Girlschool

Every obsessive music fan has a handful of artists they tout as unappreciated heroes, overlooked by mainstream tastes. Odds are you’ve met this person, and they’ve told you that the Pop Group is “waaaaaay better than the Clash,” or that Nurse With Wound is a great soundtrack for a Sunday dinner. Willful obscurists irritate me, but even I can be found wagging my finger from a pulpit/soapbox sometimes, so please bear with me. Girlschool were hands down one of the best hard-rock bands of the late ’70s and early ’80s, but thanks to their collective gender and hard-rockin’ ways, they’ve been historically overlooked in favor of the Runaways. This is simply criminal, and if you’ve ever dropped a quarter in a jukebox to play “Cherry Bomb,” you owe it to the universe to check out what you missed, especially since the band is mourning the recent loss of original guitarist Kelly Johnson to spinal cancer.
Mon., Sept. 3, 7 p.m.