Robertson, Dougal, 1998, 'The Boyettes - Chicks with picks', Inpress Magazine.
Sitting in the faux-Hawaiian sounds of the My Tai restaurant, The Boyettes are having a good time. They finish each other's sentences, laugh at each other's jokes and all chip in with a dozen bands apiece when asked to name-check who'd they'd like to play alongside.
"The Donnas, The Shangri-La's, Dead Moon..." says Maria Boyette, bass player. "...Bored! Circa '88, Crusaders, Makers" says Claud, drummer. "... yeah early Unheard, The Makers, Redd Kross, there's so many," concludes Jo, singer and guitarist.
    Formed in October of last year, The Boyettes are building a sizeable following amongst Melbourne's garage rock devotees. Check out their seven inch four tracker (that's right - vinyl) and you'll see why.
    Recorded after their very first gig, it captures an energy and stripped back sound that does them proud against the classic garage rockers they cite as devotees, a sound they describe as 'primitive'... "Garage rock is basic, it's raw, it's primitive. It's straight from the garage," says Maria.
    That's the attraction of the hard-to-defines garage sound - bands getting up and letting the energy talk without studio gimmicks and expenisve audio trickery. It harks backto the beginning of rock-n-roll in the sixties, with musicians eschewing cleverness in favour of showmanship and simple, loud songs.
    Whether it's a reaction to the commercialisation of much underground music and the slickness of many live bands, garage is way fun. Check out the retro craziness of American bands like The Makers and the humour of Japanese acts like Mach Kung Fu or The Trashwomen.
    In Australia garage rock has a solid core of great bands, a devoted following and plenty of up and comers like The Boyettes. Running off their fave local acts, the three all chip in... "There's so many." According to Maria, the trio was drawn together by a vision... "We wanted an all-girl band, and it didn't matter that we couldn't play..."
    In a genre where four sweaty guys are the norm on stage instead of three spunky girls, The Boyettes admit there is some advantage in being female, but not that much... "Guys will say to us 'give us a gig' because we've been playing a fair bit, and we may get some gigs just because we're an-all girl band, but there's really not enough girls playing music..."
"It's good to inspire girls to play music though - we've had girls come up to us and say 'you inspired us to play in a band'," says Claud.
    The Boyettes have also scored some impressive support slots, the nearest playing alongside Japan's 5,6,7,8s in November, They'll also be playing at the Vinyl Orgy at the Tote this Saturday with a host of local bands, and hopefully this time members of the audience won't be procreating in the background.
"We played this gig with Bored! at the Corner Hotel and there was a threesome going on in the corner. We were sitting there and people were walking past, we thought they were looking at us.
    "We we're like,'we haven't played yet', then we turn around and ... we were too stunned to actually move, so we just there."
    Now that's a novel take on John Lennon's comment that if there wasn't at least one fight when a band played it wasn't a proper gig. So what can people expect from a Boyettes gig?
"Fun, power, excitement and wit," says Maria.
"Banter," adds Jo.
    And for garage rock junkies, The Boyettes have surprisingly modest plans.
"World domination," says Jo. "More outfits, tours, gigs. Sydney with the 5,6,7,8s and Southern Culture on the Skids."
"Tiaras and cigarette holders on stage," adds Claud.
    What would Melbourne be without The Boyettes then?
"A very quiet, uncolourful town lacking wit and culture."
    In the meantime check out The Boyettes' ace seven-inch and see'em play this weekend.

O' Donohue, Shane, 1999, 'The Boyettes', Inpress Magazine, Issue 556, p 9
The Boyettes are a rock-n-roll band. An all female rock-n-roll band. A band formed where all great rock-n-roll bands first come together; the pub.
    "We were friends, just sitting in the pub one day talking about how we should start a band," says Jo Boyette, guitarist and vocalist with the group. "I'm originally a bass player and the other girls had never played before, and so I said, 'OK, I'll play guitar then, because I can't play guitar', and I think they thought I was joking. One day I just rang them up for rehearsal and that's how it started." It was just over a year ago that Jo, along with Maria Boyette (bass) and Claud Boyette (drums) started gigging around Melbourne.
    The Boyettes have since released the four track 7" EP I Got a Guy, which has got them noticed in places as far away as Italy and Germany. "Sometimes I write songs and I think 'I've heard that riff before'," Jo says, "and then I realise that it's someone else's song. I love rock-n-roll and it's what I want to do, so I guess we always find new ways of interpreting it even though a lot of people go 'Oh gee, that sounds like that song or whatever'."
    And times when you write a song you can't see (it?) fitting in with the Boyettes' sound? "Occasionally, if I'm playing an acoustic guitar or something," Jo laughs. But fear not, The Boyettes are likely to be pumping out raucous rock-n-roll for a while yet, because hey, there's nothing better, is there? "No I think rock-n-roll is the best thing in the world," Jo says. "Pasta comes close, but it doesn't quite get there."

... December 1999
With the passing of The Boyettes, the individual members of the band Jo, Maria and Claudine, appear to have little intention of reforming the band.

However, both Jo and Maria, have continued to play in bands.

Jo has continued with Adelaide's (relocated) Liz Dealey with the band The Ramonas, an all girl Ramones 'cover' band. Jo handles bass and vocals duties in this band.

Meanwhile, Maria has formed with Sal (ex-Small Handgun) the band, Mystaken. Maria continues bass and vocals duties, in this three piece band, with Sal on guitar and vocals. Those of whom know of Stewart Tabert, drummer with The Philisteins, Freeloaders and now Hands of Time, will know the drummer from Mystaken.