Imagine attending an all boys Catholic high school. At the turn of the millennium. And as a closeted trans girl. There were good times, and bad times. Cisgender classmates struggling with other LGBTQ+ identity issue may have had it a little bit easier. Topics like transgender identity were less frequently discussed and explored in the era of "Y2K". Being on the femme side, I was the subject of what were probably a a few crushes from closeted gay classmates. Classmates who recognized my attraction to women saw me as a "stud" because of my ability to relate so well with women. That term takes on a different definition in the lesbian community.
My social reprieve was through extracurriculars. There were some co-ed youth groups at my church that allowed me to interact with female peers. My views broadened in the more secular arts programs that I took part in. I would paint murals for the city of Boston after school some days of the school weeks and through the summers. On Saturdays, I took part in youth classes taught by MassArt students. That program led me to another at that college. During "Extreme Week", high schoolers spent April Vacation in immersive art classes. It created this unique sense of community while spending more hours in studio than we could possibly ever experience in college. There was a group of friends there with whom I could discuss anime series and manga that I was more familiar with (such as Sailor Moon), and some that I didn't know (i.e. Ranma 1/2 and the Gundam franchise). It was the missile of Extreme Week 2001 that two girls from that friend group were talking about the new Rachael Leigh Cooke dramedy "Josie & the Pussycats". Tara Reid was coming from "American Pie" fame and had a fight scene with then-boyfriend Carson Daly. Cooke was an iconic lead in teen rom-coms, but I also knew her for the "Babysitters Club" movie, a PSA on drug abuse, and some Batman Beyond episodes (I'm hearing her play Chelsea in the episode "Last Resort") literally as I'm writing. The third Pussycat was played by Rosario Dawson, an actress who really excelled in the Hollywood after appearing in the Marvel-Netflix TV series "Daredevil". That movie and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" were two of my favorite movies to rent from West Coast Video for the weekend. In my re-watching of the DVD I realized that Kay Hanley was the singing voice of Josie. I already knew her for "Gen O" ( a short-lived TV show on Kids' WB about a pre-tween rock singer). In an Archie-verse way, I thought that it was a fun connection how the voice of Josie was from Dorchester, and Melissa Joan Hart's Sabrina portrayal was supposed to live some town outside Boston. Bob Montana (the creator of the Archie-verse) modeled Riverdale after the North Shore Massachusetts town of Haverhill.
It was in college that I learned who Letters to Cleo are. Thank you Fox Family Channel for re-airing all of those high school romcoms. Saturdays usually involved college football, creating a weekly comic for a school newspaper, seeing my friends' band Odom play shows at Syracuse's Armory Square, and movies. One of the most iconic movies for us millennials is "10 Things I Hate About You". Just like "Josie & the Pussycats", "10 Things I Hate About You" had a star studded cast filled with teen idols of the era. Heath Ledger's Patrick Verona led a gutsy rendition of the Four Seasons' "You're Too Good to Be True", but it's the Letters to Cleo cover of Cheap Trick that plays for evermore on my Pandora account. 16 years later, I finally got to see Letters to Cleo live at Boston's Paradise rock club. I was singing along. Taking photos for r0ck bl0gster (though I hadn't gotten into the rhythm of promptly getting a blog post up immediately after shows). One of my favorite photos of all 2023 happened to be of Kay Hanley with bright red hair dancing around the stage like a combination of Tinkerbell and her "Gen O" cartoon character.
A year later, I find out that Letters to Cleo was performing another show at the Paradise (apparently, this is the 8th year of a autumnal tradition). Ticketmaster had a special offer in case a consumer wanted to see both nights of the Letters to Cleo shows. I didn't know if one night's set list would be designed like a bonus disk on a CD. Regardless, I was ready. The Friday show was on a rainy night. While running from rolling stock to rolling stock and across subway stations, I had to regularly adjust my woolen socks when they rode down my water-resistant Dr. Martens. I'm getting used to the MBTA route to the Paradise. While the Green Line's "B" route includes a few sets of lights, the venue's only a few stops away from the point where trolley starts moving along street level tracks. Instead of the Giggolo Aunts, this year's opening band was Heretix. It was after the second show that I fully developed an appreciation for their music. In the 90's, I mainly listened to Top 40 stations and Disney soundtracks, so WBCN and WAAF fare was less familiar. I listen to more bands from the 90's "alternative" genre today, but the Heretix sound stands out for its' heaviness. The bass, drums, and more bass... It's not a bad thing, but a defining element of their live shows. I'm just glad that I brought my Loops earplugs. Layered onto that emphatic rhythm section is music style that can right away be recognized as grunge. Rightfully, Seattle produced the best-known grunge bands, so I tried to analytically think of what West Coast act I could compare Heretix to for my r0ck bl0gster readers. There are songs that remind me a little bit of Pearl Jam, and little bits of the Foo Fighters. "10-2-1" has a riff that gives me "Smells Like Teen Spirit" vibes. 1993's "Buzzy Baby" reminds me of Weezer's "Say it Ain't So" (released the following year) which lines up in how the second Heretix bassist (Mikey Welsh) would eventually join up with the Rivers Cuomo group. Recognizing the different Seattle grunge bands as uniquely distinguishable from each other, I started Soundgarden as one of the closer comparatives to Heretix. I see (or really, "hear") it in how the music collectively comes together and in Ray Lemieux's delivering the lyrics in an approach both controlled and raw. Of their setlist from the Heretix shows at the Paradise this fall, the song I would recommend the most is "Saints and Angels".
Comparatively, the Letters to Cleo concert experiences had pros and cons. The negative point about night #1 wasn't about the band, but this tal guy in front of me, leaning against a support beam, with the brim of his trucker cap turned upward to give him a better view, while he regularly looks back at people who could mainly only see his frame and the brim of the hat peaking up in front of his head. As someone relatively tall, I know that you should be conscientious and conscious of height privilege in a GA section. *sigh...* It's common courtesy, and part of why the crowd at a Boyce Avenue concert in Brookline applauded an usher for threatening too take away a sign being held in the front of the audience. The music was on point though, and the band's AV specialists were ironing out the wrinkles of the second half of the set. A big positive about the second night was where I was in the crowd. I was a few people out from the stage, so I got a great view, and could get some strong photos for the blog. I was also standing by some welcoming Gen X'ers. It reminded me of when high school me could geek out and discus shared interests with college students while taking my youth art classes. When someone noticed a dropped disposable camera, we could all celebrate the nostalgic callback in how this Fujifilm camera. Right down to the its vintage lime green boxiness, the same type of camera could've been found at one of the earliest Letters to Cleo shows. I do wonder if some other person in the audience bringing in a disposable camera may have become distracting to Kay. "Camera accessories" are prohibited if they aren't for people without specific clearance for the event. A disposable camera with an old school flash bulb and a 3.5 mm lens size goes beyond the usual exceptions even for a standard point & shoot camera, and may have been seriously pushing boundaries on restrictions. I remember when Matt Berninger of the National got so distracted by a beachball at Boston Calling 2023 that he stamped it out on stage. My little Android phone was already at about 60% battery life when I got to the Paradise on night #2, I had to economize my documenting. I had a rough idea of how the set list would go and (through knowledge of the music) had instinctive idea of when to focus on which part of the stage. Like with life drawing at a concert, I was looking for particular moments to focus on capturing like when Greg McKenna was about to perform a guitar solo. There was a point in the Night #2 set where Kay Hanley told people in general to put their cameras down. I was already content with what I had got for the blog, and was taking in the music when I noticed the lead singer stumble on the alternation between her and lead guitarist toward the end of "I Want You to Want Me". Thinking about the show in retrospect (and the capabilities of that little Fujifilm camera, I'm empathetically realizing that it could likely have been the woman with the disposable who had thrown off the lead singer.
Power pop, pop punk, and female led 90's alt. bands are so much part of my music listening taste that I knew many of the Letters to Cleo songs by the music and not so much titles. My Pandora stations usually group the band with Paramore, the Breeders, Veruca Salt, Liz Phair, Garbage, and the Dollyrots (who the Letters drummer Stacy Jones recorded with for the "Barefoot and Pregnant" album). Many of my favorite Letters to Cleo songs lead with Kay Hanley's neon tenacity. That's with me synthetically associating Kay's enthusiastic singing voice with a "neon" palette of Crayola crayons. That energy is complimented by her bandmates. Then throw in some catchy hooks. "Four Leaf Clover", "Awake", and "Demon Rock" were some of my favorites of the first half of the show. The second half included Kay's business partner Michelle Lewis on keyboard and backing vocals for "I See", and a treasure trove of soundtrack music. Lewis appeared with the band at last year's Paradise show, and I just love how she's got a clear love of performing with Kay that you can read in her expressions from across the room.
When it comes to Kay and the band's movie songs, there tend to be a handful of covers. The end result combines classic songs with a modern band more relevant to the stars of the movie and a target audience. Creating a hybrid that can simultaneously introduce younger consumers to older bands. Cheap Trick, The Cars, Brinsley Schwarz... Or Hoyt Curtin (a Hanna Barbera composer who was like the Lalo Schifrin of animation). Hearing so many songs from "Josie and the Pussycats" get played was particularly special for me. With the exception of "Shapeshifter" (by Kay and the Letters to Cleo rhythm guitarist Mike Eisenstein), many of the songs were written by Babyface, Adam Schlesinger, and a talented superteam of songwriters. "Adam Schlesinger" may not be a household name, but his music has a large impact in the entertainment industry. A prolific composer, Schlesinger wrote the titular track for the movie "That Thing You Do", and co-wrote Bowling for Soup's "High School Never Ends", the Fountains of Wayne song catalog, many other compositions, TV show themes, and TV scores. One may have to ask Kay Hanley or Babyface directly, but Adam may have been the one who adapted Curtin's original Josie theme for a 2001 audience. Creatively, the men seemed cut from the same cloth. You may be wondering why I went down that particular tangent. Schlesinger died from complications with COVID-19 in April 2020. The following summer, Colin Hanks, the surviving members of Fountains of Wayne, fans, and other musicians, found ways to unite in celebration of Adam's career while trying to honor pandemic lockdown precautions. During the 2024 Paradise shows, Letters to Cleo honored Schlesinger with special dedications for the performances of "Pretend to be Nice" (which Adam had written for "Josie & the Pussycats").
Walking out of the venue, there was one song from Josie which I missed hearing. "You're a Star" by Anna Waronker, Adam Duritiz, and Dave Gibbs (of the Gigolo Aunts). It's song from the hair salon scene. While the Letters to Cleo show could only go on for such a length of time, I sang that last song to myself while I waited for the B line to arrive.
I'm about to start working on my next blog post. Thank you for reading, and see you next time.
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