Girls Against Boys - Super-Fire

Girls Against Boys - "Super-Fire"

Long before signing to Jade Tree, long before playing the 25th Anniversary party for T&G, Girls Against Boys briefly flirted with mainstream acceptance, or at least they did in Chicago. I might be the only one that remembers "Super-Fire" getting a season's worth of heavy play on Q101, or that the station invited the band to play at one of their Jamboree festivals. Try calling the station to request the song now and see what happens. "Everything alternative?" "Thousands of songs?" As long as you're looking for Rage Against the Machine or Live, definitely.

Finding the EP for this at Discs & Dats in St. Charles when I was 17? A great moment. Finally losing that store back in 2001 (2002?), one the other hand? Pretty devestating. Discs & Dats were useless as far as ordering anything for you that they didn't have in stock, but they had a huge collection of used discs and a really unpredictable and cool selection of new CDs. Thrill Jockey, Matador, Skin Graft... they seemed to get everything that came out from these labels and more. And the employees were never patronizing or snobby. They played good music (as opposed to the awful scream crap that the brats at Record Breakers would always blast, or the blues-prog discs that seem stuck in the changer at Kiss The Sky) and would make you an offer if you were selling them any used CDs that they were personally interested in. I even got a few posters off their walls before they closed up shop. I wish I had copied down the notice that the owner had taped to the door after finally vacating. It listed all the money he'd lost due to shoplifting over the years. I forget exactly how much it was, at least several thousand dollars.

The biographical entry for GVSB on Allmusic.com might be the first I've ever seen on the site where the writer states blatant qualitative opinion as fact, let alone suddenly saying anything like "[this album] was the worst of their career." I've never come across any kind of consensus like this surrounding Freak*on*ica, but even if it did exist, how strange to feel a need to mention it in a paragraph-long blurb about the band's history.