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Before Elastica, Alanis Morissette, Hole or Jennifer Trynin, there were Patti Smith, The Runaways, Go-Gos, Deborah Harry and The Bangles, female artists who broke down the door to the new-wave boys club in the early '80s and proved that women could write, sing and rock with the best of them.
Of all these acts, the Los Angeles-based Bangles were the most polished in the sense of pure pop exuberance. Their debut album 1984's "All Over the Place," was lyrically engaging with harmonies and melodies right out of the Kinks-Yardbirds-Beatles branch of the British invasion.
A decade later, Vicki Peterson, The Bangles' former lead guitarist and primary songwriter, finds herself in a different city, playing in an entirely different kind of rock band. The Continental Drifters is a loosely knit collection of pop rock veterans that features Peterson, Peter Holsapple, formerly of The Db's and his wife, Susan Cowsill of the legendary bubble-gum pop family.
"I remember one right during a Bangles tour, after our set we just ran to see a show by The Db's," Peterson said during a phone call last week from New Orleans. "We got to meet them and thought they were so great. And Peter was so good at keeping in touch. Every time I came home from a tour, I had post cards from him in the mail box."
So it's not surprising to see why Peterson believes the convergence of the Continental Drifters was a "predestined" affair.
In 1992, long after the break-up of The Bangles and Db's, a group of musicians who were living in Los Angeles and tired of music-business mind games started gathering at a quaint Hollywood nightspot called Raji's for eclectic pop, folk and rock jam sessions. Drummer Carlo Nuccio, an early member of The Subdudes, brought swamp rock and Cajun flavors to the mix; bassist Mark Walton brought some psychedelic energy from his former band, the Dream Syndicate; and lead guitarist Robert Mache added some lean and edgy electric attitude from his days with Sparks.
Add the combined pop experience of Holsapple, Peterson and Cowsill, and you've got the recipe for some outrageously unpredictable music.
"For me, this is a comfortable place to be, thematically and spiritually," Peterson said. "It's like it was when The Bangles started years ago.
"The Bangles became such a business in so many ways - that feeling of playing just for the love of playing eventually got lost."
Not so with the Drifters. Holsapple said that if the band never gets a major-label record deal (which he hopes will not be the case), "we'd still be delighted playing with each other because we have so much fun onstage."
"We really do work like a family," Peterson said. "There are tons of arguments but they're mostly like sibling squabbles. We're very honest with each other."
All the teamwork and family folksiness come through on the band's self-titled debut album for the independent New Orleans Monkey Hill label. There are Drifter versions of a Gram Parsons song ("A Song for You"), a Michael Nesmith song ("Some of Shelly's Blues") and a Pat McLaughlin tune ("Highway of the Saints"). There are original songs from Walton, Holsapple and Cowsill, and Peterson contributed the outstanding "Mixed Messages," a somewhat countrified rocker that neatly blends all those Drifters reference points.
"A lot of journalists have written that they could hear The Bangles doing that song, but I don't think so," Peterson said.
A big Beatles fan, Peterson didn't delve into country music until her friend Sid Griffin (a member of the long-gone country rock band The Long Ryders) introduced her to Gram Parsons.
"As much as I wanted to sing like John Lennon, it turned out that my voice was more suited to country. I went back and listened to Patsy Cline, and a lot of that Gram/Emmylou (Harris) stuff was a precursor for the Drifters."
Actually, if you go back and listen to "All Over the Place," you'll hear a Peterson tune called "Silent Treatment" that could easily be turned into a cool, honky-tonk Drifters tune.
"As a matter of fact, I just finished a song that I started when The Bangles first got together," Peterson said. "I thought, 'Hey, this is something The Drifters could probably do.' "
Look for the tune on a new Drifters album in the near future. Peterson reported that the band is juggling offers and weighing its options and trying to remain patient.
"Doing things in our family-organization kind of way will keep us happy," she said. "And what keeps us happy will keep the band together and playing music for the next 10 years."
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