I know I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating, I’m girlie. You know the kind who curls her hair, tries to look pretty, wears headbands (at least sometimes), likes pretty clothes, and does girlie things? And that’s not rock ‘n’ roll, or at least not what people think of as rock ‘n’ roll. So, for a long time, I was intimidated of writing on a particular website, even this website, with mostly boys about mostly boy-rock. But I’ve gotten over it … because I love it. As my desire to actually play the music I love, guitar rock, grew I remember being intimidated by Guitar Center. I remember being intimidated about even admitting that I want to actually play. But I’ve gotten over it … because I love it. I made friends with the players amongst you, sometimes talking about actually playing. I’m even accepted on the music front … at least a little. But often I think you all think I can’t possibly be serious, what with being so girlie, this thing that doesn’t match with rock! Still, rock is what I’ve always loved, what I’ve always wanted to do, at least secretly. But there is always going to be this “girl” part of me, this part that finds inspiration in things that come from the girlie world, something so strong that I could never dress like Tawny Kitaen and crawl over my now-broken Mercedes hood. I’ve always wished rock girls weren’t the crawl-on-car-hoods type or that they didn’t look like the ‘80s boy rockers. I’m sure some of you can try to give me examples, but nobody has ever really had a girlie side, at least not in my view. I’ve always wished for it; I’ve always wished one of us, a real girlie girl, would show up and be that — full-on rock legit! And I got my wish in Taylor Momsen, in The Pretty Reckless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVbGYGuRlhA

Not counting her early modeling career, the tv commercials she made, and the fact that she played Cindy Lou Who in the movie The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, I first knew of her from a show I watched religiously, a show that for all intents and purposes, was such a part of my life that it was the inspiration for my screen name. The show: Gossip Girl, a CW network television series that ran from 2007 through December 2012. The show, patterned after a young adult novel series, was girlie, except I do remember some article in some guitar magazine reviewing something where the writer said he was going to be watching the Gossip Girl finale, so it’s not all girlie. The show featured fashionable kids who acted much more like adults (making it not believable but much more watchable) and all of whom were rich, except for one family — the Humphries. The two Humphrey kids, Jenny, played by Taylor Momsen, and her brother Dan, went to prestigious Upper East Side New York private schools, one for girls, the other for boys, along with those fashionable rich kids. The show was part story, part fashion show, and it had a ton of head bands, indeed head bands were practically a character of their own. On the show, “Gossip Girl” was a website and a fictitious character who chronicled the character’s relationships. Dan who dated up, way up, catching the eye of the character played by the now-famous Blake Lively, was mostly accepted by the rich kids, and even turned out to be Gossip Girl, as revealed on the last episode. Taylor Momsen’s Jenny, or “Little J,” started out as a fresh-faced, pretty 15-year-old, who literally fought to be accepted. She made mistakes, lots of them. But as the first few seasons progressed, she replaced the main character, with that character’s blessing as the “queen” of that private girl’s school, by having the predecessor-girl place a really large headband onto Little J’s pretty blonde hair, making Little J the new “queen.” But after that season, Little J’s blonde curls turned to platinum extensions; her fresh face and large eyes turned to dark eye make-up with darker lip colors; she wore darker clothes with really high-heeled platforms; her character hooked up with a drug dealer (what a loser he was), then she started appearing less and less. When her character finally hooked up with the then-off-again boyfriend of the main character (the character who was the first “queen”), the producers sent Little J to live in London amidst a storm of crazy interactions with the other characters. The tabloid tv-shows reported that Taylor Momsen was taking time off from the show to be in a rock band. That fact was reported strangely, like that was the oddest thing to do: leave a successful tv show, spawning many movie careers for the likes of Blake Lively, to be in a rock band. But what a rock band she would make.

The first song I knew of from the Taylor Momsen-fronted band The Pretty Reckless, released from their August 27, 2010 album Light Me Up, called Make Me Wanna Die, played on the alternative station for about a minute. The song was good. It was a tight, catchy, hard-rocking song. I didn’t think the song should have prompted the reaction that Taylor Momsen got from the producers of Gossip Girl, but certainly she paid a price for it, what with her character getting sent off to London. Taylor was gracious though, saying in the press that she was grateful that the producers were allowing her time to pursue her music. Predictably, as the tv world shunned her for her new rock life, given her girlie background, the rock press didn’t take her in either. Still, Taylor kept pursuing her music, and Momsen fans, turned The Pretty Reckless fans, sent the album to number one on the rock charts. The record was one of those listen-all-the-way-through things, with tight songs, way more advanced than the then 17-year-old Taylor Momsen should have been able to do, and way more advanced than any 17-year-old pop diva would have released. Back on Gossip Girl, the show progressed without Little J, even though the Humphrey family characters would talk about her quite a lot. It was as if the show producers were waiting for Taylor Momsen’s phase to calm down, and thinking they would write Little J back in once that phase did calm down. I wondered what their reaction would have been had Taylor wanted to make pop music, if her music was less Taylor Momsen, more Taylor Swift. Indeed, I wonder what Taylor Momsen herself thought, better yet what her agent thought, since she was caught in the middle — the rock critics not thinking the music was rock enough because of who was making it, the tv show casting her out because it was too … much.

Still, Taylor Momsen made the rounds in the press promoting The Pretty Reckless album. She did a fairly good job, all while wearing very little, and wound up in press tiffs with pop stars. I remember one early story where she said Rihanna’s wearing of a leather jacket did not make Rihanna a rock star and that pop isn’t rock. Siding with the pop darling Rihanna, the press later wrote that Taylor was a poser and that her wearing lingerie didn’t make Taylor into a rock star. Many interviews on the publicity circuit had Taylor answering questions about Gossip Girl, some even about Cindy Lou Who and remarkably about her early commercials. George Lopez even had Taylor watch commercials featuring her as child model/actress before allowing her to take to the stage to sing Make Me Wanna Die. Taylor was gracious about it all. She was polite and humble. She kept going. If she was at all intimidated, she got over it. Turns out, Taylor had been at this music thing for a while. Turns out it was what she loved; it is what she wanted to do all along. And contrary to what I would have thought – that she made contacts by way of her television fame – she seems to have gone about her music career by working her way up.

Apparently, Talyor started working with various producers as early as 2007, the first year of the Gossip Girl run, and later in 2009, found Kato Khandwala, reportedly a rock producer (Paramore, My Chemical Romance, Papa Roach and a bunch of bands I don’t know). I can find no information about her training, except that her influences are all listed as rock bands and performers, such as The Beatles, The Who, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Nirvana, and Joan Jett. She credits her dad for those influences, and there is plenty of this in the music. Her producer introduced her to the band’s guitarist, the unknown Ben Phillips, who along with Taylor, and the producer Khandwala began writing music together. They recorded Make Me Wanna Die, and were signed to Interscope Records, which released that song on December 30, 2009 as a free download on the Interscope Records website. The band released an EP with four songs on June 22, 2010, then in August 2010, their first full album Light Me Up. From 2010 through 2012, the band toured behind other acts, such as Evanscence, and Guns ‘n’ Roses (in whatever form) and played short-sets at festivals, all featuring the songs from Light Me Up.

By 2012, Gossip Girl, which had gone on without Little J, was in its final season, ending in December 2012. Rumors circulated that the final episode would feature Taylor Momsen’s character. The episode had her character’s brother, Dan, getting married to Blake Lively’s character. Taylor Momsen, as Little J but looking every bit the real Taylor Momsen and straight out of the rock manual — ridiculous platform shoes, something sparkly as an outfit, very long extensions and lots of black eye makeup, walked into the scene and sat on a sofa. I remember looking at her trying to see if her expression showed any bitterness that the show never had her back earlier, but there was no bitterness. Instead, Taylor Momsen’s face had only an expression of happiness, a happiness one cannot act.

So what was up for Taylor Momsen then to make her happy? In 2012, the reconstituted The Pretty Reckless (other musicians came for a brief stint), with Ben Phillips on guitar, set out to make another album. They were recording songs in New Jersey when, in October 2012, Hurricane Sandy wiped out the studio ruining tapes and equipment. Afterwards, they re-recorded those lost songs and finished a record. In that time frame, Interscope dropped them, and the band shopped new labels, reportedly signing with the Cooking Vinyl from Australia, but ultimately with Razer & Tie. Certainly, nothing from Gossip Girl was helping Taylor Momsen then (if it ever had) because really seriously who are these labels? Taylor Momsen recently said of their new record — Going to Hell — that they made the record for themselves, that they didn’t know what the reception would be. Almost one year after losing their work in the hurricane, the October 16, 2013 pre-release of the title-track received optimistic reviews. The full record was released on March 12, 2014, to debut at number 5 on the rock charts. The critics liked it. There were even reports that the record was a good sign for rock. I think the record is good. It’s straight-forward rock, featuring something current rock lacks – great, at the very least good, vocals; Taylor Momsen can sing, and sing well. So back to those expressions of happiness on Little J’s face in that final scene of Gossip Girl, which I estimate to have been filmed at the time of the recording Going to Hell, I think Taylor was happy because she had truly found her way. Despite all the doubt and intimidation in the rock genre of this girlie-girl from Gossip Girl making a rock record, of all the negativity from the tv world in her choice of going the rock route, she had for lack of a better expression … gotten over it. She was doing what she loved; she was making music for herself. And even if nobody would hear her music, it was not her end, as it was for that show, but her beginning that she had no idea would work out so well.

Now, in 2014, Taylor will no longer answer questions about Gossip Girl. She doesn’t have to because the reaction she got to the Going to Hell record – the music she made for herself, was so positive that there can be no doubt this girlie girl is a rocker, not some girl from some show nobody watches now. The record sold 35,000 copies in the first week (good numbers for a rock record), spawned two number one rock songs, Heaven Knows and Messed (F’d) Up World, and it appears The Pretty Reckless is poised to go way bigger.

Following on the heels of jhs’ first review on this site, I was lucky enough to see them in concert recently at the Wiltern in Los Angeles. The venue wasn’t full, apparently because Los Angeles can’t draw rock crowds any more, but the producers (Live Nation) filmed the show nevertheless. I was close to the front, so close I could see Taylor’s pretty face, and for me, the sound was a bit messy, with the vocals being low in the mix. The sound on the pro-shot Live Nation feed is stellar, and I invite you all to watch that in the link below. As for Taylor’s aversion to Gossip Girl, I must say that the concert was full of girls who would have been the right age to have watched Gossip Girl, who looked like their styles were as influenced by the looks of girlie-girls as anything I could put together. In the normal world — the world of the view of the Gossip Girl producers, I could have pictured those girls bopping right along with Taylor Swift, but as the concert cued up AC/DC’s Hell’s Bells, which served as the intro to The Pretty Reckless band members stage entrance, those girls were screaming “Taylor” as if they knew her and as if screaming to AC/DC is completely what they’ve always done. And those girls sang every word. The audience was not only-female, but the knowledge in the females stood out so much more than the knowledge of the males. Clearly, the girls of that audience have been with Taylor Momsen for a long time, just as long as I have been, and from being with Taylor, they have gotten into rock. And that, to me, is hilarious! Could it be that us girls — the kind who watched Gossip Girl, donned headbands with curled hair, the kind who dress in cute clothes and do the right thing, you know girlie-girls, … are the future of rock?

I wondered about that very question when the back-up band played, this male-fronted, hard-driving band named Adelita’s Way. More than once, the frontman talked to us — this audience that he could see was heavily girlie-girls — about rock’s future. He told us that rock was once strong in Los Angeles, that we, this audience, should bring it back to life, that the future of rock was in our hands. And you know what? It just might be. After all, the rock bands that were popular in the ‘80s were hugely popular with girls though I tend to think of those girls differently, like they all looked like Tawny Kitaen and crawled on car hoods. Certainly, they weren’t headband-wearing-curled-hair-early-Little J types. They weren’t girlie.

So hang onto your hats world. Even I’m not intimidated by Guitar Center anymore. And the last time I went in there, I had on a headband and curled hair … you know for strength. And I’m not the only one. There are girlie-girls listening to rock. There are girlie-girls learning and playing guitar and covering The Pretty Reckless on Youtube. I know because I’m doing it too, and I find these videos for help. Sure nobody is ever going to hear my music, but you never know about my younger counterparts. As for Taylor Momsen, in the concert that I saw, she wasn’t wearing all of that black eye makeup. She had on a flowing dress. She was covered up. Her eye make-up was light-blue and pretty. Her hair was natural, no extensions, and was curled. I looked at her and saw Little J. I even said “Little J” out loud right as I started my phone to record the first song. And I smiled because of it. Sure Taylor bid good riddance to Gossip Girl, but as the rock world starts to accept her, as mainstream sends her to number 1, I find it wonderful that she’s able to be pretty, to be girlie, in that way that reminds me of her Little J character. She’s truly what I’ve always wanted to see, my girlie example of legit rock! That really does make me smile. And remembering what that singer from Adelita’s Way said, I’ll really smile if girlie-girls turn out to be … the future of rock.

My video for The Pretty Reckless Dear Sister and Absolution:

My video for Adelita’s Way, Criticize (with part of singer’s talking):

Videos (there are a few in a playlist) from the Live Nation feed for The Pretty Reckless:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2_lQHxeU_I&list=PLo6UWmmhSfuA0BDYJckmpaCrykEkR3z0S

My other Pretty Reckless and Adelita’s Way Videos (remove the extra dot before Youtube):

The Pretty Reckless, Follow Me Down: https://www..youtube.com/watch?v=-dFyqcRxfrc

Adelita’s Way (opening song), The Collapse: https://www..youtube.com/watch?v=jwbT273eiMg