PANDORAS

The Pandoras were the queens of American garage music. Formed around 1983 by Gwynne Kahn and Paula Pierce (both veterans of various local bands), the Pandoras went through numerous line-up changes, including the most celebrated one, where Gwynne was kicked out of the band, and retaliated by forming her own Pandoras for awhile.The original line-up made an EP for Moxie and various demos with Bill Inglot and Chris Ashford, but their high mark was the It's About Time album for Voxx, produced by Gary Stern at his Silvery Moon studio (where so many garage classics were laid down) with help from Greg Shaw. After Gwynne and a couple others left, the group made their ultimate single, "Hot Generation", travelled to New York for a fabulous concert with the Fuzztones, then went to Rhino to record the classic album Stop Pretending.The Pandoras inspired countless other bands, including almost every all-girl band that's come along since. Their legacy will never die. The CD on Bomp includes all their Bomp recordings plus the earlier demos. This photo gallery includes rare shots of various line-ups.The Pandoras are one all-female outfit that sounds nothing like the cliched image of a "girl group." There are no pretty harmonies, no delicate pop melodies. On vinyl and on stage the quartet delivers the goods with a garage-band intensity that's fueled by grungy guitars, raspy vocals and fuzzy, distorted amps. The mixture is made especially raw through the use of vintage Vox equipment, the mainstay of countless '60s bands. The result--called "hard-core frug music" by one critic--is timelessly teen-age in spirit and delivery. And the Pandoras do more than just borrow the musical style of '60s punk acts like the Seeds and the Standells. They also reflect some of the same bad-boy outlook--only in reverse.Paula Pierce Passed on Aug. 10, 1991 at age 31. R.I.P.