Recordroll!: "Oh Cancer! Up Yours!"

Thursday, April 28, 2011

"Oh Cancer! Up Yours!"

Back when our record collection consisted of let's say 50 beloved precious LPs and our cassetes were re-recorded over & over, when a walkman was my door to another dimension right before i sleep, i had taped the infamous "The Roxy London WC2" LP backed with i what i considered the best songs out of the "Burning Ambitions: A History Of Punk" compilation.Each side had it's X-Ray Spex moment, "Oh bondage up yours!" & "Identity" and i still can't tell if it was Poly's voice or that howling saxophone that made them so unique and special.What i can tell is that now, a good 25 years later (and more than 30 years since these tracks were originally recorded) they sound fresher than ever,Germ free Adolescents is established as one of the best debut albums ever recorded and Poly Styrene left for that other dimension.Through the years i was reading interesting things about her here & there,bipolar,hippie,hare krishna,punk icon, whatever, and she was one of the cases that always made me think how few things we knew about the people who were creating the music we love(d).She will be missed.As that crazy shiny girl with the braces and the bowl on the head.Or was that a helmet? GF