Morningwood

New York City’s Morningwood injected alternative pop/rock with an unapologetically trashy, pleasure-seeking spirit during the first decade of the 2000s. Fronted by Chantal Claret, whose vibrant, provocative delivery drew clear inspiration from the Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde and the Divinyls’ Christina Amphlett, the four-piece Big Apple outfit coalesced in 2001. They fused hard rock, punk, new wave, and glam into an overtly sexual sonic hybrid. Claret and bassist Pedro Yanowitz—an alumnus of the Wallflowers, where he had handled drumming duties—first crossed paths at a birthday celebration. Guitarist Richard Steel, late of Spacehog, and drummer Japa Keenon O joined the lineup shortly afterward. In 2003 the group cut a self-titled debut EP that appeared on their own Rockhardcock Records imprint, then issued the four-track follow-up It’s T***. Capitol Records soon recruited them, drawn by a live reputation built on playful eroticism and high-energy sweat in New York clubs. Gil Norton was enlisted to produce the full-length Morningwood, which surfaced in the first months of 2006. The track “The Best of Me” later supplied the theme for VH1’s Daisy of Love in 2009, broadening the band’s reach, and by year’s end they delivered their second album, Diamonds & Studs.