On The Rocks

-020 On The Rocks

The Worcester Phoenix
March 13 - 20, 1998

[On The Rocks]

Staying power

Lizzie Borden keeps it in the Finch Family

by John O'Neill
Lizzie Borden is a walking, talking time capsule of Boston rock-and-roll history. Living in a small apartment above the now-legendary (then-shithole) rock restaurant Cantone's as a teenager, she'd witness firsthand the initial wave of the burgeoning punk movement. From the Real Kids and DMZ to Lou Miami, Borden was able to soak up the area's finest influences as well as outside forces like New York's Dead Boys and Mink Deville. In the '80s, she played bass for Lizzie Borden and the Axes, a band who came close to breaking nationally with not one, but two major-label record deals that, while doing little commercially, resulted in tours of Russia, Japan, and, oddly enough, Aruba. After the demise of the Axes, Borden started Lava Beat, a band who won their share of awards, including the MTV Beach House Band Search and the V66 Video Music Awards.
As the '90s wind down, Borden has once again returned to action with her newest (and finest) combo, the Finch Family, who make their Wormtown debut this Friday at Ralph's "KONG Fest" (Pothole and the Free Radicals also appear).
Founded by Borden and Kelly Johnson in 1995, the Finch Family are in their second incarnation, which in itself was nearly an accident.
"Kelly and I are original members," Borden explains. "We met through friends, and we both played bass, so I switched to guitar. We met Phil [guitarist Phil Suarez] through his dad, who knew Kelly. And [drummer] Neil Dike was a friend of Phil's." For those still with us, guitarist Pamela Ledbetter rounds out the outfit.
If the Finch Family's road to gig-dom isn't exactly direct, they more than make up for that with their resultant output. Sporting wispy pop harmonies and a giant, three guitar wall of sound ("It really isn't sonics. We just had three guitarists, and no one wanted to give it up."), the group vacillate from Ramones-style power chord, pummeling to an even more ferocious "acid's-groovy-let's-kill-the-pigs"-type psychedelia. Popping a little, droning a little, tripping a little, the Finch Family take all the better aspects of the past 30 years of rock and bring them into alignment with modern-rock taste. Borden, the chief architect of the "Finchrock" sound, while older, is by no means ready to slip into the easy-listening, world-weary acoustic strumming many of her contemporaries have gravitated toward. She claims the best is yet to come.
"I think we've outgrown our tape [1997's release, The Finch Family], we're much better now," she explains. "I'm not unhappy with the results, we're just more mature and have more of an edge."
After a listen through the seven numbers that constitute The Finch Family (Raven), one is forced to wonder how much more of an edge a band could possibly deliver. From the opening Veruca Salt-meets-Lee Josephs's-LSD-flashback of "Desire" to the pop-metal rendition of Lulu's classic "To Sir with Love," the Finch Family walk a tight line between real and surreal, hard and soft, razor-sharp black and white ranting and fuzzy, Technicolor vomiting. When Borden chants the title chorus to "Outside," a tune devoted to the negative slant of the evening news, you can practically hear her catharsis splash against the back of the toilet bowl.
"Yeah, I wrote that after watching the news," she relates. "It was just non-stop. Don't go out because of the ozone layer, don't breath the air. Be cautious, there's this guy on the loose. After a few weeks of this terrible news, this song came up."
The group will return to the studio in the near future to complete their debut CD, slated for release later this spring. In the meantime Borden and the band will continue to tour between the Boston-New York circuit and reacquaint themselves with the scene.
"Boston and New York have been very receptive to us, but it's harder to get into clubs," Borden says. "There aren't as many around. Who'd have thought the Rat would close? Now, it's mostly smaller clubs that are more supportive because they don't need to bring in the money that larger venues do.
"Thing's are better for women now," she relates when comparing today's music climate to punk's heyday. "I've been there twice and at the time the Go-Go's were the only other successful female band. We had makeover artists, and we were told how to dress and what to say and finally to change musical directions.
"When you're playing in a band it can be really hard, it can be well worth it. You just need to figure out why you're playing and what you want out of it. Then just stick with it."