Girl in a Coma – Live @ M Room

Girl in a Coma
@ M Room
October 1, 2009

Since the breakup of The Runaways 30 years ago, Joan Jett has seemed to make the best use of her time discovering and signing the world’s greatest Power Pop bands for Blackheart Records. This Fall has some of her prodigies (and the only band in the world worthy of their Smiths-inspired moniker), Texas trio Girl in a Coma, hitting up the East Coast for the second time this year. Unfortunately, from an attendance perspective, the band’s show at Philthy’s M Room was far less successful than their last appearance in the City of Sisterly Affection over the summer at The Khyber, but the girls still managed to prove that they are currently making just about the most violently catchy music on the planet.

The performance presented the band’s latest release, Trio B.C., which has the group dusting their brand of Power Pop with a bit of a Southern twang, most impressively with the epically anthemic “Static Mind” and “Vino.” Also included were a few of the band’s hook-laden gems of morbidity, like “Say,” “Their Cell,” and “The Photographer,” from their debut, Both Before I’m Gone, a pop ode to hopelessness, sentimentally in-line with their namesake. The highlight of the night, however, was a cover of The Velvets’ “Femme Fatale” as brilliantly and passionately sloppy as Mr. Reed ever could’ve hoped for. – Izzy Cihak