Dirty Laundry : The Sunday Sinners' rock 'n' roll rolls right
By Rupert Bottenberg
Montreal Mirror, Oct 7-13 2004

"I was going to bring up something about it being a girl thing," says Missy, guitarist and backing vocalist in Montreal's the Sunday Sinners, "although we've always been in bands - it's not a girl thing to us. I don't want that to be an issue." 

Missy, singer/guitarist Jenna and organist Work With Me Annie didn't set out to start an all-girl band for its own sake. Besides, such a policy would be bad news for bassist Joey Mulroney, if not drummer Miss Chantale. But one can't help but notice that the set list cooked up by the quintet sports a tune by soul siren Sugar Pie De Santo and another called "Loretta Lynn." 

Placing those two names side by side goes a long way toward pinning down the Sunday Sinner sound, a faithful resurrection of raw, early R&B infused with a definite classic country twang. But even bringing them up in the first place says something about women's place in rock (or what would become rock), even today. 

"I don't think a lot of guys doing a similar kind of music will ever cover a song with a chick singing," notes Jenna. "I can't think of any - the Saints doing ‘River Deep, Mountain High,' maybe. Whereas so many times I've ended up, in other bands, having to do a cover of a guy singing, changing it so it sounds like a girl's part." 

"It could be the lyrics," suggests Missy. "In our Sugar Pie De Santo song, she's singing about doing laundry and stuff." "That's really specific to women. A guy's never gonna be like, ‘I wash your clothes, I clean your floor.' There are very few men who would sing about that." 

Come to think of it, very few men in the retro rock 'n' roll scene sing at all. Shrieking and growling seem to suit them fine. So forgive me for generalizing but it's nice to hear such a band with the testosterone drained off - tempo over speed, melody over muscle, harmony over crude gang chant. 

"All these rock 'n' roll bands now," she says, "they just wanna scream. The early stuff, people were singing properly. Somewhere along the way it turned into punk screaming. I'm not interested in screaming. I'd rather sing."