Sexy Finger Champs Trash Hits the Rock

Sexy Finger Champs

Trash Hits the Rock

Kerri Atwood wants to be a "Japanese animated liberated superhero cartoon girl," but her band Sexy Finger Champs couldn't be more animated if they were drawn by Chuck Jones. Still, this is no Josie & the Pussycats or Banana Splits here; it's more like L7's long-overdue South Park guest shot. Atwood's vocals are unhinged but vulnerable, similar to the Meat Purveyors' Jo Walston or Sincola's Rebecca Cannon, and capable of both throat-ripping rants like "Jean-Luc Picard" and swooning Latino lost-love ballads like "Tejano." Behind her, the band tears it up like a kitten digging into a stack of old newspapers. Chepo Peña's buzzsaw guitar, Rebekah Whitehurst's slippery bass, and Terri Lord's whipcrack drums crystallize Atwood's manic-panic energy without sacrificing any of the melodic theatrics you'd expect from people fond of both the Go-Go's and Kiss. Peña's presence and Atwood's close stylistic relation to Melissa Bryan (in both voice and tendency to write songs about wayward boys) make a case for the local foursome as this year's Shindigs, and their devotion to all things trashy rivals even the Donnas, but an even more apt comparison would be Sleater-Kinney with a sense of humor. The Champs pack all the piss and vinegar of the Olympia rock goddesses, but don't take themselves nearly as seriously; somehow, it's hard to imagine Janet Weiss & company ever writing songs about doo-doo, tumors, baby monitors, or aspiring to be a teenage slut.