THE MARINE GIRLS
Marine Girls were a post-punk group from Hatfield, Hertfordshire. The group was formed in 1980, by two sixth form school friends: Tracey Thorn and Gina Hartman. Originally, Thorn just played guitar and Hartman was the lead vocalist and percussionist. Thorn overcame her shyness and started singing too by the time they started making records. They were later joined by Jane Fox on bass and her younger sister, Alice, on joint vocals and percussion. (More from Wikipedia)
I worked for close to an hour cleaning up one fairly stout album cover (particularly for a European release) that did not look to be in too bad a shape despite having gone through Hurricane Katrina; but I couldn’t get all of the dirt off, and there was no way I could get an album in it once it dried. I still decided to frame it, and it is on my wall today: Lazy Ways, the second and last album by a British band called the Marine Girls, from the early 1980’s. I don’t have another album in my collection quite like it: three talented women singing their own songs, mostly together, whose voices don’t quite mesh, backed by acoustical guitars that seem to be just slightly out of sync – but the album is absolutely captivating. One of the Girls, Tracey Thorn became the female half of one of my very favorite bands, Everything but the Girl; the male half, Ben Watt was the photographer for the album cover.
(May 2010)
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