Thursday, May 22, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

CDVS

These days, there's a popular misconception that the Donnas are hot--a notion that really could not be further from the truth. With the possible exception of lead singer Donna A., the Donnas (that's R., F. and C. in case you're keeping track) look like a troop of 'hood hags cruising for man-meat outside the Circle K. For proof, just take a quick peek at the mugshots inside 1999's Get Skintight (particularly that of Donna F., who's pouting like the photographer just pried a sixer of powdered donettes out of her meaty claws). Some ugliness simply will not be denied.

Of course, physical beauty has never been a prerequisite of punk rock (The Ramones had to be four of the gawkiest dudes ever to see the light of day), and The Donnas can definitely craft some catchy 1-4-5. "Hook It Up," "Doin' Donuts" and "Get Outta My Room" are throwback anthems in the best tradition of suburban slacker-punk. There's even a track about getting dumped ("I Didn't Like You Anyway")--a reality that seems far more understandable after a cruise through the CD jacket.

Chances are, the ladies (if they would consent to be called such a thing) of Betty Blowtorch never suffered the same problems. Four rough-and-ready, low-rise-leather minxes lacquered in hearts, wings, knives and barbed wire, they wail about the corporeal reality beneath the familiar sheen of feminine angst ("Fish Taco," "Diarrhea" and "Teenage Whore"). Perhaps nowhere is this more genuinely appealing than "Shut Up and Fuck": "I don't want conversation/ I just want penis penetration." Or the rock `em, sock `em salvo "Party 'Til You Puke"--a backyard keg slut's ode to the liquor store's foulest ferment: "Schlitz! Hamm's! King Cobra!"

Of course, Betty Blowtorch's hard living was eventually going to catch up with at least one of them--a fact more or less proved by lead singer Bianca Butthole's death in a car crash in Louisiana at the tail end of 2001. Which makes Last Call a retrospective of sorts--a collection complete with singles from her founding days in Butt Trumpet and snippets of Betty Blowtorch's radio interviews (FYI, the longest Bianca ever went without changing her underwear was four days). It's just these kind of revelations that make Last Call such a fun and cool historical document--a 66-minute snapshot of 10-plus years of screaming and sweating and drinking and screwing. They also give Betty Blowtorch an indisputable (and decidedly shapely) leg up on The Donnas--one that not even the slickest production can undo.--Newt Briggs