Young and Fast

In the early eighties, Gayle Welch, an ambitious thirteen year old girl from Kaitaia, New Zealand, wrote a song called "Day of Age," and recorded it in Mandrell Recording Studios in Auckland, New Zealand. The resulting tape found its way to the desk of Kim Fowley. He played the Welch tape for colleague and Los Angeles deejay legend Rodney Bingenheimer who played the song on his show on radio KROQ and included it on his annual compilation of his most-liked music for the year. It didn't take long before Fowley, who still owned the "Runaways" trademark, was putting together a new "Runaways" band built around Gayle Welch. Missy Bonilla was recruited from the typing pool of CBS Records, Denise Pryor came from Compton and Kathrine Dombrowski ("Kathy DiAmber") was also added. Young and Fast appeared on the Allegience label that caused a great degree of controversy due to the fact that the band that had recorded the album contained none of the original band members!