Girls At Our Best - Warm Girls (1980)

It took a a long time to track down any Girls At Our Best!, and I finally heard them via a mixtape sent to me by Andy Roberts (RIP) of Linus in 2003. I think they only released the one album, Pleasure, but they also released an absolutely classic split single in the form of 'Getting Nowhere Fast/Warm Girls'.

'Getting Nowhere Fast' has a great opening, reminiscent of the Pistols 'Pretty Vacant', and the vocals  are an endearing mix of deadpan, sarcasm and wry humour. It was later covered by The Wedding Present.

'Warm Girls' was more sprawly than riff led but equally deadpan and sarcastic. It was later covered by the Aisler's Set.

Although they were from Sheffield, they feel as though they had more in common with a band like The Waitresses than with anything coming out of Sheffield in 1980, and I think it's the vocal delivery as much as anything that makes me think that.

While bands like Dolly Mixture, Mo-dettes and Girls At Our Best! don't seem to have been massively valued at the time, the sonic legacy, whether it be C86, or later twee bands, or bands like Vivian Girls and PINS today, is obvious now.