By Morf Morford, Tacoma Daily Index

If the city of Tacoma had a house band, it should be Girl Trouble.

Tony Bennett’s signature song was “I left my heart in San Francisco”. Billy Joel gave us “A New York state of mind”.

Not many of us left our hearts in Tacoma, and I don’t even want to think about what a “Tacoma state of mind” might be, but Tacoma, in ways few of care to define, leaves its mark on all of us.

Girl Trouble has been thrashing, crashing and bashing around Tacoma as a semi-working band since 1984. They’ve performed at venues large and small – and even had a European tour (billing themselves as “Tacoma’s greatest export” – and why not? They are, in person at least, more memorable than lumber or candy).

We’ve all heard the metaphor of a pig with lipstick (still being a pig), Girl Trouble is a Tacoma band no matter they do – or wear – and it won’t be glitz or makeup.

Girl Trouble is Tacoma born and raised – and seeped in whatever essence is peculiar to Tacoma.

Unlike most bands from a not-so-large-town, Girl Trouble did not seek fame and fortune in the big city or with slick marketing or popular packaging.

Girl Trouble had a contract back in 1988 with the surging Seattle Sub Pop record company. They cut a full-length album in a weekend, Hit It or Quit It. The LP was the first album released by Sub Pop Records. Creative differences led Girl Trouble to be the only band to quit Sub Pop.

The beating pulse (and beating drummer) of the band, known as Bon Von Wheelie, sets the pace and tone. She has a fierce “care/don’t care” philosophy/belief system about the band.

In some ways, they will do almost anything (on stage) – but there’s a lot they won’t do (off-stage).

That second category includes things almost every band assumes that they have to do. Like fitting a genre or package. Or attempting to fit into trends. Or even being “popular”.

Going to Seattle to merge with the swirl and success of the 1990s “Grunge” scene would have been easy for Girl Trouble – but they couldn’t do it. It would not have been a good fit – and, to a large degree, that’s all that matters.

Girl Trouble’s four core members—none married, none with kids – didn’t get very far on the fame and fortune spectrum – or on the map, but they built something few of us have – a shared continuity of a wild ride through hopes, dreams and promises lived out in a peculiarly Tacoma style.

This isn’t a typical band, with the usual aspirations of “making it”.

Many of the bands they played alongside, from Nirvana to a whole roster of Sub Pop bands, “made it” on the national, if not international charts – and many of them probably wished they hadn’t – too many of them lost what mattered most; the music and the camaraderie.

Girl Trouble kept the fun and energy, and avoided the temptation of the limelight – in a purely Tacoma way. For the most part, they stuck around here, with a focus on what they cared about.

Girl Trouble could be described as a “bridge” band between the era of The Sonics, The Ventures and many more, and the “Grunge” scene centered in Seattle in the 1990s. And, like many in that earlier generation, they are still going.

In many ways, Tacoma, especially the native habitat of Girl Trouble (the cultural benchmarks of the Java Jive, the B&I store and many more) is vastly more “Grunge” than Seattle could ever be. And it isn’t hype – it’s hard-wired into who some of us are.

Grunge was a trending phase, a cultural storm front that passed over Seattle, and much of the world.

But in Tacoma there was no clear beginning (though it was certainly decades before it hit Seattle) and in much of Tacoma, it shows no sign of ever lifting.

Seattle area Microsoft millionaires might buy their $200 brand new torn jeans and drive the latest electric cars, but in Tacoma we still have a subculture that wears its torn jeans proudly – with every rip and stain, like a fabric tattoo, telling a story, and our well-loved beater cars and trucks say far more about us than any shimmering car fresh off the lot.

If you are so inclined, there is a documentary film of the band, its origins and its ethics titled Strictly Sacred: The Story of Girl Trouble. And if you’d like to see for yourself what all the hoopla was about, and you’d like to experience Girl Trouble first hand, you have a once in a life time opportunity to experience the pace, pulse and borderline frenzy – within the context of an overview of the impact of Tacoma and the greater Pacific Northwest music scene at the Spanish Ballroom at McMenamins Elks Temple on May 23. You can see details and get tickets here.