The Gypsy Fembots, a female power trio from Boulder, Co., rocked out a great set on January 4, 2008, at the Toad Tavern in Littleton, Co.  It’s an amazing thing.  They’re still in high school.  They need work permits from their high school to play at bars.  And they rock. 

     I was thrilled to get more than I bargained for.  I first heard of them about a year ago, when a bartender in Golden, Co. was telling a story about how he dragged his boss out of the back room to hear the girls play.  Without justification, however, I anticipated screaming angry youth, grinding out loud and fast excuses for music, and a “faster and louder is better” mentality.  Instead, they delivered hard-driving good old-fashioned rock and roll.  They peppered in a traveling gypsy forest-like dusty mist, and made it their own.

     The effectiveness of their potion began with the voice of Cassie, who also played lead guitar.  As I looked around the bar, there were few conversations in a crowd of many, as the band captured everyone’s attention.  Cassie’s captivating voice and guitar licks drew the audience in, while Lyndie on the drums and Caitlin on the bass provided the backbone beats.  Tight drum rolls, and rolling bass lines carried the jams forward.  Machines puffed smoke across the floor during the first song.  An empty Corona bottle found it’s way from the crowd and became a glass slide, as it slid up and down the neck of the Les Paul in the second song.  And, in the third song, “Hyrule Mountain”, an eerie guitar effect swirled mystically around a slow tempo and solid bass.  The Gypsy Fembots wrapped up their set with a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Communication Breakdown”.  They may have been influenced from bands like Led Zeppelin; yet, they seemed destined to solidify their own identity.  “We’re concentrating on originals,” Cassie said, about their new songs in progress. 

The band has been together for two years now.  Within this time, they have experienced the luck of the draw. Here’s how a previous gig worked out for them: the wrong band cancelled a gig at the wrong moment, and someone who had a copy of the Gypsy Fembots’s demo sitting on their desk, called and asked them to open up for Buddy Miles – yes, Buddy Miles, as in Jimi Hendrix’s drummer, in Band of Gypsys.    They played the gig.  “He signed my drumhead,” explained Lyndie.  “It was an honor to meet him.”  Being long out of high school myself, I could only wonder, how cool would that have been, for a high school report of “What I Did This Summer”?

     The next question was, “What’s next?”  Well, the band has planned to put in some recording time in February, at Module Overload Studio with Jamie Hillyer.  The band also plans to play out at least once a month, anywhere where there’s a good sound guy, they said.  Caitlin, the bassist, also seemed to have future plans for the band, as well.  “We’re down for male groupies!”

Even before the first note reverberated from the amplifiers, or the sound of the drums appealed to some primitive beast lying deep within my genetic make-up, the band sparked my curiosity with the allure of their name.  The Gypsy Fembots.  Yeah, baby, I dug it.  The name’s cooler than having a hollowed out volcano, or a mini-me. I figured out the Fembots part, but how did they match up “Gypsy” with “Fembots”?  As a plain matter of fact, Cassie spelled it out for me, “Jimi Hendrix meets Austin Powers.”  

The girls finished their set, as did many other bands in many other bars, on any given night, then cleared their instruments off the stage, and made way for the next band.  After I listened to their set and spoke with them, I couldn’t help but see a vision of a larger picture, and some connection they had to a time long past.  It may have been their connection to musicians of former decades.  It may have been a connection to something further back, like gypsies who traveled in carriages across dusty trails to villages and worlds of the unknown.  They did come out to play their songs and they did have a good distance to travel across town for their return trip home, in the cover of night.  It may have been a connection to the plans of the gods of the universe, where underneath the moon and stars, the music had to be played, amongst swigging crowds of friends and loners, whose souls where temporarily filled with voice, message, and music.

            It is from this connection, that I am anxious to see how the band grows.  If gypsies are destined for journeys, I hope the journey of the Gypsy Fembots, has just begun.