We talk alot about how great the music scene was in the late seventies, but that only scratches the surface. This week, we delve into the lost gems of the punk explosion. There...
Can anyone explain this one? Carol Channing, Poly Styrene & Jackie Collins hanging out. Courtesy of If Charlie Parker...
Chrissie Hynde, Debbie Harry, Viv Albertine, Siouxsie Sioux, Poly Styrene and Pauline Black.
I've just been watching the 1979 Arena profile of X Ray Spex singer-songwriter Poly Sytrene, which was recently repeated on BBC Four. If you missed it, I'd highly recommend setting aside forty minutes for it over the weekend; it makes for great viewing, with its live performances and footage of the band travelling from place to place in a no-frills minibus interspersed with Poly's thoughts on the world and the nature of fame, and is a real snapshot of the era. She was such a fascinating character, and watching this it's impossible to escape the conclusion that modern-day [...]
Remember the influential vocalist & songwriter here .
Change of pace this week my blog will be featuring three music videos, the first from Mark Sultan. Mark Sultan is a Canadian musician from Montreal, Quebec. He has been associated with many Garage Rock groups such as Spaceshits, Les Sexereenos and has been involved with numerous other bands. He is perhaps known more for his work with King Khan & BBQ Show (Sultan going under the pseudonym BBQ), but he has also been releasing music under Mark Sultan for quite some time. Playing as a one [...]
Permanent Wave is a new benefit tribute compilation dedicated to the legendarily unhinged first-wave British punk band X-Ray Spex. On the compilation, Titus Andronicus reunite with Amy Klein, who left the band last year, to cover " Oh Bondage! Up Yours ," the best-known X-Ray Spex track, with Klein, whose feminist collective Permanent Wave spearheaded the comp, yelping in a fake British accent and turning in a pretty great Poly Styrene impression. Listen to it below. Read More...
Filed under: News Today, Oh Boy! Getty Images for SXSW Bruce Springsteen released a new video for "Death to My Hometown" and it features a cameo by Tom Morello . Check it out below. New Order 's "Elegia," a tribute to Ian Curtis , will be released in its full 18-minute glory. [ Dummy ] A benefit compilation of X-Ray Spex covers is out now, and [...]
Musician, writer, activist, and former Titus Andronicus guitarist Amy Klein launched the feminist collective Permanent Wave in 2011 with hopes to "challenge gender inequality as it manifests itself in art, politics, and our personal lives." In remembrance of the untimely death of the Poly Styrene (born Marion Elliot), lead singer of the English punk pioneers X-Ray Spex, the women of Permanent Wave just released Rebel On The Underground, a compilation of X-Ray-Spex covers including contributions from Pink Flag, Franz Nicolay & Emily Brodsky, and notably Klein herself, performing the classic "Oh Bondage! Up [...]
From the Permanent Wave collective's X-Ray Spex tribute album.
Yesterday, in Leicester, The Tender Trap covered X Ray Spex: -- Visit No Rock & Roll Fun to comment, complain and kvetch
Hope & Anchor is a pub in the Islington borough of London. In 1977, they held a series of concerts dubbed The Front Row Festival. Performances from those concerts were then culled to create a 2LP concert album that was a record for the ages. It's a crazy album with a wildly diverse set of artists, a line-up that shows a bygone era where an amazing assortment of diverse bands and genres co-existed in an open and free environment. Not only are a wide arrange of punk of and new wave artists featured on the album, but a good majority [...]
Rolling Stone readers polls are the worst. Remember their "Top Ten Live Acts of All Time," which was so terrible the entire Flavorpill staff came together to post an alternate list ? Well, the aging rock magazine has done it again: Last week brought "Readers Poll: The Best Punk Bands of All Time." And guess what? Not only did Green Day - Green Day! - take the #1 spot, but there wasn't a single woman on the list. So, in an attempt to correct this latest grievous error, we have compiled a list of [...]
Although music lost one of its most uniquely idiosyncratic legends when Poly Styrene tragically succumbed to cancer in April, she had thankfully finished recording her Generation Indigo album before being diagnosed, thus providing the 21st century with one of its defining statements, in similar fashion to her uncannily clairvoyant X-Ray Spex missives of the punk era. Following computer-age anthem "Virtual Boyfriend", which trailered the album as first single, comes the rapturous "Ghoulish"; sadly Poly's first posthumous single. Generation Indigo showed Poly as lyrically incisive as ever, still reflecting [...]
X-Ray Spex - Germ Free Adolescents Buy US: Buy UK:
Titus Andronicus stopped by the WFMU studios this past Saturday to perform on Terre T's The Cherry Blossom Clinic . The NJ group dished out five songs, three from The Monitor
We've been mourning the untimely death of X-Ray Spex leader Poly Styrene for nearly a week now, re-listening to her albums on repeat and reading everything that's been written on her. But we're especially grateful to Marc Campbell at Dangerous Minds , one of our very favorite blogs, for digging up the rarely seen BBC documentary Who Is Poly Styrene? Fittingly, the film is more a collage of performance footage, audio from interviews, Styrene reading her lyrics, and other rare clips. Even though the video quality isn't top-notch, Who Is Poly Styrene? is [...]
In memory of Poly Styrene - a gift to you: X-Ray Spex live at CBGB , March 1978.
When the history of music is written, there will be the bands who are remembered, then there will be the bands who laid the foundation for those bands. Most of them will be forgotten. I always found the X-Ray Spex to be one of the latter. This band that pushed boundaries and made it okay for other girl rock bands to follow in their chaotic footsteps, but never had an audience strong enough to
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