Punk group ready for fame

The new college band, Southern Girls, is ready for the spotlight after completing a two week music tour and recording a brand new album.

The band formed in 2007, and is made up of Alex Dinsmore '10 and Jedd Levine '10 on guitar, Ben Dorenfeld '10 on drums and Cole Giordano '09 on bass.

Originally called Zombies Did It, the band had 30-second songs and zombie themed skits, recorded to sound like lost audio from a past zombie apocalypse. However, the eclectic interests and influences were eventually honed. Although they all have somewhat different tastes in music, they can all agree they like some aspect of the punk persuasion.

Southern Girls members describe their approach as brutal without being heavy, although they admit it might be the other way around.

Their songs often feature a combination of complex melodic guitar lines and heavier, violent riffs, all over Cole's restless basslines and Dorenfeld's muscular but flexible drumming. Their music functions in quick bursts and sudden changes in direction and the songs often seem to cover much more ground than their 2 or 3 minute running times would seem to indicate.

Over the summer, the Southern Girls embarked on the two week, Brodeo 2k9 Tour with Tashtego that took them through the majority of the eastern United States. This tour was a "do-it-yourself." They slept in vans, broke the transmission in one of their vehicles and hopped from stranger's house to stranger's house in an attempt to save money.

The tour was a mixture of shows for a large and receptive audience, the promoter did not show up for the performances and the band had to beg to play for free. Despite these setbacks, they agreed that the tour was a fun experience and something that lived up to expectations. Southern Girls also noted that they came back from the tour with a clear idea of what they wanted to do next.

After the tour, the band changed its name from "Zombies Did It" to "Southern Girls." Dinsmore declared an interest in trying to distance themselves from a certain type of association, recalling an instance of seeing a poster for "Night of the Living Dead" while on tour. They felt that the name change would also reflect their changing directions musically as well as the general progression for the band members from viewing the band as a fun side-project to a more serious venture.

Southern Girls will soon be releasing their debut album, "Widowmaker," an album they planned on recording after the summer tour. "The album was our attempt to make music people would really like if there wasn't screaming in it," Levine said.

The album was recorded in an extended session over the course of a single day at Dead Air Studios in Amherst, MA. Much of the material on the album was written while Levine and Dorenfeld were abroad in Australia and Italy, respectively. The band e-mailed ideas back and forth and began forming many of the songs before the members ever played the songs live together.

The band will be playing a handful of shows over the coming months. Some of them will be away from Skidmore because of the relative ease of getting shows at other colleges.

The album will be available to download on the band's myspace page www.myspace.com/southerngirlsny as well as for purchase.