Punk Catholics

Gail Petersen carries songs around in her head. A self-taught musician who does not read music, she records her song ideas on tape before writing lyrics and arranging the music with her band mates in The Catholic Girls.

"Songs come to me as a kind of mini-movie," she said. "I see it with a beginning, middle and end and they have a little story to them. A lot of them are about girl meets boy or boy doesn’t appreciate girl and has a bad time, and then the girl is able to move on and the boy likes her after that. That comes up in a few songs."

The New Jersey band will perform at the CD release party for its new full-length recording, "Meet the Catholic Girls," at the Stanhope House on April 8. The closing band is Shabby Road, a New Jersey band that performs covers of The Beatles. Steve Berger will play bass with The Catholic Girls.

"We wanted to do a variety of all the things we like to do," Petersen said. "We have our typical ’80s new wave pounding kind of song. Then we have our punk. We have a ballad and we have a song with a Static influence with a beat. We even have a country-flavored song and a heavy metal song, too."

This is a mainly punk group around since the eighties whose tag line on their site is "from the Vatican … to your garage." They all went to Catholic schools and wear Catholic school girl outfits with an occasional Rosary, thought it is hard to tell if there faith is more than a gimmick. I do wonder what Rite they would belong to or more likely they are Ramones Catholics. In fact I have a suggestion for a song they can do about Eastern Catholic babies getting prepared for their big day.

Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go I wanna be Chrismated
Nothin’ to do and no where to go-o-oh I wanna be Chrismated
Just get me to the Church preparing for His reign
Hurry hurry hurry before I go insane
I can’t control my fingers I can’t control my brain
Oh goo goo goo goo goo
Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go….
Just put me in a stroller and put me on a plane
Hurry hurry hurry before I go insane
I can’t control my fingers I can’t control my brain
Oh goo goo goo goo goo
Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go I wanna be Chrismated
Nothin’ to do and no where to go-o-o I wanna be Chrismated
Just put me in a baby chair get me myron
Hurry hurry hurry before I gotta run
I can’t control my fingers I can’t control my toes
Oh goo goo goo goo goo
Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go…
Just put me in a baby chair…
Ba-ba-bamp-ba ba-ba-ba-bamp-ba I wanna be Chrismated
Ba-ba-bamp-ba ba-ba-ba-bamp-ba I wanna be Chrismated
Ba-ba-bamp-ba ba-ba-ba-bamp-ba I wanna be Chrismated
Ba-ba-bamp-ba ba-ba-ba-bamp-ba I wanna be Chrismated

I do wonder if The Catholic Girls might collaborate on their new album with the Pope of Punk BXVI himself.

Some people don’t realize this, but the Pope has other influences besides Mozart. One of them is the Celibate Pistols and their classic song "God save the Holy Queen."