Speaker 1: Hey listener.
Speaker 2: This episode, we're heading into the world of late nineteen
Speaker 2: sixties rock and roll to meet a real musical icon.
Speaker 2: Expect killer outfits, face melting guitar solos, and.
Speaker 1: Some real rock and roll bad language.
Speaker 2: It's nineteen sixty one and June Millington is twelve years
Speaker 2: old at a strict Catholic convent school in the Philippines.
Speaker 2: She's sitting in a school hall with an open air
Speaker 2: verandah along one side. June can smell the trees and
Speaker 2: the tropical air drifting in from the outside. Mother Milagros,
Speaker 2: who's one of the nuns who teach us there, drones
Speaker 2: on and on to the class, holding a ruler in
Speaker 2: her hand, but June isn't listening.
Speaker 3: I heard the sound coming down the hall and I
Speaker 3: literally like I was in a dream. I stood up.
Speaker 3: I followed that sound, and Mother Milagros, who was the
Speaker 3: strictest of strict I didn't seemly notice.
Speaker 2: The sound is coming from a room a couple of
Speaker 2: doors down. June reaches the doorway and stops still.
Speaker 3: I saw this girl on the far corner, facing the
Speaker 3: corner playing I didn't know what, but it was a
Speaker 3: guitar and I remember exactly what I thought. Every shred
Speaker 3: of DNA in my body just popped up and went,
Speaker 3: what what? What is this? You know? I need to know?
Speaker 3: And I've been spending the rest of my life answering
Speaker 3: that question.
Speaker 2: June didn't just follow the sound of that guitar to
Speaker 2: the empty classroom, She followed it all the way to
Speaker 2: LA and into rock and roll history. June and her
Speaker 2: sister Jean started a band called Fanny. They were one
Speaker 2: of the first all female rock bands to release an
Speaker 2: album with a major record label.
Speaker 1: They toured all over.
Speaker 2: The world, shaken venues and blowing minds with their epic
Speaker 2: guitar riffs. David Bowie even called them one of the
Speaker 2: finest fucking rock bands of their time.
Speaker 1: In short, they're legends.
Speaker 2: But making it big as an all female rock band
Speaker 2: in the early nineteen seventies wasn't easy. At the time,
Speaker 2: women in the USA couldn't even open a bank account
Speaker 2: without their husband's permission. The idea of girls rocking out
Speaker 2: with electric guitars was seen as completely laughable. But June
Speaker 2: wasn't going to let that stop her. She knew this
Speaker 2: was her calling the moment she heard the first notes
Speaker 2: of the guitar back in that convent school, Fanny were
Speaker 2: on a mission for world domination. I'm Anisinfield and from
Speaker 2: the teams at Novel.
Speaker 1: And iHeart podcasts.
Speaker 2: This is the Girlfriend's Spotlight, where we tell stories.
Speaker 1: Of women winning.
Speaker 3: Today.
Speaker 2: June Rox America, would you be able to tell me
Speaker 2: when you first picked up an instrument?
Speaker 3: I think I was about seven and I was at
Speaker 3: a family gathering and either a cousin or an uncle
Speaker 3: shoved a ukulele right at me and said, you know,
Speaker 3: I think you should play this. And he said, look,
Speaker 3: this is how you tuned it. My dog has fleas,
Speaker 3: which I understood immediately because I can remember that melody.
Speaker 3: And he showed me my first song, which is how
Speaker 3: much is that Doggie in the Window?
Speaker 1: A classic?
Speaker 3: Yes, and it is actually the basis of so many songs.
Speaker 2: Before breaking into the devastatingly cool career of podcasting, I
Speaker 2: spent my entire life wanting to be a rock star.
Speaker 1: I've had my taste of it.
Speaker 2: I started gigging when I was fifteen, and I've worked
Speaker 2: as a professional blues singer. I've been invited to palaces
Speaker 2: and flown around the world to do cool things like
Speaker 2: perform on a suspended plinth in the middle of a
Speaker 2: Moroccan swimming pool. My all female jazz trio held a
Speaker 2: residency at a club in London where we played a
Speaker 2: businessman three nights a week in exchange for a few
Speaker 2: hundred quid each a glass of wine and some pasta.
Speaker 2: I also have spent a lot of nights sleeping on floors,
Speaker 2: and I once played at a toilet manufacturer's Christmas party,
Speaker 2: which was really, really glamorous. I did what I needed
Speaker 2: to keep the dream alive, until eventually, one day I
Speaker 2: threw in the towel. But I have always wondered what
Speaker 2: could have happened if I just stuck it out. Talking
Speaker 2: to June is like talking to the woman that I
Speaker 2: always wanted to become.
Speaker 3: I feel like I'm really topped off on a wealth
Speaker 3: of musical knowledge, both in my body and in listening
Speaker 3: to music. You know, Let's say you pick up the
Speaker 3: ukulele and you're singing, hang down your head, Tom Dooley,
Speaker 3: hang down your head and cry now you then another
Speaker 3: chord there. We understood that in our bodies it was
Speaker 3: our destiny.
Speaker 2: Jing grew up playing Harry Belafonte songs on the ukulele
Speaker 2: with her sister Jean and all their family gatherings. They're
Speaker 2: raised in Manila with a Filipino mum and a dad
Speaker 2: in the US Navy. June was the eldest of seven
Speaker 2: kids and a tomboy who spent all the time she
Speaker 2: could climbing trees. And in nineteen sixty one, only a
Speaker 2: few weeks after that fateful day in the convent school,
Speaker 2: the family were getting ready to move to Sacramento in California.
Speaker 2: But while her family were packing up their belongings, all
Speaker 2: June could talk about was the guitar.
Speaker 3: Maybe two months before we moved, my mother made a
Speaker 3: last strip to the Southern Philippines. She got us small
Speaker 3: handmade mother of pro guitar, and that, oh wow, was
Speaker 3: my blessing.
Speaker 2: Yes, by the time the family boar was the USS
Speaker 2: President Cleveland. Eight weeks later, Jean has a guitar too,
Speaker 2: and they're hooks. The sisters then spend the entire journey
Speaker 2: playing songs for the other passengers.
Speaker 3: We stopped in Yokohama, Kobe, and Hawaii. And I'll tell
Speaker 3: you when that ship approached the Golden Gate Bridge, it
Speaker 3: was just after dawn morning light that Golden gate Bridge
Speaker 3: was shining in the sun. It really affected me, It
Speaker 3: really meant something to me. It was really awesome.
Speaker 2: The change between the Philippines and Sacramento. That must have
Speaker 2: felt massive for you, and that age of Teenagehod is
Speaker 2: tough as well.
Speaker 3: Uh huh, yeah, yeah. Well there are a lot of
Speaker 3: brown people in Sacramento. There are you know, Latinos, there's Japanese,
Speaker 3: they're Chinese and so on. But nobody, not one single
Speaker 3: one of our classmates knew where the Philippines was. They
Speaker 3: never even heard of it. They didn't know that it
Speaker 3: had been bombed essentially the same day as Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 3: They hardly knew that we were in World War Two.
Speaker 3: We'd come from the Philippines hearing all those terrible stories
Speaker 3: about the war, you know, that's what we came in with.
Speaker 3: And the kids at our junior high had no clue.
Speaker 3: So we just shut up about it and we just
Speaker 3: what do we do? We transferred our attention to songs
Speaker 3: that were on the radio.
Speaker 2: June and Jean practiced hour after hour perfecting each song
Speaker 2: and arrangement.
Speaker 3: What is that one note you can add to that
Speaker 3: one chord that's gonna give it that zing, you know,
Speaker 3: that's going to give it that color. Maybe only just
Speaker 3: stay there for a second and maybe just a few
Speaker 3: people notice it, But hey, I love it and it
Speaker 3: felt great. You know.
Speaker 2: June can't get enough of that feeling. She and Jean
Speaker 2: take that gars everywhere. They even bring them to jam
Speaker 2: when they go swimming at the YWCA. And it's there
Speaker 2: that the singing sisters attract the attention of a local
Speaker 2: women's group.
Speaker 1: You could not get more girlfriends than this.
Speaker 3: They hoard us and went, oh my god, these girls
Speaker 3: are great. And they had this sewing club where they
Speaker 3: would sew every week, get together every week, and then
Speaker 3: they would donate whatever they sold. The prophets they were
Speaker 3: donated to a worthy cause, and they decided that me
Speaker 3: and Jean were the worthy cause, so they would book
Speaker 3: gigs for us.
Speaker 2: I love the idea of this sewing club becoming their
Speaker 2: band manager, and they put them gigs in all kinds
Speaker 2: of places.
Speaker 3: We became just kind of fearless about playing anywhere. I mean,
Speaker 3: we played a mental institution. So I was thirteen, Jeene
Speaker 3: was twelve. Wow, we played a mental institution. We played parties,
Speaker 3: We played political parties actually where we'd just be singing
Speaker 3: for these folks in the living room. We were raising
Speaker 3: money for the state senator or whatever. We just were
Speaker 3: thrown into all these circumstances and listen, we didn't say
Speaker 3: a word. We were so shy.
Speaker 2: Jane and Jeane are outside as in Sacramento. But the
Speaker 2: more they play together, the more that confidence grows.
Speaker 3: We enjoyed it so much, and then we realized other
Speaker 3: people were enjoying it, and they were talking to us.
Speaker 3: All the kids who just weren't even looking at us.
Speaker 3: All of a sudden they would stop me in the
Speaker 3: hall and say, hey, I really like that song and
Speaker 3: just walk on. And that changed my life. Jeans as well,
Speaker 3: because now we realized that we were human beings to
Speaker 3: these kids, we were people, and that just meant so much.
Speaker 2: And was that your kind of ticket to having friends? Therefore,
Speaker 2: is that.
Speaker 3: You're in exactly exactly that was our ticket, and that
Speaker 3: was our connection to humanity. That was the thing, man.
Speaker 3: We just wanted to have a connection. We wanted to
Speaker 3: make a friend.
Speaker 2: By the time June seventeen, she and her sister have
Speaker 2: graduated onto gigs at bowling alleys and youth centers. They've
Speaker 2: teamed up with two other girls and started singing motown
Speaker 2: songs together. One day when June is at home, the
Speaker 2: phone rings.
Speaker 3: Gene and I were in the kitchen because all of
Speaker 3: us were painting the kitchen, so our brothers were up
Speaker 3: on ladders and it was, you know, all this bustle.
Speaker 2: June answers the phone. It's a girl from another local
Speaker 2: high school.
Speaker 3: She said, hey, I heard you play, and I heard
Speaker 3: you good. I'm a drummer. Do you want to start
Speaker 3: a band? And I looked at Gene and I said,
Speaker 3: I mouthed it, you know, you want to start a band?
Speaker 3: And about a second and a half later she yeah,
Speaker 3: She kind of nodded, yeah, kind of, you know, nonchalantly. Well,
Speaker 3: that was the start of it.
Speaker 2: They called any band the Spelts and they start rehearsing
Speaker 2: in their friends living room.
Speaker 3: We had to teach ourselves the mechanics, because there are
Speaker 3: mechanics and together in a band, you know, you have
Speaker 3: to give each other signals. You have to play on
Speaker 3: the same beat, you have to try to sing in tune,
Speaker 3: you have to learn the songs. We did motown and
Speaker 3: certain rock tunes, you know, so anything that was popular
Speaker 3: on the radio. We did it and that was our training.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh, there's no better training than letting some of the
Speaker 2: best songs of all time, right.
Speaker 3: The best songs of all time? Absolutely, Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3: I was serious about music, you know. I didn't want
Speaker 3: to make any mistakes, and so I have this reputation
Speaker 3: of being hard on the band.
Speaker 1: Any band, you gotta be a bit hard.
Speaker 3: They say, those dirty looks you would give me when
Speaker 3: I missed a chord. I didn't realize I did that, but.
Speaker 2: I used to be in a band and the guys
Speaker 2: always said whenever I turned around with the tambourine and
Speaker 2: gave them the stink ki, they need that done something wrong.
Speaker 3: Exact the tambourine. Wow, that's a position of power.
Speaker 1: It's sure. It tasts a lot to be accepted in
Speaker 1: the music world.
Speaker 2: I mean it did for me in the noughties and
Speaker 2: the twenty tens, so I can't imagine what it was
Speaker 2: like for June.
Speaker 1: Of course, she got a reputation for being a bit hard.
Speaker 2: I spent nine years in a band of mostly blokes,
Speaker 2: but I always did our sound I got them to
Speaker 2: sound check in time, I got them to stop playing
Speaker 2: those annoying riffs when we were figuring out the beat. Hell,
Speaker 2: I even collected our money. They'd jokingly referred to me
Speaker 2: as the boss. Because June's right, if you're serious about music,
Speaker 2: there is no room for flowering up the walls. And
Speaker 2: the Spelts were serious. They started experimenting with electric guitars
Speaker 2: and bass and playing at local clubs. June could feel
Speaker 2: that they were getting better and she knew they were
Speaker 2: doing something different. The local scene didn't have any all
Speaker 2: female bands like them. But being a pioneer isn't always easy.
Speaker 2: You were an all girl band that you were playing guitar.
Speaker 2: I mean, how are people reacting to you? I'm thinking not.
Speaker 3: Very well, not very well at all. I mean, the
Speaker 3: whole world was against us. I might as well have
Speaker 3: said we're gonna walk on the moon as say we're
Speaker 3: starting a band. I mean, was that ridiculous? You know?
Speaker 3: And every single audience when we walked on stage with
Speaker 3: simper and sneer at us, you know, and we knew it.
Speaker 3: We knew it. So what did we do? We just
Speaker 3: got better and better and we'rein hitting it. They just
Speaker 3: couldn't believe that we were good. They were just would
Speaker 3: be gobsmacked, and they would rush up after the set
Speaker 3: and say, not bad for chicks. That was the best
Speaker 3: they could do. Four years.
Speaker 2: One time, Jane and the Spouts are playing a set
Speaker 2: at teen Center down by San Jose. The audience is
Speaker 2: bouncing and swaying, and June is shredding on the guitar.
Speaker 2: She's in the zone, but then something catches her eye.
Speaker 3: We were on a raised stage, so this boy was
Speaker 3: standing looking up my skirt and I didn't say anything
Speaker 3: to him, but I moved sideways right. He invited his
Speaker 3: friends over to look up my skirt as well, and finally,
Speaker 3: after a few minutes, I just kicked him in the
Speaker 3: face with my heels and I had think heels on
Speaker 3: and I had a guitar. Okay, a deadly combination. He
Speaker 3: had that Oh absolutely, you have to have your pride.
Speaker 3: I mean, we took a lot of terrible comments, a
Speaker 3: lot of them, but after a while we were in
Speaker 3: our own orbit. We didn't listen to them. We were
Speaker 3: a proud band. We never apologized for ourselves. Don't sneer
Speaker 3: at us, don't laugh at us. We knew we were
Speaker 3: good motherfuckers.
Speaker 1: I love that confidence.
Speaker 2: I mean, it takes a lot of strength to really
Speaker 2: back yourself when the rest of the world and believe
Speaker 2: in you. And I think June and her bandmates got
Speaker 2: it from each other. They were a proper team. They
Speaker 2: looked out for each other and did their makeup together
Speaker 2: on the way to gigs in this old converted school
Speaker 2: bus that June and Jean's dad had fixed up.
Speaker 3: It was blue on the outside and yellow, yellow and
Speaker 3: orange on the inside, really psychedelic.
Speaker 2: They'd play shows to soldiers recently back from Vietnam at
Speaker 2: the local army base or at clubs that they were
Speaker 2: still too young to go into officially. Each night, after
Speaker 2: their set, they'd load the bus back up with their
Speaker 2: gear ready for the next time.
Speaker 3: It was dark and we were parked in the alley.
Speaker 3: I'm sure the only reason that we didn't get savagely
Speaker 3: attacked by some weirdo is that it was we were
Speaker 3: always hanging out together. We were doing it all together. So
Speaker 3: you're not going to attack four girls filled with estrogen.
Speaker 3: You're just not going to do it, you know. So
Speaker 3: we were also saved by circumstances.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and pissy the man who tries to attack you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Most of the other bands on the circuit were all men,
Speaker 2: so June had to make female friends in other places.
Speaker 3: We had go go girl cages on either side of
Speaker 3: the stage. Every gig, every club had those cages that
Speaker 3: were hanging from the ceiling and.
Speaker 1: The girls in it.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, absolutely yeah, And it was normal and we
Speaker 3: like them and they liked us. I never met a
Speaker 3: mien go go girl never. They were always really nice
Speaker 3: and they could really dance. They could shame Shammy Bop,
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: June also got to know the waitresses when they played
Speaker 2: gigs at the local casino.
Speaker 3: They were so nice to us, and they would give
Speaker 3: us these tips, like, you know your old stockings that
Speaker 3: have runs in them, don't throw those away. Stuff those
Speaker 3: in your bras and believe me, it'll make a difference.
Speaker 3: Let me tell you, we did it, and it really
Speaker 3: made us more popular. They taught us how to use
Speaker 3: makeup and mascara and false eyelashes. I remember one game
Speaker 3: one evening where we were playing, I couldn't see my
Speaker 3: guitar becas my fake eyelashes were so thick, you know,
Speaker 3: so I had to brain it in. But they taught
Speaker 3: us how to be not just girls, but young women.
Speaker 3: You know, there's a certain thing that you got to
Speaker 3: go through. Yeah, Fortunately we had these great women to
Speaker 3: just sort of show us the ropes.
Speaker 2: I love the sound of the sisterhood between the band
Speaker 2: and the go go dancers and the waitresses sharing tips
Speaker 2: and tricks in the dressing room. But I can also
Speaker 2: really relate to the feeling of being under pressure to
Speaker 2: look a certain way on stage. You may not know
Speaker 2: what I look like, but let's just say you'd sooner
Speaker 2: catch me in a clown suit than a spring dress.
Speaker 2: But for nine years, multiple times a week, I'd slick
Speaker 2: my fringe into some cinnamon swell, and I'd powder my
Speaker 2: face into the vision of Betty Boop. And occasionally, I'll
Speaker 2: be honest, it was really fun. It was liberating even
Speaker 2: to don that costume. I'd bat my eyelashes for a
Speaker 2: free drink kind of tip. But other times it made
Speaker 2: me feel used. I'd get annoyed that the guys just
Speaker 2: would roll off the van straight to the stage, and
Speaker 2: frustrated that people would think I'd let myself go if
Speaker 2: I did the exact same as them. It just goes
Speaker 2: to show that although a lot has changed obviously since
Speaker 2: the days when June first started playing gigs. Some things haven't,
Speaker 2: but Fanny weren't about to let double standards stop them
Speaker 2: from making it.
Speaker 1: And when did you get your big break?
Speaker 3: Well that happened in early fall of sixty eight. We
Speaker 3: went down to Los Angeles and we did open hoot
Speaker 3: Night at the Troube Door. That's the place where Elton
Speaker 3: John by the way, broke himself in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hoot Night was the place to be if you
Speaker 2: were an unsigned artist in Hollywood at the time. It
Speaker 2: was an open mic night, so anyone could sign up
Speaker 2: to play and you could rub elbows with all kinds
Speaker 2: of music industry suits in the audience. Producers, promoters, talent
Speaker 2: scouts all there to schmooze and look for new artists.
Speaker 2: But when June and the band arrived to set up,
Speaker 2: the welcome is less than warm.
Speaker 3: The guy who around the club he was steering at us.
Speaker 3: He did not want us to play, but we were
Speaker 3: signed up and he said, well, you only got I
Speaker 3: forget like ten minutes. You can only play for ten minutes, okay,
Speaker 3: So we played for ten minutes and the audience started clapping.
Speaker 3: They went crazy. They went more and more and more.
Speaker 3: Not only that, but they all jumped down to their
Speaker 3: tables and stamped their feet, were clapping and yelling more
Speaker 3: and more and more. It was complete pandemonium. I can
Speaker 3: barely describe it to you. It was unbelievable. I was
Speaker 3: a rhythm guitar player at the time, and I remember
Speaker 3: looking at Eddie, who was a lead guitar player. We
Speaker 3: just looked at each other and it's like, yeah, right,
Speaker 3: they got it.
Speaker 2: That moment must have been so satisfying, especially after all
Speaker 2: the heckling and shit talk their faced over the years.
Speaker 2: But that standing ovation wasn't the end of it. Two
Speaker 2: days later, June and the band are getting ready to
Speaker 2: head out on the road again. They've already loaded all
Speaker 2: their gear into the school bus and they're about to
Speaker 2: set off.
Speaker 3: The phone rang and I picked it up and it
Speaker 3: was a woman on the other line. She said, what
Speaker 3: are you doing? And I said, well, we're getting ready
Speaker 3: to leave, and she said, no, no, no, no, don't
Speaker 3: do that. I'll call you right back, you know. So
Speaker 3: about five minutes later she called back and she told
Speaker 3: us to go to a small recording studio in Hollywood,
Speaker 3: close to the Capitol Building, and we were going to
Speaker 3: audition for her boss.
Speaker 2: The women had seen them play at the Troupe Door.
Speaker 2: She was there scouting out unsigned bands for hot shot
Speaker 2: record producer Richard Perry. He's the guy who produced hits
Speaker 2: like I'm So Excited or You're So Vain, both excellent
Speaker 2: karaoke tracks.
Speaker 1: By the way, Basically, he's a big fucking deal.
Speaker 3: We went to that studio, we set up our gear
Speaker 3: and we played for Richard Berry and he was so
Speaker 3: blown away they signed us.
Speaker 2: No more gigs at Bowling Alley's or sewing clubs. June,
Speaker 2: Jean and the band have just signed a record deal
Speaker 2: with Reprise Records at Warner Brothers, one of the biggest
Speaker 2: record labels in the world. They're on the same label
Speaker 2: as artists like Fleetwood, Mac, Jimi Hendrix, and The Beach Boys.
Speaker 1: It's life changing.
Speaker 2: In May of nineteen sixty nine, they leave sleepy Sacramento
Speaker 2: behind to move into a house in La just off
Speaker 2: Sunset Boulevard.
Speaker 3: Of course, we drove down there in our bus. Are
Speaker 3: dead drove it. He dropped us off and rock and
Speaker 3: roll his story began.
Speaker 5: Next up, June takes on La.
Speaker 2: By the time June and the band move into that
Speaker 2: new rock and roll sorority, house in La. The lineup
Speaker 2: has undergone a few changes and they've got a brand
Speaker 2: new name, Fanny.
Speaker 1: And why Fanny? I'm sure you're asked this all the time.
Speaker 3: I heard of the band called Daisy Chain, so I
Speaker 3: heard that name, and I said to the girls, while
Speaker 3: we were thinking of names, I said, why don't we
Speaker 3: try to think of a girl's name. Wouldn't that be nice?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 3: They could just call us Betty or we came up
Speaker 3: with Fanny as one of the names. We just thought
Speaker 3: it was a funny double and and people would remember us,
Speaker 3: which they did. And we named our house Fanny Hill,
Speaker 3: and we were really proud of it, and we practiced
Speaker 3: night and day. Everyone wanted to go to this house
Speaker 3: and see these chicks who could play. You know, we
Speaker 3: were like the fable. We had the colored pebbles that
Speaker 3: led to the house. We were like the fairy tale.
Speaker 2: Other rock stars on the Rise would come to Fanny
Speaker 2: Hill to hang out and jam with the band, But
Speaker 2: Jean tried not to get too caught up in the
Speaker 2: Hollywood lifestyle.
Speaker 3: We played, practiced and wrote night and day. That's what
Speaker 3: we did. We did not party. We knew about drugs
Speaker 3: before we went down to La. We didn't do that.
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We got stoned, sure,
Speaker 3: but we didn't stay stoned for that long. We're Philippine glasses,
Speaker 3: me and Jean. We know how to work. We were
Speaker 3: taught how to work, how to study in the Philippines,
Speaker 3: and that's largely the secret to our success and to
Speaker 3: the success of the band.
Speaker 2: Fanny spent long days in the studio working on that
Speaker 2: first album.
Speaker 3: When you're a band that's going to go on on
Speaker 3: the road, you have to develop a larger sound. And
Speaker 3: how we did that was we practice that Warner Brothers
Speaker 3: movie sound lots, which red huge stages and high ceilings.
Speaker 2: Their first big gig is opening up for the Kinks.
Speaker 2: When the stage lights come up, Fanny just go for it.
Speaker 2: June's sister, Jean is on the base and center stage,
Speaker 2: with long dark hair parted at the center.
Speaker 3: When we played, she was definitely the center of the action.
Speaker 2: Alice, the drummer, is at the back. She drives them
Speaker 2: forward with a pounding rhythm. Nikki is stage right, wearing
Speaker 2: a short, spiky mullet and bouncing between two different keyboards.
Speaker 3: She would kind of fling herself around the keyboard she'd
Speaker 3: loved attention. And I, because I'm deaf in one ear,
Speaker 3: I always had to be on left hand side of
Speaker 3: the stage, so everyone was on my right, so not
Speaker 3: only see but feel them. I'd be in this vortex
Speaker 3: of sound. I would hear the wham bam and Jeane
Speaker 3: and I would be you know, there were no thing
Speaker 3: and you know when you got to that place where
Speaker 3: you knew you were killing it, you had it was hot,
Speaker 3: it was on fire, you know, and you were doing
Speaker 3: it and nobody else could do it.
Speaker 2: Before long, Fanny are touring all over the world living
Speaker 2: the dream. They play with legendary rock bands like Slade
Speaker 2: and Jeff Rotel, and they're not phased by any of
Speaker 2: the sizeable egos that they encounter along the way.
Speaker 3: They didn't scare us at all. I knew what they
Speaker 3: were doing. You know, they're doing that guy thing and
Speaker 3: doing it well.
Speaker 2: Fanny are rocking on their own terms. They can win
Speaker 2: over any audience at a live show, but becoming a
Speaker 2: mainstream household name, well that was something else.
Speaker 3: The guys that we did gigs with loved us, They
Speaker 3: loved us, but we just couldn't get it past the
Speaker 3: bigger crowd.
Speaker 2: It's such a shame, Like, you know, there's nothing cooler
Speaker 2: than being a musician's band, but it also, I guess
Speaker 2: doesn't pay.
Speaker 3: And to tell you the truth, I think it was
Speaker 3: a misogyny.
Speaker 2: When Fanny start releasing albums, it's like those early days
Speaker 2: back in the Spelts. Once again, the girls with guitars
Speaker 2: I met with sneers and condescension.
Speaker 3: The reviews would always start with like, kind of a
Speaker 3: nice statement, but then would come all these you know,
Speaker 3: kind of snide little oh but you know, I it's
Speaker 3: kind of hard for me to see girls dressed up
Speaker 3: and playing in a band just these snide kind of
Speaker 3: put downs. They just couldn't say they're amazing, they're gonna
Speaker 3: make it. We didn't get that from the reviews. Now,
Speaker 3: we got that from our audiences, but it wasn't enough.
Speaker 3: And after a while, even though we were selling I
Speaker 3: think sixty or seventy thousand units per album, it wasn't
Speaker 3: enough of the record company. The record company wasn't believing
Speaker 3: in us, and they made us a new where, new outfits.
Speaker 3: They gave us each a designer. I just hated that
Speaker 3: because not only was the world not seeing us for
Speaker 3: who we were, but the record company was trying to
Speaker 3: change so that even I didn't recognize who I was
Speaker 3: while I was playing. And that just wrecked me. That
Speaker 3: just wrecked me. I know it might seem like a
Speaker 3: small thing, but to me it was not.
Speaker 1: I think it's a really big thing.
Speaker 3: And a lot of times I would get on a plane,
Speaker 3: I didn't even know where it was going. I didn't care,
Speaker 3: and so they would pour us into the car and
Speaker 3: we'd go to the airport and I didn't know where
Speaker 3: we were going. I just fall asleep.
Speaker 1: Was there a point when it just started to take
Speaker 1: too much of a toll?
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, definitely. I remember our last tour in England,
Speaker 3: but I just was not happy. I just I'd lost something.
Speaker 3: I'd wandered from the center. All these disappointments, you know,
Speaker 3: had caused me to just start wandering around. It was
Speaker 3: like a bad acid trip, because what was is that
Speaker 3: we were walking through. We had ashes in our mouths,
Speaker 3: it didn't taste good. We had just the next gig
Speaker 3: and the next gig and the next gig, and we
Speaker 3: weren't having the record company give us a hug and
Speaker 3: say you're doing great. You know, if they just would
Speaker 3: have given us that hug. It would have helped so much.
Speaker 3: But we were out there on our own, in the
Speaker 3: middle of the universe. We didn't have that hug. I
Speaker 3: got to tell you, that's that's really big.
Speaker 2: When I go back and I plot myself backstage at
Speaker 2: your gigs and give you a hug.
Speaker 3: This oh, I know, I know. I wish I could
Speaker 3: have given my.
Speaker 1: Cel phone one easy intervention.
Speaker 3: I had to leave Fanny. My mom was begging me
Speaker 3: to eat and sleep. She was just begging me. I
Speaker 3: couldn't sit still. I was just so agitated and I
Speaker 3: knew I couldn't survive that.
Speaker 2: One day, when the band are in Liverpool, June Pool's
Speaker 2: assist Jane aside.
Speaker 3: I don't know if Geane and I were sharing a
Speaker 3: room or I asked her to come over to my
Speaker 3: room and I said to her, I have to leave,
Speaker 3: I can. She totally could see it. She didn't. She
Speaker 3: didn't try to talk me out of it. That's one
Speaker 3: of the hardest things I've ever had to do in
Speaker 3: my life, because we had that dream since we were teenagers,
Speaker 3: and we'd worked so hard. I really feel that in
Speaker 3: misogyny was that impenetrable wall that I just couldn't figure out.
Speaker 1: After the break, June starts over.
Speaker 4: Got You, I've got you, got You, I've got you.
Speaker 3: What I did when I left was I went to
Speaker 3: a house by the sea on Long Island. It was
Speaker 3: a summer home that I rented in winter, and I
Speaker 3: listened to Stevie Wonder and I walked by the beach
Speaker 3: and I calmed my nerves down.
Speaker 2: June began to study Buddhism and reflect on her experiences
Speaker 2: in this new light.
Speaker 3: I was going into New York to Jam. I had
Speaker 3: no money, so I gosh. I remember being in Manhattan
Speaker 3: one time and the wind was blowing down the avenues.
Speaker 3: I don't even think I had a coat, and I
Speaker 3: had maybe three or five dollars, and I had to
Speaker 3: decide whether or not I could buy a cup of
Speaker 3: coffee or take a cab to wherever I was going.
Speaker 3: And I remember thinking myself, June, you can never let
Speaker 3: this happen to yourself again, because you know, when I
Speaker 3: was in Fanny, there was always a road manager. They
Speaker 3: always had everything planned out, and you'd get in the car,
Speaker 3: you'd go. I wasn't used to being on my own
Speaker 3: in the world anymore. I hadn't actually learned how to
Speaker 3: be a person. That's why, that's why I quit the band.
Speaker 2: In Port June hangs out in clubs playing the guitar.
Speaker 2: She doesn't have to fit her style into some box
Speaker 2: dictated by record label anymore, so she starts experimenting with
Speaker 2: new sounds.
Speaker 3: You know, what was happening in New York at the
Speaker 3: time was disco and reggae, And in all these jams,
Speaker 3: I learned a lot of that, you know, I learned
Speaker 3: how you could get into these crews. And I also
Speaker 3: tried to find as any other women to play with
Speaker 3: it as I could. So I found other women who
Speaker 3: were in Brooklyn and where these enclaves were, where they
Speaker 3: were rehearsing and forming their bands.
Speaker 2: Fanny broke down the door for women in rock, and
Speaker 2: now other like minded women were following in their footsteps.
Speaker 2: One day, June got a call from a singer songwriter
Speaker 2: called Chris Williamson. She wanted June to play on her
Speaker 2: new album and come on tour. And if you don't
Speaker 2: know who Chris is, she's another musical legend. She was
Speaker 2: part of this radical feminist group in Washington, DC and
Speaker 2: a couple of years earlier that had this really cool idea.
Speaker 3: They had gathered some money and they wanted to start
Speaker 3: something that would not rely on men at all. That
Speaker 3: was at the heart of feminism, Like they didn't want
Speaker 3: the help of men at all, and so they were
Speaker 3: maybe going to start a you know, a restaurant or
Speaker 3: a bowling alley or whatever. And Chris, because she had
Speaker 3: done gigs for them, she said, well, why don't you
Speaker 3: start a women's record company music combined with feminist rhetoric literature.
Speaker 2: The group called themselves Olivia Records, after a novel from
Speaker 2: nineteen forty nine about a young woman who falls in
Speaker 2: love with the headmistress of her French finishing school, Oula La.
Speaker 2: The idea was to provide a platform for lesbian artists.
Speaker 2: It was the start of what's now called the women's
Speaker 2: music movement, a genre of music written for and by women.
Speaker 2: You'd think that'd be right up June Street. But at first,
Speaker 2: when Chris called in nineteen seventy five to ask her
Speaker 2: to get involved with her album, June wasn't sure this
Speaker 2: was for her.
Speaker 1: Sure she'd stuck it.
Speaker 2: To the man all her life, but she hadn't called
Speaker 2: that feminism at the time, June was just focused on
Speaker 2: the music, but after another project fell through, she had
Speaker 2: a bit of time.
Speaker 1: On her hands.
Speaker 3: So finally I said it, Chris, Okay, I'll go with you.
Speaker 3: I thought it was going to be the most warring
Speaker 3: thing in the world, and I would just be marking
Speaker 3: time until the next thing that came up, you know.
Speaker 3: But I mean we played the first gig in Salt
Speaker 3: Lake City, and I mean it was like the whole
Speaker 3: hall was on fire.
Speaker 2: The venue is packed to the rafters with women. June
Speaker 2: looks out at the up turned faces in the crowd
Speaker 2: and tries to process what she's saying.
Speaker 3: I realize, oh, this is so much bigger than me.
Speaker 3: I'm just going to try to understand it and try
Speaker 3: to hold onto the coattails. You know. Was the wind
Speaker 3: was big. It was moving so fast and growing so fast.
Speaker 3: It was out of my control. I could barely keep
Speaker 3: up with it.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: That's how I got introduced to feminism. It was a
Speaker 3: live It wasn't a theory. It was alive and it
Speaker 3: was consuming me as well.
Speaker 2: The album June played on with Chris is Cool, The
Speaker 2: Change and the Changed appropriate right. It became one of
Speaker 2: the biggest selling independent records of.
Speaker 3: All time being on the road. City after city, living
Speaker 3: room after living a house after house that I stayed at,
Speaker 3: and we talked to the women who were living in
Speaker 3: the house or the apartment, the count or whatever. They
Speaker 3: started telling us stories. I remember that first tour we
Speaker 3: stayed at a house an apartment in Ohio where one
Speaker 3: of the women there was fighting for custody of her
Speaker 3: children and was going to the Supreme Court. And she
Speaker 3: was fighting for custody because just because she was a woman,
Speaker 3: they took away custody of her kids. Her husband was
Speaker 3: automatically going to get the kids just because she was
Speaker 3: a woman, and the fact that she was a lesbian
Speaker 3: was even worse, you know.
Speaker 2: The women's music movement also crossed over with black feminism.
Speaker 2: June became friends with activists like Angela Davis and a
Speaker 2: poet Lord.
Speaker 3: They brought the civil rights into it, so now we
Speaker 3: were understanding civil rights along with women's rights, and we
Speaker 3: realized it's all the wise they were being told about
Speaker 3: women in the past and in real time, you know,
Speaker 3: and we were upset about that. Feminism is something that
Speaker 3: we need right now. It's not of the past, and
Speaker 3: it's not a story. Feminism is you right now, it's
Speaker 3: you trying to figure out, well, I got some rights here,
Speaker 3: why why aren't they being given to me? Or why
Speaker 3: are they being taken away? It's us, you know. So
Speaker 3: I never see it as being separate from anything, and
Speaker 3: I see it as being a huge contributing factor in
Speaker 3: my life. And I will be forever grateful that Chris
Speaker 3: asked me to play on that album.
Speaker 2: Since nineteen eighty six, June and her partner An Hackler
Speaker 2: have run a nonprofit called the Institute for the Musical Arts,
Speaker 2: supporting the next generation of women in music.
Speaker 3: We do a lot of events here. We have shows
Speaker 3: and workshops, and we have our Rock and Roll Girls Camp.
Speaker 3: So it's twenty five acres, a house and two barns
Speaker 3: with a lot of events. And now we're growing old together.
Speaker 3: We said when we were what what was I? I
Speaker 3: think I was thirty four or thirty six and she
Speaker 3: was twenty eight. When we got together, we said, let's
Speaker 3: grow old together. I never thought that was gonna happen.
Speaker 3: I'm turning seventy seven this year.
Speaker 1: You know what, Like guys in a flash, doesn't that.
Speaker 3: It really does. But I feel lucky because I've been
Speaker 3: able to learn all these lessons, and I've you know,
Speaker 3: the latest lesson I've learned is how to be so
Speaker 3: close to death and how to deal with it because
Speaker 3: I'm dealing with cancer part two. Oh wow, Yeah, and
Speaker 3: now it becomes life, it becomes real life in some
Speaker 3: of my friends have begun to die and so dealing
Speaker 3: with grief, you know, and realizing okay, yeah, I really
Speaker 3: am at the last part and what am I going
Speaker 3: to do with it? Well, part of it is talking
Speaker 3: with you and telling the absolute truth. I'm not gonna
Speaker 3: lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you.
Speaker 2: I wanted to just touch on something you just said
Speaker 2: about kind of being in a new stage of your
Speaker 2: life where you're processing being closer to death than the
Speaker 2: beginning of your life. It's such a profound point of
Speaker 2: life to be at. Do you have any sort of
Speaker 2: words of wisdom to share to other people who are
Speaker 2: always struggling.
Speaker 1: With that chapter?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Well, I'm not afraid of death anymore in any
Speaker 3: sense of the word. I mean, I don't want to
Speaker 3: have pain, but you know, if that happens, it happens.
Speaker 3: But my words of wisdom would be to just say
Speaker 3: be in your moment, be authentic in your moment, and
Speaker 3: further forgive yourself. That is a big one. You have
Speaker 3: to try to help as much as you can because
Speaker 3: helping it it ripples out, you know, ripples out to
Speaker 3: other people. So you can always smile at someone, touch
Speaker 3: someone's hand.
Speaker 1: Give that girl a hug, Give that hug.
Speaker 3: Yeah, life here is so hard. It's just a hug,
Speaker 3: just a little, that's all. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I had no idea that this episode was going to
Speaker 2: become just like us trying to prove to everyone that
Speaker 2: hugs already great.
Speaker 3: Give them the universe. God. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess, like you know, part of this reflective
Speaker 2: period where you're kind of thinking about the life that's
Speaker 2: come before what potentially is to come, you must look
Speaker 2: back at your time in Fanny and be really proud
Speaker 2: of everything that you did.
Speaker 3: And seriously bra that we worked so hard. We were
Speaker 3: not laggards. You know, we knew the importance of what
Speaker 3: we were doing. We admitted it to each other that
Speaker 3: we were doing this for the girls in the future,
Speaker 3: so that was nice. I think we did a great job.
Speaker 3: We made a lot of mistakes, but who cares, you know,
Speaker 3: we had a good time. Yeah, we had a really
Speaker 3: good time.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much to June Millington for sharing what it's
Speaker 2: like to be a literal rock star. To check out
Speaker 2: what Fanny are up to, you can find them on
Speaker 2: Spotify or their website, which is Fannyrocks dot com. But actually,
Speaker 2: I think the best way to learn about what they're
Speaker 2: doing is through their videos on YouTube. The guitars, the flares,
Speaker 2: the hair.
Speaker 1: It's all chef's kiss.
Speaker 2: And if you've got a budding girl rocket in your
Speaker 2: family and you want to learn more about June and
Speaker 2: A's workshops and events, check out the Institute for the
Speaker 2: Musical Arts.
Speaker 1: There's links in the show notes.
Speaker 2: Oh and hey, listener, just a quick one, go give
Speaker 2: someone a hug. Coming up next on the Girlfriend's Spotlight,
Speaker 2: Rosev's at least eighty six cold cases.
Speaker 3: And I'm telling you, I've never had this feeling before
Speaker 3: in my life. They're here on the back of my neck.
Speaker 3: Was starting to see now because this.
Speaker 1: Was the guy.
Speaker 3: I mean, it was unbelievable.
Speaker 2: Hey, it's Anna, you've reached the girlfriend's hotline. Leave your
Speaker 2: story after the tone. Okay, gotta go love you.
Speaker 6: The girlfriend I want to celebrate is someone I've known
Speaker 6: since I was twenty one. She was at our wedding,
Speaker 6: she's got mother to our eldest child, and she's always
Speaker 6: been there for all the important times in our lives
Speaker 6: since then. But as we hit our early thirties, my
Speaker 6: life and hers hit the bumpers. Our second son died
Speaker 6: suddenly and unexpectedly when he had an unstoppable asthma attack
Speaker 6: at just under eighteen months old. At the same time,
Speaker 6: her marriage was breaking down, and we spent many days
Speaker 6: and evenings together over the months that followed trying to
Speaker 6: work out why, how, and struggling to bear any of it,
Speaker 6: and gradually learning how to live with what had happened
Speaker 6: to us. As the months moved on, quite naturally, we
Speaker 6: were receiving less attention. At the beginning, I confided one
Speaker 6: of my fears to her. I told her that if
Speaker 6: anything happened to my husband, then nobody would remember the
Speaker 6: birth day of our son and the anniversary of his death,
Speaker 6: and that would be a sorrow I would have to
Speaker 6: bear on my own. She listened, and she told me
Speaker 6: that she would always remember. In those first couple of years,
Speaker 6: friends and family did remember. We were also lucky to
Speaker 6: go on and have two daughters, and understandably the focus
Speaker 6: love and support we received turned towards our surviving children.
Speaker 6: But for over thirty years, our special friend has sent
Speaker 6: us flowers on the anniversary of our son's death. A
Speaker 6: couple of years ago, I suggested it was incredibly kind
Speaker 6: of her to send us flowers every year, but we
Speaker 6: were okay, and she shouldn't feel she needed you anymore.
Speaker 6: I know her wealth, and she looked at me very
Speaker 6: directly and told me she couldn't stop sending them. I
Speaker 6: promised you I would always remember. Bless you, dear girlfriend.
Speaker 6: Your lifelong friendship and commitment means the world to me.
Speaker 2: If you have your own story like the one you
Speaker 2: just heard, and you'd like the whole girlfriend's going to
Speaker 2: hear it, then please send it to us. You can
Speaker 2: record it as a voice memo under ninety seconds. Please
Speaker 2: and email it straight to the girlfriends at novel dot org.
Speaker 2: Please don't include your name. We're keeping things a little anon.
Speaker 2: We want stories like, say that one time you faked
Speaker 2: an emergency on an awful date and your bestie bailed
Speaker 2: you out with a phone call we love her, Or
Speaker 2: that time when all of your girls showed up on
Speaker 2: your doorstep with five pizzas, two tups of ice cream,
Speaker 2: and three bottles of Savenure Blanc because the man of
Speaker 2: your dreams just dumped you. I want stories that are
Speaker 2: meaningful or silly. I want big, I want small. I'm
Speaker 2: desperate to hear them, so send them over. This season,
Speaker 2: The Girlfriend's Spotlight is supporting the charity Womankind Worldwide. They
Speaker 2: do amazing work to help women's rights organizations and movements
Speaker 2: to strengthen and grow. If you'd like to find out
Speaker 2: more or donate to help them secure equal rights for
Speaker 2: women and girls across the globe, you can go to
Speaker 2: Womankind dot org dot UK. The Girlfriend's Spotlight is produced
Speaker 2: by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit
Speaker 2: novel dot Audio. This episode was written and produced by
Speaker 2: Caroline Thornham. Our assistant producer is Lucy Carr. Our researcher
Speaker 2: is Seyana Yusuf. The editor is Hannah Marshall. Max O'Brien
Speaker 2: and Craig Strachan are our executive producers. Production management from
Speaker 2: Joe Savage, Srie Houston and Charlotte Wolfe. Sound design, mixing
Speaker 2: and scoring by Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempson. Music supervision
Speaker 2: by Jako Taivich, Nicholas Alexander and Anna Sinfield. Original music
Speaker 2: composed by Louisa Gerstein and Jemma Freeman. The series artwork
Speaker 2: was designed by Christina lemcol Willard Foxton is creative Director
Speaker 2: of Development and Special thanks to Trina Norvelle, Carrie Lieberman,
Speaker 2: and Will Pearson at iHeart Podcasts, as well as Carl
Speaker 2: Frankel and the whole team at w M E.