Description
When sisters Aixa and Nicolette Vilar attended Glendale High School circa 1999, they were just another pair of bored local teens who dreamed
of achieving fame as rock stars. The result was their extraordinary
all-Latina pop-punk band Go Betty Go, an outfit whose classic,
stripped-down '77-style songs quickly established them as a popular
force on the local rock circuit.
With Aixa on drums, Nicolette
on the mic, the powerhouse guitar of Glendale's Betty Cisneros and
bassist Michelle Rangel, Go Betty Go began a Tuesday night residency at
Highland Park's Mr.T's Bowl that regularly packed in a horde of faithful
fans. It was just the beginning.
Within a few short years, Go
Betty Go had built a national reputation, were the subject of extremely
favorable articles in numerous newspapers and magazines, did television
and radio spots, earned a prominent spot on coast-to-coast punk rock
road show the Warped Tour, had placed a song on the soundtrack of a
Fantastic Four video game and, in 2005, released “Nothing is More,”
their second album. Those Go Betty Go gals were making it, big time, and
just as it seemed the band's explosive success was going to take them
to the very height of the business, Nicolette did the unthinkable, right
in the middle of their tour with MxPx: She quit the band.
Seven years later, and almost as abruptly, comes the equally stunning
news that Nicolette and the band are reuniting once again. While Go
Betty Go continued performing, with vocalist Emily Wynne-Hughes and
bassist Phil Buckman, the group has been on informal hiatus for two
years.
It's safe to assume that quite a few local music fans
remember Go Betty Go, and this reunion should be pure pleasure. The
band's creative, passionate, bilingual pop punk is loaded with appeal,
and their reunion to the music scene gives them the chance to pick up
where they left off.