:: Showing at London Barbican June 21st 2005 ::

Caps superb backing singers DOLLY MIXTURE have their own movie showing at the Barbican on June 21st. Amazingly it's never been shown before and is on with 2 or 3 other punk related shorts.... including one presented by the excellent Janet Street Porter containing the Pistols 'disgraceful' (the expletive F*****G ROTTER must be due for a revival surely) Bill Grundy interview.

With the ephemeral nature of pop and the murderous tape-wiping antics of the BBC archive department, it is amazing how much has survived. While most of these documentaries have only been screened once, Dolly Mixtures has never been shown at all. Simon West was working at the BBC when he made his documentary on a teenage girl group called Dolly Mixture. He had seen them at a gig in Acton in May 1981 and told NME he was just amazed by them. They live Dolly Mixture the whole time. They spend 24 hours a day together.

He is clearly besotted as they rehearse in the front room, almost miss seeing themselves on television because their set is so ancient and crackly, and busk to save up for a new one.

Dolly Mixture went on to become a touchstone for the Riot Grrl movement and girl bands beyond, even though they sold next to no records at the time. West also had success across the Atlantic. He has gone on to direct Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Con Air.

The Dolly Mixtures (1983)

"We are the Dolly Mixture gang, we are three girls who play in a band!" chirp the Dolly Mixtures over the show's opening titles. A prototype Elastica, the Mixtures were an all-female three-piece with plums in their mouths and DMs on their feet. This documentary followed them for a year in a bid to highlight the struggles of women in the male-dominated music business. But if the film-maker wanted something political he chose the wrong bunch of girls.

"At first, the Dolly Mixtures got attention for all the wrong reasons," says the voiceover. "The press tried to portray them as dolly birds straight from the pages of the fashion magazines." Some relatively tame photo-shoots are displayed in a bid to suggest sexist exploitation but the girls are having none of it. "Yes, we've heard people say we wore skirts to attract the boys!" they laugh. "Do record company bosses refuse to talk to you because you're musicians ... or because you're women?" asks the frustrated interviewer in a bid to draw out some semblance of a political point. "Erm, probably because we're musicians but ... erm ... I'm not sure," smiles the bassist, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Rik Mayall in The Young Ones. "What is success?" asks the interviewer, trying to get all philosophical. "We just want a lot of people to like us, basically," they reply. As much as the makers of this film would probably have liked to see the Dolly Mixtures story end in tears, it doesn't. Just as they're about to be dropped by their label, Captain Sensible asks them to sing backing vocals on his cover of Happy Talk. It goes to No 1 and the girls join him on Top Of The Pops. Their ambitions are thus fulfilled and the documentary-maker is left wondering why he didn't make a programme about Amazulu instead.

Cap was to be seen ligging at St Ettienne's excellent gig in Brighton the other day, which featured his old comrade Debsey Wykes on 'backing vocals' and tambourine. Debsey was, of course an integral part of Mr Sensibles sensational 80's pop career as part of the band DOLLY MIXTURE who sang on his marvellous hits. Rachel Bor was also in attendance at the gig and so, in the absence of 3rd member Hester and to complete this lovely re-union photo we roped in the smashin' Sarah Cracknell, gawd bless her.

"The jobs hers if she want's it" said Cap later, who thoroughly enjoyed the gig.

Belch!