Diamond in the rough

Music Row
By Brian Rademaekers

I don’t usually judge a book — or an album — by its cover, but the artwork on Thee Minks’ debut CD, Are You Ready Now?, pretty much sums up their sound. It’s a steamy, low-angle shot featuring legs wrapped in fishnets, a red vinyl miniskirt and a flaming bass guitar.
That’s Thee Minks: Raunchy, sexy, and full of booze-soaked energy. And if you’re going to give the Minks a listen, you’d better be ready. Their 14-track debut is a powerhouse of punkish, edgy girl-rock dominated by the down-and-dirty vocals of Hope Diamond and the thudding rhythms of bassist Liz Lixx. You also can always count on the band’s affectionately named drummer — "Plaything," their male element — for plenty of enthusiastic drum-pounding and primal grunts.
The trio all work day jobs and are well past the age when you can still believe that you are going be the next greatest thing in rock. Which is perhaps what makes their music so purely rooted in ecstatic rock irreverence.
Diamond, the Minks’ lead singer/three-chord thrasher, is by day a clerk at a medical bookstore on the University of Pennsylvania campus. Though she has always been tied to music in some way, whether through doing acoustic sets in California or backing friends’ bands, she never really had her own gig until the Minks formed in 2001. Now 40, the tattooed Port Richmond resident and her fellow Minks have been tearing up venues across the city for six years, and have built a bit of a reputation for their wild, no-holds-barred style of stagecraft.
Fans of performers like the Ramones, Sex Pistols and Patti Smith can find a modern and highly local reincarnation of that kind of raw, simple and cathartic energy embodied in the Minks. But also listen closer for bursts of The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Hole, PJ Harvey and the Breeders. Best of all are the explicit and bawdy intonations in their songs, giving Diamond the feel of a punk rock Peaches (if you’re not familiar, check out Impeach My Bush).
Songs like 151 Girl and Savage Love Affair seem to ooze straight from the hangover of a dive-bar-filled night and are chock full of coarse and inebriated humor.
Take I Wanna Do a Woggle, a ripping little ditty that makes reference to members of another Philly band well-known for tapping the energy of the same circuit the Minks hit.
Diamond said the song literally started out as a "drunken joke" that came after a gig, but is now one of the band’s biggest hits. Combining ’60s-style garage guitar with yelps of female punk vocals, it’s an unabashedly sexual rock anthem with loads of feel-good riffs.
"That’s what all our songs are about," says Diamond. "It’s all about just having a good time and getting people out there dancing."
That will be the mission when Thee Minks show up at the El Bar on Saturday for a duel with fellow Steel Cage label mates Sioux City Pete and the Beggars. Philly rockers Son of a Gun and Whiskey Livin’ will be joining them at the Fishtown/Kensington bar for a decidedly punk-heavy show amid the glorious roar of the Market-Frankford trains.
Diamond calls the El one of her favorite local watering holes, and is betting on a night rife with raw rock energy. She also is hyping their show with The Woggles at the North Star on June 13 , one she says will be especially good because of a certain sort of synergy between the two bands.
If you head out to see the Minks, keep your eye out for their newest release, a seven-inch EP featuring a cover of the Ramones’ Mama’s Boy, and the original Plaything, a gritty song showcasing the abuse that the ladies inflict on their drummer. ••