"By the way, we're not an all-lesbian country band." Drummer Kevin Fitzgerald, who deposits this dadaist bon mot with the nonchalance of ordering a pizza, seems to be stating the obvious. Among the three members of local quintet The Geraldine Fibbers who are present, two are supporting five o'clock shadows and other indications of healthy testosterone levels.

While the country-band label may require further investigation , at least Fitzgerald and double bassist William Tutton can rest easy, knowing their masculinity will never be in question.

Then again, maybe not.

Singer Carla Bozulich, the one not sporting facial fuzz and a Y chromosone, presently spins the tale of a free-lancer from this very publication, who apparently possesses either remarkably poor eyesight or a decidedly odd sense of humor.

" He came to review a show, saw the band, saw the three male members of the band playing and still billed us as an all-lesbian country band," says Bozulich. "I've talked to him several times since then, but he's never retracted it."

Bozulich, a long-time survivor of the L.A. music scene and former member of the dorkerotic act Ethyl Meatplow, manages a smile. "He's just that way," she sighs, with the resignation of a mother whose child has discovered the joys of matches.

Surprisingly, Tutton himself a veteran of such ensembles as Green Jello and Glue, is calmly philosophical about his new gender status. "maybe he just meant that the three men in the band are lesbians trapped in mens' bodies," he suggests helpfully.

Bozulich mulls it over with deadpan consideration. "Well, that's definitely true."

That the Fibbers can make light of such creative journalism and even play gracious hosts to a member of the enemy camp while promoting their debut album, Lost Somewhere between The Earth and My Home (Virgin), might come from the a weary understanding of their karmic destiny. It seems that no matter what is written about the band, it just comes out wrong.

A brief recounting of media misfires quickly expands to encyclopedic proprortions, with the conversational ball bouncing from religion to fashion to music and hitting everything in between. But first things first.

"Let's lay that stupid former-dominatrix shit to rest," Fitzgerald suggests. The others second the motion.

Bozulich has been plagued by persistent rumors that she is some sort of reformed stage S+M whip wrangler, who has abandoned Ethyl Meatplow's "leather act" for downhome country stylings in demure polka-dot dresses.

"Look, there wasn't any leather or rubber or vinyl... or hinges... or whips." Clearly, she is leaving no room for deviant misinterpretation. "That's probably the myth that pisses me off the most, because it goes hand and hand with the myth that people think that all I did in Ethyl Meatplow was strut around and sing a little, when I did a hell of a lot more. I wrote songs. I sampled. I programmed.

But as Richard Gere well knows, the kinkier the myth, the more stubbornly it sticks. : I did an interview with a guy who said, 'So, does Carla ever get out her whip on you guys?'" Fitzgerald shakes his head in wonder. Ultimately it was revealed that the prurient journalist had never seen the band---but heard volumes secondhand. And the dresses? "I have seven or eight polka-dot rayon dresses that I've had for years and worn on many Ethyl Meatplow tours, so it's the same fucking dress, people, OK? I feel like I should publish a photograph or something."

Speaking of dressing up, the perfect accompaniment to Bozulich's inaccurate image as a country singer may be her status as a churchgoing, born-again holy roller. In this one interview, I said sometimes I like to attend church just to see how the other half lives, to soak in the ritual and tradition of it, but they made it sound like I'm a Christian." Her voice, while retaining its throaty whisper, is undeniably firm; "Let's just say I am not. I wish I could claim that kind of blind faith in something, but no".

However, these blunders are small change compared to the misconceptions swirling around the band's music. Although minor errors abound such as the common one of Tutton's double bass being mistaken for a cello even the most determined writer seems confounded by simply trying to define exactly what The Geraldine Fibbers music is.

Fitzgerald is at least clear in stating what it is not. "I just find it odd that people see us as some kind of country band," he says, offering an eclectic list of the players' shared influences, which include Kiss, Neu!, composer Samuel Barber, Supergrass, and The Fall, along with the oft-cited George Jones and other country masters.

Ironically, of all the inaccuracies in the band's mythology, this miscategorization is perhaps the easiest to explain. Two years ago, the Fibbers came together for the sole purpose of twanging with the best of them.

"We were all in other bands at the time, and we just did this to have some fun and play some country songs. We were just kind of fucking around," explains Bozulich.

While this "fucking around" phase was relatively brief, it did produce an EP released by Long Beach indie label Sympathy for the Record Industry, which Fitzgerald describes as "all country and kind of mellow, even our own songs being kind of countryish." However shortly after Bozulich left Ethyl Meatplow and informed the rest of the Fibbers that she needed to "play some more aggressive types of music," the sound that would become consummate Fibbers evolved.

Although the band's maintenance of its original instrumentation which includes Tutton's stand-up bass, Jessy Greene's violin, and Daniel Keenan's lead guitar served to convince critics that the Fibbers would be up to some home-style pickin' and grinnin', the reality is far removed from any facile labeling.

The Fibbers' music is better described as tropical, humid, with dark-hearted poetry and intimations of loss. Wrapped in a languid tangle of lacework-delicate strings and machine-gun drums, the album virtually writhes between genres without ever pulling up a chair and settling in, the eclectic rhythms shifting just beyond the seductive clutch of a Southern gothic undertow.

Always above the fray are Bozulich's gutwrenching vocals, pure emotion shot forth straight from the epicenter, alternately whiskey dry on such tracks as 'Blast Off Baby' and sweet and sour on the epic "Lilybelle," and consistently dead on target.

She could never be dumped in the sugar-sweet girl-singer country bin, where searing rage is reduced to the simmer of heartbreak:

This California native can caterwaul with thc angry young best of neopunk and beyond. She isn't kidding when she admits that she has "a physical need to scream her ass off," although whether it is a struggle toward release or epiphany is hard to know, and hardly matters.

Enriched by lyrics that stand alone as poetry with their carefully etched dream imagery, the Fibbers' songs are strikingly personal and achingly real. But, upon hearing Bozulich declare in "The Small Song" that she is "lost somewhere between the earth and my home," some listeners apparently want an exact location and a road map.

"I don't mind people getting their own interpretations, because the songs are kind of written in a way that leaves interpretation open, and that's done on purpose," she says. "But I do mind journalists deciding what one of the songs is about and being totally wrong and printing that. Not only is the listener not going to get their own idea about the song's meaning, they're going to get the wrong idea."

Often that wrong idea is manufactured from Bozulich's own past, an adolescence marked by the usual troubles plaguing modern youth. Some of the media have latched onto this history she has been vice-free for almost a decade with all the rabid glee one might see in programmers for The Jerry Springer Show.

Although the lyrics at times lightly touch upon such topics as drug use and sexual abuse, they hardly play like the autobiography so many seem to be seeking.

"I feel that the record we made is strong enough to stand on its own, but a lot of the time I'll do an interview to get the word out about our record, only to turn around and read all this expose' bullshit about something that happened to me almost ten years ago," Bozulich says. "I know that people's personal lives are the interesting thing about interviews, but writers go too far. Maybe music journalists should write about the music."

But, since critics and readers alike will probably always gravitate toward the juicy stuff, Bozulich refuses to let misinterpretation interfere with her writing.

"I can't think about what people will think when I'm writing lyrics; it just doesn't work that way. But what I need to do is stop reading interviews. That'll fix it." She speaks softly, her face displaying the kind of dread usually seen in the expressions of students waiting for test scores. "I really need to stop reading this stuff."

With the myths surrounding The Geraldine Fibbers shattered "and that's not 'Geraldine Fibbers', it's 'The Geraldine Fibbers'" emphasizes Bozulich, who also helpfully spells out a string of band, people, and place names that have been mauled in previous publications there remains one question.

What, exactly, is true about the band? Never fear, gossip mongers, there are always a few dirty little secrets to be unearthed. Well, in this case, maybe not dirty or even secret.

Both Fitzgerald and Tutton have logged their time in cheeseball cover bands, Tutton's featuring the prize-winning name of Big Wheelie & the Hubcaps. But neither believes this information constitutes a skeleton in the closet.

"It was my biggest learning experience, musically and personally. I was eighteen years old, four sets a night, six nights a week, playing oldies," says Tutton, who concludes with a flawless Holiday Inn lounge announcer imitation: "Big Wheelie & the Hubcaps, ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together!"

As for Fitzgerald, he feels his experiences at the tender age of fourteen with an Alaskan "heavy-metal disco band" that plowed through Black Sabbath and Rick James covers helped to create the well-rounded musician he is today. Intrigued, Bozulich has a question of her own. "Did you do 'MacArthur Park' and 'Hell Bent for Leather'?"

"No, but we did do 'Brick House'".

Bozulich grins. "I love that song."

OK, so, there aren't any dirty little secrets. At least there's a missing person. "Gary Kail, K-A-I-L," says Bozulich. "He's this person that I lived with when I was sixteen in his mother's house, and we lived in this little tiny bed that we hardly ever left, and all we did was listen to records, except when we went out and played with the Neon Veins. That's V-E-I-N-S. And his record collection to this day is the most amazing record collection I've ever heard. He was the person who pushed me out of the nest. I was really shy, and he encouraged--no,--insisted that I sing, and we formed a band and I sang. I've lost touch with him in the last year, and I can't find him, and I'd love to find him. His birthday is October 19, and right around this time I always get an itch to hear from him."

There's also a mystery, of sorts. As Greene has decided to leave the band under amiable circumstances (she will remain with the Fibbers on tour until a replacement is found), the band is actively looking for someone to fill her boots.

"It's a lot of touring in a van that seems smaller every day," Bozulich volunteers as a job description.

The truth may not be quite as intriguing as the whips and leather of myth, but, ultimately, it is The Geraldine Fibbers' music that has garnered the most important attention. As Fitzgerald points out, "Boy George likes our record. My brother told me that he heard him on a talk show, and he said he liked this L.A. band The Geraldine Fibbers." Though George's brand of eighties gloss pop is a far cry from the Fibbers' raw edges, this erstwhile all-lesbian country band isn't likely to put stock in pigeon-holing. Like Bozulich and Tutton, Fitzgerald relishes the unexpected praise. "I guess we must be doing something right."

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