Continental queens

Chicks on Speed

by Lois Maffeo

Some Americans are inexplicably popular in Europe. Baywatch star David Hasselhoff had several massive pop hits in Germany. In the early '90s, the British forsook the American grunge phenomenon and instead pledged their love to Evan Dando. And then of course there's French Legion of Honor medalist Jerry Lewis.

For all these generous gifts that America extends overseas, we rarely reciprocate the favor by clamoring for more European rock and roll. (An occasional hit like Trio's "Da Da Da" is sufficient, thanks.) But Chicks on Speed, a conceptual art band who currently reside in Berlin, are one continental passion that's poised to become at least an underground phenomenon in the US. The band's raucous hybrid of pop, punk, and techno has already made a major impact in European dance-music circles, and now Chicks on Speed have begun to infiltrate the American market. Last summer they caught a few stateside ears with their import-only self-released Chicks on Speed Will Save Us All; they've followed that up with their first official American album, the full-length The Unreleases, on the Olympia-based indie label K Records.

The Unreleases compiles select songs from Chicks on Speed Will Save Us All and new remixes and radio edits. Among the ebullient, high-concept CD's 33 tracks are a dadaist rendering of the B-52s' "Give Me Back My Man" and a deadpan version of Cracker's already bloodless pseudo-hit "Euro Trash Girl." But these cover versions, though winning, are left in the dust by formidable originals, like the house anthem "Glamour Girl," with its classic piano-based vamping and sped-up vocal track. The song's curious power resides in the woefully underconfident singer's bursts of prosaic epiphany; she notes, for example, that the she-diva of the title "brushes her teeth five times a day!"

Coming together at art school in Munich, the group began as a project among American Melissa Logan, Australian Alex Murray-Leslie, and German Kiki Morse. "I don't think we thought much of each other in the beginning," says Morse from a car hurtling toward a gig with Le Tigre in Switzerland. "But then, one night we were all in a bar together and got to know each other better. Melissa asked us to contribute to a video she was making for the art college, and from then on we decided that we were going to be Chicks on Speed."

As the name implies, this is an all-girl group, and they do have a penchant for seizing upon ideas and implementing them. "We get annoyed when things don't move quickly enough," notes Murray-Leslie. "We did a B-52's remix thing and people said that we were retro. So then we'll do an electronic laptop crunchy thing. We like it when we are pushing against something."

Along with aiming to defy easy categorization, the Chicks also resent being thought of as merely a band. Besides their music, they run a label (Chicks on Speed Records) and make cover art for other groups, and they've created a whole line of clothing and objets d'art (including large cardboard cutout "clones" of the three of them) that are sold from their Web site (www.chicksonspeed.com). "We're not just doing music, we're doing a lot of projects," says Murray-Leslie, adding, "We don't want to depend on one type of thing." Logan grabs the phone to talk about their upcoming projects, which include a possible television series on Danish TV and a theater piece called Pigtails that they are designing and appearing in. "It's about a woman, and the more she gets abused the more she turns into a pig. And the more she turns into a pig, the more people like her. I'm supposed to be this Valerie Solanas-type character who gives this big lecture about how men are just slime of the earth."

Although Chicks on Speed remain reticent when it comes to political polemic, there is something implicitly subversive about everything from their tweaked cover tunes and reimagined DJ tracks to their DIY label and clothing line. Unlike, say, Kathleen Hanna's Le Tigre -- another indie "band" who mix electronica and politics -- they take their feminism as a given. Logan responds to questions about girl power with "no duh" impatience. "If you're a female that doesn't stay at home and reproduce, then you're a feminist." And staying at home just isn't in the cards for Chicks on Speed.