the anemic boyfriends

“Guys are such creeps/ They’ll even do it with sheep,” “Guys don’t care/ They’ll stick it anywhere,” “Guys are disgusting/ They’re always lusting” = three of the best lines from “Guys Are Not Proud,” the first single from a 1980 post-punk band from Anchorage, Alaska, called the Anemic Boyfriends. The lyrics are delivered with a mocking leer, and then a goofy little melodica hook punch-lines them, sounding exactly how Ashlee Simpson’s embarrassed Saturday Night Live dance looked. So yeah, “Guys Are Not Proud” is an amazing song, apparently a favorite of John Peel’s (for more on that, go here, the only place I could find anything about these gals) and clearly a cut worthy of the post-punk pantheon — the lyrics so coy and fun, the dub aspects so perfectly applied and the dingy recording quality that conceals and enhances so much.

The other three songs are a mixed bag. “Bad Girls in Love” is somewhere between Kiss and the Dead Boys — straight, fucked-up rock — and “Fake ID” is D-level Runaways, but the final track, “Love Attack,” has an absolutely sick little keyboard-melodica hook that’s perfect for sampling/DJ-set mixing. Though it lacks the lyrical panache of “Guys Are Not Proud,” it’s nearly as great. Without a doubt download those two cuts.