Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Success is a funny thing, especially when it comes to rock n’ roll. Artists may spend years toiling in the underground but one hit song can freeze their image forever more at the moment they hit the charts. The Go-Go’s are a perfect case in point. Despite genuine punk rock bonafides and their status as the first all-female rock band to have a number one album, their bright pop hooks and zany music videos seemed to reduce them to neon-clad ’80s new wavers in the popular imagination. The Go-Go’s, the new Showtime documentary, recasts them as trailblazing female rockers who partied as hard as the boys and worked even harder.
There were other all-female rock bands before The Go-Go’s who played their own instruments and wrote their own tunes, of course, but none were as successful. Not by a long shot. Suzi Quatro’s Pleasure Seekers were regional one hit wonders, Fanny came and went with little fanfare, Joan Jett‘s Runaways were unfairly dismissed as a novelty act and The Slits were too punk to ever crack the mainstream. The Go-Go’s, on the other hand, had three hit albums, a clutch of top 40 singles and were a major commercial force during their initial early ’80s run.
The original Go-Go’s lineup was recruited from the ranks of the fertile and ferocious late ‘70s L.A. punk scene. Singer Belinda Carlisle briefly played drums for seminal hardcore band The Germs, guitarist Charlotte Caffey was in The Eyes and guitarist Jane Wiedlin, bassist Margot Olavarria and drummer Elissa Bello were all noted scenesters. Besides Caffey, they were musical novices by made up for their lack of training with a burning ambition. “We weren’t going to be anything but a great band,” says Caffey.
Their ambitiousness drew blood early and often. Bello was sacked for her perceived lack of dedication, replaced by Baltimore transplant Gina Schock, who implemented a rigorous practice regimen. A true punker at heart, Olavarria blanched at the band’s turn towards pop and was replaced by bassist Kathy Valentine, who says she learned all the band’s songs during a 3-day coke binge. They would later dump original manager Ginger Canzoneri and eventually nuke the entire band rather than share lucrative songwriting credits. Like their drug use, the band members are up front about their bad behavior though any regrets seem dulled by the passage of time.
In 1981, The Go-Go’s were signed to I.R.S. Records, which was owned by Miles Copeland, brother of Police drummer Stewart Copeland and manager of the band. The group went on tour with The Police, raising their profile and learning how to perform to a stadium audience, a skill they put to good use once their debut album, Beauty and the Beat, went to number one. Still, the band had to deal with music industry sexism, such as when Rolling Stone magazine put them on the cover in their underwear with the headline, “The Go-Go’s Put Out.” When Canzoneri called editor Jann Wenner to complain he said she was ungrateful and hung up on her.
The band’s success locked them in a relentless tour cycle which exacerbated drug use and strained creativity. Caffey had been nursing a secret heroin addiction for years and the other members speak often of drinking too much, snorting too much, and gobbling too many pills. By the time of 1984’s Talk Show album, Schock had surgery for a hole in her heart, Wiedlin quit the band over songwriting disputes, and Caffey was ready for rehab. After getting clean she decided touring would lead to a lapse in her sobriety and she and Carlisle broke up the band, much to their rhythm section’s consternation. Of the members of the classic Go-Go’s lineup, only Carlisle’s solo career took flight.
According to The Go-Go’s, the band members didn’t speak for five years. However, they got back together in 1990 and have put out new music over the following three decades, in between reunion tours and various inter-band lawsuits. The film ends with the group working on their first new song since 2001, the single “Club Zero,” which was released today to coincide with the documentary’s premiere.
Directed by Alison Ellwood, The Go-Go’s delivers everything you’d want out of a rock doc. If I have any complaint, it’s that it lacks the encyclopedic depth Ellwood brought to her excellent History of The Eagles and Laurel Canyon documentaries, but it’s succinctness also makes it breezy and digestible, like the best 3 minute pop song. Ultimately, the film successfully illustrates The Go-Go’s importance and while we’re on the subject, yeah, why aren’t they in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
Benjamin H. Smith is a New York based writer, producer and musician. Follow him on Twitter:@BHSmithNYC.
