by Marion Hodges
Anyone who knows me well, actually most anyone who knows me even a little probably knows that I consider Amelia Fletcher to be something of a personal hero. Hearing her sing the title track to her band Heavenly's P.U.N.K. Girl EP when I was twenty-two somehow reduced me to a girl of twelve or thirteen. This is likely because that's somewhere around the age that I feel I should have been when I first heard Amelia. I'm not the biggest fan of statements such as "Oh that band, or that record (etc.) changed my life." It somehow always seems to devalue the impact of whatever it is you are claiming caused that change in your life. Therefore, hearing Amelia Fletcher for the first time did not change my life, in fact it was rather the opposite. My first exposure to Heavenly was a more quiet revelation. I heard this female musician with a stylistic approach that was so similar to my own, vocalizing things that I would certainly be inclined to think, operating within a sound that I didn't know existed, but one that made more sense to me than anything else I had ever heard.
Amelia's band prior to Heavenly was Talulah Gosh. They formed in 1986, and were done by 1988. Rumor has it that when they played live it was fast, loud, and always just on the verge of falling apart. There is evidence of this in a great deal of their recorded output as well, then there are songs like "Beatnik Boy." Whistful, dreamy, straightforward pop music. The song was actually written by founding member of Talulah Gosh, Liz Price, who left the band not long after it's inception. This past weekend at the seemingly impossibly fabulous Indietracks festival in Derbyshire, England the song was performed by Amelia Fletcher, and Eithne Farry who was Liz Price's replacement in the later days of the band.
It's a considerable understatement on my part, but I really wish that I could have been there to see this in person.
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