MYDOLLS - SPEAK SOFTLY & CARRY A BIG STICK 12" (CIA, 1983)

I'm an expatriate of Houston, Texas, a place not usually recognized for positive things (fattest city in America, murder capital of America, the scene of the infamous Janet Jackson Super Bowl fiasco, etc.), so I feel that it's my duty to let y'all know that some of the best female-fronted post-punk of the early 1980s was coming out of none other than Space City in the form of the amazingly underrated Mydolls. They formed in 1979 & released two singles before 1983's Speak Softy & Carry A Big Stick (on CIA Records, home to the equally mind-meltingly good '80s Houston punk band Really Red), which sounds like it could have easily been a product of the late '70s Rough Trade axis. "Rape of a Culture" suggests the darker moments of the Au Pairs, "As Strange As Mine" brings to mind the stripped-down primitivism of the Raincoats & "A World of Her Own" could be an outtake from the Slits' Cut album. A flawless record; I just wish it were longer (although there's now a hefty double-disc Mydolls CD anthology on Grand Theft Audio - get into it!). Viva le femme punk.

Need any more reason to love them? They also happen to be the band playing in the bar scene between Harry Dean Stanton & Natassja Kinski in Wim Wenders' fantastically great film Paris, Texas. Fuck yeah!

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