Oh Bondage up Yours

Oh bondage up yours Continue Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard. Iconic vocalist Paulie Styrene certainly isn't, as screeching is the call to arms that opens her band X-Ray Spex debut single Oh Bondage! Up on yours! defiantly testified. For the group so strongly rooted in its era, and it was together so fleeting (they formed in 1976, and disintegrated three years later); For all the simplicity of rapid fire and punk vitriol, not to mention Paulie's vocals (described by one journalist as a sizzling dissonance) - X-Ray Spex feel relevant and important today, forty years later, more than ever. A new book, Dayglo: Paulie Styrene's story tells the story of a woman 'real name Marie Elliott' who has managed to bring a playfully joyful, satirical female voice to a man dominated by nihilism punk. Co-authored with Paulie's daughter Celeste Bell with writer, musician and artist zoe howe, and designed by Laura Findlay, the comprehensive volume combines a series of interviews with Paulie's friends, family and fans with a wealth of gorgeous archival photographs, hand-scrawled lyrical sheets and works of art, flyers and more to create an oral portrait of a woman's history with more than a few stories. Paulie died of breast cancer in 2011 at the age of just fifty-three, so it's left for those who knew her (and those who knew her music) to tell her tales. These contributors make up a formidable list, including Vivienne Westwood, Tessa Politt, John Savage and Thurston Moore (formerly Sonic Youth). Celeste Bell and her mother Paulie Stirol I could blame fatigue or soppiness, but I won't: a letter from Bella to the mother who helps open the book had my eyes more than a little raw: They say we die two deaths, she writes, a physical body death, and then the last time someone somewhere says your name. But Dayglo doesn't revel in memorials and slushiness, instead to prove how much we still need people like Pauley today. She gave voice to people like her - women, disenfranchised, people of color, who grew up in London, which was marred by outright discrimination. Born in Bromley, Pauley's daughter writes that her mother was offended that she was the child of a single mother who had three children from two different men. She felt she had suffered the consequences, Bell writes. The family moved to Brixton, and as a child Pauley was always obsessed with music, citing everything from Motown to mike Oldfield's tubular bells to Janis Joplin and Diana Ross. According to Bell, her mother's problems with bipolar disorder were evident back in her early school years - she hated the school structure, and, like many children, played by a truant, got into a fight, shoplifting tended to be a little undisciplined. Maybe most of her illness was that she missed that self-preservation fear that most people had that people people put yourself in dangerous situations, writes Bell. She was willing to take on a lot more risks. Risky and unmanageable and general attitude not taken into account by the fuck: it seems little surprise Paulie found punk (although Bell points out that she doesn't really like the term). She found her stage name, however, in the yellow pages: I visualized a superwoman with silicon tips, Pauley said. Dayglo is impressively comprehensive, and appropriately concludes with a discussion of Paulie's legacy. Director, DJ and musician Don Letts sums up: She was brave, man. She didn't play the women's game, she didn't try to fit what the basic ideas of the norm were. Pauley was acutely aware of these expectations for women, both then and now, as artists and people. The book ends with Paulie's reflections on beauty and glamour, and how she sees successful female artists as bragging about both. And does anyone remember the music? She asked. Fortunately for all of us, yes. Click to play on identity, and turn it loud as hell. X-Ray Spex Dayglo: Poly Styrol Story is published by Omnibus Press VISIT WEBSITE About Bondage Up Yours! Single X-Ray SpexB-sideI Am a ClicheReleased30 September 1977GenrePunk rockLength2:45LabelVirginSongwriter (s)Poly StyreneAudio samplefilehelp Ohage Up Yours! - the debut single of English punk rock band X-Ray Spex. Released in September 1977, it is seen by critics as a prototype of British punk, although it was not a chart hit. The reference version, recorded on April 2, 1977, at one of the band's first public appearances, was already released on the live compilation The Roxy London WC2 in June. The song attracted widespread attention and led directly to the band's first recording deal, a one-single contract with Virgin. Paulie Styren, an X-Ray Spex songwriter and vocalist, was motivated to join the punk scene, like many others, as a result of attending the Sex Pistols concert - her first meeting with the band when she was still Marianne Elliott-Said, was in Hastings in early July 1976. Worried about the problems of consumption and disposable use reflected in the title, which she soon adopted, she wrote Oh Bondage Up Yours! shortly after seeing The Pistols for the second time the following month. The lyrics combine the depiction of modern capitalist materialism as a brand of slavery with a feminist rally cry. Stiren later described it as a call for release. He said: Bondage-forget about it! I am not going to be bound by the laws of consumerism or bound by my own feelings. It has this line: Chain smoke, chain gang, I consume you all: you are tied to this activity for someone else's profit . The instrumental composition of X-Ray Spex included a saxophonist, unusual for a punk band. What made a player with a wooden wind particularly stand out was she was a girl, Susan Whitby, just 16 years old from mid-1977. Falcon Stuart helped convince Styren that the presence of a second woman in the group would be a boon to their marketing. Whitby's content of free-form style on her horns, writes Maria Raha, is often given staccato wails that disappeared quickly, like a saxophonist whistling in the car. Redubed Laura Logic, her signature rough rasp will be prominent in Oh Bondage Up Yours! Richie Unterberger describes the brief installation of one version and the raucous win: Some people say that little girls should be seen and not heard, Paulie Styren solemnly ins. ... But I think and then the voice suddenly rises to the cry-OH BONDAGE UP YOURS! 1-2-3-4! The group then kicks with all the immediacy of the custard pie in the face. Fuzzy power chords and outgoing saxophone bleats wrestle with semi-chanting Styren, half-singing vocals, a mixture of joy and fury that periodically trails away in caterwauling cries. Steve Huey describes it as one of the most visceral moments in all of British punk, although Al Spicer considers the studio single version pretty dim. In Gillian G. Gaar's analysis, the song eagerly steamrolled over the idea of objectifying women, opposing the notion of a head. Raha writes, Styren and Logic were gleefully angry, freed by the freedom of punk. According to Lorraine LeBlanc, the compositions of Styren and Oh Bondage Up Yours! in particular illustrate the emphasis that female punk artists pay to parody and paradox. As she describes, the first verse goes Tie Me Up, Tie Me Up, Chain Me to the Wall / I Want to Be a Slave to All Of You! Paradoxically, the chorus runs: O slavery! Up on yours! / O slavery! Come on! As Styrene continues on to the second verse, she shows the song not about sex, but about consumerism: Chain shop, chain smoke, I consume you all /Chain Gang, Chain Mail, I don't think at all! in this one saying, Styrene transformed a seemingly masochistic plea into an indictment of consumer culture, denouncing the blindness of the mainstream buyer. Portraying herself as an agent and resisting her submission, she created a parody of both positions, pitting them against each other. Logic later gave her an insight into the group's vision: I think Marianne felt that everyone was enslaved - limited, crushed and alienated by a modern materialistic society. The goal of our society is a sense of satisfaction, that is the only prize on offer. But you can never satisfy feelings; it is an impossible goal. Released and accepted by the BBC, the single was very well received by critics, and although it failed to register in the charts, it made the band the subject of widespread interest. According to Gaar, among fans of the punk single quickly became an important item that found its way into every self-respecting collection. In retrospect, John Dugan identifies him, along with early recordings of Sex Pistols and The Clash, as one of the defining moments of punk rock. John Savage also calls it a deserved press sensation and the ultimate punk shot. Within weeks of the release, Logic left the band, apparently fired because Stiren wanted to be the center of attention. The band, now with a male saxophonist, signed with EMI for their debut album Germfree Adolescents, which did not appear on the song Oh Bondage Up Yours! Staff by Paulie Styren (Marianne Elliott-Said) - vocals by Laura Logic (Susan Whitby) - Jak Airport saxophone (Jack Stafford) - guitar by Paul Dean - bass B.. Hearding - percussion references to Heilin (2007), page 202; Tyler (2005), n.p. Tyler claims that this was their second concert in history; Heilyin identifies it as her second Roxy show, after a pair of pub-rock venue runthroughs.

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