Marine Girls - further recommends?

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I've become really smitten with the Marine Girls, and for virtues that (besides the great songs, of course) I don't usually respond to or seek out: the tenuous, proudly "amateurish" feel; the very simple and straightforward, quietly strummed music with gently burbling basslines and boy/girl lyrics - these are all qualities I associate with '90s indie-pop bands that I don't much care for. The whole *sound* is so Olympia - especially a song like "Dishonesty," with its punky structure and silly-basic lyrics, done up all twee. I didn't know they made music like this before the early '90s. (I know Unrest covered "Love to Know" [in a fashion that didn't really preserve its charm], it's all famous, and I'm the last to know, etc. - but man, what an incredible song.)

So what else am I missing out on in this vein? Are there other '80s bands like this? (Or great '90s indie-pop bands I may have overlooked?)

Of course I'm going to check out the early EBTG albums, seeing what a great songwriter Tracey Thorne seems to be.

― Sam J. (samjeff), Monday, 23 June 2003 16:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh Ok, Shop Assistants, the last Aislers Set album. um, there are tons more.

― scott seward, Monday, 23 June 2003 16:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Dolly fuckin Mixture!!!!

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 00:27 (twenty-two years ago)

All Girl Summer Fun Band

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 00:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Look Blue Go Purple

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 00:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Confetti/ Fat Tulips

― keith (keithmcl), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 01:24 (twenty-two years ago)

i've bought so many records from Confetti/FT dude on eBay it's not funny

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 01:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Thanks! (These are obscure! Are Dolly Mixture and Confetti on CD? Not that it'll stop me if they aren't...)

― Sam J. (samjeff), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 02:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Confetti's "Retrospective" is still in print and cheap from the Vinyl Japan webstore. Good luck finding any DM in stores but they're easy to find on P2P.

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 02:27 (twenty-two years ago)

confetti even cover josef k. would be goods would be a good fit too, especially 'the camera loves me' lp although the latest album was pretty great too.

― keith (keithmcl), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 02:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Hooray I hear the Would Be Goods are recording new material and thinking about playing live some more. I don't think the Shop Assistants sound like the Marine Girls at all but they have a similar kind of feeling about them, in their (few) best moments. I think a Fat Tulips recommendation is a bad recommendation under any circumstances, sorry. I could never stand that infantilism thing.

Years ago before the C86 jangle thing people used to talk about the Cherry Red sound, by which I suppose they meant the whole Marine Girls / EBTG / TThorn / BWatt / Grab Grab The Haddock axis, alongside things like Jane and that first Fantastic Something single (SEARCH!). There was quite a lot fo this stuff, and there was even a parody record, "Sharon's Signed To Cherry Red" by the Kamikaze Pilots. I haven't heard that for years, I'd like to.

You might try some of the Pines stuff: some of that has, I think, the kind of clear-eyed playfulness and the plain-to-see pleasure in songwriting of the Marine Girls.

I was introduced to a former Marine Girl in Essex a few months ago. I was speechless.

― Tim (Tim), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 08:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Tiger Trap. In fact, utterly anything featuring Rose Melberg.

The Shaggs that I don't hate. ;-)

― kate (kate), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 09:06 (twenty-two years ago)

what about young marble giants?

― joan vich (joan vich), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 11:13 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah YOUNG! MARBLE! GIANTS! (themarine girls stole a idea or two on their debut from YMG) and well JANE; GRAB GRAB THE HADDOCK
and TRIXIES BIG RED MOTORBIKE (can anybody sell me their singles?????)

Tim - I would like to hear those Kamikaze Pilots / Kamikaze Sex Pilots singles!!!

― Jens (brighter), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 11:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Jens, me too: it's been ages (I heard "SSTCR" on the radio a few times, and I think I saw a copy once but that must have been 20 ytears ago).

― Tim (Tim), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 11:43 (twenty-two years ago)

on this ymg/marine girls wavelength, i think many of you would enjoy spanish band Aventuras de Kirlian (le mans' previous incarnation).
their only album is hard to find now, but elefant records released a compilation with their demos last year: lovely 1 minute songs played by intelligent and sensitive teenagers.

― joan vich (joan vich), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 11:57 (twenty-two years ago)

try the Wendy & Bonnie reissue as well. late 60's teen girl duo that is sad and winsome and almost as DIY sounding as early cherry red(especially the demos included on the reissue).

― scott seward, Tuesday, 24 June 2003 12:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Young Marble Giants!!!!!!
(Stuart Moxham [?] from YMG produced the 2nd+superior MG album)

― Bubba, Tuesday, 24 June 2003 13:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Not quite as sonically related, but: Girls at Our Best!

― nabisco (nabisco), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 16:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Dolly Mixture are sort of disappointing once you get past the excitement of having found the record.

How about that one Gist album, Embrace the Herd? ...aka Stuart Moxham's first project after YMG. It's hit and miss but the hits are wonderful, like "Public Girls."

The solo Tracey Thorn album is good, but much more conventional than Marine Girls.

The Shop Assistants are the best, well, at their best they are the best. Look for the C86 cassette/LP with "It's up to You"--my fave song of theirs outside of "Somewhere in China."

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 18:14 (twenty-two years ago)

for some reason this thread made me go listen to hetch hetchy and the au pairs. anyone ever hear the minneapolis band Technique Niquee? their album from 85/86 is pretty cool in a diy/raincoaty/horn&violin&guitar kinda way. The song Frattered by them is cool if you ever find the album(maybe a download somewhere).

― scott seward, Tuesday, 24 June 2003 20:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Dolly Mixture are sort of disappointing once you get past the excitement of having found the record.

bah humbug

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 22:17 (twenty-two years ago)

dolly mixture diappointing? never! the fat tulips started off adolescent(weren't they adolescents then?) and got less so as they progressed, how could you not love the buzzy guitars? if everyone is recomemending shop assistant then you may as well get the second aislers set album too as it steals quite a bit from them.

― keith (keithmcl), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 22:53 (twenty-two years ago)

i just go around agreeing with jim where i can.

― keith (keithmcl), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 22:54 (twenty-two years ago)

and vice versa

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 23:01 (twenty-two years ago)

so after dolly mixture you should get hold of the two birdie albums. more dusty springfield than marine girls, but great melancholic pop whatsoever.

― joan vich (joan vich), Wednesday, 25 June 2003 07:24 (twenty-two years ago)

yawn.

― amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 25 June 2003 07:25 (twenty-two years ago)

you don't like birdie? they're not a party band, but their music is beautiful.

― joan vich (joan vich), Wednesday, 25 June 2003 07:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Birdie are the most boring band I've ever heard in my life. Imagine if you took the faded 60s vibe that St.Etienne mix effortlessly with technology, and instead suck all the life out of it, reducing pastel colours to mere two-dimensional shadeow. They are slickness without style.

― kate (kate), Wednesday, 25 June 2003 07:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Wendy & Bonnie reissue as well

You're right - those demos sound SO like the first solo TT album, it's uncanny...as does does I Realised You. Hehehe - here comes the plug - we covered it acutally & got a mention in the reissue sleevenotes.

The Feminine Complex are worth checking out - although that's more Wendy & Bonnie than Marine Girls. Try early Virginia Astley too - great stuff!

― Jez (Jez), Wednesday, 25 June 2003 10:08 (twenty-two years ago)

birdie are slickness without style and you like spiritualized? if you don't like pop, just say you don't like pop. the birdie albums are gorgeous, you probably think a sunset is boring.

anyway, i'll second confetti (they even have a song called "whatever happened to alice and jane?") since they're much easier to find than dolly mixture and i never thought dolly mixture managed that bypassed english seaside town kind of boredom that made the marine girls so great. of course they probably weren't going for that, any of them, but confetti make it flicker into life (although perhaps it's cheating to include seagull noises to achieve said effect) and birdie, birdie a thousand times birdie.

hi there keith!

― fortunate hazel (f. hazel), Wednesday, 25 June 2003 16:44 (twenty-two years ago)

You are wrong. I love pop. I just don't like tepid, lukewarm, flat pop.

― kate (kate), Thursday, 26 June 2003 09:32 (twenty-two years ago)

it's sophisticated not tepid.

― keith (keithmcl), Thursday, 26 June 2003 22:38 (twenty-two years ago)

The above recommendations seconded. I'd also list the Receptionists (comp CD on Ba Da Bing) as '90s inheritors of the throne.

― mike a (mike a), Friday, 27 June 2003 00:04 (twenty-two years ago)

birdie has the affect of 'sophistication' w/o actually being particularly sophisticated. (much like some el records stuff, although they have the compensation of humor.) likewise d.m. has the affect of girl-group ebullience without actually being played/written/recorded well enough to be particular compelling. to me.

― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 27 June 2003 01:01 (twenty-two years ago)

sucks to be you

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Friday, 27 June 2003 01:04 (twenty-two years ago)

so what band actually is sophisticated and doesn't just have the, uh, effect of sophistication? just for comparison's sake. because sophistication is not as sophistication does, there is seeming sophistication and being sophistication. birdie, perhaps, are merely sophomoric and indeed to masonic boom even soporific. but not sophisticated, merely a token sop to more complicated pop. moose! the answer has to be moose, realized sophistication personified. but they don't sound like the marine girls.

― fortunate hazel (f. hazel), Friday, 27 June 2003 02:17 (twenty-two years ago)

anything with horns and strings = sophistication

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Friday, 27 June 2003 02:18 (twenty-two years ago)

um i dunno f.h.: dusty springfield, pulp.

― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 27 June 2003 03:01 (twenty-two years ago)

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