Little Girls - Interview

by John Clarkson

published: 4 / 5 / 2024

Caron and Michele Maso from early 1980's Los Angeles satirical group The Little Girls speak to John Clarkson about their new compilation 'Valley Girls'.

Article

The Little Girls were a satirical and irreverent group from Los Angeles, who combined strong harmonies with a powerful pop sensibility and a flair for melody. Formed in the early 1980s by two sisters Caron Maso (guitar, vocals) and Michele Maso (vocals), The Little Girls had local hits with ‘Earthquake Song’ and ‘How to Pick Up Girls’ and also released a mini-album, ‘Thank Heaven’. They split up in 1985 after their three track vinyl demo Ep, ‘The Clear Album’, despite featuring Nigel Harrison and Clem Burke from Blondie, failed to win them a deal. Now an Australian label Playback Records has released ‘Valley Girls’, a 25-track compilation album from The Little Girls, which features all their original recordings as well as several previously unreleased demos. Caron and Michele Maso elected to speak to Pennyblackmusic together by email, and we spoke to them about ‘Valley Girls’ and their short but sparkling career with The Little Girls. PB: You were brought up in Colorado but moved to Los Angeles in the late 1970s. Why did you both decide to move there? Little Girls: We were raised in Los Angeles and were still living with our parents when they moved to Colorado in 1972. The family moved back to Los Angeles in 1975. PB: Los Angeles was a fervent time for music in the 1980s, with both the rise of the Paisley Underground movement and the hardcore scene. Yet you were doing something different. Do you have much memory of either of those movements? Little Girls: Yes, of course we are familiar with those movements. The punk scene was really happening. A lot of punk bands were playing around LA. Also, a lot of new artistic music was coming out like Devo and X that you could go to the LA clubs and see. There was also a power pop punk movement with The Go Gos, etc which was more like what we were doing. PB: You played the legendary Troubadour Club several times, and met your guitarist Kip Brown there. What do you recall about that club? Little Girls: It was a lot of fun! It was always a good crowd and everyone was into us. Also, how cool it was to play where Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins and so many other greats had played. My parents used to go to concerts there and we were super psyched to play there. And legendary that we met Kip there! PB: Little Girls have sometimes been dismissed as a novelty act, which seems unfair. You were writing great tunes, and while you used a lot of comedy and humour you often made insightful comment about the world at large. Is that something which annoys you? Little Girls: We were funny and silly on stage but also clever. But we had a lot of good, melodic and powerful songs and we paid attention to what was happening around us in the world and expressed it from our point of view. It would come out as satire. We definitely felt we weren't taken seriously and we thought the quality of the songs and performance was very good. We were pretty positive about our chances but we kept being passed over so we did feel it was unfair at the time. PB: What do you see your main influence as? You can hear elements 60's girl groups, bands like The Monkees and The Dave Clark Five and surf and punk groups in your music. Little Girls: Our main influences were The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Also the Who. A lot of early 60's girl bands like The Ronettes. We loved writing love songs with lots of melody and harmony and scratchy guitars. Those were our influences, and with the addition of Kip Brown he brought in the Beach Boys elements. PB: 'Valley Song' is pretty poignant, telling the tale of someone who never leaves the San Fernando Valley. What inspired that song? . Little Girls: We both lived at home with our mom and the song comes from the eyes of two young girls living in the suburbs ready to explore the greater world. The hook line in that song is, "Well someday I'll get away but for now I'm living in the Valley". So the inspiration was knowing we were different from a lot of the people we grew up with "in the valley" and how we were going to get out of there. PB: Is it true that Clem Burke and Nigel Harrison played on some of your recordings? Little Girls: Toby Mamis, our manager, knew the Blondie folks from working with them earlier. He asked them to play on a three song demo for us after ‘Thank Heaven’ was released. Those sessions resulted in ‘The Clear Albu’ which was printed on clear vinyl and circulated as a demo to record companies but for reasons Iwecan't explain was never picked up because it was very good. It contained the three songs, ‘Really Wanna Be With You’, ‘Any Way You Want It’ (Dave Clark Five cover) and ‘Not A Perfect World’. Clem Burke and Nigel Harrison are the rhythm section on those three tunes. We recorded this at Paramount Studios with Tim Boyle (note: ‘The Clear Album’ was eventually issued on vinyl in 2008 by RAMO Records. All three tracks are included on the CD anthology ‘Valley Songs’). PB: Why did you split up in 1985 and get back together in 2004? Little Girls: Everyone was very tired of the band after so little success and changing band members and we broke up. In 2004 we did a fundraiser for a local community theatre, The Santa Monica Playhouse as The Little Girls and it sold out and we ended up getting back together to record another album (“Today…..and Yesterday”) and went on a tour from Los Angeles to Vancouver BC. In 2012 we opened for Ronnie Spector and played with a bunch of female-fronted bands in Minneapolis/St Paul called “The Girls Got Rhythm Festival”. PB: Who were the Hollyberries, which also featured both of you? Little Girls: Kip Brown our guitarist created the Hollyberries which was a very Beach Boys influenced project featuring Christmas songs in the Beach Boys vein and Kip asked us to sing on it. PB: How did the Australian label Playback Records become involved with you? Little Girls: I think they contacted me through Kip and asked if we would be interested in doing a sort of Little Girls anthology with some of the Hollyberries songs included and we all loved the idea and are thankful for the recognition! PB: The 'Valley Songs' album continues many unreleased tracks. What are you most glad to see out after all this time? Little Girls: ‘The Valley Song’ because it truly explains how we felt at that time , “Second Thoughts”, because it was so pretty and powerful and we thought we had a hit with that one. Also, the original version of ‘Left Without A Real Kiss”. This is a great rockabilly song with great words and harmonies. It should never have been released the way it was on the ‘Thank Heaven’ album. The original version portrays the happiness and sweetness of the song. There's lots more not yet released and we are thinking of recording more this summer! PB: Thank you.