Originally published April 2009
A lot of Post-Punk music tended to be on the gloomy side, painted in shades of grey with maybe the occasional splash of blood red. It was the soundtrack to the dismal fag-end of the 1970s played by alienated boys from grim Northern council flats and Anarcho-Marxists living in Notting Hill squats. They all wore drab colours and sounded as if their tea had gone cold, wailing unhappily over dissonant guitars and shuddery beats. It produced some thrilling music but no one ever skipped down the road happily whistling “Death Disco”.
But in 1979, at the height of all this heavy — and very male — gloom and doom, a perky single called “White Mice” appeared on the indie scene by an all-girl group called The Mo-dettes. Packaged in a powder pink sleeve with a romance comic parody on the back. It had a decidedly female and pop vibe and, compared to the wrist-slitting ditties of Joy Division, was bouncy and bright with the heavily-accented vocals of Swiss-born singer Ramona Carlier giving it plenty of sexy ooh la la. There were other all-girl bands around at the time, but The Raincoats and The Slits were more confrontational in attitude and sound while the Mo-dettes seemed quite fun and friendly. They had attitude too but it was in a sweeter wrapper. It certainly brightened up an evening’s John Peel show and was very popular, getting to #1 on the indie chart.
Looking back, its shambling DIY charm is one of the earliest examples I know of what became the “indie pop” sound, particularly the cute/twee end of the spectrum as played by boys in anoraks and girls in polka dots. I don’t know if it was a zeitgeist-y sign that the 70s were ending and we all wanted to lighten up a bit, but hard on the Mo-dettes high heels came the frothy sounds of Dolly Mixture and Girls At Our Best!, and a year later saw the first Postcard single release so maybe there was something in the air. Happy days were here again.
Download: White Mice – Mo-dettes (mp3)
In an interesting bit of trivia I picked up while writing this, Dolly Mixture’s brilliant “How Come You’re Such A Hit With the Boys, Jane?” is supposed to be about Mo-dettes’ bassist Jane Crocker, and not in a nice way either.
Download: How Come You’re Such A Hit With the Boys, Jane? – Dolly Mixture (mp3)
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“How come your a hit with the Boys” was definitely about Jane Crocker and wasn’t exactly complementary!
I must have seen Dolly Mixture (singular) well over a hundred times before the band called it a day and your post neatly sums up the period – Bands such as Dolly Mixture, The Chefs and The Marine Girls alongside the aforementioned Mo-dettes and GaoB! all played songs with pleasant hooks and some knock-out melodies. Unfortunately they were all swimming against the musical tide.
While Dolly Mixture may have looked Twee, never argue with anyone wearing Doc Martins! Ironically the exposure they received with Captain Sensible (“Happy Talk”, “Wot”) resulted in the girls being considered as mere backing singers and effectively killed whatever chance the band had. I’ll console myself with the knowledge that they’re now considered as one of the iconic female bands of the post-punk era… something I already knew over 30 years ago 🙂
If you ever get the chance to see St. Etienne you’ll catch Debsey as the unofficial 4th member of the band – she still has the most amazing vocals. I’d also recommend “The lost Women of Rock Music”by Dr Helen Reddington (aka Helen McCookerybook of The Chefs and Helen and the Horns, who still records today), a retrospective hisstory of some of the female bands of that era.
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I’ve seen Debsey with Saint Et a couple of times. Also loved her band Birdie
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Jane Crocker I believe made some very disparaging /belittling remarks about Dolly Mixture and as you say, “How come you’re such a hit with the boys Jane?” was their revenge. I too spent many a great night at Dingwalls, The Fulham Greyhound and many other London venues seeing them. I loved them to bits. Very untrendy at the time and now practically iconic.
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I thought it was only me who liked Birdie, but “Some Dusty” is just the perfect record for a summer’s evening…
And Spike has got me going all misty-eyed… I’ll add The Moonlight / Starlight clubs to the list of my regular 80s haunts. Used to travel down from Cambridge 2 – 3 times a week to see Dolly Mixture, The Chefs and several other bands who’d reeled me in…
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Didn’t realize Birdie had new(ish) material out – just heard it on 6music (though released well earlier in the year):
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Blimey. Had no idea
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