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X-Ray Spex

X-Ray Spex

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Buzzcocks/X-Ray Spex/Wire etc.: Running with the Ratpack

Live Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, 16 April 1977

ROXY RATPACK, Saturday nite. Find a friend and stick close: sink or swim. Tony and Julie were right: a club full of 'Wild Boys' outtakes ...

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X-Ray Spex: Roxy, London

Live Review by Jane Suck, Sounds, 19 March 1977

THE DEATH knoll. ...

X-Ray Spex: Man In The Moon, Chelsea

Live Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, 21 May 1977

A SMALLISH basement room, low-ceilinged, with a bar along one wall, and quite plush – tonite healthily full with about 100 people, A stopgap scene ...

X-Ray Spex: Plastic table cloths in the UK '77

Live Review by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 9 July 1977

X-Ray Spex: Man In The Moon, Chelsea ...

Various artists: The Roxy, London, W.C.2 (Harvest SHSP 4069)

Review by Ira Robbins, Trouser Press, September 1977

BACK IN nineteen-sixty-something, when an earlier new wave was proudly unfurling, several Live at the Star Club LPs appeared, scooping up some of the bands ...

X-Ray Spex: Vortex, London

Live Review by Tim Lott, Record Mirror, 1 October 1977

Tell Laura I love her ...

X-Ray Spex: Oh Bondage! Up Yours!

Interview by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, 22 October 1977

"IF SOMEBODY said I was a sex symbol, I'd shave me'ead tomorrer," cackled Poly Styrene. "'Oh Bondage Up Yours' ain't about sex particularly. In fact ...

X-Ray Spex: Poly Puts The Kettle On!

Interview by Barry Cain, Record Mirror, 12 November 1977

IT WAS just another press conference. Poly Styrene looked surprisingly radiant, showing no signs of the traumas she had suffered over recent months. ...

Rock Against Racism Carnival: Victoria Park, Hackney, London

Report by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 6 May 1978

AS HE STOOD at the top of Whitehall at 10.35 last Sunday morning gazing impassively towards Nelson's Column, the optimism of Commander Walker of Scotland ...

X-Ray Spex: Poly Styrene Is Still Strictly Roots

Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 13 May 1978

SUNDAY NIGHT in Croydon, and Poly Styrene's voice is shot. Flu goes for the throat like a cornered rat: when the victim's a singer, the ...

X-Ray Spex, Adam & The Ants, The Automatics: The Roundhouse, London

Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 20 May 1978

AS MS. POLY'S strychnine air-raid voice shreds the encore and all present, the audience front-line snaps. ...

Singles: PiL, Cabaret Voltaire, X-Ray Spex, Chris Bell, The Cars et al

Review by Hugh Jarse, ZigZag, November 1978

PUBLIC IMAGE: 'Public Image' (Virgin) 'ELLO, A LOW-key re-emergence which grows on ya. I know everybody was expecting another anthem but here ya go, this ...

Maturity Is Next: X-Ray Spex: Germ Free Adolescents (EMI)

Review by Tim Lott, Record Mirror, 18 November 1978

SOUNDS FOR sophisticated head-bangers, noises for Nembuthal nights. X-Ray Spex carry the standard of 1977 (which reads fun) on the flagpole of 1979 (constructed from ...

X-Ray Spex: Germ Free Adolescents

Review by Jon Savage, Melody Maker, 18 November 1978

"I WANNA BE A FROZEN PEA!" Does Poly Styrene finally make it? Will she really dehydrate? Does she turn into a Teasmade? Will she... ...

X-Ray-Spex: Germ Free Adolescents

Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 18 November 1978

SMASH THE barriers and the truth shall make you free (as long as stocks last, anyway): barriers between humans and objects, between the natural (sic) ...

Jon Savage: "I Remember Punk Rock..."

Interview by Steven Wells, New Musical Express, 26 October 1991

He was a bored public schoolboy, then JON SAVAGE heard the Pistols and the Clash and the strings of his heart went ping. He's now ...

Punk Venues: London Calling

Retrospective by Johnny Black, Q, July 1995

Summer, 1976. Punk, live punk, is about to explode in the capital. Tap rooms, Poly bars and sweaty clubs will host its unwashed greats. Johnny Black looks ...

Punks, Nazis, Skins and the Clash's Finest Hour

Retrospective and Interview by Ian Fortnam, Classic Rock, August 2007

Rock Against Racism: Tom Robinson thinks of it as "the punk Woodstock" and it was the moment that punk went overground and people's band the ...

X-Ray Spex: Germfree Adolescents (Deluxe Edition)

Sleeve notes by Kieron Tyler, Sanctuary Records, August 2008

ALTHOUGH X-RAY Spex split up close to thirty years ago, their music remains timeless and vividly fresh. The band might have been birthed during 1977's ...

The Return of Punk's First Lady: Poly Styrene

Profile and Interview by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 21 November 2008

Thirty years after singing of bondage and toothpaste, via a stay at a psychiatric hospital and motherhood, Poly Styrene is back on stage, without X-Ray ...

Poly Styrene

Obituary by Chris Salewicz, The Independent, 27 April 2011

Singer who blazed a trail for punk's feminist revolutionaries ...

Poly Styrene: A Life In Day-Glo

Obituary by Kris Needs, MOJO, July 2011

PUNK UNIQUE POLY STYRENE OF X-RAY SPEX DIED ON APRIL 25. KRIS NEEDS PAYS TRIBUTE TO AN UNFORGETTABLE TALENT ...

Lasses of the Mohicans

Retrospective by Vivien Goldman, New Statesman, 31 October 2011

Vivien Goldman charts the history of Britain’s rebellious female punks. ...

Oh Bondage! Up Yours

Retrospective by Paul Gorman, MacGuffin, August 2022

AS SIMULTANEOUS SYMBOLS of subjugation and liberation, chains were co-opted in the bricolage approaches to the hundreds, if not thousands, of individualistic identities — in ...

see also Poly Styrene

see also Essential Logic

see also Lora Logic

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