https://www.rollingstone.com/music/m...lwood-1022995/

Did not know this was a thing, but I'll definitely be checking it out. Really loved The Go-Gos. Beauty and the Beat was a great debut, but Talk Show is just a super polished, mature album. Songs like Yes or No and Capture the Light are examples of fantastic songwriting and the reason I always prefer "album cuts" to Greatest Hits collections; they don't have the simplistic nature of singles but they're a lot more fun to listen to.

Also glad to see they'll be exploring the punk origins of the band. Belinda Carlisle was in The Germs until she got mono, and Charlotte Caffey dated Dickies' lead singer Leonard Graves Phillips. (The new Dickies song "Glitter Vacation" is a direct homage to The Go-Gos)

I guess you don't love them enough to follow them on social media. They've all talked about it, even before it landed at Showtime. Doc premiered at Sundance filmfest. I'm going to get the free trial, watch the doc, then cancel.

I'll check it. Curious if they'll reference Fanny or The Runaways. Also both all-female groups that achieved some level of success beforehand.

That's a bit harsh. There are plenty of bands I love that I don't follow everywhere on social media. It doesn't mean I love them any less. I used to talk to Kathy Valentine quite a bit on Facebook a few years ago. During the time the Go-Go's briefly kicked her out. But I first heard about this documentary when they were being interviewed about their short lived Broadway musical.

To say they "kicked her out of the band" is a little simplistic. She wrote a tell-all book and sued them. It was ugly. Kind of surprised they're working with her again.

As some of you know, I am pretty close to one of the band members (NOT Kathy ). I have spent time with them all and they've all been very nice to me and my family. Really looking forward to watching this.

I'm not on social media

What about DVDTalk? We're bigger than Friendster now, I assume.

That's Antisocial Media

She's been pretty active on social media, especially with Covid19 screwing with her book tour. She wasn't going to stop here anyways so I had already ordered a signed book from an Austin bookstore.

Saw this in an article last night and watched the trailer. I definitely want to watch this.

Was kinda sad to see Belinda Carlisle appears to be turning herself into Priscilla Presley.

Same thing I thought when in the trailer they mention "we were the first all-girl band that played our own instruments" when both bands you mention did, although it continues with "and were successful", as neither Fanny nor The Runaways achieved Go-Go's level success. They should have, especially Fanny. Just started listening to them a year or so ago, and there's some great unheard music on those records.

I agree. Those new clips of her in the trailer...doesn't even look like her.

https://www.blu-ray.com/The-Go-Gos/1323102/#Review

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_go_gos

This premiered one night early on Showtime. So glad I caught it. It's still airing on 8/1 too at 7:20 PM. What a great documentary. And to my surprise, they ended it with a brand new song!

Yeah, it was good. Learned a lot of things I didn't know. Like one thing I didn't know was that Jane Wiedlin is left-handed. She plays guitar right handed. I should have noticed that when I met her around 10 years ago at Comic-Con and she signed my copy of Talk Show. Although after watching this doc, I'm glad I didn't praise the album to her too much (as mentioned before, I think it's the band's best) as she has a lot of negative feelings about it.

Great doc, and while I would have liked a little bit more on the recent issues (Kathy leaving, their getting back together, etc.) it was great and they didn't skip over ex-band members or their punk rock roots.

Nice. In need to watch this today. Why isn't it on the Showtime streaming service yet?

I learned a lot too. While I knew that Wiedlin was bisexual, I had no idea that her and Gina Schock were briefly a couple before they made it big. Nice to see that they put that behind them and it didn't destroy the band or their friendship. I also didn't know that both Caffey and Valentine lied about what instruments they played to get into the band. And super impressed that Valentine holed up in her house for three days to learn the bass.

I also didn't know that Wiedlin and Terry Hall had a "thing". Clearly Jane still had feelings for him years later. That was very sweet.

Wished there'd been mention of The Germs, with Belinda briefly playing drums for them till she got mono. Maybe even bring in Pat Smear?

I wonder if a biopic will be coming as well, as there are a lot of things they talked about but obviously had no footage of. And keeping with current trends, I'm sure it would be called We Got the Beat. Also too bad that NBC wouldn't unclench their keisters and allow the SNL footage to be shown. I'm sure I saw that back in the day (had to be in the Eddie Murphy era, so there's no way I would have missed it) but don't really recall much.

But I'll definitely be dusting off my Beauty and the Beat and Talk Show LPs this weekend. Never really bothered with Vacation, and this doc revealed that it was indeed a rushed production to capitalize on the success of the debut. What's that saying? You have your whole life to make your first album, but only six months to make the second.

Agree, I'm quite sure I watched them live on "SNL". Fuck Lorne Michaels and/or NBC for not allowing that footage for this documentary. Yes, "Vacation" indeed felt rushed and subpar to "BATB". "Talk Show" was sublime though. Sucks that Jane can't listen to it because of the bad memories during that time. It's probably their best effort IMO. BTW, as you probably are aware, there has been talk of a Go-Go's biopic for over 20 years. Last I heard on that subject (maybe 10 years ago), was that it would be a movie made for VH1.

They were an answer on an old Jeopardy question the other night. Will record for sure.

I was not a huge fan but it was a interesting doc.

If there was no group dysfunction could they have made hits in the late 80's and 90's too or did they peak in the early 80's?

Why wouldn't they? (had they stayed together)

You saw the doc, they'd already evolved from a punk band to a pop band, there's no reason they couldn't have continued adjusting their sound to the changes in musical tastes of the era (I assume that's what you mean). If you're so inclined, I'd also suggest you listen to their first and last albums, Beauty and the Beat and Talk Show, and listen to how mature and complex the songs are on Talk Show as compared to the debut. And those records were only three years apart. I don't think the group was as dysfunctional as much as it was just being thrust into sudden superstardom with their first record. I think had they had a few "dues paying" records before hitting it big on like their third record, they would have managed to weather the storm better. I mean, it's not like they're the first rock musicians to have drug habits, and a lot of bands (eventually) work through that.