Catfight! fever

Though their new album is titled Frustrated, the three members of Catfight! take everything in stride — with a good natured shrug and an "it's only rock 'n' roll" attitude.

"We are just three girls trying to rock," says bassist/vocalist Katy Graves. "That's our main goal." Together now for over five years, the band has never let anything get them down or stand in their way. "It's still fun, and that's the amazing and main thing," she continues. "What we have always tried to do was to not let getting signed keep us from doing what we do best: rockin'."

Contracts and label negotiations are very low on Catfight's priority list, agrees guitarist/vocalist Jennifer Kraft. "We aren't against all that, we just don't let it bother us one way or the other." This attitude has given the trio freedom to create some of the most raw, traditional garage-punk around. The songs on Frustrated bristle with the edgy mono fidelity of the best '60s and '70s three-chord crunchers. Ramones-style riffing and songs of bad boys, cars and gossip are the stuff of Catfight's concerns. "We aren't out to change the world or anything," laughs Kraft.

If there's one thing the trio wish they could change, though, it would have been Frustrated's much-delayed release. The album recently became available, but not before it was mistakenly announced too far in advance and prematurely touted at a "so-called CD-release party."

"Now that," says drummer Ann Ciovacco, "was frustrating."