kinky wiki

kinkygirlsfrombigcities.com founded in 2023 by Jacob Taff. The website remains an active part of the band. Its catalog includes demos, alternate recordings and unreleased songs, with listeners able to favorite tracks and build profiles around their selections. Gig posts preserve photographs and discussion, while the chatroom and radio provide other ways to spend time on the site.

Early recordings and formation, 2018–2021

Initially performing under the name 1$T (@1sttt_), the group became known as Kinky Girls From Big Cities after the title of its demo CD and an early song. Taff adopted Kinky Girls From Big Cities as the band’s name rather than continuing to explain that the two names referred to the same project. Its music circulated through CDs, flexi discs, live performances and downloads on kinkygirlsfrombigcities.com before its first streaming release in 2026. Recordings are written, performed and produced principally by Taff at his home studio, Houndsound, while live performances feature a changing lineup of friends and musicians.

Before forming Kinky Girls From Big Cities, Taff made electronic music under the name Dapurr. The project began during his early teens and high-school years, with remixes and collaborations appearing on SoundCloud. His collaborators included Amindi K. Frost, Teo?, The Hellp and Gracie Abrams. Between 2018 and 2020, Taff worked with Noah Dillon and Chandler Lucy of The Hellp at Houndsound, his Los Angeles recording studio. The sessions for the EP’s Curtis, Lucy and Vol. 1, were all done with Taff at Houndsound. Notable songs including “SSX” and “Tu Tu Neurotic.” His contributions across these recordings included production, engineering, recording, mixing, mastering and backing vocals, depending on the track. He later played electric guitar with The Hellp on selected tour dates in 2023.

During the COVID-19 lockdowns, with fewer opportunities to work with other musicians, he began recording complete songs himself, playing drums, bass and guitar and singing the vocals. These recordings became the basis of Kinky Girls From Big Cities. The first live performance took place in early 2021 in the backroom of a vintage shop operating as an underground music venue during the pandemic.

To perform the recordings live, Taff recruited friends and taught them the songs. Early guitarist Harrison Miller had attended primary school with him in Los Angeles; the two had briefly formed a band at thirteen. Jackson Singleton also joined the live lineup, principally playing bass, although he performed on guitar as well. Singleton appeared in footage filmed at the canyon ruins. He and Taff frequently exchanged clothes, being approximately the same height and build.

Rehearsals initially took place at the home studio. During one rehearsal, police entered and instructed the musicians to stop, although, according to Taff, the officers said they loved what they were hearing.

Early performances were often free and attended by friends. The band played at Haven House, the vintage shop whose backroom became a venue, and arranged shows around holidays including Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day. House shows and police shutdowns became another KGFBC regular setting. At the July House party show, police arrived to disperse the gathering, with a helicopter and full stack of county officers.

Early Releases, 2022

The Kinky Girls From Big Cities demo CD appeared in 2022. Containing approximately fifteen songs, it circulated among friends before the website existed and provided an early introduction to the recordings. Physical copies were intended to give the music a tangible form that listeners could keep and collect.

The first Vinyl Flexi release featured “Filthy On A Sunday” A-side with “Back To The Wall” on the B-side. August 2023 a follow up Vinyl Flexi Disc released with “Vox Martini / What’s That Coming From The Record Machine?”.

Beer kegs were a recurring feature of the shows, reflecting Taff’s preference for them over the canned seltzers common at parties he attended in Los Angeles.

New York performances and the website, 2023–2025

Taff remained responsible for the writing and studio recordings, with the performing group assembled around those songs. As the band began performing outside Los Angeles, its live lineup continued to change according to the city and the musicians available. New York became an important part of the band’s development. The band felt that performances in Brooklyn and Manhattan brought an audience receptive to the band’s appearance and music, more readily than its hometown shows. Gig posts ??? ???, Jackson Walker Lewis of Fcukers can be seen playing guitar for early NY shows. One Brooklyn performance took place in the middle of a halfpipe at approximately three in the morning. (Gig post) Another unusual performance took place inside the Historical Landmark and Japanese garden Yamashiro. (Gig post)

The changing live personnel also presented difficulties. Musicians occasionally became unavailable at short notice, requiring replacements to learn the material on the day of a show. The band’s recordings nevertheless continued to be made principally by Taff at Houndsound.

Kinkygirlsfrombigcities.com history 2023–2025

2023-2025, kinkygirlsfrombigcities.com had become a central location for the growing audience. Inspired by MySpace, SoundCloud and older band forums, the site allowed listeners to hear recordings directly, download songs and return to photographs and accounts of earlier performances. Taff learned to build the website while working on it. In an interview, he described the chatroom as the hardest feature to implement and the radio as the easiest. The band’s name also caused practical problems: some domain and mailing-list providers treated it as an adult-site name. The archive made early recordings and shows accessible beyond the people who had attended them. Songs could be shared without waiting for a formal release campaign, and listeners could follow material as it developed. Several versions of the title song circulated, including an uptempo live version, the “Ragdoll” acoustic version, an earlier acoustic recording and a skiffle arrangement.

Laurel Canyon and the Country Store

Taff’s connection to Laurel Canyon began before the band. He attended elementary school nearby and regularly passed the Country Store while traveling between the Valley and the city. In 2021, he moved into a small house in the canyon, which became a meeting place for the band and its friends. The house hosted performances, video screenings, and house parties. Its rooms filled with old objects, antique brass fittings and candelabras. Lyrics were written on the walls and office printed photos of early website users profiles were taped along the winding staircase walls.

The Canyon Country Store became another regular meeting place. It’s proximity to the house made it a central meeting point for Taff and his friends to meet for coffee or beer on the patio. Store owner Tommy Bina gave the band an early opportunity to sell its records there. KGFBC even rode his VéloSolex through the stores aisles for a video (mark a yen video).

In 2026 the band was gifted the painted “LOVE” picnic table associated with Spike, the artist of the store’s sign. During 2026 Canyon Store renovations Taff was able to home the original liquor-store doors which sat as the store entrance for decades. The New York Times visited KGFBC in their home to photograph this for their published Laurel Canyon article.

Photo of doors in home

The canyon also supplied locations and references for the music and films. The ruins associated with the former Tom Mix cabin became a filming location for “Darling I Want You.” A “MUCK SAVES” inscription on a castle-like property on Lookout Mountain became a recurring phrase among the band’s circle and inspired the title of “The Muck.” Its meaning remained unexplained.

Cinematic work and the 2026 music video releases/art

Early January 2026, Houndsound acquired its first 16mm camera. Taff and Danielle Currie began using 16mm film for the band’s videos, drawing on their interest in French cinema and early psychedelic films. Taff develops the ideas, directs, shoots and edits. Currie is a principal collaborator in cinematography, operating the cameras and cinematography. Curries professional work as a model informed her attention to posing and shot composition, while her interest in analogue photography and darkroom printing extended into the band’s photographs and other work with Taff. The visual material for cover art is made in-house at Houndsound. Artwork is often assembled as collages physically before being scanned, and the film locations are chosen in relation to the songs. Laurel Canyon appears frequently, while Paris, Amsterdam, Utrecht and other European settings provide backdrops for recordings with a stronger 1960s influence.

“Darling I Want You” marked the band’s first streaming release in 2026. Its 16mm video was filmed in Laurel Canyon, and the release was accompanied by a house screening and physical limited one of one merchandising (darlingiwantyou.com). The digital release was followed up with a physical 7-inch Vinyl with “Back To The Wall” as the b-side. Taff and Currie’s 1979 Ford Ranchero became part of the release. Carrying a Kinky Girls From Big Cities decal on its rear window and twice decorated with “Darling I Want You” lettering along its sides.

“Back To The Wall” marked the second streaming release in 2026. It was accompanied by a 16mm psych video shot around Paris exclusively on the two reversal film stocks Ektachrome, and Tri-x. The cover art was shot on Pentax 6x7 then developed and scanned for the final album art. (Feature the b-side cover)

At the Country Store, KGFBC held an official release event, records were displayed on a custom Houndsound stand, with a record player in the back of the Ranchero and a live performance alongside it. Taff gifted a copy of the vinyl to Pamela Des Barres where their conversations included the exact filming location and its historical connection to her memories there with Frank Zappa.

“The Muck (Girl)”

The third digital-single release September 2026. The video is still shooting and should complete October 2026.

Music and recording

Taff writes the lyrics, melodies and arrangements and performs the instruments on the principal recordings. He also engineers, mixes and masters the material at Houndsound. Some sessions have involved additional engineering by Jason Achilles at his downtown Los Angeles studio and Chaz Sexton in Studio 3 at EastWest. Songs develop in different ways. Faster paced material often begins with a drum pattern, while more poetic lyric focused songs begin with words on a page and an acoustic guitar. Lyrical themes center around the recklessness of being out in a big city. The music draws on the artists associated with Laurel Canyon, alongside the Arctic Monkeys, the Libertines and Franz Ferdinand. French psychedelic recordings are another important influence, particularly the three volumes of the French Wizzz compilations that Taff collected on vinyl. The recordings move between acoustic arrangements, skiffle, 1960s-influenced pop and faster guitar music. “The Muck,” “Back To The Wall” and “Darling I Want You” belong to the more overtly 1960s-influenced side of the catalog. That influence extends to the physical releases. KGFBC has described wanting a record found at the Country Store to resemble an older object closely enough that a listener might initially mistake it for a release from the late 1960s. Other songs draw more directly on the guitar music of the early 2000s. For live performances, the band has used Marshall JMP 2104 amplifiers and the Vox AC30, with relatively few pedals. Taff has cited a Boss delay and a TC Electronic tuner as regular parts of the setup, using the amplifiers themselves for much of the gain.

Live lineup and associated projects

Kinky Girls From Big Cities has a consistent songwriter and recording musician in Taff, rather than a permanent lineup shared by every recording and performance. The live band commonly performs as a four-piece, with personnel changing over time and between cities.

Rehearsals later moved to Birdsong Studios in Laurel Canyon. Its owner, Quinn, has also played drums with the band. Earlier and occasional live musicians include Harrison Miller, Jackson Singleton and Jackson Walker Lewis. Houndsound is both the studio name and the independent label under which Kinky Girls From Big Cities operates. Dapurr and 1$T belong to earlier stages of Taff’s work, although the names remain connected through recordings, credits and collaborations. His electronic production with The Hellp and the guitar-based KGFBC recordings developed from the same studio practice.