March is Women’s History Month. Despite obstacles and discrimination, many brilliant women have guided the course of popular music and inspired cultural movements both around the world and here in Minnesota. The Current is highlighting stories of women who made revolutionary contributions to our local music scene. 

On a Minnesota music history timeline, Têtes Noires fall somewhere between the Andrews Sisters and Dessa. Their unique harmonized vocals, vintage costumes, and playful stage antics set them apart from the roaring squalor of the punk bands that dominated the Twin Cities at the time, and their title as Minneapolis's first all-female band made them an inspiration to the legions of riot grrrl bands that would follow in their wake.

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Although there were plenty of other all-girl, politically minded bands that came up in the scene in the '80s and early '90s, there has never been another Twin Cities band quite like the Tétes. 

Têtes Noires — which means blackheads in French, and references the jet-black hair many women in the scene were working at the time – was founded by Jennifer Holt. She first got the idea to form the band while performing in another mixed-gender art-rock band in the early '80s. That band had a male bandleader, who rejected one of her more feminist-leaning songs. 

Early on, Têtes Noires gave a performance for the Walker Art Center. They used a toy xylophone and a garbage can lid with an intent to be very tongue-in-cheek and feminist, and poke fun at the stereotypes of rock ‘n’ roll bands of the time. In fact, their performances were so unusual that they were billed as "Performance Artists Têtes Noires" for their first few shows, even as they moved past playing the Walker and into rock clubs like 7th Street Entry and First Ave. 

Holt remembers telling the group, 'If we want to be taken more seriously, we need to make a record, and we need to tour.” She tried to get a couple of local male touring managers to book Têtes Noires, and they refused. They often felt underestimated. Although they originally had no drummer and appeared to be just playing around, the band’s screaming guitar and punk lyrics were making a statement. 

Eventually, the six women in Têtes Noires pooled their resources to record a debut EP and followed it up with their 1984 full-length American Dream. After three albums, Têtes Noires took an extended hiatus – until five surviving members of the group reunited in 2013 to oversee a remix album called The New American Dream. 

 One of The New American Dream’s most touching moments comes on the track "Can't Even Dance," which was one of late guitarist Polly Alexander's favorite songs to perform live. Before the song begins, Alexander is heard remembering what it was like to play on stage at First Avenue. 

Têtes Noires were half a dozen women coming from different corners of the Midwest: South Dakota, Wisconsin, and the East Side of St. Paul. They brought their influences to create something you won’t hear anywhere else – and were written up in national publications like Billboard, Spin, and Trouser Press. 

"That was the beauty of Tétes Noires: We were in a non-constraint of innocence," the group’s keyboardist Angela Frucci says. "We were working out these cool things without thinking we had to be cool, or really had to prove anything to anyone yet."

Learn even more about Tetes Noires in Complicated Fun: The Birth of Minneapolis Punk and Indie Rock by Cyn Collins, published by Minnesota Historical Society Press. Women’s History Month on The Current is a collaboration with the Minnesota Historical Society.