Eli Burke came to Chicago from Tucson in summer 2003 to study at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, but a friend from Arizona who’d already moved here had other plans. Burke (then going by Liz) had played bass in Tucson with drummer Stephanie Levi in a punk band called 8 Inch Betsy, and once they both lived in Chicago, Levi spent months trying to get Burke to come practice with her. “I eventually caved,” Burke says. “And I’m glad I did, ’cause it was good.”
Galbraith worked on her own material privately, writing poems and lyrics in her bedroom and recording songs for friends. “She’d record them on four-track and give the audiotapes, so there’s only the one copy,” says her friend Steve Albertson, who got to know Galbraith when they were 14. They hit it off while hanging out on a trampoline at a mutual friend’s house, and Galbraith gave him her homemade version of the Beatles’ “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” (which begins with the lyrics “For the benefit of Mr. Kite / There will be a show tonight on trampoline”).
Galbraith was also an invaluable employee. “Honestly, without her I don’t know what I would’ve done, because she was my right hand man, and she would do anything for me and my family,” Brown says. Galbraith helped keep the shop staffed—Albertson and Burke wound up working there thanks to her—and she became its face to the community. Customers would visit to check out her latest Technicolor haircut or what she’d added to her collection of piercings and tattoos. “They would come in to talk to Meghan, see how she was doing and what was going on,” Brown says.
That book, Hairstyles of the Damned, came out in early 2004 through Punk Planet‘s new Akashic Books imprint. The back of Galbraith’s head appears smack in the center of its iconic cover, her bright pink hair leaping out against the green background. The book has gone through 15 printings, selling about 100,000 copies. “I really believe that book cover was hugely responsible for the success of that book,” Meno says. “She happened to have the most perfectly round head, and it just was very aesthetically pleasing.”
The recording of 8 Inch Betsy’s first album, This Time Last Time Every Time, was a slow process, mainly due to its cost—sessions started in 2006 and ran into 2007. That year Galbraith left Beans & Bagels, in part because she wanted a job more amenable to band life—she began working door at Lakeview bar the Long Room. “When she left, the heart of my hearts just sank,” Brown says. He’d hoped to eventually sell Beans & Bagels to Galbraith, but he had to recognize that her dreams lay elsewhere.
