Little Hits

The Judy’s — She’s Got the Beat
(from the LP Washarama, Wasted Talent Records 1981)

In the early ’80s, the Judy’s were Texas’ canonical new wave band, and even when I was in high school in Lubbock in the middle of the decade, they still had a devoted cult. Their best-known song, the Jonestown Massacre-themed “Guyana Punch,” was still getting played regularly on KTXT when I moved away, seven years after this album came out. Although by then — and really, even by the time of their second and last album, 1985’s Moo! — the trio’s tightly-wound blend of hiccuppy vocals, needling synths and herky-jerky new wave rhythms, heavily inspired by early Elvis Costello, Talking Heads and the B-52’s, was already starting to sound dated: the Judy’s never really expanded beyond their initial sound the way those other bands did. It also didn’t help that singer-keyboardist David Bean’s nerdy-guy lyrics occasionally curdled into an unseemly misanthropy (and in the case of Washarama’s snide and whiny closing track, “All the Pretty Girls,” a kinda repellent misogyny) that’s aged even less well than topical songs like “Vacation in Tehran.” But at their best, they were a lot of fun. Actually, the Judy’s-related track I’ve always liked best is “Marsha’s Car,” the lead-off song from a David Bean solo record, Modomusic, from 1983. But unfortunately, I’ve only ever had that song on a cassette my friend Michele made me some dozen or so years ago, and the quality would be entirely unsuitable.

–Stewart Mason