I'm in a different time zone at the the moment, so I woke up this morning to the sad news that Poly Styrene finally lost her battle with breast cancer. She was 53. Inspired by her recent record release and press coverage, I recently blogged about how much Poly Styrene and X-Ray Spex means to me; how
Oh Bondage! was the first punk record that I remember hearing; and how it inspired me to want to hear
more punk rock. Unfortunately, I was too young to see X-Ray Spex back in the day, but I was lucky enough to get the chance to see their one-off show reunion gig at the Roundhouse in 2008.
When I get home I will be playing
Germfree Adolescents, which I still remember buying, initially on cassette, and my collection of the band's 7 inches including
The Day The World Turned Day-Glo and
Warrior In Woolworths, both of which I still recall receiving in the post from Small Wonder.
Poly's daughter, Celeste Bell-Dos Santos, and her band, supported X-Ray Spex at the Roundhouse in 2008, as did John Robb's band Goldblade. Robb was a friend of Poly's and he shares his personal memories and pays tribute to her at his Louder Than War website,
here.
2 comments:
RIP Polly. I treasure my copy of Germfree Adolescents. Just pulled out the sleeve and noted "All songs Poly-styrene 1978." Punk pioneer indeed.
Shamana, thanks for the comment. The news is so sad. Can you send me your blog link? I'd like to follow you.
All the best, Toby
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