The Road Trip: Maryland

Just when young, disaffected males had cornered the market on angsty yowling, Velocity Girl – a group of sun-drenched, pop-rock heroes – emerged.

Velocity Girl, an up-tempo, female-fronted, indie rock band that formed in 1989 in College Park, Maryland, took its name from a Primal Scream B-side. They started out on an indie label but they eventually became a band that went big for a short period of time, creating buzz in the early to mid-’90s by marrying a blend of shoegazer guitar sludge with pixie-pop vocal melodies.

The lineup consisted of vocalist Sarah Shannon along with Archie Moore, Jim Spellman, Kelly Riles, and Brian Nelson. Dripping her sweet, wiry alto over tinny, feedback-laden guitars, Shannon charmed fans by commanding the middle ground between straight-up garage rock and saccharine twee pop.

While much 1990s rock music featured an abrasive vocal and instrumental style, Velocity Girl's sound, especially post-1993, was more melodic and typically featured "clean" (non-distorted) electric guitar sounds and two-part harmonies. Though Velocity Girl was fronted by lead singer Sarah Shannon, they often featured female/male vocals, sometimes simultaneously. In the group's recordings, Shannon's voice had a light, airy quality with a slight vibrato.

Being signed to Sub Pop in the early ’90s meant grinding, angst-ridden wailing, and Velocity Girl’s melancholy Catherine Wheel-meets-the-Smiths meditations like “Crazy Town” didn’t exactly fit that demo, no matter how hard the muddy production on their first album, Copacetic, tried to bury the pop in the mix.

Crazy Town by Velocity Girl

Their first singles were released on the Slumberland Records label. They would soon join the Sub Pop label, releasing three full-length recordings: Copacetic (1993), Simpatico (1994), and Gilded Stars and Zealous Hearts (1996). 1993’s Copacetic was, at the time, the second-highest seller in Sub Pop history behind Nirvana’s Bleach, helping to nudge the label out of its rather snug-fitting niche and giving a generation of young female rock fans a strong role model.

Velocity Girl disbanded in October 1996.




Honorable Mention:
16 Minus 71 by Avec



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