BAND CRUSH

I've no clue how I ended up on a Raincoats binge tonight, but it'll be taking me away from here. Some of you know them. Some of you don't know them and will think they're absolute crap. And some of you don't know them but will be intrigued. Their first record came about 1979. Punk rock was still happening and the hardcore thing wasn't yet on its feet. There were relatively few punk-informed bands that said "fuck that shit" and stepped beyond the restrictive unwritten codes. Seriously, good post-punk makes punk rock seem like new wave in regards to all that formulaic crap, albeit three chord formulaic crap. The Raincoats were one of the first bands I remember hearing breaking out of that. They were one of those bands that, when you first heard them you thought "Okay, so this is the direction things are going." 

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:

The Raincoats - Adventures Close to Home mp3 at Tumblr
The Raincoats - Off Duty Trip mp3 at Tumblr
The Raincoats - Fairy Tales In the Supermarket mp3 at Tumblr
The Raincoats - Don't Be Mean mp3 at Tumblr
The Raincoats - Lola (streaming) at YouTube Kinks cover

GENRE ISSUE

In looking for an image for this post, I thought I'd do an image search for "punk women," just for the hell of it, fully expecting to be disappointed. I was, more than I expected. I'm here to tell you, "punk women" doesn't mean what it used to. Neither does "punk men" for that matter. Slap me silly, there's some godawful missuses of the term, especially online where everything is packaged and marketed to death; be it gender, genre, or attitude. It's clueless, it's a haircut, a pair of shoes, a fashion spread, and uninformed editorial self indulgence.

Anyway, Network Awesome recently posted a five part video compilation series called "The Women of Punk." Band wise, there's a whole lot of favorites, most I never really identified as one gender or the other. Some I wouldn't even think of as punk. Regardless, if they're going to take the time to round up (or curate as they put it) that comprehensive of a playlist, they can call it "Pea Soup" for all I care.

If you haven't been on Network Awesome, there's a couple things to note. One is that in each series of videos, they have interspersed short promos for other stuff on their site, along with old commercials, primarily from the 70s and 80s. You can bypass any of these, or any of the music videos, by pulling the slider all the way to the end. It'll automatically go to the next clip or video.

At the very bottom below is a link to a really good recent video of Vivienne Westwood (wife of Malcolm McLaren, and co-clothier to the Sex Pistols) speaking her mind about art, punk, education, status and other related subjects.

Watch:
The Women of Punk, Part 1 at Network Awesome: Suzi Quatro, The Runaways, Joan Jett, X Ray Spex, Bush Tetras, B-Girls, The Cranos, Shonen Knife, Pink Section, The Au Pairs, Bikini Kill
The Women of Punk, Part 2 at Network Awesome: Souixie & the Banshees, The Slits, Penetration, Sexsick, Kleenex, Kas Product, Suburban Reptiles, Kleenex, Neo Boys, Castration Squad
The Women of Punk, Part 3 at Network Awesome: Mo-Dettes, Model Citizens, Blondie, Delta 5, Sonic Youth, Bikini Kill, Pandoras, Knetics, Patti Smith Group, Nina Hagen, X
The Women of Punk, Part 4 at Network Awesome: Plasmatics, The Rezillos, 45 Grave, Vice Squad, Auróra Cirkáló, The Bags, UXA, The Raincoats, Avengers, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Spitboy, The Gossip
The Women of Punk, Part 5 at Network Awesome: Slant 6, Sleater-Kinney, Bikini Kill, Chalk Circle, Huggy Bear, Tiger Trap, The Gits, Bratmobile, Heavens To Betsy, Excuse 17, Babes In Toyland, L7
Definitely watch this:
Vivienne Westwood interview at the Guardian UK