The Doll

The Doll were something of a rarity in Punk at the time – the band were lead by Baby Doll (aka Marion Valentino but real name Marion Sauva) who not only sang and played the guitar but wrote all the songs.
The rest of the band as the picture shows, were suitably punked up with suitably punkier stage names. Adonis Yianni: keyboards, Christos Yianni (aka Whizz Kid): bass guitar and Mario Watts (aka Lancer) drums.
In the New Music The Sound Of The Streets magazine from late 77/early 78 they were described as
No prizes for guessing that the first feature you’d notice about this group in the shape of their leading light and guitarist Baby Doll. She’s been working on the idea for a band for a long time and its only recently that the constant shift around of personnel seems to have settled down to a working unit…
The band got their first publicity and break by featuring on Beggar’s Banquet excellent Streets compilation punk album and associated gigs with their punky organ driven song Trash. Chainsaw fanzine managed to mention them 3 times in three different features in issue 4 of Jan Feb 1978. They rated the song 5/5.

The Doll are a real classy hunk of pink punk…This is a cosmetic masterpiece, on a turgid little love affair she won’t repeat in a hurry. No passion, but underneath there is feeling. A hot number. Kid Charlemagne
But reviewed the band live at the 100 Club less enthusiastically.
The Doll were on next. Their track “Trash” on the Streets album was great. They played quite a good set tonight but they were a bit disappointing. – they could have been so much better. “Trash” was easily the best song they did – what they need is a few more months. The singer was a very pretty girl but somehoiw the band didn’t have a lot of character.
New Music also mention an aborted single but in January 1978 Beggars Banquet release their debut single Don’t Tango On My Heart with Trash on the b side that receives moderate reviews.

For the next year though it’s pretty low key with just one gig with The Slits at Acklam Hall at the back end of the year which is reviewed negatively in Ripped & Torn #14 October by Tony D. He does however love the single in a review two issues later in January.
The Doll were an XTC type bunch, improved from the last time I saw them (at the Vortex, ah memories) when they were unlistenable. The girl singer still plays this leopard skin painted guitar and it’s still the best thing about them (although the guitarists blue lurex jacket came close).
So all the all the more surprising that a new single Desire Me is released and with a limited edition version double single full colour gatefold cover with the centre featuring a full length picture of Marion. Quite why Beggars took this punt is unknown, but Blondie had started to achieve massive chart success and poppier new wave bands with keyboards had started to become popular like XTC, Elvis Costello & Squeeze. The Doll’s new image and sound suited this perfectly and likely Beggars saw Marion as the British answer to Blondie. Not only that but the US was opening up for poppier new wave artists who were less threatening than Punk rock.

Beggars’s punt paid off and the single charted not least because it’s a classic piece of pop new wave. The single was released in January 1979 and made it to #27. It also secured the band two appearances on the most watched prime time TV chart programme Top Of The Pops.
1979 was a busy year for the band. If their Wiki entry is to be believed, then post Desire Me the band had a major change and lost the drummer and keyboardist. Valentine and Christos Yianni then recruited a new line-up of Denis Haines (keyboards), Jamie West-Oram (lead guitar), and Paul Turner (drums).
It’s highly likely these were session players, or at least Jamie was, as in an interview about his past bands before The Fixx he doesn’t mention The Doll but refers to session work and joining the Philip Rambow band in 1979.

October 1979 and a change of producer to John Leckie brings a new oddly named single, Cinderella With A Husky Voice, and album and a new look to Marion. Gone is the leopard skin guitar and pony tails and the look is now permed futuristic clothed and she’s back on the cover and the band don’t feature at all on the single. The music is still new wavish and her vocals sound sometimes like Debbie Harry or Pauline Murray or even Maddy Prior or a combination of the three but seem to lack the spark which is either the flat production by John Leckie (can’t always get them right!) or the material.

So how do you follow it? Probably not with another single off the album in January 1980 in a black and white cover that contains no picture or info about the band called You Used To Be My Hero / Zero Heros. For Punk77 though, these are their best songs. A melancholic and slightly sad feeling to the songs that possibly reflect how they thought punk had changed. The front cover features a fine array of album cover spines that’s fun to try to read and the back a collage of punk badges from 1977 again suggesting that feeling.

One more single in 1980 and the band then split. Unusually Marion has never resurfaced and also unusually, considering the role she played in the band, didn’t continue in music. Dennis Haines went on to join Gary Numan’s backing band for his album Telekon and then formed Dramatis. Yannis Joined The Shoppers with Dave Hemingway on drums who left to join The Housemartins.
TalkPunk
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