7#$n-.  x[ro 9*co999999999CTShonali is not mentioned until paragraph 5then she is mentioned as if a prior reference had occurred. No last name ever given. And last name only after first ref. Send thisn back to me.JW BABYFAT Velocity Girls Chewing the (Baby)Fat with Atlantas Pop-Tart Sensations Who: Babyfat When: Sat., March 11 Where: Mercury Theatre How Much: $5 by Shelly Ridenour Like it or not, rock n roll has long been a he-man dominated club, girls grudgingly allowed. Its not so much a problem with musicians or promoters or club owners as it is with the media. Most mainstream Women In Rock magazine articles are pale, patronizing attempts to kiss off the slack of the past 40 years. Even worse are rock critics who trip all over themselves pointing out what ostensibly boils down to Kim Deal/ Louise Post/ Liz Phair/ Tonya Donnelly may be a woman, but she sure can rock! The inevitable result of this gender game is that the female front lines tend to be seen as women first, musicians second. The women of Babyfat, however, are not worried about being exiled in guyville. If it takes that to get someones attention, I really dont mind it, says Michelle DuBois, co-vocalist/ guitarist. At least weve got their attention, and then they hopefully will judge us by our music, which stands on its own. What bothers me is when they make a judgement on the fact that were female without having heard the music. Obviously, all the blas comparisons have been made to other [female-fronted] bands simply because were female alternative rockers. And its true that Babyfat has been compared to everyone from Veruca Salt and Fuzzy (not too far off the mark) to the Breeders (well, maybe) to Juliana Hatfield (whose precious butt they could kick even on a bad day). But none of these really ring true, either in sound or influence. DuBois, along with co-vocalist/ guitarist Shonali Bhowmik, bassist Laurie Garner and dynamo drummer Mauricio Carey (the lone male of the band), is turning rock n roll upside down and on its pointed little head. Taking the old three-chord power pop standby, they twist, stretch and bend it until it seems new again. With Babyfat, what you hear is what you get: super vibe jangle pop and red-blooded rawk all wrapped up in a rough-around-the-edges package. But things didnt quite start out that way. You see, once upon a time in a land of musical dreams called Nashville, there were two little girls who mooned around their castles many a weekend writing songs to the beat of a drum machine. "Shonali and I go all the way back to the fourth grade," explains Dubois. "We started out together on the violin, then the clarinet. We were in marching band together our freshman year in high school until we figured out everybody called us band nerds. And that's when we turned to rock n roll. The Babyfat you hear today is the result of thousands of miles spent schlepping across the countrybut not in a road-weary tour van. After college (Michelle attended our very own University of Tennessee, and some scenesters may remember her from a singing stint with the Flying Polecats), Dubois and Shonali packed it up and headed to the land of swimming pools and movie stars. California gave them their second musical inspiration. One show we went to in Santa Cruz, where we were living at the time, really changed things for me, Dubois remembers. We went to see the Meat Puppets, and the crowd was just going crazy for it. And during the break between songs, someone in the band said, You know, Im glad you guys like this so much cause were not doing anything. Anybody could do this. Just buy yourself some equipment. And now that I think back on that, I realize it convinced me to give it a try. Eventually ending up in Atlanta, Shonali and Dubois decided it was time to take their songs beyond parties and hit the towns club circuit. They rounded up Garner and Carey, played around for a couple of months and then their fairy godfather waved his magic wand. Michelle and I had recorded some demos before we got the band together, thinking we would use them to find other people to play with us, Shonali remembers. That tape ended up in the hands of an acquaintance whose roommate--unbeknownst to the band--is the head of Sister Ruby Records. And so, two or three weeks later the roommate comes up to us and he said that he had been listening to the tape over and over again and our songs were stuck in his head, Shonali says of the whirlwind wooing. Two weeks after that, he called us up and asked us if we wanted to do a record. Well, of course. Sister Ruby Records, a smallish Atlanta indie, first showcased those oh-so-catchy songs on the four-band compilation Amplified Brand, which hit stores after the band had been together all of five months. Babyfats full-length release for the label, Dragons Go Away, is a rollercoaster ride on the shaky tracks of emotionally tangled relationships, full of sheer bliss highs and mud-puddle dips that arent so much heartbroken as truly frustrated. Girls-on-the-verge harmonies and palm sweat-urgent hooks give off an omnipresent chaotic energy, making it seem as if things could fall apart at any minute. Like the Runaways, maybe? Nah. The thing I appreciate about being known as a woman first is that, for a long time, all we really listened to were men, Shonali explains. I mean, Michelle and I met in the fourth grade going yeah, I love the Beatles. Looking back, I think about how I always watched males play guitar and I paid all this money all these years to see guys play and finally I saidwait, lets turn it around. The truth is, I was never really influenced by women. Jann Wenner can put that in his pipe and smoke it. uDuboisBhowmikBhowmikBhowmikBhowmikBhowmikDuBoisDuBoisDuBoisDuBoisDuBoisroller coaster n|g`n}Z2|n|  U0`1) 8tult qmnqw~ @@"&;R_`abuo9.  Xw;n ! \! \! \! \! \! \! \! @nGdv  I  q!@!!!!!!! !!! n  HH(FG(HH(d'@"=/R@H-:LaserWriter 8.0 ChicagoNew YorkGenevaMonacoPalatinoTimes HelveticaCourierSymbolAmerican Heritage MT Extrav|vEEl ^ d h n s z ^ d jq@N'.I +  7w C-~:zm CAP'N DAVE CAP'N DAVE