicians! Mail your CDs and tapes (along with your vital contact info, plus any impending performance dates) for possible review to: Locals Only, OC Weekly, 1666 N. Main St., Ste. 500, Santa Ana, CA 92701-7417. Please let us know if you'd like us to add an MP3 to ocweekly.com/records.
