THE FLIPS
I Just Don’t Know Where I Stand 7”
HoZac 2010
The Flips are, or were for that matter, an all girl supergroup started by Wendy Norton from Plexi 3 (interview in MZ8) and her songwriting collaborator Natalie Clark of Sticks’n’Stones /The Tears, with Betsy Hiebler up front with the vocal pipes, Stephanie Swinney (Sugar Stems) on bass, former Plexi-3er Francoise Switalski on the Wurlitzer, and Feraim Albano on drums. Time-tested and true lyrics about boys next door on “I Just Don’t Know Where I Stand” (also on our MZ Vol. 5 CD comp) and on the flipside some Angels-esque handclapping on “1 and 1” and overlapping harmonies (perfected by Ray Charles’ backing band The Cookies) against a sweetly complimented guitar solo in “Sooner Than Later”. You can judge a record by its cover and I knew before I’d even heard The Flips that I’d dig these Milwaukee girls’ mod revivalist take on that classic wall of sound, and I wasn’t disappointed! As someone who lives in polyester shift dresses, it’s nice to finally have a proper fresh soundtrack to go along with my sartorial choices… too bad they’ve already broken up! There needs to be more girl groups out there! Get their only other 45 at Bancroft Records with “I Still Wanna Be His Girl”, and “Baby (It’s Gonna Be Alright)”, and the catty “That Girl Stacey”. (Janelle Hollyrock)
