Speed Queens!

by Toby Manning, Jockey Slut, October 1999, p. 12

Munich's Chicks On Speed: they can paint fast!

This is one girl band that you're not going to hurt with accusations that they don't play, produce, or even - in the case of their best-known track, the sassy, technoid 'Eurotrash Girl' - write their own material. Chicks On Speed are proud of being entirely manufactured. Largely because they've manufactured themselves.

"There are too many musicians already in music," explains Melissa, the American of this cosmopolitan trio. "We started off as an art project - the music came later. We hate the whole ego thing of being a songwriter or a musician. That's why we're a produced band - we get in a different producer for each track - and we do our live shows with a mini disc player. We just press 'play'." And then the girls chat, rant and chirrup over the top.

With connections like these Munich-based Chicks have however, this approach is no impediement. They made their first single, 'Warm Leatherette' with DJ Hell (Melissa also contributed to his album), while current single 'Glamour Girl' features Vienna's campest, Christopher Just. Individually or collectively they've also with the DMX Krew, Patrick Pulsinger and Chris Korda (they're paid-up members of his Church of Euthanasia), and they've been championed by Richard Fearless, who made 'Eurotrash Girl' the lead track on his Heavenly Social mix album.

The Chicks all met while at art college in Munich. "We had to do all these paintings for a bank in no time, and so that's how we came up with the name," explains Alex, who originates from Australia. Third member, German Kiki, is mysteriously absent. Apparently she broke her arm shortly, after arriving in the country for a national tour in mysterious circumstances. "It was during one of our fights - we fight a lot," Alex giggles, but won't be drawn any further.

The girls' anarchic enegy is all over their music: 'Glamour Girl' is a deliberately "cheesy house number" complete with quavering country and western vocal and tart lyrics ("rub her breasts and forget the rest"). Its flip, 'Turn of the Century' meanwhile, returns Just to his gabba roots, with touches of gothic rock.

"Women right now in electronic music, they don't have such a weird tradition and pressure," says Alex: "we've taken the advantage of that." Rather than being taken advantage of, these girls are going to make sure advantage is all theirs. They've conqured a good portion of the Euro electronic fraternity. Now they're coming for you.

'Glamour Girl' is out now on Go!

Copyright © 1999 Jockey Slut. Reprinted with permission.