The group was formed in Cambridge, England, by Bor, Smith, and Wykes, three school friends who shared a fondness for the Shangri-Las and the Undertones.
[4] Signed to Chrysalis Records, the group released a cover of the Shirelles hit, "Baby It's You" (1980), produced by Eric Faulkner of the Bay City Rollers.
In 1984, the band released a double album called the Demonstration Tapes on their own Dead Good Dolly Platters label.
The 12-inch vinyl Fireside EP was released in 1984 on Cordelia Records,[4] owned by Alan Jenkins, a member of the Deep Freeze Mice.
The six-track EP represented the band's new artistic direction and contained mostly instrumental pieces, abandoning the guitar/bass/drum format with piano and strings.
In 2010, Dolly Mixture release a three CD box set including the Demonstration Tapes album, all of the band's singles plus a complete disc of additional demos and live recordings, many of which are available for the first time.
The first Coming Up Roses gig was at The White Swan in Brixton on 29 November (as part of the Send a Volunteer to Nicaragua benefit), and the last performance was at Up the Creek in Greenwich.
Saint Etienne's Bob Stanley became the new Dolly Mixture champion, re-releasing their untitled 1984 double album (this time titled Demonstration Tapes) as a single CD on the Royal Mint label in 1995.
Together with Saint Etienne's Paul Kelly, Wykes went on to form indie-chamber-pop band Birdie, which released the albums Some Dusty (1999), Triple Echo (2001) and Reverb Deluxe (2003).
In 2021, she released her first solo album Picture in Mind under the name Rachel Love, and formed The Light Music Company with Martin Newell the following year.