Girls just wanna have fun
A lot of Post-punk music tended to be rather 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 or Anarcho-Marxists in communal 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 fairly 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 girly and pop vibe and, compared to the wrist-slitting ditties of Joy Division, was as fluffy as a marshmallow, with a bouncy beat and the heavily-accented vocals of Swiss-born lead singer Ramona Carlier (I've still no idea what she's singing about) 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 while the Mo-dettes seemed quite friendly, the sort of girls who didn't make you feel like a patriarchal oppressor just because you fancied them. 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 and Dr. Marten's. 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 Mixtures' 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 very nice way either. Ooh, cat fight!
Download: How Come You're Such A Hit With the Boys, Jane? - Dolly Mixture (mp3)
6 Comments:
Thanks, I've always loved this song. You wouldn't have Masochistic Opposite, by any chance?
I really liked them, Tonight was my fave.
And for a drummer June had a pretty good story, and success afterwards:
"Miles-Kingston was an art student who studied at the National Film School. She helped Julien Temple make the Sex Pistols' film The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle. In 1979 she then moved in to squat with Kate Korris of the the Slits and Joe Strummer of the the Clash and bought a drum kit from Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols for £40.
Within a few months, Miles-Kingston and Korris had formed The Mo-dettes with two friends, Jane Crockford and Ramona Carlier. The Mo-dettes toured for four years, supporting two-tone ska bands such as Madness and The Specials before breaking up in 1982.
Miles-Kingston went on to play drums with Everything but the Girl, the Fun Boy Three and The Communards.
She still performs as a jazz singer."
I have 'Masochistic Opposite' on vinyl (b-side of this single in fact) but not in digital form at the moment.
i used to play that song for my friend jane as a joke & no, the words are not very nice. ha.
Nice one.
I adored all those female fronted post-punk acts: Au Pairs, Bodysnatchers, Raincoats and Delta 5.
Mo-dettes (NOT Modettes, they weren't Mod revivalists)were actually quite scary. They weren't preachy like the feminazi bands, but neither were they girly simperers. They were genuine feminists in that they expected to get the same from being in a rock band that blokes did- fame sex drugs fun glamour etc. They broke the mould in that sense. In the early 80's post-punk 'girl' bands had to be either miserable dungeree-frumps or dollops.
The Dolly Mixtures were simpering twats & I suspect the Mo-dettes had roughed them up a bit when their paths crossed.
Mo-dettes were holed beneath the water when Ramona left in 1982 because their label wouldn't invest in them, & the produdction on their album had been shite, They limped on for a few months with various other members, and June-the most acomplished musician-doing vocals for a bit, but called it a day later that year.
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