The Lazy Cowgirls

If The Ramones had operated as battle-hardened road warriors rather than cartoonish speed freaks fixated on pop hooks, their sound might have echoed The Lazy Cowgirls. Blending the chainsaw aggression of early punk, the insolent bite of 1960s garage rock, the unguarded emotional directness of honky-tonk, and the cocksure strut of The Rolling Stones, the group delivered raw, sweat-soaked outlaw rock and roll at its most fiercely committed and physically charged; like a Harley roaring along at 95 mph, they never projected safety yet never lacked excitement.

Vocalist Pat Todd, guitarist D.D. Weekday (aka Doug Phillips), and bassist Keith Telligman departed their native Vincennes, Indiana, in 1981 and headed for California in search of a working rock band. By 1983 they had recruited fellow Indiana transplant Allen Clark on drums and launched themselves on the L.A. club circuit under the name The Lazy Cowgirls. After repeated gigs before “no one, and people from work” (as Todd later recalled), they attracted the attention of Chris Desjardins (aka Chris D.), onetime frontman of art-punks The Flesh Eaters. Desjardins secured them a contract with Restless Records and oversaw their self-titled debut LP in 1984. The record failed to convey the force of their live performances, and the label soon parted ways with them. Two further years of local dates and sporadic road work ended when Bomp Records stepped in with the band’s second album, Tapping The Source, which came far closer to bottling their onstage intensity and paired original barnburners such as “Goddamn Bottle” and “Can't You Do Anything Right?” with lean renditions of “Justine” and “Heartache.” The next year the fledgling Sympathy For The Record Industry inaugurated its catalog with Radio Cowgirl, a document of the Cowgirls’ high-velocity set recorded live at KCSB-FM in Santa Barbara.

After another stretch of relentless touring, the group tracked the near-definitive How It Looks -- How It Is in 1990, yet the cumulative strain of years without commercial payoff prompted Telligman and Clark to exit at the close of 1991. The rhythm section turned into a revolving door for several seasons, during which The Lazy Cowgirls issued scattered singles and EPs on assorted micro-labels while most observers assumed the band had dissolved. In 1995, however, they resurfaced with the excellent Ragged Soul and an apparently settled roster that found Todd and Weekday augmented by Michael Leigh on rhythm guitar, Ed Huerta on drums, and Leonard Keringer on bass. The musicians crisscrossed the United States and Europe, only for 1996 to bring fresh departures as both D.D. Weekday and Ed Huerta resigned. Bob Deagle joined on drums in time for 1997’s A Little Sex and Death, with Eric Chandler guesting on guitar. By 1999 Michael Leigh had returned to the six-string slot, and nearly two decades after leaving Indiana the tireless Pat Todd drove The Lazy Cowgirls onward with renewed force, logging countless road miles and issuing two sturdy Sympathy albums—Rank Outsider and Somewhere Down The Line—within a six-month span. The live set Here and Now: Live appeared in summer 2001. In 2004 the band moved to Reservation Records and delivered their most potent release in some time, the roots-inflected I’m Going Out And Get Hurt Tonight.