Clip of the Week
By way of full disclosure, I should note that I’m probably about 15 years too old for Death Cab For Cutie’s sweet spot. Ben Gibbard and his band started releasing their brand of angsty indie rock, perfect for awkward teenage boys, in the late 90s, by which time I was just turning the corner on 30. The band captured a vibe that The Cure had mastered a half-generation earlier, updated to incorporate more recent indie influences like Pavement and Built to Spill. But over the subsequent decades, their music has grown increasingly sophisticated and mature, the sort of thing any lover of guitar-based indie rock can enjoy without having to feign being a moody teen hanging in his room after school… (READ ON)
Search the site (see below) to check if an artist/band is already
on Toppermost then feel free to contact us to suggest an addition.
This Week’s Book Choice
Teenage Daydream: We are the Girls Who Play in a Band by Debsey Wykes (New Modern)
In their bright frocks, chunky monkey boots and boyish haircuts, the vivacious postpunk hopefuls Dolly Mixture were hard to miss around town in late-70s Cambridge. I’d occasionally bump into their bassist and frontwoman Debsey Wykes, who lived a couple of doors down from my girlfriend, at gigs and house-parties. Now, almost 50 years on, Debsey is ready to tell her story. And it’s a brilliant, honest, at times hilarious read.
Drawing in part on her well-kept teenage diaries and fan letters, Debsey charts her own musical youth from those first fist-fumbled power chords (as she puts it) in the spring of 1978, to the Dolly Mixture’s eventual split in the early 80s. Along the way she recalls best mates, bookings at London clubs (they were even supported by an embryonic U2 for a couple of gigs), backing Captain Sensible on Top of the Pops, and how the Dollys were briefly championed by the Modfather himself, Paul Weller, eventually signing to his Respond label. Success seemed only a beat away.
Ultimately though, Cambridge’s finest girl group had to settle for airplay on the John Peel show and a devoted cult audience. But in a way that’s the story. Not every band makes it big. Back then there were few all-female bands but namechecked here are the Mo-dettes, who I remember were also terrific live, and the Gymslips, who supported the Dollys on tour. It’s worth noting though that the pioneering Dolly Mixture predated them both. Debsey was in it for all the right reasons and her infectious lo-fi pop still jangles down through the years.
Scooting through the bittersweet Teenage Daydream brings it all back for me. If you have any interest in indie and punk from the 70s and 80s, read this book.
Video links for Been Teen, Happy Talk, Everything And More
Read all our previous book reviews here.
Latest Toppermosts
Search Toppermost
Top Tens galore … Passionate writing … New contributors welcome …
1,164 posts from 162 music fans so far.
‘Where are we going, fellas?
John Lennon
‘To the top, Johnny!
‘Where’s that, fellas?
‘To the toppermost of the poppermost!’
