GeEkgiRL

GeEkgiRL: (n.) a 3 piece band orig. manchester, england pl. form. electric and/or acoustic (roars and purrs respectively) v.t. has wheels, will travel esp. diet punk/dirty country pres.p. fi (gtr/pno/vox), ted (kit/vox/gtr/mndln), joel (bass - sngl/dbl/vox) lit. passionate and powerful trio GeEkgiRL are a three-piece living and working in Manchester, England. They play quite eclectic music ranging from soulful piano, and country acoustic, to full on sexy rock. They also run their own record label, and come with a ?Warning: May contain traces of boy'.

(n.) a 3 piece band
orig. manchester, england
pl. form. electric and/or acoustic (roars and purrs respectively)
v.t. has wheels, will travel esp. diet punk/dirty country
pres.p. fi (gtr/pno/vox), ted (kit/vox/gtr/mndln), joel (bass - sngl/dbl/vox)
lit. passionate and powerful trio

GeEkgiRL are a three-piece living and working in Manchester, England. They play quite eclectic music ranging from soulful piano, and country acoustic, to full on sexy rock. They also run their own record label, and come with a ?Warning: May contain traces of boy'.

GeEkgiRL play: Punk-rock-pop

It started in the year 2000, in a flat above a pub in Soho while fi was attempting to make her mark in the world of theatre and TV. Sadly for the big screen, fi didn't get much work beyond playing small boys and beatrix potter, but luckily for her she found a friend who thought she should sack that off and do what she was best at: writing and singing.

Her friend found her a like-minded guitarist by the name Jo Meava. Jo and Fi started jamming with some of fi's songs and eventually got a few gigs on the london scene. The name GeEkgiRL came about because, as they were conjuring up a whole carriage-load of crap names (including "stallion" among the worst), a friend looked at fi - as she was sat making a lampshade out of photographic negatives - and declared she was "a right geek girl." And indeed that she is.

A year or so later fi moved back home, never to return to London. In 2003 she found herself back in Manchester where she had studied a few years earlier, and made the big decision to quit acting and to move forward with the music in her life.

She got a job at a stationary store, and there she met ted. Ted was a writer and fellow musician, and he was interested in jamming with fi, but for a few months fi kept putting him off because she had a stupid notion she wanted an all-girl band.

After having no success finding any girls (not because they weren't good enough, just because they are rare and snapped up!), fi had realised that she and ted really did get along very well, and she should find out how good he was. They had one jam, and fi threw her stupid notion out of the window. With a drummer in place all they needed was a bass player. Cue the post office.

Through a bizarre stroke of luck fi was buying her car tax from "cashier number 5 please". She was also sending a demo off to a well-known festival. This cashier looked a little surly. She thought he looked like a bass player. She was about to ask him when he noted the address on the package. He asked her if the cd was anything good, she told him yes, it was her band, and then asked if he was a bass player.

The longhaired man was a little shocked, "yes," he replied, "how could you tell?"

Fi: "you look like a bass player"

Joel: "I'm not sure whether to be offended or not, since all the best bass players are ugly"

Fi: "I said you looked like a bass player, I didn't say you looked like a GOOD bass player"

From there on it was fate. She found out he was in a band (in fact maybe two), but he seemed interested and she invited him to a jam. When he asked what kind of music she played and she unashamedly declared it was "indie", the deal was sealed.

Joel turned up for the jam try-out, and both Fi and Ted both decided they HAD to have him in the band (he had left the room to go to the toilet, they didn't say it to his face). They thought the best way to do this was to make it the bestest band he'd ever been in (and he'd been in a few), but more importantly, the busiest.

They played their first gig two weeks later in Manchester at Night & Day after just two rehearsals. From there on in the band got tighter and more and more adventurous. They are best of friends, business partners and quite often end up living together!

"May contain traces of boy" was released by their own label Rocket Fuelled Records in August 2006.

For a full list of previous appearances and for anything else you need to know, there's a whole weird but wonderful website they have, it;s not hard to find.

And here's what some other more official people think:

"Geekgirl? a true outsider punk outfit cherished by a generation of Manc music misfits. [Their album] 'May Contain Traces Of Boy' sounds like the most unhinged, electrifying thing to come out of the Manc underground scene for yonks. Thrashing with PJ Harvey-meets-Throwing Muses fire and purring with hectic pop, it's a breakneck crawl through messy relationships and modern Britain." David Sue, MEN

"...like KT Tunstall with a rocket up her arse (or perhaps more fairly, PJ Harvey), stood alongside the rhythmically conscious punk band that mischievously stuck it there. "
Fran Donnelly, Sandman Magazine

"What with Beth Ditto and Kate Jackson vying to step into the sparkly stilettos of female role model for the disillusioned, it seems apt that Manchester should put forward its own candidate for the position of leader of the Topshop clad fashionistas. Step forward Sofia Milone, not since the days when Nico rode her bicycle around Prestwich has our fair city been graced with such an intriguing female vocalist."
Gareth Roberts, High Voltage

?Clad all in black and red cowboy outfits, and blessed with a front-woman possessed with a set of lungs that could blast even the fiercest storm cloud out of the sky, they manage to whip up a riotous storm of pop tinged country punk (or should that be punk tinged country pop?) so good, it could raise the hairs on the backs of the necks of the dead. Definitely a band to keep an eye on. "
Christina McDermott, BBC

To date GeEkgiRL have played alongside the likes of Charlotte Church (yes, really), Ari-Up of The Slits, Nizlopi, The Bodyrockers, The Hedrons, David McAlmont, Horse, Liz Green, and most recently The Gossip.