Judy Wow

 

Judy Wow - 'Butter Chocolate Sandwich' (Felt Owl)

Judy Wow were a guitar-pop group from Horton-cum Studley , near Oxford, England and one of the leading bands of the twee pop movement, taking their name from the headline of an NME interview with Judy Garland. They supposedly formed when Tabitha Pandora Ftang Ftang Treacle Bunny and Scarlet Rose Coochie Textures, both wearing Violet Elizabeth badges, met at The Douglas Bader Youth club for gifted and talented. Formed in 1986, their original line-up comprised Tabitha Pandora Ftang Ftang Treacle Bunny (vocals, guitar, and photocopied fanzines), her younger brother Rupert Rupert Ftang Ftang Treacle Bunny (drums, and corduroy satchels),Rossetti  Forniscue Gros Gris  (lead guitar and carrier bags), Shelley Wafts (bass and laudanum) and Fanny Cornforth Beatrix Twombly (vocals and school matriarchal vibes). Wafts left early on, to be replaced by Tinki Rinki Pinki Mahogony-Nagy (bass and adolescent distain).

The group made their live debut on March 5, 1986, and later the same year released a flexidisc on cutesy nursery rhyme folk songs label Hamble and two singles simultaneously on the Oxford -based label Weeble, "Sandals and Woolly Liberalism " and "Steaming Turd". Their appearance led to them being labelled as an "anorindie-ak” band, or ‘’those emotionally stunted weirdos from the posh estate’’ or ‘’those young freaks who hang around with that 46 year old woman’’.

Their one and only album, ‘’Butter Chocolate Sandwich’’, released on Felt Owl was less shambolic than the flexi and first two singles (some critics suggested it was over-produced) and went straight to number 92 in the Oxford Exchange and Mart indie charts. A video for the first single ‘’ Squabbling Marxist Factions’’ was made and was played on a Crimewatch reconstruction. The band distanced themselves from anything to do with the programme’s use of the video, saying they were unfairly represented in the women’s prison riot after performing in B Block for ‘Big Morag’s Sex Change Fundraiser’.

 For their second single from the album, the group returned to a song they had first recorded in session for Timmy Mallet’s show on Piccadilly Radio in August 1986, "Wrap Me Up (In the Mouldy Dribbles of Your Love)".  The single bombed at the time, but the album has been steadily gaining in cult status ever since.  In the mid-2000s, London clubs such as ‘Think I’m Going To Eat Worms’ would play extensive chunks of the album much to the joy of the punters as they revolted back into childhood.

The jingle jangle pop indie sensibility and naïve political dogma with which Judy Wow became synonymous began to be applied to bands from further afield than Britain. Sweden has a very unhealthy scene and the direct influence of Judy Wow can be traced to modern day bands like, TORVA GRÖNSAK, PYSSLINGAR and VYSSA SKÖNT.

Due to viral shit this movement continues to hold sway in Europe and America to this day. Judy Wow Scenes developed in the United States, particularly around labels such as Spigot Records and Play Dough Records. Bands of the US Diet Url movement acknowledged a debt to Judy Wow and Scottish band Wee Billy’s Bunnet recognized its influence too.

The inspiration of punk's DIY ethic manifested itself within the grooves of ‘’Butter Chocolate Sandwich’’ along with its roots in Scottish post-punk bands on the Cirrhosis Records label in the early '80s a scene referred to as ‘The Wee Cowering Shambling Beasties’ (Greggor Samas and Irn Bru) and the dominant UK independent band of the mid-'80s The Spygots.

Judy Wow - The Definitive Line up: From Left to Right, Tabitha Pandora Ftang Ftang Treacle Bunny, Fanny Cornforth Beatrix Twombly, Rupert Rupert Ftang Ftang Treacle Bunny, Tinki Rinki Pinki Mahogony-Nagy and Rossetti  Forniscue Gros Gris. (1986)