Dara Puspita (Flower Girls) was Indonesia’s most successful girl band of the 1960s. The band consisted of Titiek Adji Rachman (lead guitar), Susy Nander (drums), Lies Adji Rachman (rhythm guitar) and Titiek Hamzah (bass) and was one of the few girl groups who actually played all their own music as well.
The band was formed in 1964 in the city of Surabaya in East Java, with Titiek Rachman (born 1946) and her younger sister Lies (born 1948) on bass. In addition, Ani Kusuma was the rhythm guitarist, and Susy Nander played drums. The Rachman sisters were two of 10 children of Adjie Rachman, formerly a kroncong musician. When Lies left the band for a month in 1965 to finish her education, she was replaced on bass by Titiek Hamzah (born 1949). When Lies returned, Ani Kusuma left the band, and Lies became the rhythm guitarist. In 1965 the band relocated to Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, and soon gained a reputation as a sensational live act, bashing away on their instruments, screaming out their songs and jumping up and down. Even though it was often hard to hear the songs through all the mayhem, audiences thought it was great and often joined the band to dance around on the stage.
The band’s stage act and the songs they played were clearly influenced by contemporary British bands such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, whose music at the time was banned in Indonesia. The band faced pressure from the Sukarno regime, so the band sought a safer place to play, performing live in Bangkok, and picking up some Thai influences in their music, including the song 'Puyaili', a rock performance of a Thai folk song, as well as their own song Pattaya Beach. Following the collapse of the Sukarno government in 1965, the band's first LP, Jang Pertama ('the first') was released in 1966. Dara Puspita followed up their first album with the self-titled Dara Puspita later in the year and in 1967 put out two albums, Green Green Grass and A Go Go. The title track from the latter album, and the song Believe Me, are good examples of the band’s beat credentials.The band was a popular attraction in Indonesia and also in the region, playing to enthusiastic crowds in neighbouring countries, such as Thailand and Malaysia.
In 1968 they took the almost unprecedented move for an Indonesian band of trying their luck in Europe and spent the next few years touring in England, Holland, France, Belgium, Spain, Germany and Hungary. They even played in Turkey and Iran. While in England they recorded two singles for CBS and recorded another for Philips in Holland. In late 1971 the band returned to Indonesia and played a number of concerts, but enthusiasm was starting to wane and in April 1972 they played their last show.
Susy was keen to keep going and together with Titiek Hamzah recorded a number of albums using the Dara Puspita name. Today only Titiek Hamzah continues in the Indonesian music industry, where she has had great success as a song-writer. Some of the band's recordings from 1966-1968 have been issued, on 'The Garage Years' released in 2010, and '1966-1968' by Sublime Frequencies in 2010.
