Tom Dunne: Poly Styrene and the women who rocked the system in the punk era
Poly Styrene of punk band X-Ray Spex.
‘Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard. But I think OH BONDAGE UP YOURS!’ The opening line of X-Ray Spex debut single, September 1977. It attacks capitalist materialism as a brand of servitude (naturally). The singer was Poly Styrene. She was 19 and wore braces on her teeth. I bought the single on the day of release.
Poly, real name, Marianne Elliot-Said – in modern terms you could say she’d been ‘radicalised’ at a Sex Pistols concert - was part of my introduction to punk. She shared a stage with talents such Patti Smith, Siouxsie Sioux, Pauline Black, Chrissie Hynde, Debbie Harry, Ari Up, Viv Albertine, Nina Hagan, Gaye Advert, Faye Fyfe and so many more.
Punk’s message had been simple. It was basically F**K Off. But it was a very important, long overdue F**k off that really needed to be said. Once it was said, it was time to get busy and make music and in this new world women, as Kim Gordon said, were ‘natural anarchists.’ Just being a woman in a band, asserting your right to play, write and be seen was to some eyes a revolutionary act.
But it was my normal. Women in punk were lead singers, instrumentalists, band members, poets, writers, photographers, designers, publishers. You couldn’t tell the Punk story without them.
In Dublin, the effect was wonderful. The music scene that I was opening my eyes to was then still more in thrall to West Coast Rock than anything inspired by events in the Free Trade Hall. But then suddenly we had two all-female punk bands: The Boy Scoutz and Of Zerox. We were saved.
Much of the music firmament was still occupied by old school A&R men, bouncers and sound mixers. There was no avoiding these. I crossed swords with a few on early UK tours. Attitudes hardened on Slade tours in The north Of England clubs. They made Roy Chubby Brown look ‘woke’.
For whatever reason it was the USA, particularly what I might call the ‘inner’ USA, where these attitudes were preserved in aspic. Here, in ‘out of the way’ venues, and they were all ‘out of the way’, the in-house sound man was king. Men whose attitudes had been passed down from the Civil War.
They gave us hell. I had long hair at the time and was not averse to wearing red jeans. In one venue the sound ogre was heard to mutter, ‘we’ll do a sound check when she’s ready.’ Can you imagine what such a creature would have said to an all-girl band?
Like the one that supported us one night in the mid-west. It was just after the Riot Grrrl movement and I suspect they’d been forged in that flame. All-girl, quite aggressive with us and frosty on arrival, refusing all offers of help with the gear.
Sadly the name of the band has been lost to me at this point but we knew they’d come to us after a long drive. We eyed their van. The basic four seats in the back, gear behind the seats. Moderately comfortable on a short drive, a form of torture on a long one.
In the dressing room the noise coming through the roof from the stage was bizarre. It sounded like an Indian massacre. Whooping, chanting and what sounded like ritualistic dancing. We made our way side stage expecting to see a human sacrifice.
It was, in fact, just a very, very energetic gig. And they were magnificent, raw, musically tight and powerful like a female Black Flag. Their drummer was topless but as ripped as Henry Rollins. Nothing moved. They really appreciated us coming to watch them as the audience wasn’t getting it at all. We high fived them off the stage.
They stayed to watch us, which we also appreciated and I have to admit we changed our set a little because of them, dropping anything even remotely slow. Later we had a few beers with them and talked the international language of music: bands we liked and albums we rated.
They had another overnight drive after the show so we stocked them up with food and drink from the rider and waved them on their way. You can’t do an overnight drive in a van in America without bonding with anyone else who's done the same. I still think of them. Some of them must have made it in some form. They rocked.
