PAT TODD
Hailing from Vincennes, Indiana, Pat Todd (vocalist), D. D. Weekday (guitar), and Keith Telligman (bass) headed for California to put a band together. They found another Indiana expat there, Allen Clark (drums) and began hitting the L.A. clubs as the Lazy Cowgirls. Of this early period, Todd says that they were playing countless shows for “no one, and people from work”. Chris Desjardins (former frontman of an art-punk band called the Flesh Eaters) lined them up a record deal with Restless Records, resulting in their self-titled 1984 debut Lazy Cowgirls. Fred Beldin gives the album a tepid review for Allmusic but closes with: “Despite an inauspicious start, the Lazy Cowgirls never made a bad record again, and those with a taste for intelligent but visceral rock & roll are urged to examine their catalog.”
In the liner notes for Destination: Bomp!, Greg Shaw writes: “The [Lazy] Cowgirls had made one badly misproduced album before Tapping the Source, the Bomp LP that captured for the first time their real strengths, the nonstop buzzsaw guitar attack and Pat Todd’s vein-bursting passion as a vocalist.”
My own introduction to the Lazy Cowgirls was Rank Outsider (1999). By this point, years of nonstop touring and lackluster record sales were taking their toll; D. D. Weekday and Keith Telligman left the band by 1991, and further shakeups ensued through the rest of the decade. But Weekday’s replacement on guitar, Michael Leigh returned to the line-up in time for Rank Outsider and another record that came out just six months later, Somewhere Down the Line. Mark Deming for Allmusic says of Rank Outsider: “Singer Pat Todd is in superb, revved-up form here – if anything, the guy’s vocals just get better and more confident with the passage of time – and while the presence of a few acoustic-based cuts is something new for this band, their loose, bluesy feel harkens back to Exile On Main Street-era Rolling Stones more than anyone in the MTV Unplugged crowd. Another great record from a band that knows how.”
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After the Lazy Cowgirls packed it in, Pat Todd formed another band, taking its name from one of their classic albums, Pat Todd and the Rankoutsiders. Their first release is a 2-CD album on their own label (Rankoutsider Records) called The Outskirts of Your Heart (2007). Mark Deming again, for Allmusic: “In 2004, the Lazy Cowgirls, long one of the best-kept secrets in American rock & roll, finally called it quits after nearly 25 years of inspiring music, but lead singer and principal songwriter Pat Todd clearly isn’t ready to throw in the towel just yet. Todd has formed a new band, the Rankoutsiders, who follow a similar path to the latter-era Cowgirls – fast and loud old-school punk on one hand, and hard but heartfelt honky tonk on the other. However, unlike the Lazy Cowgirls, the Rankoutsiders can handle the quieter country material with the same sure hand as the louder, frantic rock stuff; and Todd’s first album with the band, The Outskirts of Your Heart, is his most impressive melding to date of his two great (musical) loves.”
(March 2017)
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Items: Pat Todd
