Out to Lunch

Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard - but I think…

On this very day it’s been 30 years that The Sex Pistols released their groundbreaking Never Mind The Bollocks. I could post some Sex Pistols but you probably can find that already somewhere else and in far better bitrates. That’s why I’m looking a bit further down the road and since I’ve already made a reference to the Mother of Punk, Nina Hagen, in earlier posts - I try to keep some conceptual continuity going here - I decided to get into a more riskier business and look at it from a women’s perspective, no madder how hard that is.

… oh bondage, up yours! is a famous opening line from a seminal punk single of 1977. It’s a real catch-phrase but what immediately caught my attention when I first heard it was the saxophone which was an atypical addition to the standard punk instrumental line-up of those days, and which became one of X-Ray Spex 's most distinctive features.
That saxophone also put a distinctive mark on the sound of another band, Essential Logic fronted by Lora Logic who used to play in X-Ray Spex. She left the first one in favour of school (she was only 16 back then) but soon afterwards, she formed her own band.

Polly Styrene and Lora Logic are both among the most memorable front-women to emerge from the punk and post-punk movement and certainly my favorite ones. Other’s are The Slits, the Raincoats, Delta 5, Ludus, Malaria from Germany and Kleenex from La Suisse.

So here’s a small random selection from the heyday and the offspring.

X-Ray Spex
Oh Bondage! Up Yours!
I Am A Cliché
The Day The World Turned Day-Glo

Essential Logic
Aerosol Burns
Quality Crayon Wax O.K.
Wake Up
Martian Man
Essential Logic (more recent output, but personnel favourite)

Slits
In The Beginning There Was Rhythm / Silence Is A Rhythm Too
Typical Girls
Ari Up – True Warrior (Slits vocalist gone solo)

Delta 5 1979/1981
Mind Your Own Business
Now That You've Gone
Colour
Singing The Praises

Malaria 1981/1984
Your Turn To Run I mist out on this one, the link has been prepared but clever people probably already found it in the germfree map on Divshare
Kaltes Klares Wasser
Zarah

Kleenex / LiliPUT
Do You Mind My Dream

Ludus
Breaking The Rules
Nue Au Soleil
My Cherry Is In Sherry

And suprise, suprise... so more Cristina

Cristina – Don’t Mutilate My Mink

Later on, Punks went Dancing…

Malaria – Your Turn To Run (Thomas Fehlmann remix)
Ike Yard - Dancing and Slaving
Malaria – Kaltesklareswasser (DJ Koze and The Tease remix)