Gregory Jacobsen - vocals
L. Wyatt - vocals
Alex Perkolup - bass
Jeff Goulet- guitar
Cory Bengtsen - sax
Mike Hagedorn- trombone
Heath Chappell - drums

"Lovely Little Girls...traffics in absurd and jarring contrasts. The group's knotty, intricate songs heave and dance and skitter, sometimes gracefully dexterous and sometimes grotesquely lumpy—they're clearly the work of formidably talented musicians with vivid imaginations. Jacobsen's demented lead vocals flicker from frighteningly histrionic to carefully declamatory, with eruptions of abject mania or borderline obscenity, but behind him a chorus of singers might deliver a pristine, almost angelic chant of "the pain, the horror." "

-Phillip Montoro, Chicago Reader



reviews:

"Contortionist, no wave style music, with dirty, funky horns, and stop start action. Energized, inspired traffic jam. They can get operatic, or wax classic musical, like West Side Story. Different dimensions at work here, say, the rolling, hard hitting drums that back the arch, theatrical singing on one song, with structured, syncopated guitar patterns. The horns border on jazz, with charcoal harmonies, but this is effect, as they support the vocals, which are central, and are more lush and even."
-Gordon Marshal, Boston Flash Notes, 6/28/14

"The music of the Chicago avant-rock oddballs Lovely Little Girls is inspired by the paintings and drawings of artist/vocalist Gregory Jacobsen. It's the sort of artwork that can inspire lyrics like "Inflammation of the harelip," candy-colored grotesques that seem like carnival art intended to scare children with the threat of STDs. These characters are depicted in the band's Frith/Residents-inspired anarchic outbursts, sideshow skronk in [Henry Darger] Vivian Girls colors. The songs come mostly from the pen of Cheer-Accident bassist Alex Perkolup, who translates Jacobsen's deformed portraiture into an equally deranged sonic palette, a no-wave juggling act by turns horrifying and horrified."
-Shaun Brady, Philadelphia City Paper 4/23/13

discography:

Glistening Vivid Splash (SKiN GRAFT Records, 2016)

"Let’s be Frank: It’s hard to miss the classic Zappaesque qualities of this Chicago art-prog ensemble, what with all the demented lyrics and lumpy, complex horn-laced manouevres. But between their frontman’s bluesman-to-operatic range and the band’s modern attack, you can also hear bits of Residents, Beefheart and System of a Down in the DNA. Lovely."
-Darryl Sterdan, Toronto Sun

"Like a welcome nightmare, Glistening Vivid Splash is a twisted symphony of pornographic gore. Comprised of nine members (three of whom are vocalists), Lovely Little Girls sets out to stun its listeners into submission with heavy doses of horns and lyrical flogging. Equal parts jazz, prog, and avant-garde, this horde of provocateurs revels in disturbing the peace. A horrible marvel of an album, Glistening Vivid Splash is kind of like Frankenstein’s monster: it’s proof of man’s capacity for brilliance, but scary as all hell."
-Simone Carter, Razorcake

"Lovely Little Girls, without really ever sounding too obviously like anyone else, push all the right musical buttons – Cardiacs, Dead Kennedys, Dragnet, Flying Luttenbachers, Batman, Danny Elfman, Lalo Schfrin, Rude Mechanicals, the more twisted less irritating moments of Faith No More. Lovely Little Girls are disturbingly good, uniquely so, they’re like all your favourite cartoon villains plotting the takeover of the city before the Joker does. They’re like smelling the cheese, picking that scab just to see, they’re like all your imperfections magnified, that slightly past the sell by date fruit fermenting over there in the bowl – cut the throat, cut the throat  putrid paranoia, wholesome stimulation, they’re muscular legs meticulously cleaned, filth not abound in every corner, squalor alive for sure."
-Sean Worrall, The Organ

Cleaning the Filth From a Delicate Frame (SKiN GRAFT Records, 2012)

"Demented circus music, a totally deranged singer yelping out the most disgusting and outrageous lyrics, and super-tight interlocking instrumental parts make this album an astounding addition to the already impeccable Skin Graft roster. This is the sound of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum after taking a bunch of LSD and hanging out in the bad part of town."
-Phil Plencner plencnerlabs.com/best-of-2012

"Cleaning the Filth from a Delicate Frame is an esoteric kind of party that requires a special ear. Nothing about these seven songs will interest 96% of the party rockers in the reading audience. They are impossibly constructed, mostly, but compositionally, run the gamut of many different genres. The players on this record, seemingly, could play anything. In my ears mind’s eye I hear a history of Chicago music and beyond: jazz, rock, metal, freak, Avant, prog, punk, even reggae, etc. It is a careening carnival boat ride like that fabulous boat ride in Willie Wonka and The Chocolate Factory; all at once, disturbing, thrilling, frightening, repulsive, confusing, passionate, fantastic, and most importantly something you’ve never experienced before. Sure, listen carefully and you can hear, Magma, The Cardiacs, Zappa, Sabbath, Roland Kirk, etc., but that is what always impresses me with projects like this. It is just a concentrated effort by serious and talented artists to create and have fun. Now, what one considers fun is what is at question here. That is what will cut the chaff from the grain, because this music is for musicians. Elitist as it may sound, you are just going to have to be coming from a musical place to listen to this record front to back because it is challenging music that is undoubtedly breaking new ground in arrangement and difficulty."
-Dario P, Decayke blog

Dilapidated Head & Torso Aggregations (self-released, 2008)

We now have a theatrical, RIO-inspired Zolo group in the USA. The Lovely Little Girls meet the 20-year cycle head-on with a fantastically Euro-styled art rock cabaret that wouldn’t be out of place on Rec-Rec. Their sound and their playing are spot on.
-Zoloscope blog

Glamorous Piles & Puffy Saddlebags (Apop Records, 2006)

To look at one of Gregory Jacobsen's paintings is to view a world of oozing fluid, hilarious meat, and demented animals. Set that vision to music and you get Lovely Little Girls, the band Jacobsen fronts. LLG walks a path of which the foundation is dada, psychedelics, and Beefheart, one that has been trod by Butthole Surfers, Tragic Mulatto, and Idiot Flesh. Swirling sickness of songs are propelled by Eleanor Balson, a drummer whose style creates more than a beat while maintaining a beat. There is an insight that female drummers seem to have (think Katherina Ex or Mary Duchess of Saigon) that leads them to a place where the drum steps outside of 1-2-3-4 but not into Mathland. Also a standout is Alex Perkolup, who plays a guitar that razors noise into piercing fragments, a crack horn section, and Gregory J., singing lines like "Pork chop sloshed tight in the pants/bottom smack chest chop soft pork pants" in a style that could be called Jack Brewer directed by Roger Corman. At twenty-minutes Glamorous Piles... is as exactly as long as it should be. Those who can slither into this filth and feel at home will be very much rewarded.
-Scott Soriano, Z-GUN Magazine

What makes Lovely Little Girls quite unique is the care for complex arrangements (layered vocals, refrains, etc.), creating quirky prog-no wave hybrids with even some Eastern influence. "Wretched Substitute" (great title!!) and "Lady Shoes Remain Attached" are impressive psychodramas of melodic detours and anguished explosions, full of theatrical uneasiness. The perfect visual counterpart is offered by vocalist Gregory Jacobsen's paintings and drawings, a tormented underworld mixing "Alice in Wonderland", Dix, Wolverton and various sexual disturbance case studies
-Chain DLK

split 7" with Panicsville (Nihilist Records, 2004)

The track done by Lovely Little Girls is...called ‘All The Children Of The World Born Up Dead on The Heaving’. And if the title doesn’t crack you up as a standalone, then you seriously have to hear the music that is hiding behind it. It’s like a happy psychotic version of DEVO laughing their asses off of being released from Michael Jackson’s favorite charity ‘children’. It’s a real fun track with a whacked sense of humor that would be a great anthem for evil minded moms, witches that appear in stories like, and other people who are regularly annoyed by childlike spirits and claim back their childhood to become themselves giggling laughing sarcastic fun loving elders. It’s good fun!
-Yeah I Know It Sucks blog