Candy Ass / Cherry Persuasions

From Berkeley's online slang dictionary: "candy-ass: adj. wimpy, weak-willed, overly meek and mild." But don't tell that to this Candy Ass. They may have stripped for Howard Stern, starred in a Coors ad, partied in a Metallica video and toured with Pink, but these aren't girlies off the bimbo circuit. This steely chick quartet comes from the same corner of New York City as the Luna Chicks and the Toilet Boys, so every move and every lick is thoroughly pro. Beginning with the bee's sleaze of local rookies the Cherry Persuasion, whose singer Lee-Lee comes on like a lap dancer doing a Marilyn act, the evening's entertainment was candy-coated with a raucous centre. Despite the room's wealth of angular haircuts and über-accessorising, it wasn't hard to pick out Candy Ass in their flurry of metal studs and wild two-toned coifs. Singer Galadriel killed the '80s fashion competition, decked out in hot pink leopard print, goomies and fishnets, while guitarist Hopey Rock sported a razor-sharp mohawk with one long strand dividing her face, à la the Misfits. Much like the threads, the sound mixed sugar with gravel — Galadriel's girlish lyrics and sing-song voice bouncing off Rock's butch punk riffs, like Blondie's "Sunday Girl" crossed with Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation." But Candy Ass's tunes — collected on their three-year-old album Orgy — don't touch those of their foremothers, and with no record deal on the horizon (and a pack of clone bands floating around the continent), who knows how long they'll carry on. However, despite the dark outlook, this band's ability to happily bop around the stage with confidence and cool could find them rocking houses for years to come.