Griff says; Have a real cool time with The Refrigerator Cuties

Well, it's no secret that the writers on this blog are big fans of an all-girl indie-pop trio. What is perhaps a little less well known is that Gordon and I, when we're not listening to the sort of obscure and 'difficult' music that marks us out as serious musos, are also huge fans of the 60's girl-group sound. Yep, it's not all John Coltrane and John Cage round here you know; sometimes the Streetlamp dansette bounces and rings to the sweet, mono-pop grooves of The Angels, The Chiffons or (sigh) The Paris Sisters. Which is why I was so pleased to come across today's band, The Refrigerator Cuties from Zaporozhye, Ukraine (pictured).

The band combine the classic girl-group pop template, replete with sugary harmonies and 'shoo-bop' backing vocals, with a modern indie-rock style to rather pleasing effect. The band members are Nabokova Sanya -vocals, guitar, lyrics and music; Alina Orlova - drums; Danya Nadtochiy - bass-guitar.







The trio have recently released a cover of the song 'Shame', which has a very esoteric history. Ostensibly the song was written by notorious trouser-splitter PJ Proby, recorded by Jeff Peters (possibly a Proby pseudonym) in 1962 and released as a promotional single by the completely unknown 'Danstone Records'. How the girls ever came to hear of this song, perhaps we'll never know. I'll ask our resident 60's music expert Gordon for his take on this. Anyway, leaving that aside, the song is a nice slice of 60's girl-group style retro-pop set to a rather unusual tango beat. Have a listen:

The Refrigerator Cuties - Shame (Single 2012) by therces

Unfortunately, the girls haven't made this song available as a free digital download. However, almost all of their back catalogue is available in this way. You can pick up songs from their offical website 'here', or from their facebook page, or from their last.fm page.


Here's a video of the band performing the equally poptastic 'Graduation Time', released in 2010. This song can be freely downloaded from their website.




Griff
xx