The Naked Barbies were spawned in June of 1990 when lead singer/guitarist Patty Spiglanin started playing a few semi-acoustic shows in Berkeley with bassist Gretchen Zimmerman. For more than ten years now, they have been charming the pants off of East Bay music lovers.

The Naked Barbies Home Page Gretchen had been the bass player in Patty's previous band, Midnight Radio, which was a fairly successful Bay Area club band from 1987 to 1989. Gretchen and Patty were soon joined by Mike Conner on harmonica, another former Midnight Radioite and Patty's songwriting partner. They used to rehearse on the upper floor of Gretchen's lower Haight Street flat in San Francisco where her roommate had some PA equipment, as well as a decorating sensibility that included a long row of naked Barbie Dolls hanging by their necks from the ceiling. For some reason, Patty decided that the name "Naked Barbie Dolls" would be as good as any for the new band. After about 3 months, the Naked Barbie Dolls added Dan Lashkoff on drums and became a full band. At the time, Dan was also playing in with a group called The Grenvilles, which was led by Jon Garside. Jon and Danny had met in 1985 with the forming of their first band, The Furlongs, which included bass player Evan Eustis. The Furlongs were the first band ever signed by Alias Records. They released one album on Alias in 1988 called 2300 Ward. When The Furlongs disbanded, Evan went on to form the band Ten Four Eleanor and switched from bass to mandolin. The next great personnel change for the Barbies (wait, there's a LOT more) came when Gretchen decided to leave the band to pursue "other interests", and Danny called up Evan to see if he would like to play bass again. Finally, the great Lashkoff/Eustis rhythm section was reunited. Evan also brought along his keyboard player from Ten Four Eleanor, Emily Esner, and she joined the Barbies too. Eventually Emily left the band and both Ten Four Eleanor and The Grenvilles broke up. (This is not a strict chronology here, folks, but generally.) This opened the door for Mike Conner to begin his ever expanding repertoire of instruments by first picking up the accordion and then adding keyboards and for the Barbies to begin their revolving door relationship with a very long line of Lead Guitar Players. Our first was Dan Vickery who recorded with the band on a tape called "Bird Bath" in 1993. Dan left the band after about a year when the Counting Crows asked him to join their band after the release of the "August and Everything After" CD. Charlie Gillingham, the keyboard player for the Crows, had been the keyboard player for Patty's previous band, Midnight Radio. (Does this seem incestuous? Wait, there's more!) Dan was replaced by Hans Raag who played with the Barbies on their first CD "Dancing with Vacuums" in 1994. Dancing with Vacuums was released on a small San Francisco label called Weasel Disc. It was at this time that the Naked Barbie Dolls became just the "Naked Barbies" to avoid any confusion between us and the famous doll with the big nasty legal department that defends her honor. Hans, Weasel Disc and the Barbies all went their separate ways in late 1995 just as the band was planning to record their second CD. The band at this point decided to run the Barbies as a cooperative and pool their gig money to finance the CD themselves instead of actively pursuing the "Big Record Deal" that makes everything right in the Universe. Hans was replaced by Ben Decker on lead guitar (we're up to number three by now). Ben was the brother of Eve Decker who was Patty's partner in Midnight Radio and had also played bass with Patty and Eve in two earlier incarnations of their band from 1985 to 1987. (Did I say this was incestuous or what!) The result was the CD "Tarnished", which was released in 1996. The CD was very well received, but the Barbie guitar curse continued and Ben Decker left the band to devote more time to his primary project, Dizzy Bam. In late 1996, the new guitar player (number four!) was spotted by Patty playing with a band called Resident Aliens. When Patty heard that they had broken up around the same time Ben departed, she contacted Michael Zapruder to see if he might be interested in joining the Barbies. Michael has been with the band since then and we can only hope the lead guitar curse is finally broken! The Naked Barbies have a loyal and enthusiastic following and have played in most of the clubs in the San Francisco Bay Area, including Slims, the Bottom of the Hill, the Paradise Lounge, the Kilowatt and the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, the Sweetwater in Mill Valley and the Starry Plough in Berkeley. In 1996 they were voted Best Americana group by S.F.Weekly. But the best thing about the Barbies is that in spite of everything, they just seem to go on and on! Oh, just to add in a bit of cross-marketing, Mike Conner is also an award winning published author (he was a Nebula Award winner in 1991). His list of books include: Archangel Eye of the Sun Groupmind The Houdini Directive