The Dugites - s/t (1980, Deluxe)

Damn where had this band been my whole life?  Um, try Perth, Australia circa the late '70s/early '80s before I was really paying attention to music.  All legit rationale for ignorance aside, the co-ed Dugites were a better-late-than-never discovery, who I just happened to stumble upon while browsing someone's file list on my fave peer-to-peer, Soulseek.  Lynda Nutters straddled the mic for this ace new-wavey quintet over the course of three records, this being the first. She conveys an ever so faint hint of '60s girl-group kitsch to the Dugites formula, but writ large they struck a delectable merger of synth and power pop.  Blondie are an obvious (and frankly lazy) comparison, but Nutters and her compatriots (including keyboardist Peter Crosbie, whom she was married to for a period) were not tarted up, nor was the band particularly in-your-face, so to speak.  At least for this particular record, the emphasis was on tunes, and immaculately catchy ones at that, chockablock with indelible hooks, buoyancy and charm for kilometers.  "In Your Car," "Goodbye," and "Mama Didn't Warn Me," are all par excellence examples of  The Dugites chosen pop niche for their now bygone era, and the land down under was all the richer for it.  Am really grateful to have encountered this one.  Rock on Vinyl blog provides a more exhaustive diatribe on this record than I have, and are even offering a lossless FLAC rip of it. 

01. In Your Car
02. South Pacific
03. Mama Didn't Warn Me
04. Goodbye
05. Gay Guys
06. 13 Again
07. No God, No Master
08. No One Would Listen
09. Amusing
10. Six Weeks

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