The Podolor-Cooper Sessions

A companion release to No More Vinyl, which reissued 1983's Thank Heaven! with three 1984 demos recorded with Blondie's former rhythm section, The Podolor-Cooper Sessions completes the Little Girls' story by examining their earlier days. Produced by Richard Podolor and Bill Cooper, whose successful L.A. pop career stretched back to Steppenwolf and Three Dog Night, these are 1981 demo sessions that were shopped around for label interest. Only the band's key tune, the giddy new wave novelty "The Earthquake Song," was ever released in this form (this is the original version that ended up on the Poshboy compilation Rodney on the ROQ, Vol. 2, not the re-recording that appeared on the band's sole EP), and the girl group torch song "Left Without a Real Kiss" is the only other song that made it all the way to the 1982-1983 sessions with producer Liam Sternberg that produced Thank Heaven! The other dozen songs here, including the old-fashioned band theme "Little Girls," feature a punkier edge than the glossy new wave pop of the later recordings, favoring tough distorted guitar sounds by Caron Maso and Kip Brown and a brattier vocal style by Caron and sister Michele Maso than the Betty Boop giggles that came later. The sardonic ballad "Mr. Clean Teen" and the Runaways-style bad-girl rocker "Play with Your Boys" suggest different directions the band might have gone in, but there's little here that outshines the near-perfect bubblegum of Thank Heaven!