Feminist Music Geek

Today’s post is dedicated to Paige Jones, a 14-year-old girl who requested to smash garden gnomes with a bass guitar for a charity while recovering from jaw surgery (thanks to Evan for sharing the news item). Dressed as AC/DC’s Angus Young. Something tells me that the late, great Dusty Springfield, who used to smash glass objects before and after performances, would appreciate this. Jones’s mum may find her strange, but I hope she considers it a source of pride. I’d gladly buy this girl a gnome and then stand back and watch her do damage.

Perhaps a stretch, but Jones reminds me of the English post-punk women and girls I adore. A big watershed moment as a music geek was discovering post-punk. Not so coincidentally, a big feminist moment for me was discovering many of the women involved with it. I’ve mentioned folks like Pat Place and Cynthia Sley of Bush Tetras earlier. I recently highlighted The B-52s, though did not explicitly discuss vocalists Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson, two of my favorite Southern girls — perhaps necessitating their own post wherein I might also fold in Pylon’s Vanessa Briscoe Hay, a fellow Athens resident. Today, amid this deliciously gloomy weather, I thought I’d bring up a few a couple of noteworthy post-punk birds on the other side of the Atlantic.

One thing that may misinform people’s of England’s gynocentric contributions to post-punk was that it was anti-sex. I think that two things may have shaped this misconception: 1) those proper British women and girls, some of whom went to university, couldn’t have possibly wanted to get laid, and 2) some of the female musicians associated with it were/gay (particularly Lesley Woods, The Au Pairs’s way-rad/ical frontwoman). And if we know our chauvinism, we can easily apply the feminism = man-hating = lesbianism = anti-sex equation. Bra-fucking-vo, patriarchy.

Oh, there’s one other thing that I think made British women and girls involved with post-punk considered asexual, if not hostile toward the zesty enterprise (to use the parlance of Maude Lebowski). To put it bluntly, they were not considered sexy, at least not in the normative, telegenic sense. Too plain, too normal, not Debbie Harry enough (perhaps missing the commentary the Blondie frontwoman was making on the homogenization and commodification of normative female beauty).

But that doesn’t mean they weren’t interested in sex or sexy. It just wasn’t the only thing they were interested in and the only way they knew how to project themselves. They were also interested in art, politics, nuclear fall-out, disco, bass lines, menstruation, feminism, body odor, and many other issues at the fore or at the margins of their work. So I thought I’d highlight some acts I think were super-important in shaping British post-punk.

The Au Pairs performing “Come Again,” featured in the music documentary, Urgh! A Music War.

Delta 5 performing “Anticipation” on Top of the Pops. Mind your own business with this Leeds quintet, or, as Simon Reynolds noted in Rip It Up and Start Again, bassist Bethan Peters might slam your face against a wall. Especially if you’re a member of the National Front.

Penetration performing “Lovers of Outrage” at the Reading Festival in 1978. Lead singer Pauline Murray got her start following The Sex Pistols, recorded briefly as a member of The Invisible Girls, and was hugely influenced by Patti Smith.

Young Marble Giants’ “real girl” lead singer Alison Statton avoids eye contact during a BBC performance of “Wurlitzer Jukebox”, inspiring thousands of other indie rock vocalists for generations to come. The band still performs intermittently, though not usually making eye contact.

Fan-made Ludus music video for “Mutilate.” It’s a little hard to find footage of the band’s infamous performances, but not as hard to find singer Linder Sterling’s art.

Hopefully, generations of strange girls will carry on in their messy, funky spirit, whether it be plugging in a guitar, or using it to smash a garden gnome.