The Hellcats profile picture

The Hellcats

Official history page, The Hellcats (1985-91)

About Me

note: under construction! Patience, please.
This Hellcats history page is run by the band and is not a fan page (and by the way, music fan pages are forbidden anyway by Myspace terms of service). The page represents info provided by all of us in the group as we compile it. Diane Green did the initial layout design & colors for the front page, and Lisa McGaughran coordinates the content and pics with input from the other members such as Lorette.
We didn't put this page up to re-start the band, which ended in 1991 due to a business issue that arose after we got increased exposure after a review in Rolling Stone. We just started the page to document our history after finding other Myspace pages using the band name recently.
This is a new page under construction, and we haven't had time to put up pics, finished text, or other things we'd like to have up. We're also still compiling history notes and band stories.
Until we get them online, we do have history notes are available, including info on individual members' whereabouts and later video appearances, but we don't want it all dumped on the front page so we'll put it up in a better format later; ask if you have a need for info. We had a draft on the front page for a while but it wasn't totally accurate and was still being revised when we took it down recently.
More later as we have time.
For now here is a video of us from 1990; we didn't put it in Youtube ourselves. See our blog for more info. We didn't get to do much with any of our recordings due to a business issue that came up. We have now located the Youtube site of one of the video's directors, David Marks , and are embedding his version:
(This video sometimes needs several minutes to load.)
Get off the road!
Here's another video we just located, directed by Dan Rose in 1991, with music from our Hoodoo Train release: ..

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 6/4/2007
Band Website: bubbacrumb.com
Band Members: UNDER CONSTRUCTION

The intention of the slide show is to have captions and the "random" style slideshow with vertical scrolling on the Friends slideshow, but Myspace has got the slide shows screwed up currently so that only the slider style without captions appears. Hopefully they'll fix this soon, though I'm not holding my breath. We're still trying to get more of the photos up documenting our history. This is just a starter and we don't have the history text up yet either!

If you mouse over an image in the slideshow, you will see a caption but if they ever fix the slideshows, the captions will play without you needing to do that. Use the controls on the right side of the slideshows to control the speed and direction the slideshows move or stop them from moving. It appears now that if you click the slideshow, you are taken into the photo gallery.

It's important to note that the "friends" slideshow is just showing people in our photo gallery who knew us apart from playing in our group but do not indicate all the friends we have. We do not intend to slight our friends by posting a few non-band photos in the slideshow. We did feel that Panther Burns performance pics and photos of those we knew on tours belonged somewhere but we don't have photos of all our friends unfortunately.

PLAYERS (mouse over pictures to view caption info):

FRIENDS (mouse over pictures for caption info):

Final line up: Diane Green (cofounder), Lorette Velvette (cofounder), Lisa McGaughran (cofounder), Misty White, Su Ondine.

Briefly members: Giovanna Pizzorno (1986-1987), Linda Heck (1985 first lineup), Brenda Brewer (1985 first lineup), Doug Easley (Dec. 1987 - spring 1988), Benny Carter (Dec. 1987 - spring 1988), Elizabeth Pritchartt (1987), George Reinecke (stood in for Lisa on the summer 1988 tour).

Guest musicians on recordings or shows: Gracia Steele, Richard Rosebrough, Jim Spake, Susan Tatum, Jim Watkins, Ron Easley, Kristi White, Dee White, Melissa Dunn, Nancy Apple (tried out one show), A.C. (backup harmony vocal one show).

Influences:

General influences we all shared (partial list): Tav Falco's Panther Burns , The Jaynetts, the Shangri-las, surf music, Charlie Feathers, Junior Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside, Cordell Jackson, Muddy Waters, The Odd Jobs, Irma Thomas, The Insect Trust, Herschell Gordon Lewis, the Ronettes, Allen Toussaint, Tura Stana, Dr. David Evans, Wilson Pickett, High Water Records label, J. Blackfoot, The Sex Pistols, Doug Easley, Ross Johnson, The Ramones, the Clash, Velvet Underground, Fleetwood Mac, Lou Reed, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, The Cramps, Patti Smith, The Rolling Stones.

The lead singers chose the songs and each additionally had particular influences that affected the band's sound, song topics, and spirit. We all added a number of other major influences to our lives in the years following the group, but these partial lists are restricted to what impacted us during The Hellcats period, not the rest of our lives post-1990.

Lorette: Memphis Minnie, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Lil Green, Skip James, Slim Harpo, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Lightning Hopkins, The Cramps, Charlie Feathers, and lots more.

Diane: Patti Smith, Dead Boys, Mink Deville, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, the Stooges, The Stranglers, Girl on a Motorcycle, She Devils On Wheels, Jean Michel Basquiat, Dadaism, Jean Cocteau, the occult, connecting with the dead.

Lisa: Ray Davies, The Dead Kennedys, Eugene Chadbourne, The Cousteau Society, Greenpeace, Mid-South Peace and Justice Center, The Beatles (together and as solo artists), Chrissie Hynde, CSNY, Neil Young, Byrds, the Turtles, Big Star, Alex Chilton, Joe South, Marshall Chapman, David Olney, Don Covay, Ike Turner, Thomas Bingham, Teenie Hodges, Jackie DeShannon, Wanda Jackson, Travis Wammack, Mudboy & the Neutrons; Skeeter Davis, tons of 1960s & 1970s rock radio and folk rock artists, Johnny Cash, Rosanne Cash, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons, Memphis Minnie, Jessie Mae Hemphill, WEVL, the Modifiers, the Neon Wheels, the Randy Band, REM, The Replacements, Ike and Tina Turner, Steve Cropper, Mar-Keys, Sonic Youth, Sinead O'Connor, Booker T. & the MG's, Stax, Sun, Moon Records, Hi, Ann Peebles, The Box Tops, Lee Hazelwood, Nancy Sinatra, k.d. lang, The We Five, the B-52, Tav, Ron Easley, René Coman, Elvis Costello, Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, Cat Stevens, Phineas Newborn Jr.

Drummer Misty's Grateful Dead and "Deadhead" influences impacted the spirit of the group at the time. Giovanna's European tastes and Buddhist chants influenced the group during her time with us as well, as did the general energies of each member with us. Giovanna sang lead on a European ballad once at Antenna as well.

Local predecessors: The Marilyns predated us a few weeks and should be remembered as an interesting 1980s Memphis band of a related genre in 1985, although over the years they changed genres. Other female-led rock band predecessors in Memphis: The Klitz from the 1970s, and Anzel may possibly have started before our early 1985 beginnings too.


Sounds Like: MyGen
Record Label: Past: New Rose, Au Go Go
Type of Label: Indie

My Blog

Lorette video from around 1991 (blog updated with edits)

Hey, we just located a video Dan Rose directed in 1991 of Lorette Velvette singing "My Love is Dying", produced just after our band had stopped performing. The soundtrack was from the Hoodoo Train alb...
Posted by The Hellcats on Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:31:00 PST

Giovanna and Diane news, friends gig poster

Giovanna Pizzorno, active as our regular drummer from around 1986 through most of 1987 on tours with us across the South, has been the regular drummer for Tav Falco’s Panther Burns for the past ...
Posted by The Hellcats on Tue, 08 Apr 2008 09:58:00 PST

Acquiring pics, song notes, show memories

If anyone wants to drop us a memory of songs we played or shows and any photos someone might have, please contact us through this page and then we can give you an email address to send photo attachmen...
Posted by The Hellcats on Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:13:00 PST

Happy birthday this week to Lorette

Merry Christmas to all our friends looking in. We want to especially wish band cofounder Lorette Velvette a happy birthday this week. Lorette and Tav Falco cooked up the initial idea to start a siste...
Posted by The Hellcats on Sun, 23 Dec 2007 11:48:00 PST

a video we like + Myspace slideshows still screwed up

Update - We are still uploading photos and working on getting the history notes up. Misty went over some of the photos with Lisa last night but Misty still has about 20 photos sent to her in EMAIL hin...
Posted by The Hellcats on Sun, 23 Sep 2007 08:59:00 PST

The Pippin, Birthday, MUSE, and The Farm School

October update to this entry: Dee reports that her Save Libertyland project got a boost when "the City Council voted to preserve and protect the Pippin & Carousel". We're compiling ...
Posted by The Hellcats on Fri, 07 Sep 2007 05:36:00 PST

The Crossroads, The HiTone, Jessie Mae + history notes

Update: we have done part 1 of an interview with our last drummer, Misty White ,but need to finish before trying to get the notes for this page accurate. Misty White performs solo with guests as "Mist...
Posted by The Hellcats on Fri, 20 Jul 2007 12:07:00 PST

Diane Greens art + MUSE project

The Cat Came Back - acrylic on canvas, frame included, approximately 36 inches x 48 inches, © Diane Green 2006. Diane Green, who designed our front page, sang and wrote songs for Memphis bands includ...
Posted by The Hellcats on Wed, 27 Jun 2007 12:45:00 PST

mp3s and video

More mp3s later when we're caught up around here.CURRENT MP3s1. Hard Time Killing Floorvocal, main guitar : lorette velvette second guitar : lisa mcgaughran bass: doug easleydrums: richard rosebr...
Posted by The Hellcats on Sun, 24 Jun 2007 12:21:00 PST

band member thoughts page

Band Comments PageThis is just a little page of thoughts and memories from the band and might be updated from time to time. Lorette was one of The Hellcats' primary lead singers, later ...
Posted by The Hellcats on Sun, 24 Jun 2007 12:19:00 PST