Related Directory Categories
- X-Ray Spex (4)
Sources
Help build the largest human-edited directory on the web.
Submit a site - Become an editor
Wikipedia. Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Are you an expert in this subject? Join the discussion and share your knowledge at Wikipedia.org.
X-Ray Spex
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| X-Ray Spex | ||
|---|---|---|
 Germ Free Adolescents album cover
|
||
| Background information | ||
| Origin | UK | |
| Genre(s) | Punk rock New Wave |
|
| Years active | 1976 - 1979 1995 - 1996 |
|
| Label(s) | EMI Receiver Records |
|
| Former members | ||
| Poly Styrene Lora Logic Jak Airport Paul Dean Rudi Thompson BP Hurding |
||
- This article is about the punk band. For other meanings, see X-Ray Specs.
X-Ray Spex was a first-wave UK punk band formed in 1976.
Contents |
The band featured singer Poly Styrene (born Marian Joan Elliott) on vocals, Jak Airport (Jack Stafford) on guitars, Paul Dean on bass, Paul 'B. P.' Hurding on drums, and Lora Logic (born Susan Whitby) on saxophone. This latter instrument was an atypical addition to the standard punk instrumental line-up, and became one of the group's most distinctive features.
X-Ray Spex's other distinctive musical element was Poly Styrene's voice, which has been variously described as "effervescently discordant"[1] and "powerful enough to drill holes through sheet metal".[2] As Mari Elliot, Poly had released a reggae single for GTO Records in 1976, "Silly Billy", which had not charted. Born in 1957 in Brixton, of Somali-English parentage, Poly Styrene became the group's public face, and remains one of the most memorable front-women to emerge from the punk movement.[3] Not conventionally attractive, she wore thick braces on her teeth and once stated that "If anybody tried to make me a sex symbol I would shave my head tomorrow,"[4] - which she later actually did - at Johnny Rotten's flat prior to a concert at Victoria Park. Mark Paytress recounts in the liner notes for the 2002 compilation, The Anthology, that Jah Wobble, Rotten's longtime friend and bassist for his post-punk venture PiL, once described Styrene as a "strange girl who often talked of hallucinating. She freaked John out."[5] Rotten, known more for his outspoken dislike of things than actual praise and admiration, recently said of X-Ray Spex in a retrospective punk documentary, "Them, they came out with a sound and attitude and a whole energy - it was just not relating to anything around it - superb."[6]
X-Ray Spex existed from mid-1976 to 1979, during which time they released five singles - "Oh Bondage, Up Yours", "Identity", "The Day the World Turned Day-Glo", "Germ Free Adolescents", and "Highly Inflammable" - and one album, Germ Free Adolescents.[7][8] The album and title single reached 30 and 19 in their respective charts, although "Oh Bondage, Up Yours" is regarded as their most enduring artifact, both as a piece of music and as a sort of proto-grrrl catch-phrase.[9][10] Opening with the line, "Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard - well I think, OH BONDAGE UP YOURS!", the song could be interpreted as a premonition of the riot grrrl movement a good 15 years later, although Styrene herself insists it was more intended as an anti-consumerist/anti-capitalist jingle, and wasn't wholly and exclusively feminist in nature. The song wasn't originally on the album, although later CD releases added it as the final track.
The group did play a fortnight's residency at New York's CBGB's even though Germ Free Adolescents was not released in America until 1992. Exhausted by touring, Poly Styrene left the band in 1979 to release a solo album, Translucence, before joining the Hare Krishna movement (as did Logic, in a coincidental move, who left the band aged 16 in 1977 to form a new group called Essential Logic).
Without Styrene, the group lost its momentum and split up. Hurding and London went on to form Classix Nouveaux, while Paul Dean retired from musical activities.
In 1991 re-grouped X-Ray Spex played a surprise sell-out gig at the Brixton Academy. Uniquely, this version of the group did not include Poly Styrene, and according to an interview with Lora Logic[11]: "... that was a mistake. They put that together with another singer and I played with them for a tour but you can't really have it without Poly."
The group reformed more successfully in 1995 with a line-up of Styrene, Dean and Logic to release a new album Conscious Consumer. Although heralded as the first in a trilogy, the album was not a commercial success. Styrene later explained[12] that touring and promotional work suffered an abrupt end when she was run over by a fire engine in central London. The group disbanded, but subsequent releases include a compilation of the group's early records, a live album, and an anthology of all the aforementioned.
Jak Airport later worked for the BBC's Corporate and Public Relations department under his real name, Jack Stafford; he died in August 2004.[13]
- Germ Free Adolescents, 1978
- Conscious Consumer, 1995
- "Oh Bondage, Up Yours", 1977
- "The Day The World Turned Day-Glo", 1978 #23 UK
- "Identity", 1978 #24 UK
- "Germ Free Adolescents", 1978 #19 UK
- "Highly Inflammable", 1979 #45 UK
- ^ allmusic review of The Anthology
- ^ Poly Styrene from comnet.ca/~rina
- ^ Are you ready to fly? - article from The Guardian
- ^ signature on typicalgirls mailing list
- ^ Cinderella's Big Score: Women of the Punk and Indie Underground by Maria Raha
- ^ The Punk Years documentary
- ^ PUNKNET 77 - X-Ray Spex
- ^ The Music - X-Ray Spex from comnet.ca/~rina
- ^ Off Our Backs: Oh bondage up yours! The early punk movement--and the women who made it rock
- ^ BOFH: Oh Bondage, Up Yours! from theregister.co.uk
- ^ X-Ray Spex from comnet.ca/~rina
- ^ Poly Styrene’s Biography By Celeste Bell from x-ray spex official site
- ^ X-Ray Spex from comnet.ca/~rina