Music
Nikki Corvette
· singer
Detroit punk and power-pop singer who fronted Nikki and the Corvettes from 1977 to 1981, a rare woman leading a rock band in the city's first punk wave.
- Birth name
- Dominique Lorenz
- Detroit years
- 1950s–1981, 2000s–present
- Field
- Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Dominique Lorenz grew up in Detroit, obsessed with music; at 16 she ran away from home because her mother would not let her go to an MC5 concert. In late 1977 or early 1978 a friend booked her to headline a bar show before she even had a band, and she assembled Nikki and the Corvettes in a few weeks; the group had never rehearsed before that first night. Playing covers and originals she wrote with her former boyfriend Peter James, who had played with the Romantics, the band signed with Bomp! Records and released one album in 1980, now praised as bubblegum punk and “power pop perfection.” After the band split in 1981, the album's 2000 reissue revived interest, and the Donnas namechecked her in “Gimme My Radio.” She returned with Nikki and the Stingrays (Back to Detroit), then moved back to Detroit and formed Gorevette with Amy Gore of the Gore Gore Girls, opening for Blondie in 2010.
Highlights
- Formed Nikki and the Corvettes in Detroit (1977–1978)
- Album Nikki and the Corvettes on Bomp! Records (1980)
- Namechecked in the Donnas' “Gimme My Radio”
- Formed Gorevette with Amy Gore (2009)