Music / Girls Against Boys

Eli Janney, Alexis Fleisig, Scott McCloud and Johnny Temple

Girls Against Boys (often abbreviated as GVSB) is a Post-Hardcore band from Washington, D.C. formed in 1989. It consists of Scott McCloud (no, not that one) on lead vocals and guitar, Johnny Temple on bass, Alexis Fleisig on the drums and Eli Janney on bass, keyboards and programming. The band had a few line-up shake ups but this is the most consistent one as it’s the one that appears in all of their albums.

To date, they have released six studio albums, with the most notable being Venus Luxure No. 1 Baby, Cruise Yourself and House of GVSB, all released on Touch and Go, being produced by Ted Niceley, and Freak*on*ica, their only major label album to date on Geffen Records, produced by Nick Launay, notable for producing albums from Kate Bush, Gang of Four and Nick Cave.

The band is notable for their groovy and noisy post-punk influenced sound, their occasional use of two bassists and lethargic vocals with very cryptic lyrics. They have since been sporadically active since 2002, with the latest release of new material being The Ghost List EP in 2013.

Discography

• Nineties vs. Eighties (1990, EP)
• Tropic of Scorpio (1992)
• Venus Luxure No. 1 Baby (1993)
• Cruise Yourself (1994)
• House of GVSB (1996)
• Freak*on*ica (1998)
• You Can't Fight What You Can't See (2002)
• The Ghost List (2013, EP)

(I) Don't Got A Trope

• Album Title Drop: "Cruise Your New Baby Fly Self" from Cruise Yourself.
• Cover Version: Their cover of Joy Division's "She's Lost Control" made for the Tribute Album A Means to an End: The Music of Joy Division.
• Face on the Cover: The entire band in Tropic of Scorpio.
• Industrial Rock: Freak*on*ica has shades of this due to the more heightened use of electronic elements on the album.
• Mind Screw: Due to their extensive nonsensical lyrics, they can border on this sometimes.
• Minimalistic Cover Art: The Nineties vs. Eighties EP.
• New Sound Album: Freak*on*ica is more polished than their previous outings (courtesy of Nick Launay), with a heavy usage of synths while retaining their more punk-ish sound.
• Number of the Beast: "Disco Six Six Six". The number is also mentioned in the first verse.
• One-Woman Song: "Jamie" and "Sexy Sam".
• Performance Video: "Kill the Sexplayer", "Super-fire", "Park Avenue", "Basstation" and their cover of "She's Lost Control".
• Perishing Alt-Rock Voice: Scott McCloud's vocals are very lethargic and restrained, and he can sometimes border in spoken word very seamlessly. Some critics have compared his vocals to Mark E. Smith's from The Fall.
• Portmantitle: "Basstation".
• Post-Hardcore: Of the "heavily punk-inspired 90's alternative band" type.
• Production Foreshadowing: The usage of electronic elements in "Vera Cruz" and "Zodiac Love Team" from House of GVSB would be later more prominent on the subsequent album Freak*on*ica.
• Self-Deprecation: This line from "Kill the Sexplayer", acknowledging the band’s use of two bassists:
  Kill the bass player, kill both bass players
• Self-Titled Album: House of GVSB, which is basically an abbreviation of the band name contained in the title.
• Three Chords and the Truth
• Video Full of Film Clips: The "Kill the Sexplayer" music video contains snippets of the movie Clerks, in which the song was featured in.
• Word Salad Lyrics: A common trait of this band. A lot of them either have a very cryptic meaning or they actually don’t have any and they're just cobbled together due to Rule of Cool.
• Word Salad Title: Not as frequent as the above but a good chunk of the song titles in their discography are just as odd.
• Xtreme Kool Letterz: The title "TheKindaMzkYouLike".