The Slits - Love And Romance (John Peel Session rec: 19.9.1977 / broad: ...

This was the very first song I heard by The Slits. It was featured, fleetingly, in a Radio 1 documentary about Peel Sessions in 1992. As with the Banshees early Peel sessions, the first two Slits sessions are considerably rawer and faster than anything they laid down on vinyl.

Both of the Slits Peel Sessions were regularly re-visited by Peel, which was lovely during the Riot Grrrl years as it meant I had a least one mixtape where the Slits 'Vindictive' was sitting next to Bikini Kill and Huggy Bear Peel sessions tracks, and other similarly stroppy punk stuff from across the eras.

The version of 'Love and Romance' that was finally recorded (as part of The Slits debut album, Cut, in 1979) is very different to this version, and while it does work, I still love this version.

Siouxsie and the Banshees - Metal postcard

This is a clip from 1978 of the Banshees performing on the Old Grey Whistle Test (or, as my friend Clare Mullady always called it, the Old Grey Bob Test). My hunch is that it probably dates from the the end of the year, around the time their debut album, The Scream, was released.

I have to say, The Scream was more or less ruined for me because it was years and years before I managed to track down a copy and, by then, I'd heard (and loved) the 1977/1978 Peel Sessions LP. If you haven't heard that LP, it's basically the blueprint for The Scream, with most of the songs featuring on that album or else being released as stand alone singles in that period. Only the Peel session versions are both rawer and much, much faster. I couldn't get my head around how slow The Scream felt in relation to the Peel Sessions, and while I do like it, I also still prefer the Peel Sessions.

The Peel Sessions LP was my first punk record. It was bought for me by my sister in about October 1992 after we spotted it in Double Four Records in Stockport. Despite it being purchased as a Christmas present, my sister, very generously, let me have it early. There followed a delightful week in which we played it over and over again very, very loudly while jumping up and down a lot. Mum and dad were less delighted and, after a week of this, mum intervened and  the record was taken off me and wrapped up for Christmas. I think she was hoping the novelty would have worn off by the time I got it back in late December: It hadn't.

As to 'Metal Postcard' the song, the version you'll see above is played at the speed it is played on The Scream, enhancing it's brooding menace. The lyrics were inspired by a montage of anti nazi propaganda by the German Dadaist John Heartfield ('Hurrah, die Butter ist all!', Arbiter - Illustrierte - Zeitung (AIZ, Prag) 19.12.1935, S.816. Kat-NR. Z92) which I always thought was a somewhat random choice of inspiration, until I (very recently) discovered, via Jon Savage's chapter in the Linder book, that there had been a big Heartfield exhibition in London at the ICA in 1976, and extrapolating from that, this may well have been the event that introduced a number of the London punk set to Heartfield and to Dada.

Punk women, as promised...

As promised, I have organised ('curate' is such an overused word... and it seems a little ambitious sounding for what I'm doing in this case) a series of punk women clips from YouTube for your delight and delectation.

Because I missed punk entirely (by virtue of not being born until 1979) I will be posting clips in a personal chronological sequence rather than an actual chronological sequence. Ie, the artists are arranged in the approximate order in which I encountered them and their music, not by order of when the various performances or recordings happened.

I was going to do 'Eighteen songs for 2018' but by the time I'd hit twenty clips I was thinking 'Why stop at 18?' so there's more than that now. About 25 I think.

I've also cast my net beyond the UK and have strayed from the 1975-1978 period. As such, there are French, Swiss, Canadian and US artists coming up as well as artists who would be considered post punk rather than punk. I've tried to ensure that you get a mix of famous and not so famous punk artists as well because I think it's really important not to be lazy when compiling these kind of audio visual lists and, if I can do, introduce you to people you might not have come across before.

As well as giving my inspiration a boost and reminding me why it was I embarked on this whole punk women odyssey in the first place, I think it's necessary to sound a klaxon for women and punk every few years, just to ensure they aren't forgotten about... again...

Wild Ones - Invite Me In (Ring Road Live Sessions)

This live take on 'Invite Me In' reflects the more thoughtful/introspective end of the current F-Word playlist. The recorded version can be found on Mirror Touch, which was one of my favourite albums of 2017.

Gaptooth (feat. Sisters Uncut) - They Cut We Bleed

This incendiary device of a song has a starring role in this months F-Word playlist.

I hadn't actually planned to do another political/agit prop type playlist after the last two as I sometimes wonder (despite the F-Word being a UK feminist website) if people perhaps get a bit fed up with all my stroppy music selections. In the end though, the finished playlist is a bit agit prop-y (initially at least) and this can be seen to be a reflection of where we are at the moment, society and feminism wise.

My original themes/touchstones for the February playlist were going to be love and winter weather (well, it is February after all...) but it ended up being more the sinister/realistic end of the love song oevre, including Florence + The Machine's 'Various Storms & Saints', which neatly covers both the love and weather angle and is one of my favourite tracks from the How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful album.

You can read more, and listen to the playlist (if you have Spotify), over on The F-Word.

Raincoats - "Lola" featuring Viv Albertine

This is to keep you going until I have my punk videos organised properly.

A rare live collaboration between The Raincoats and the then fairly newly solo Viv Albertine.

Punk women research and fact checking

I'm currently in the process of extensively re-writing my book proposal for the punk women book, and I've discovered an alarming number of instances where I haven't got dates for things that happened.

Some things I'm going to have to email my interviewees about, but other things - like gig dates/tour dates for some of the very big punk bands - are in the public domain and can be tracked down relatively easily.

You see before you some of the books I've been using to track down dates for things, though I will also need to trawl some newspaper archives and online resources as well.

On the women and punk tip, I also feel it's time to do some YouTube clip posting again and shine a light on some of our 1970s and early 1980s punk women, so keep an eye out... it's on the way.