(In the first installment of a new series, Dave Rinck takes the mic in praise of germ-free adolescence.)
Hi guys, this is Dave Wallflower. Here on the Che Underground Web site, we’ve mentioned in passing a lot of the very cool bands outside the SD music scene that inspired us, excited us or are simply cool bands to listen to.
Well, not everyone may be familiar with all of these bands, so in this new series I plan to talk about bands we’ve dug through the years, why we dug them and what they’re doing now. Here we go!
The other day I put X-ray Spex on over the iPod at a party, and people around me reacted like I’d lost my mind. “This band is loud and noisy,” someone complained, “and the singer is screaming.” Hmmm … Yes, that’s all true, but exactly what is it that you don’t like about them?
On a site about American underground rock-‘n’-roll music from the ’80s, it may seem odd to lead off with a British punk rock-band from the ’70s, but X-ray Spex is on my mind these days, partly because I lived out one of my age-old fantasies and saw them live at the Roundhouse in London last weekend. Not many bands these days would inspire me to travel across continents, so that’s a testimony to how much I love the Spex:
X-ray Spex was one of the original punk bands that appeared in the U.K. in the mid-’70s, a band that was once described as being “charmingly shambolic.” Their first single featured a fantastic, rocking tune called “Oh Bondage Up Yours!” a tune that iconic singer and front women Poly Styrene called “a cry for liberation from the material world.”
Later they released a great album full of high-energy rock-‘n’-roll music, called “Germ Free Adolescence.” This one still makes it onto my turntable quite a bit these days (and it makes a great workout soundtrack in the gym). It was packed full of great tunes about consumerism and media control like “the Day the World Turned Day-Glo” and my personal favorite, “I Live Off You.” One tune had the classic lines:
It’s 1977 and we are going mad
It’s 1977 and we’ve seen too many ads
It’s 1977 and we’re gonna show them all
That apathy’s a dra-a-a-ag!!!
“Hahhaa! What a cliché,” you say? In fact, one of their songs was actually called “I’m a Cliché.”
What made the Spex unique was their witty and funny approach to the ever-encroaching control of big business and the media industry on our feeble lives and weak attempts at cultural freedom. While some punk rock bands like the Sex Pistols ranted angrily about the bleak future of our countercultural existence, the Spex lampooned it in clever and hilarious ways. They would have lamented the decline of Topsy’s and the death of independent music venues like the Adams Avenue Theater (now a fabric store) as much as we do here, but they would have expressed it in a hilarious way that would have dried our tears and put a smile on our lips. Plus they were one of the few punk rock bands to have a saxophone!
So what’ve the Spex been doing since disappearing at the end of the ’70s? Certainly not rehearsing, since they were as “charmingly shambolic” as ever at the Roundhouse last weekend. Who cares? The Spex are sort of a cult band, and the audience (consisting of plenty of older folks like myself) knew the words to every single song by heart and carried right on through from beginning to end. And I heard Poly went off and joined the Hare Krishnas in the ’80s, so take that, you establishment you!
— David Rinck