Typical Girls: Women in Punk/Post-Punk/Underground Music (Circa 1975-1980s)

[Sharon Cheslow <decomposition AT mindspring.com>]

I just finished reading Simon Reynolds inspiring Rip It Up book that's 
already been discussed here and I've been reading the extra writing Reynolds 
has online (http://www.simonreynolds.net/).  Below is what he wrote on Linder.

Oh, and thanks to the person that told us the UK version had more chapters.  
After reading that, I bought my copy from amazon UK and got the original 
version.  Even though I can see why some of the chapters were cut, it was 
great to read the whole thing.

-Sharon

[Linder] Sterling’s own band Ludus are the great lost Manchester
band of the era. Their output for New Hormones – The Visit (1980),
Pickpocket (1981), The Seduction (1982), Danger Came Smiling (1982),
plus the singles ‘Mother’s Hour’ and ‘Anatomy Is Not Destiny’ – 
have
been comprehensively reissued by, you guessed it, LTM. The music
ranges from gloriously poppy tumbles frisked along by Linder’s euphoric
warble and Ian Devine’s radiant, sometimes Edge-like guitar, through
jazzy suaveness, to vocal noise freakouts like ‘Mouthpiece’ and
‘Mistresspiece’ which bear comparison with such extremists of the
human voice as Yoko Ono, Annette Peacock, Cathy Berberian, and
Norma Winstone (all heroines of Linder’s). The Damage (rec. 1979-
1983; LTM anthology, 2002) provides a good survey of the group’s body
of work and includes the taboo-tweaking menstruation ditty ‘My Cherry
Is In Sherry’. The group’s finest hour might be a legendary November
1982 performance at The Hacienda: Linder appeared in a dress made
from cuts of meat and chicken giblets, which she whipped off during the
last song to reveal a gigantic black dildo; on each table in the venue,
Linder’s accomplices the Crones had deposited a plate with a bloody-red
tampon on it. Linder’s ‘Cunt Power’ brand of feminism plus the 
idiosyncratic,
schizo nature of the music meant that Ludus didn’t make much
impact in their own time, though. Feeling the Hacienda performance
was hard to top, Sterling gradually shifted away from music to concentrate
on her career as an artist and photographer.


-----Original Message-----
>From: Dina Hornreich <dina8 AT cox.net>
>Sent: May 29, 2006 4:14 AM
>To: Typical Girls <typicalgirls AT lists.ibiblio.org>
>Subject: [TypicalGirls] poly styrene
>
>Hi friends:
>
>Issue #58 of The Big Takeover has a short interview with Poly Styrene. Check
out her new site, "Polys' Punky Party," as well: 
http://www.x-rayspex.com/index.html
>
>-Dina
>
>P.S. Any Ludus experts out there? I'm still trying to make sense of the 
>Pickpocket/Danger
Came Smiling reissue. Pretty unique!
>