Despite the name, indie quartet Starlight Girls is only half female. Its first proper music video was 100-percent girlie, however, with a buffet of unicorn horns, lollipops and sickeningly cute Lisa Frank leopards.
“That video was a lot of fun,” said singer Christina B. “We shot it in about two hours, so it was a little hectic, but we were on a good sugar high licking on those lollipops.”
The charmingly modest video fits the band’s Bronx aesthetic, where creative friends are always throwing together art openings and last-minute gigs.
“Brooklyn is fun. There’s a lot happening. A lot of our friends are involved with music and the arts, so they just do shows themselves,” she said. “That DIY scene ... is more fun than playing at an established venue.”
That constant expression fuels many of the latest and greatest indie-rock acts, whether Vampire Weekend, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart or Dirty Projectors. It gets hard to catch them all before they blow up and get busy themselves.
“Being in a band, you don’t get to go out and see other bands as much as you might want, unless you run into them at shows,” Christina B. said. “It’s super-cool when someone gets big, and you have that one degree of separation from them.”
Starlight Girls are in the early stages of enjoying similar buzz for their impossibly eclectic style, crafted from a wheelhouse of inspirations ranging from MGMT to Etta James to world music.
“It’s all over the map,” Christina B.
said. “People say we’re ’60s or ’70s and ’20s or ’30s.”
That array of influences has found its way onto a steady stream of stellar singles. The group hopes to record a full-length album in the coming months, but its energy and excitement are now centered on its second national tour, including Monday’s stop at The Conservatory. An EP is due Sunday in a pay-what-you-will format, with a 7-inch single in the works.
“We worked really, really hard on it,” she said. “It turned out unique, and I’m glad we kept working on it until we were totally happy with it.”
