Girls At Our Best! - Pleasure

Girls At Our Best! - Pleasure

3CD Deluxe DigiPak (Cherry Red) £20.99
Yellow/Magenta & Turquoise/ Magenta Double Vinyl LP + Pleasure Bag £26.99 (Optic Nerve Records)
(“Pleasure Bag” containing 4 postcards, 2 stickers, A stencil, Repro Tour Poster, Repro promo posters for “Go For Gold” and “Politics/ Its Fashion” singles. Press photo and Press Flyer)

Tracklist:
Double LP / CD Disc One
1 Pleasure
2 Too Big For Your Boots
3 I’m Beautiful Now
4 Waterbed Babies
5 Fun-City Teenagers
6 £600,000
7 Heaven
8 China Blue
9 Fast Boyfriends
10 She Flipped
11 Goodbye To That Jazz Getting Nowhere Fast
12 Warm Girls
13 Politics
14 It’s Fashion
15 Go For Gold
16 I’m Beautiful Now
17 Fast Boyfriends
18 This Train
Bonus CD Tracks
19 China
20 Getting Beautiful Warm
Gold Fast From Nowhere
Richard Skinner 23/02/1981
BBC Session
21 Fast Boyfriends
22 £600,000
23 I'm Beautiful Now
24 Pleasure

Disc Two
Live at Edinburgh University
02/11/1981 Plus Demos
1 Pleasure
2 It’s Fashion
3 I’m Beautiful Now
4 China Blue
5 Heaven
6 Water Bed Babies
7 Politics!
8 Go For Gold
9 She Flipped
10 This Train
11 Getting Nowhere Fast 1
12 Fast Boyfriends
13 Warm Girls
14 Too Big For Your Boots
Demos
15 Attribute (The Butterflies Demo 1978)
16 Boys at Their Best! (Demo 1981)

Disc Three
Live at The Peppermint
Lounge 06/11/1981 Bootleg
1 Pleasure
2 It’s Fashion
3 I’m Beautiful Now
4 China Blue
5 Heaven
6 Waterbed Babies
7 Politics!
8 Go for Gold
9 She’s Flipped
10 This Train
11 Getting Nowhere Fast
12 Fast Boyfriends
13 Warm Girls
Bonus track
14 Girls At Our Best New York
Interview

80 post punk pop indie band GIRLS AT OUR BEST came out of nowhere (Well, Leeds actually) with GETTING NOWHERE FAST and was the NME’s Single Of The Week reaching the Top 10 of the indie chart. The band, fronted by Judy Evans, released four further singles plus the album PLEASURE which reached the UK album charts in 1981, before splitting up two years after that first record.

Girls At Our Best were one of the finest, most life-affirming of a new breed of independent bands who cropped up at the turn of the 80s – long-standing fan John Peel once referred to them as one of the few groups that made the period bearable. Formed in Leeds from the ashes of punk band SOS, the group were fronted by distinctive female vocalist Jude ‘Jo’ Evans, forming a songwriting team with guitarist James Alan and bass player Gerard Swift after they met at art college.

Double LP & CD Disc One All four of their singles for their own Record Records, Rough Trade and Happy Birthday Records are included here as bonus tracks – including the wonderful ‘Getting Nowhere Fast’ (later covered by The Wedding Present), its coruscating b-side ‘Warm Girls’, ‘Politics!’, ‘Go For Gold’ and ‘Fast Boyfriends’

CD Version Disc 2 includes a superb live concert recorded at Edinburgh University on 2/11/81 plus two demos and Disc 3 features a bootleg live recording of their New York Peppermint Lounge gig on 6/11/81 from the ill-fated US tour that led to the band splitting.

Their influence can be seen on innumerable C86/indie bands who came afterwards