The Counterforce No. 71

Dolly Mixture, Tresa Leigh, Ani Glass, The Studio System, David Ryder Prangley

December 2003. I’m at the tail end of my first stint living in London and everything about it is fantastic, of course. Made even better by getting to see one of my all-time favourite bands, Saint Etienne, do their Xmas shows in Oxford and London. I take the Oxford Tube - the bus that runs every hour - up to catch them at The Zodiac Club and miss it by one minute after the show, necessitating a 59 minute wait in the bitter cold for the next one to arrive, inspiring my Lullaby Oscillator song It’s Freezing, Please Take Me Back To London. The next night at the Palladium is a much easier journey. And both gigs are as festive as you can imagine. How could they not be, with Bob being born, as the song goes, on Christmas Day? But what really strikes me most about these two shows is backing singer Debsey’s gorgeous vocals. This is my first time seeing her live, the (many) US dates I’ve seen before this always had different backing vocalists. I’m familiar with Birdie, of course, always getting my hands on anything Saint Et-related, and I still consider Laugh one of the best 60s songs not recorded in the 60s. A perfect pop song

And I know Debsey’s voice from the records. But live, I am really impressed, and back in my flat on Lady Margaret Road, Kentish Town, I do some investigating to see if there is anything else I can hear her sing on. I soon come across mention of an early 80s band called Dolly Mixture, and whatever post I read refers to them as ‘girlfriends of The Damned’. I would later find out this isn’t entirely accurate, Rachel would marry Captain Sensible though no such attachments for Debsey and Hester. But at the time I wasn’t to know this, and I’ve loved The Damned since I was 13 so obviously I’m even more intrigued now. Trouble being this is 2003, pre-You Tube, and I’ve never used file sharing sites, so hearing them presented a bit of a problem, even with London’s fantastic record shops. In the coming days, thru sheer persistence, I would find a dude online who had an extensive collection of Damned bootlegs and rarities - many of which I really wanted to hear - including Dolly Mixture’s Demonstration Tapes and Dreamism! EP. I wrote to him with hope in my heart, offering to trade whatever I had in return. He was very kind and although I didn’t have anything of interest to him, he offered to burn me copies and even send them to the States, where I would be heading back to in a few days time

In the January gloom - made even more profound by having finally, after 27 years, found somewhere I loved that felt like home only to be wrenched away from it, across an ocean - a package arrived for me one day at my parents’ house, where I was staying for another month until my apartment was ready back in Boston. I was thrilled to get some mail, and the prospect of new music is always exciting, but nothing could’ve prepared me for what came next. I can still picture the scene exactly, sitting at my father’s computer in the basement - my parents didn’t have Wifi yet - checking my email and throwing the Demonstration Tapes on my boombox to listen to. And pausing, completely in awe of what I was hearing, thinking ‘I love everything about this’

Having grown up surrounded by and loving all my Mom’s Motown and 60s records, and always being a sucker for melody, these songs had all of that, but played in a looser and stripped down guitar/bass/drums format. Will He Kiss Me Tonight really made me sit up and take notice

And by track 9 on Demonstration Tapes, Side Street Walker, I was very much in love. With this group, and with Pop music all over again. For such is the power of truly magnificent bands, that your feelings for them go well beyond their target and radiate out into the wide wide world. Such gorgeous vocals on this

Three minutes thirty seconds is Pop’s magic number. But I’ve always felt if you can do it in two, you should. And Step Close Now does it in one minute fifty-nine. ‘Step close now and I will show you how to make the city turn to gold, Don’t you know the dust in our eyes, all kisses surprise, before it turns back into stone’. Wow. What a perfect description of what magic can do. Of how Pop and the things it sings of enhance our lives and drive back the drear. The musicians here full of confidence and self-possession, the kind born from that heady mixture of teenage invincibility and giving oneself over to Wonder. And I love that middle 8. Rachel’s picked arpeggios the perfect notes to fill that space between vocal lines

Spend Your Wishes, on the other hand, is exactly three minutes thirty. And thus, with all its other charms, the perfect pop song. A cautionary serenade told via the loveliest of melodies, the music moving along in a breezy yet assured procession

Everything And More sings along the same lines. The dangers of waiting, of too much impractical dreaming, for they know if Pop teaches us anything, it’s that dreams can be realized in an instant in the here and now. Both the Dreamism! and more ebullient single version below with its joyously determined bells conjure these moments, complete with Pop’s magic words - ‘oo’ and ‘hey’

Never Let It Go consummates all these things. That intrepid teenage ability to create a whole magnificent world all for themselves (whilst fully aware that sharing that with us won’t take a single bit of it away) and the courage to fully realize that you must ‘take hold of what you’ve found, before the world has turned around’

And there’s so many more. One of my all-time favourite bands, so I am overjoyed that this year Rachel sang on my single, going above and beyond and adding that gorgeous part at the end

And I got to interview Debsey for The Quietus about her most excellent memoir. Now I just need to collaborate with Hester on something ; )

Debsey’s book is really wonderful. I did not want it to end. Along with their fantastic songs, the Dolly Mixture story is one of Pop’s best. A charmed existence that unfortunately never culminated in the commercial success they very much deserved. What other bands can boast of giving The Undertones a tape after a gig that they didn’t even attend, only to moments later be invited to open for them for the rest of the tour? Or be one of the first to sign to Paul Weller’s Respond label? Have U2 open for them twice, and sing the backing on Captain Sensible’s hit cover of Happy Talk?

I’m not sure what Hester is up to these days, but both Rachel and Debsey continue to make music, which I would encourage you to seek out. I had Rachel on the podcast a few years back talking about it

I got to see a BBC documentary about them that was filmed in the 80s but never shown until one night at The Barbican in London in 2005. The footage of them busking Da Doo Ron Ron is one of the most endearing things I’ve ever seen. And there’s Paul Kelly’s Take Three Girls: The Dolly Mixture Story film that I’m hoping will be given a digital release some time. Wonderful stuff

One more song before I move on. Post Dolly Mixture, Debsey and Hester had a six-piece band called Coming Up Roses, whose I Could Have Been Your Girlfriend (If You’d Asked Me To) really should’ve been a hit

I often find that my insomnia will yield musical treasures, and continuing on with teenage loveliness, I recently checked Bluesky around 2 AM to see that someone had posted Tresa Leigh’s gorgeous Until Then

I love this so much, and it’s made even more special by the fact that this small town Georgia teen only ever recorded four songs, two of which are versions of the above, all available at Bandcamp. What a perfect encapsulation of teenage heartbreak

Ani Glass is back with a new album, Phantasmagoria. Ani has one of my favourite voices in Pop (and wrote the second-best Pipettes song, Thank You). Her single from the album, Acwariwm, is fantastic. Will definitely make my Top 5 Songs Of The Year list. That ‘mmm-hmmm’ is lovely. Great video too

My old partner in The Soft Close-Ups, David Shah, is back with a new project, The Studio System. Gorgeous stuff. Elegant pop, as you’d expect. Bash providing lovely arrangements and David’s voice and lyrics are in top form. Pulling at the heartstrings just enough for you to not realize how much you’re being drawn in, and then suddenly smiling at where you are, despite all the longing. My fave is opening track, An Honest Life. Other highlights being the two closing numbers, Milkshake In December and Hand-me-down World. The album is a free download over at Bandcamp so do help yourself. Streaming everywhere too. I love it more every time I listen to it, and I loved it a lot on first hearing. One of the best records of the year

David Ryder Prangley has a new album out, which certainly has one of the best titles I’ve heard in a long time - If You Were To Kiss Me Now All History Would Pour From My Lips. Some great swampy noir-tinged pop like first single, Die Alone. My two faves being the big catchy rock anthem Box Of Dead Lovers and the ultra-T.Rex-y Joanie Loves Davey