The Ticks are girls. And they’re gonna make you love them.

    So goes the opening proclamation of “We’re Girls,” from their recently released full-length on Plymouth Rock Records, Pick Me.

     Guitarist Sue La Vallee, bassist Emma Levy and drummer Julia Randall usually make good on their promise and convert even the most skeptical clubgoer with their sense of humor and self-awareness, a combination which inevitably leads to some hilarious moments of self-mockery in songs and onstage.

    “They’re quirky, they’re fun, and they’re not the freakin’ Go Go’s,” says Plymouth Rock Records’ artist development director Cat. “They laugh at themselves and they invite you to do it too.”

     Their songs are clever and catchy, ranging in subject from Sue’s song about biology and socialization to Emma’s constant efforts to quit smoking, to a fireman checking out Julia’s butt.

    And of course the beach. The Ticks are from Cape Cod, so singing songs about the beach is as natural for them as Hemingway writing about war.

    “The only thing we know to draw from is our immediate day and our surroundings,” says Emma, “and the beach is less than a mile from my house.”

    Each Tick sings her own songs, and the other two lend their saltwater harmonies to make for the kind of summer rock that would work in your old top-down Jeep with the cooler full of brew or in a Frankie and Annette beach party movie.

    “When one of us brings in a new song, the other two tickle it,” laughs Sue, a little embarrassed about her pun, but also a little proud.

     The styles of songwriting within the band vary.

    “Emma writes the great rock n’ roll songs, I write good pop songs and Julia has great guitar grooves,” says Sue. “At least that’s how I’ve heard it broken down before.”

     The three come from various musical backgrounds. Julia quotes Smiths songs in conversation and she cites her songwriting influences as outsider pioneers like XTC and the Velvets.

    Emma says she listened to ‘bad white rap’ during her formative years, and Sue was spoonfed classic rock.

     “My sister had all The Beatles records and my brother had all The Who albums, but I never actually spent money on music,” she confesses. “I’m just not the kind of person who collects things. I’m kind of a radio girl, because there’s a real element of surprise in radio.”

    Sue has been able to participate in that element of surprise as a part-time DJ at the local left of the dial station, West Barnstable’s 90.7 FM WKKL. Her show’s title combines her love of music and landscaping, her other livelihood. It’s called “The Rock Garden.”

    Both Julia and Emma work in education. Julia as a seventh grade teacher and Emma in child development.

     “My motto is rock and learn,” says Emma.

     Learning is an important element to understanding The Ticks.

    The group formed while Sue was still taking guitar lessons and Emma was still teaching herself how to play bass. Julia was originally a second guitarist, but after realizing that their revolving door of drummers was probably going to keep revolving, she decided to sit behind the kit full-time.

    “I showed up to my first drum lesson with a gig the next week,” she says, “I was like, ‘hi I’m a gigging drummer, can you teach me how to play drums?’”

    Emma in conversation talks excitedly about how she and her boyfriend often go into classrooms and sing children’s songs to Cape youngsters. She also jokes about how some of the things she learned in her education background fit into the ethos of The Ticks. She cites a study by Brenda Laurel about the pervasive social pattern that girls hang in threes, and “take turns excluding each other.”

    “That’s exactly how we are,” she says. After a pause she adds, “not really, but sometimes.”

    The lyrics in “We’re Girls” serve as a good illustration of how the Ticks tick. “I’m so happy you’re my friend, but keep your filthy hands off of my man.”

    Julia says that the stripped down democracy makes things so simple.

    “Being a trio is easier than being a quartet with a drummer who was never in on the power-play to begin with,” she laughs. “Now decisions are either unanimous or someone is outvoted.”

     So how does the combination of bad white rap, borrowed classic rock and the music of alternative forefathers become the sunny sound that is The Ticks?

    Again, the answer is the same as the three most important things in real estate: location, location, location.

    “Cape Cod is such an important part of who we are,” says Emma.

    In concert they even cover the old sea shanty “Cape Cod Girls.”

    “I learned that song in fifth grade,” says Emma.

    Lately The Ticks have been bringing their sound over the bridge to play more Boston shows, but if you’re looking to find them while you’re on vacation down there, you can usually catch their extended sets at The Prodigal Son in Hyannis.

    “It’s definitely easier to be down here because we’re one of only a few original bands here, and we get huge recognition as the only girl band on the Cape,” says Emma, “but it’s nicer to get up to a place where the bands are a dime a dozen and see that we can still get audiences to respond.”

photos by Marty Johnson