The Gories – Cry Girl

SinglesGoingSteady#04: The Gories – Cry Girl [Wild Honey Records; 2024]

04 is both a new and old sensation. Although recently released, The Gories recorded Cry Girl in Memphis back in 1990. Cry Girl has previously only been available on the not-so-common bootleg Complete Bandin’ Sessions.

Short update for the casually unaware: The Gories (1986–1992; 2019–) is a three-piece band consisting of Mick Collins (The Dirtbombs and Blacktop on guitar, vocals), Margaret Ann (Peggy) O’Neill (Darkest Hours on drums) and Dan Kroha (Demolition Doll Rods on guitar and vocals).

The Gories have so far released three studio albums and eight singles (and further contributed to three split singles). One special thing about The Gories is that, for a garage band, they have incorporated more than the average ratio of blues elements into their sound, and as a result have influenced many successors in this genre. (The White Stripes may be the most famous of these.)

Cry Girl is a cover of an obscure garage teenage punk screamer from 1965 by The Kan Dells. Dan Kroha says that “a record collector friend of ours turned us on to Cry Girl. We were just learning how to play and it was a great and simple song. In 1990, we were recording our second album in Memphis, TN for New Rose records”, the Alex Chilton produced I Know You Fine, But How You Doin’. “We got to the end of the sessions and we had some extra time, so we recorded a couple of songs we had been playing for a few years.”

Another much-worth-of-listen-to rarity from the Sixties appears on the B-side – a cover of Everything (That’s Mine) (1966) by the Dutch beat group The Motions. Dan Kroha: “I had “Everything That’s Mine” on a cassette tape. Back in the early 80’s a guy who owned a record store that I used to go to, made me some great tapes of 60’s beat obscurities and that was on one. I wanted to play it because it was easy to play and a cool, simple song.”

Kroha again about this release: “We wanted a single for our summer 2024 European tour. I remembered that we had these two extra songs leftover from that session and since I have the unmixed master tape, I had the songs digitized from the master and mixed them down for release. We all approved of the songs and mixes, so we released them.” A small batch – and somewhat of a pleasant surprise act – was made public by the agile Italy-based Wild Honey Records; a label that has been in operation since 2007.

As it stands today, Kroha says unfortunately that there is nothing else unreleased and that The Gories don’t plan to record anything new. But plans are subject to change – we hope for the better…

Previous posts in this series:

SinglesGoingSteady#01: Randells – Seven Inch
SinglesGoingSteady#02: The Fevers – Don’t Tell Me It’s Wrong
SinglesGoingSteady#03: Thee Cha Cha Chas – Rock’n’Roll Till I’m Dead