Ellie Vee is the driving force of the Charms. She writes or co-writes the songs (and the songs ARE good), dances, raps between songs, and just plain sings her ass off. She’s the perfect leader and foil to her more sedate but equally as naughty bandmates.

Joe Wizda proved to be a fine muscular guitarist and Kit Kina not only has a great name she plays the sexiest instrument on the stage. They are both original members that seem as indispensable to the Charms as Ellie. And that’s no small order; let me tell ya, ‘cos Ellie is all sleek and sensuous with a raw punk beauty and a kinematic presence. She’s got this reservoir of energy and smarts and can thrust her pelvis like Elvis…or Question Mark. On Action she snarls like Sky Saxon at his most menacing and she can laid down a punk rap on Talk Is Cheap that had me leanin’ just a little closer to the stage hopin’ her seething passion might just wash over me so I could escape my night-of-the-living-dead somnambulism and breathe again.

The band is more than a little savvy and wise to the ways of the world. This was their 11th gig in a row, an exhausting itinerary one night stands at colleges, small clubs, and various and sundry venues. Some nice; some not so nice. They’ve been around the piss pot a few times, enough to know…

This may have not been a Rockstar/INXS pressurized gig, nope, it was more…genuine original music, performed with an energy and flair that is lacking in most of the “popular” music depicted on mainstream dumbed-down-for-the masses radio and television. The music tonight was joyful and wondrous like discovering the true essence of love for the first time. The Charms mean it when they play it. Movies with its minor chord progression underscores the longing in the lyric and reminds me of Flo & Eddie singin’Goodbye Surprise. Pussycat is executed with a cool aplomb, takin’ that old-time dum-dum-dum beat, the driving pulse for so many garage classics from Dirty Water to Psychotic Reaction…then suddenly the music stops and Ellie purrs…p-u-s-s-y-c-a-t – LORD HAVE MERCY. I started to sweat and quake like Sting after he got caught slappin’ butt with some willing and nubile young rapscallion Lolita with big tits who just loved his lectures and he almost felt guilty ‘cos teachers shouldn’t do that but all poor Sting can says is, “But officer I was only taking her temperature”. The Charms played their stone garage rockin’ masterpiece, Gimme That Shot - a personal favorite. Ellie wrote it with such ferocious paradox and satire that the message shines through. She speaks to generations of women who defy men’s attempts to objectify them, yet feel the existential aloneness of feeling used and treated like an object or parts of an object. It’s that same existential terror a baby feels when she’s alone in her crib, crying, sobbing, and no one picks her up. She is totally alone…and terrified.

Like a breath of fresh air, the Charms blew into town and gave us something to remember. This is rock ‘n roll at it’s purest, finest best and just may signal a renewed spirit in popular music... I hope so

Peace,
Bo White
9/25/05