Just came across this amazing set of videos on Youtube showcasing the music of one of the fabbest 60' all-female-band - The What Four! Best known for their song "I'm Gonna Destroy That Boy" and as featured on the Ace Records compilation bearing the same name! The vids include interviews with the band members too! 0__0 Fascinating stuff! Plenty of beautiful photographs too.....
One of the most talented female bands I've had the joy to come across have been four fab females from the fair country of Argentina - behold, Las Mosquitas! Comprising of Pupé, Nita, Nené and Diana - their appropriation of traditional Latin rhythms with beat backed with solid playing skills works a treat! Pupé, 20 (at the time of the recording of their album), came from the distinguished Saltena family, loved to cook and was characterised by a melancholy, almost sad persona. She studied classical music from an early age till she dropped Liszt's sonatas for the modern rhythms! Nita, 21, hailed from Buenos Aires. By her parents' will she studies classical music and ballet until she discovered the "twist." However apparently it did not stop her pursuing some late night hobbies - philosophy and painting! Nené, 20, was the shy member of the group. She abandoned her plans to study medicine when at the age of 14 she decided she wanting to don a habit and become a Nun - almost! The notes also urge young bachelors to note that Nené's final hobby...is cleaning! Final member Dina, 18, is the most joyous and playful of the group - preferring too to be pampered and spoiled by her those around her. Hailing from La Rioja - she left school and headed to the capital to carve out a career in the music industry. All girls sing while Nené and Pupé strum guitar, while Nita wields the bass and Dina drums the drums. Here's what the English blurb had to say about the fab foursome ::
There's something international about the music of today. You can hear the blues inflection in that Liverpool sound. The Motown beat is distinctive and distinguished. There are young groups and new sounds in Germany and Australia and Japan. It's happening all over the world these days.And now to the music! You can preview three tracks here.... And download their full sole album below!
The music of today is happening in Argentina, too. There it's a totally new sound. This time it combines a Latin beat with Rock. This is the sound and style of Las Mosquitas, four young an attractive beatle-haired girls who sing an shake their way to fervent performances. They've affected audiences in Spain and Latin-America and other European arenas.
This is the first album of a collection of Las Mosquitas songs. Included is Si Llorar Si Ries, which won first prize at the San Remo festival.
These four girls do it all by themselves. They have the traditional musical combination, 2 guitars, a bass guitar and drums. There is nothing timid or dainty about their approach. These talented females come upon each song with fresh and dramatic accompaniment. They engender a weird and wonderful feeling.
Few people - once they hear Las Mosquitas - fail to be moved by the vitality and warmth of their performances. They've given birth to an intense music. It's most unusual.
Somethign new is coming out of South America these days. It's not traditional Latin tempo. This time it's the sound of Las Mosquitas - four beautiful girls who sing and play a Latin-Rock rhythm that will keep the youth of the world bouncing.
While perhaps not fufilling the destiny as heralded by the label, the group did manage to release another single on ABC Paramount and do some extensive touring nationwide. The exact fate of the group is a mystery, but I'm guessing they parted ways at some point along the way! They were hoever formed in Chicago as early as 1966 and lasted till 1968/69, when the singles were released. Chicago itself did seem to produce it's fair share of female groups, most famously The Daughters of Eve and also The Marie-Antoinettes. More importantly how do they sound?????? Well a bit of a mix really! Lead single "Break It Gently" is fair enough, think mid-tempo girl group soul. However the cover of Patty and The Emblems "Mixed Up Shook Up Girl" is much more successful. Their second single for ABC Paramount is a tale of two stories too! "When You Hold Me Baby," 
written by band member Sheri Hartman, is garage soul crossover with in the lead singer in growling fine form - certainly their best recording. Their flip is more ballad-like and take note of the picture of Mickey Mouse detailed on the sleeve as he reappears lyrically in "Dream With Your Eyes..." - natch!
Another female band that the sixties, in particular the late sixties, gave birth to were a high school quintet that went by the name of The Same. Hailing from the Arlington Heights area in Illinois, they managed to record at least one single at the Valentine Studios in California, the release Sunshine, Flowers and Rain/If You Love Me, Really Love Me. Members included Judy Selman (lead gt.), Debbie Reiss (rhythm gtr.), Vicki Selman (bass gtr.) , Donna Smelak (drums) and Vicki Hubly (lead singer). The group toured several towns in their homestate, and various venues in Chicago, including The New Place, The Crimson Cougar, and the Dark Spot while sharing the bill with bands such as The Cryin' Shames and Michael and the Messengers. Judging 
by the paisley glory of the girls threads they tried to encapsulate that flower power vibe flowing at the time - plus if you download the songs you'll hear how they pull the same thing off with their sound! Other outfits included pink 'poor' sweaters and maroon skirts. A newspaper article from the time explains that the girls were not allowed to pratice during the week, but their parents do not object alltogether as they see it as an overall postive experience for them. While not performing the girls enjoyed ordinary teenage activities including listening to records, going to dances and talking on the phone in-between doing homework.
While not anything spectacular, they're still another fascinating entry in the annals of 60's female bands! As one student at the time comments "I think 'The Same' is groovy, and they show what really good music a group consisting entirely of girls can produce"!
Here whats on offer at Girl Garage Mayhem this time!!
The Reynettes - Bei Mir Mist Du Schon
The fabulous sisters and brother act make a welcome return to these pages - with one ace cover of Bei Mir Mist Du Schon. From their begingings in 1963, Luzviminda, Baby, Rosa, Jeanette and John entertained audiences on TV, stage, radio and nightclubs both in Hong Kong and all over the far East. They were mangaged by their from musician father, Mistra Reyes, and released this, their second EP in 1966.
Gilded Cage - Long Long Road
She Trinty too return in the form of their latter outfit, Gilded Cage! Both sides of this disc are bliss, so expect to hear the flip fairly soon! Of course more info on the group can always be found here Here's a nice cover from the Swedish release
Lada Edmund - Foxy
Lada Edmund, or Lada Edmund Jr to be precise was THE go-go dancer on Hullaballoo - caged and fringe flying! However before she hit the spotlight as a dancer she released this stomper at the tender age of 13. She subsequently released a few more on Decca, including Northern soul fave, The Larue! Check out this groovy vid of her and the rest of the Hullaballoo crew throwing some shapes to the Batman theme!
The Boys N Ivy - Soul Kitchen
The Boys N Ivy hailed from Youngstown, Ohio and were active between 67-68, recording this sole record in the process. Soul Kitchen is the cover of The Doors track, and quite nice it is too!
The Crazy Women - Hey Joe
Another stop by those Nordic rockers, The Crazy Women - as before all you need to know is here!
And so it is the turn of another all-femme-band to grace these pages - and this time it is none other than Balkan beat babes, Sanjalice aka The Dreamers. This compilation compiles their entire known output, i.e three EPs worth of goodies! Hailing from the former Yugoslavia these four girls first banded together around 1966, and went on to release three records in there career as well as touring some of Europe. Band members included Ljiljana Mandic, Slobodanka Miscevic, Ljiljana Jeftic and Snezana Veselinovic. There's a ton more info on this website, but unfort my Serbo-Croat is sadly lacking! 
gs Mi Mladi and Bez Reci, both cover of English language numbers, and both given a thouroughly rocking going over! Other recordings too are various covers, including ones of Happy Together, My Lady and Puppet On a String.
Hell-o once more! Thought I'd actually better post some more music this time round! Just in case you were getting worried......, well I was anyway! And this time we have something quite nice - nice meaning bejesusly good - of course! One of the best all female bands I have come across are a quintet called The Enchanted Forest, who recorded a couple of natch records at the latter end of the 1960's. Information and images on the group are very much elusive - however there are some interesting titbits to dilvulge - mainly on the people surrounding the group! Rumour has it tho' that one of the members had a famous sibling!
The first connections are with the writers and prouducers of the records, mainly one Mort Schman and one Kenny Lynch. Schuman and Lynch struck up a partnership in the mid-60's which led to among others writing the notable hit Sha-La-La-La-Lee for the Small Faces. However they obviously left their best mark with said group of female musicians! The Enchanted Forest released a grand sum of three records, however two feature the same A-side, and so 5 tracks alltogether! Released on both sides of the Atlantic, the recordings feature some great girl group-cum-pysch harmonies and pop delights! Most impressive is the track You're Never Gonna Get My Lovin', also covered by a couple of other artists, notably The Stockingtops who feature on the latest Dream Babes compilation. I would place my monies on saying the Forest's version is the definitive, but I shall always have bias for female bands regardless! The rest of their line reads like this....
You're Never Gonna Get My Loving / Suzanne STATESIDE SS 2080
The Word Is Love / I'm Not That Kind of Girl VARIATIONS 8687
The Word Is Love / Cold Winds- VARIATIONS 50011
Oh yes....I have forgot to mention thus far that the group also worked and backed for the legend that is Tiny Tim , of which footage has exists and is on the saviour of saviours that is YouTube. Here they are playing in the background while Tim glugs out Earth Angel!
Allright here are the goods!
Hey! Another quick post to mention an update of my myspace blog, Girl Garage Mayhem, that features one amazing record at the momento by D'Lynn Crist, definitely one the girl garage greats! From the Mary Weiss-esque despondent vocals to the pounding backing garage beat, and of course the spoken interludes - its pure and sheer genius and written no less by the lady herself. The record itself was issued on a label set up by her father, a local Cincinatti car dealership mogul, round 1967. D'Lynn also released at least one further record - which of course I would love to get my grubby mits on. Hope you enjoy it as much as me! And oh yes the others and preety darn swell too!
Hey! Just a quick note to suggest you check out my blog at the moment which currently has 3 records each by The Debutantes and The Blades at Girl Garage Mayhem! Please do! You'll find out more info there - but here's the background to what I've posted. The Debutantes were an all female band from Detriot - and The Blades were a female fronted garage band from Anderton, South Carolina.
The Debutantes
New Love Today, Love is Strange, Shake a Tail Feather
Having manage to contact someone who had in their possession another record by The Debutantes and get hold of the mp3's, man I was chuffed! And as you can probably see, Jan (the former lead member) sent me some extra pictures - and woah! There are some amazing stories behind this band, which jan will hopefully post on her website when it is up along with masters from the band and videos(!!) - But till then enojy their sound! Here's what Jan sais about their tour of south east Asia
"Yes, girl bands did tour Southeast Asia because the troops loved seeing "round-eyes". That's racist, of course, but what can you tell guys in their teens and twenties? There were also some Philippino girl groups who could do American tunes even tho they spoke little English. It was dangerous there and there were a couple of casualties the powers-that-be tried to keep hush-hush. I remember an Australian group playing at an officers' club. The lead singer stepped to the mic to say goodnight and she was shot and killed -- she was right in the line of fire of an assassin who was aiming at a high-ranking officer. "
"We really got taken advantage of by the Korean booking agent. He took our passports and would not return them 
until he felt we had played enough dates to make it worthwhile for him to have paid our plane fares from Honolulu to Saigon. I wrote to the American Consulate and then-President Nixon but no one would acknowledge our please to come home. While we were there all of our American musical equipment was stolen and we felt it was an inside job by the agent for the black market. He then lent us a bunch of garbage equipment to finish the gig."
The Blades
I'll Shed No Tear, Moving Out, Again
After shedding out a small country's GDP for the first issue from this group from Anderson, South Carolina - I was more than happy when it came and first put needle to vinyl - I''ll Shed No Tear is just an amazing girl garage groover. Plus their second delightfully snotty output Moving Out appears as a repost from back in the day - just in case you missed it! And then there's again - I think'll you agree these are some of the best I'll ever be able to post!
Luckily I came across some history of the group from a member of rival local band The Penetrations.
"We were friendly rivals with The Blades. Anderson and Belton are about 10 miles or so apart. I spent about as much time in Anderson as I did in Belton (in the summer time anyway) helping Dad with his wholesale used car business. The Blades were the home band at the Teens-A-Go-Go club - without a doubt the most successful teen club in Anderson County in those days. I remember then it was in a long, narrow store building in the downtown area. I think most all the guys would agree that their band boasted the best-looking front person of any band around in those days! Her name was Vicki, and she was "easy on the eyes"!
The Penetrations were one of several guest bands at their club, and I think they played at our club as well. As for how often we crossed paths, likely not that many times - because if they were playing at one gig, we usually were playing at another. During early 1967 their lineup consisted of: Vicki (lead vocalist); Gary Fellers (keyboards); Bill Harper (lead guitar); Roger Chasteen (electric bass); and Joey Tiller (drums). There may have been some personnel changes for The Blades along the way, but I have no firsthand knowledge about that. I was not that well acquainted with them on a personal level, although I think some of our other band members were. They had a great '60's sound, that fact I do remember well. "
Merry X-mas and Happy Hogmany!
"Don't waste my time..."
Up my audiophilic sleeve this update, I am proud to pull out the whole catalogue of, perhaps, one of the most definitive all female bands from the sixties - the beautifully talented Daughters of Eve! This band, hailing from the windy city, had a career that spanned from 1965 to '68. In those 3 years the band release four singles, and members included Marsha Tomal (Organ/Rhythm Guitar/Vocals), Debi Pomeroy (Drums), Judy Johnson (Lead Guitar/Vocals), Andee Levin, Marilou Davion and Lori Wax (all on bass). The
full story of these girls can be found on the ever-wonderful institution that is Spectropop - check it out sharpish if you havnae all ready!
The two strongest songs (Don't Waste My Time and Help Me Boy) have allready been compiled on Girls With Guitars and Girls in the Garage, however the original compositions Symphony of My Soul and Social Tragedy are still damn good! Also included in the package are covers of Hey Lover, Stand By Me, He Cried and A Thousand Stars. As an added bonus there's a radio spot promoting a gig! Lovely!
Enjoy!
East Coast Girls who Strummed with Style!
(The Moppets in '66)
(The Moppets with the beloved 'Giraffe')
(Deadly Nightshade in 1974)
(Moppets at Columbia University)
Posts
All Comments
