60ft Dolls

60ft Dolls were formed in Newport in 1992 by Richard J. Parfitt and Michael Cole, who met through Donna Matthews (later of Elastica) who was at the time, dating Cole. After supports with Oasis, Dinosaur Jr and others, 60 Ft. Dolls released their second single White Knuckle Ride on Rough Trade Records and then Pig Valentine on the RCA imprint Indolent Records. These early singles were championed heavily Steve Lamacq, and as a consequence were picked up by influential American DJ Rodney Bingenheimer. This resulted in the band signing a deal with Geffen Records in the USA. The band broke into the UK Top 40 with their third single Talk to Me (Indolent, 1996). This was followed by their debut album, The Big 3 which was called ‘…as close to soar-away rock perfection as it's possible to imagine’ by the NME and ‘…pure, unadulterated, no nonsense, emotional, tuneful, impassioned, purposeful, hedonistic rock 'n' roll’ by Melody Maker. The album was also included in Mojo’s 2003 retrospective feature ‘Top 12 Britpop albums of the 90s’. The band toured extensively in the UK, Japan and Europe, including several summer festival appearances as well as opening for The Sex Pistols at their 1996 Finsbury Park reunion gig, but they were dogged by alcohol problems, and after an exhaustive three tours of the USA in 1997, never toured again. They released their second album, Joya Magica in late 1998 and split soon after. The band recorded two sessions for John Peels show and appear in the top BBC 125 best Peel sessions of all time. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.