X-Ray Spex front woman Poly Styrene passed away yesterday after a long battle with cancer. Germ-Free Adolescents remains on my Desert Island List of Greatest Punk Albums Ever, and Poly is as ever an example. (I still dress like her in these videos.) As French philosopher Jacques Derrida observed so well, “an example always carries beyond itself: it thereby opens up a testamentary dimension. The example is first of all for others, and beyond the self.” Thank you, Poly, from all us “others.”
Tag Archives: new wave
New Wave/New Look
The staples of my graduate student wardrobe were striped t-shirts, black skate shoes, a red Members Only jacket, and a haircut given to me by a middle-aged Korean lady who didn’t much flinch when I asked to look like a boy. But, as The Stains snarled, “Do you wanna be a professional?” And can you appear to be one if you are costumed as a post-punk No Wave/New Wave androgyne?
From the classic Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains, The Stains perform “Join the Porfessionals.”
Formed in 1976, the legendary X-Ray Spex featured the amazing Poly Styrene on vocals. Here’s “Identity.”
Mo-Dettes were an all-female punk band formed in 1979 by Kate Korris, an original member of The Slits and brief member of The Raincoats. Here they perform their first single “White Mice.”
Formed in early 1978, check out Swiss band Mother Ruin, and their video for “Dreamy Teeny.” (For more like this, check out the truly awesome archival resource for women in punk called Dear Diary.)
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