Girlschool - Demolition

With their roots dating back to 1977 and a Sarf Lahndun band called Painted Lady, Girlschool – famously dubbed the female Motörhead – were always closer to punk rock than the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. Indeed, while Diamond Head were still playing shitholes in Stourbridge, Kim McAuliffe, Kelly Johnson (RIP), Di ‘Enid’ Williams and Denise Dufort were touring with everyone from Budgie to Black Sabbath, their burgeoning career under the hazy but watchful eye of Doug Smith, manager of themselves and the self-same Motörhead. When Girlschool came along in 1980, hopes for their success were not high, despite giving as good as they got on Motörhead’s Overkill tour of 1979. That is until you got a load of their fabulously fun and riotously rocking debut album, Demolition – like Thin Lizzy meets Motörhead meets the craziest girl in school that all the boys are a bit scared of. The band had no feminist agenda. Unlike American contemporaries The Runaways, they didn’t set out to tease’n’please. (Blonde Bomb-er-shell Johnson’s stage presence could admittedly be described as smouldering, but only in a ‘fag burn on the inner arm’ sense.)
Well, yes. But that didn’t mean Girlschool lacked sex appeal. They had it most obviously in their striking singer/guitarist, Kelly Johnson. A year older than McAuliffe, and a whole lot blonder, taller and prettier, Johnson had just turned 22 when Demolition came out in 1980. “We wore jeans and leathers – real ones, not made-up costumes. It was our actual street gear. It was all about the music. If you couldn’t relate to us on that level, you could fuck off, basically,” says guitarist McAuliffe. The male-dominated British metal community embraced Girlschool’s dreggy charms wholeheartedly and unreservedly, even if – or most likely because – their hair stank of a beguiling mixture of stale cigarette smoke and Newkie Brown. Yet, Girlschool had no fear and, some might argue, no class – a notorious interview with Sounds’ Garry Bushell had them freely discussing subjects such as cystitis. But did this matter? Not a jot. They were St Trinian’s with switchblades; the girls next door – as long as a barbed-wire fence separated your house from theirs.

Ripped from the 2004 remastered and expanded reissue to MP3

1.       Demolition Boys 3:40
2.       Not For Sale 3:32
3.       Race With The Devil 2:52
4.       Take It All Away 3:44
5.       Nothing To Lose 4:31
6.       Breakdown 3:06
7.       Midnight Ride 3:17
8.       Emergency 2:51
9.       Baby Doll 4:13
10.   Deadline 2:54
Bonus Tracks
11.   Take It All Away (Single Version) 3:12
12.   It Could Be Better (Single Version) 2:55
13.   Nothing to Lose (Demo) 3:48
14.   Not for Sale (Demo) 3:31
15.   Furniture Fire (B-Side of "Emergency") 3:01
16.   Take It All Away (BBC - Friday Rock Now 1.8.80) 3:32
17.   Breakdown (BBC - Friday Rock Now 1.8.80) 3:24
18.   Demolition Boys (BBC - Friday Rock Now 1.8.80) 3:03
19.   Nothing To Lose (BBC - Friday Rock Now 1.8.80) 4:24