The Fuzztones were born in the summer of 1980, in the bowels of New York City's Lower East Side. "Alphabet City" to be exact. Rudi Protrudi and Deb O'Nair had moved there from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, five years earlier, with their band Tina Peel .

Das Fürlines from New York City, USA were an influential, all-female "punk-polka" band in the mid-1980s, renowned for their rousing performances.

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History[edit]

Das Fürlines appeared on the US TV shows Entertainment Tonight and Andy Warhol's 15 Minutes in 1985, and released their debut album Das Fürlines Go Hog Wild on their own label, Palooka Records. Their next album, Lost in the Translation (1986), was a lot more contextual than Go Hog Wild. In 1988, they released a concept album, The Angry Years, which was inspired by the self-help book Women Who Love Too Much. They split up acrimoniously in 1988 after a spate of betrayal and infighting during a tour. They released the four-CD compilation Bratwurst, Bierhalls, and Bustiers: The Box Set, which contained various outtakes, B-sides, and rarities. They reformed in 1996 to perform a few benefit concerts to raise money for lead singer Wendy Wild's medical bills. She died of cancer in 1996.

Members[edit]

·      Wendy Wild – vocals, banjo, guitar (b. Wendy Andreiev, August 31, 1956, USA, d. October 26, 1996, New York)

·      Holly Hemlock – guitar, vocals

·      Deb O'Nair – keyboards, vocals, accordion

·      Liz Luv – bass guitar

·      Rachel Schnitzel – drums,

I’ll be honest. Deb O’Nair was a famous musician living the life in NYC headlining all the clubs, Mudd Club, while I was going to an office everyday.

It was an honor when Deb reached out to me to express interest in discussing the trauma she’s dealing with around having been abandoned at birth until she was adopted at 5 months old by her parents. Deb contacted her birth mother about 20 years ago and learned more about her early life after her mother died in 2020. In this session we get some sense of Deb life growing up in a strict catholic home and breaking out, moving to NYC and getting involved in the music business and touring with bands as a young person very much on her own.