Sissy Bar is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 indie pop

Indie pop

Indie pop is a genre of alternative rock music that originated in the United Kingdom in the mid 1980s, with its roots in the Scottish post-punk bands on the Postcard Records label in the early '80s, such as Orange Juice, Josef K and Aztec Camera, and the dominant UK independent band of the mid...

 band. They formed in Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

 in 1994 after Joy Ray and Courtney Holt became obsessed with Snoop Dogg

Snoop Dogg

Calvin Cordozar Broadus, Jr. , better known by his stage name Snoop Dogg, is an American rapper, record producer, and actor. Snoop is best known as a rapper in the West Coast hip hop scene, and for being one of Dr. Dre's most notable protégés. Snoop Dogg was a Crip gang member while in high school...

's then-hit Gin and Juice

Gin and Juice

"Gin and Juice" is the second single by rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg from his debut album Doggystyle. A top 10 hit single on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, peaking at number eight, "Gin and Juice" was nominated for the 1995 Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance...

 and recorded their own version on a friend's 6-track recorder, along with "(Our Pet Is...) Happy Pet" (both original recordings available as bonus tracks on the band's first full-length CD Statutory Grape). They sent this tape to local punk rock station KXLU

KXLU

KXLU is an FM radio station broadcasting out of Loyola Marymount University in southwest Los Angeles, California. It was first on the air in 1957, and recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. It is a non-commercial college radio station that plays many styles of music broadly classified under...

 and the songs started getting rotation on the Demolisten show, a show that plays "homespun, home recorded, self released recordings." The band's first performance was at a party in banjo player Brad Kluck's backyard. When drummer Patrick Simpson walked off the stage halfway through the set, the drummer from School of Fish

School of Fish

School of Fish was an alternative rock band which formed in 1989 and disbanded in 1994. The core members were Josh Clayton-Felt and Michael Ward who would play club dates in Los Angeles, California as a duo accompanied by programmed drums and bass. The band signed with Capitol Records in 1990, and...

 (who was in the audience) jumped up on stage and helped finish the set.


The band's first release was 1995's Magic Bunny EP on Love Kit Records, a vinyl-only release that quickly sold out and garnered unsolicited reviews by publications including Details Magazine. TAZ did the eye-catching artwork. Their 1996 debut full-length album was Statutory Grape and was produced by Mickey P. Original synth player and backing vocalist Lisa Papineau

Lisa Papineau

Lisa Papineau is a songwriter from New England who now resides in Paris, France. She is the songwriter and vocalist for Los Angeles band Big Sir, who have released three albums...

 left the band partway through recording the debut album to pursue a major label deal with her other band, Pet

Pet

A pet is a household animal kept for companionship and a person's enjoyment, as opposed to wild animals or to livestock, laboratory animals, working animals or sport animals, which are kept for economic or productive reasons. The most popular pets are noted for their loyal or playful...

, and was replaced by Mary Ellen Mason. Sugar Fix Recordings released this CD, which was named after a Mopar paint color from the 1950s and featured a purple target on the cover. Sissy Bar played at South by Southwest

South by Southwest

South by Southwest is an Austin, Texas based company dedicated to planning conferences, trade shows, festivals and other events. Their current roster of annual events include: SXSW Music, SXSW Film, SXSW Interactive, SXSWedu, and SXSWeco and take place every spring in Austin, Texas, United States...

, North by Northwest

North by Northwest

North by Northwest is a 1959 American thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason, and featuring Leo G. Carroll and Martin Landau...

 and Poptopia in support of this album and gained in notoriety. They played with artists including Sukia

Sukia

For the Californian band, see Sukia .Sukia was a vampire-themed Italian comics series by Renzo Barbieri and Fulvio Bosttoli published by Edifumetto from 1978 to 1986, for a total of 153 albums and 6 extra albums. In the series Sukia faces people or creatures who are trying to do some form of harm...

, Tsunami

Tsunami

A tsunami is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean or a large lake...

, and The Dirty Three and were part of the "Silverlake Scene" that spawned artists such as Beck

Beck

Beck Hansen is an American musician, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, known by the stage name Beck...

, Geraldine Fibbers

Geraldine Fibbers

The Geraldine Fibbers were an alt-country band founded in 1994 by Carla Bozulich. Initially, band members included Bozulich, Daniel Keenan, Julie Fowells, William Tutton and Kevin Fitzgerald...

 and Possum Dixon

Possum Dixon

Possum Dixon was an American alternative rock band. Fronted by singer/songwriter/bassist Rob Zabrecky, the group's neo-new wave pop and post punk style first appeared among a string of early independently released 7 inch singles and on their self-titled debut on Interscope Records in 1993...

. They competed (tongue-in-cheek) in a Battle of the Bands that offered a major label deal to the winner, and narrowly lost to Save Ferris

Save Ferris

Save Ferris was a ska punk band formed circa 1995 in Orange County, California. Their name is a reference to the 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off.-History:...

.


Sissy Bar's style varies because they "play whatever they feel like". Joy Ray describes their songs as "cute". One of their songs, "Bellman" featured on 1996 compilation album, Pop American Style. Another, "Trailer Song" featured on the soundtrack of 1999 comedy film But I'm a Cheerleader

But I'm a Cheerleader

But I'm a Cheerleader is a 1999 satirical romantic comedy film directed by Jamie Babbit and written by Brian Wayne Peterson. Natasha Lyonne stars as Megan Bloomfield, an apparently happy heterosexual high school cheerleader...

.

Discography

• Magic Bunny EP (1995) - Love Kit
• Statutory Grape (1996) - Sugar Fix
• Songs for Peeps (1999) - Moo-Tron