The Au Pairs were part of the late seventies and e

arly eighties post-punk scene that has come to

be known as…well, post-punk, thou

gh I get the feeling it wasn’t really called so at the time. The band consisted of guitarist Paul Foad, guitarist and vocalist Lesley Woods, bassis

t Jane Munro and drummer Pete Hammond. Woods was one of the few ‘out’ lesbians in the music industry at the time, even within the left-wing politics of much of the music scene of the time, and the band were considered important on the riot grrl (sic) movement of the 1990s.

T

here are probably many better people out there to write critiques of the politics involved, but the music is what i want

to foc

us on. If you have heard Gang of Four

and Delta 5 (both of whom I have featured here before) then they were in a similar vein but very much an influential group in their own right.

This is there second single,

from 1980 ‘Diet’/’It’s Obvious.’ I should warn people that the sound is a little crackly (and not available on emusic or iTunes, at least in the UK, I did try). But it’s a great record that should be heard, as should the debut Playing With A Different Sex. ‘Diet’ is a sympathetic but frustrated look

at the life of a housewife, who doesn’t have political

views and s

pends her time cleaning and washing.

Au Pairs -‘Diet.’ mp3

Au Pairs -‘It’s Obvious.’ mp3

There is a good Au Pairs site here and their Wikipedia entry is here as well as an article here at Fact magazine.