The Contractions
Encyclopedia
The Contractions is an early-Eighties all-female punk
power trio based in San Francisco. The band consists of Mary Kelley on guitar and vocals, Debbie Hopkins on drums and vocals, and Kathy Peck on bass and vocals.
A review in BAM magazine
calls the band "The hottest all woman group ever to come out of the Bay Area."
According to the group's own website: "The Contractions burned across the national Punk/New Wave scene from 1979 through 1985. Their rough-edged music mixed an urban garage-rock sound with a pop/new wave sensibility and grabbed immediate fan and critical support. One moment they were playing straight-ahead rock’n’roll, a classic power-trio — Debbie a veteran drummer with jazz sensibilities; Kathy on her Hofner playing a melodic bass-line; Mary with her Pete Townshend
-windmill guitar strumming. Then, just when you thought you knew what you were listening to, the band would become James Joyce
and Link Wray
all wrapped into one, with Mary singing poetry over slow, mesmerizing, watery guitar, then tearing into a guitar solo worthy of Eric Clapton
."
Bassist Kathy Peck is Co-Founder and Executive Director of H.E.A.R.
(Hearing Education and Awareness for Rockers).
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
power trio based in San Francisco. The band consists of Mary Kelley on guitar and vocals, Debbie Hopkins on drums and vocals, and Kathy Peck on bass and vocals.
A review in BAM magazine
BAM (magazine)
BAM , was a free bi-weekly music magazine founded and published by Dennis Erokan in the San Francisco Bay Area starting in January 1976 and continuing on for 23 years until 1999...
calls the band "The hottest all woman group ever to come out of the Bay Area."
According to the group's own website: "The Contractions burned across the national Punk/New Wave scene from 1979 through 1985. Their rough-edged music mixed an urban garage-rock sound with a pop/new wave sensibility and grabbed immediate fan and critical support. One moment they were playing straight-ahead rock’n’roll, a classic power-trio — Debbie a veteran drummer with jazz sensibilities; Kathy on her Hofner playing a melodic bass-line; Mary with her Pete Townshend
Pete Townshend
Peter Dennis Blandford "Pete" Townshend is an English rock guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and author, known principally as the guitarist and songwriter for the rock group The Who, as well as for his own solo career...
-windmill guitar strumming. Then, just when you thought you knew what you were listening to, the band would become James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
and Link Wray
Link Wray
Fred Lincoln "Link" Wray Jr was an American rock and roll guitarist, songwriter and occasional singer....
all wrapped into one, with Mary singing poetry over slow, mesmerizing, watery guitar, then tearing into a guitar solo worthy of Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
."
Bassist Kathy Peck is Co-Founder and Executive Director of H.E.A.R.
H.E.A.R.
H.E.A.R. is a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing hearing loss, mainly from loud rock music. The acronym stands for Hearing Education and Awareness for Rockers. It was founded in 1988 by rock musician Kathy Peck and physician Flash Gordon, M.D. after Kathy suffered tinnitus and...
(Hearing Education and Awareness for Rockers).