A recent interview with Michelle Brigandage - i'm sorry but it's all about metatags!
The great thing about doing this site is that i'm in contact with old friends and new! and i'm in contact with Ian PTP who not only has bought 2 shirts and 1 tee shirt, promoted this site wherever he goes but also does a great fanzine. He thought i might have something interseting to say - i'm not sure anymore but judge for yourselves- the interview is in this edition of his fanzine BUT it also contains an interview with the great POLY STYRENE, NICKY TESCO of the MEMBERS, JAYNE COUNTY AND OTHERS.
IN THE BEGINNING...
You were a very early fan of the Pistols, how did you first find out about them and what attracted to you about them? Were you a regular at SEX? You were pictured outside the 100 Club Punk festival in 1976, what was the atmosphere like there that night?
My boyfriend bruno and I were a little different at school in that we loved Roxy Music, I think we loved them better than Bowie – though we saw him on the 76 Thin white Duke tour. We loved Lou Reed and the Velvets and the Rocky Horror Picture show - He had a massive record collection for the time. We just liked things that weren’t long hair and flares and dull like led Zepplin, Lynard Skynard, Genesis, this made us odd at school.
He read the Melody Maker and when we were about 15/16 we started going to gigs even rock’n’roll gigs- it was fun but there was a feeling in the air – that something was about to happen, about to explode – then one day we read about a band called Eddie and the Hotrods and they sounded exciting. But for some reason we didn’t make it to the gig, I think we had tickets for the |Doctors of Madness instead! then it happened the pistols front page of the melody maker – the fight from the stage in the Nashville. That was it – straight up to town to see them. They just seemed so exciting, out of ordinary, looked like us, were young. THEY DIDN’T HAVE LONG HAIR! IT WAS SHORT LIKE OURS.
People don’t really realize how absolutely boring and tedious britain was in the early 70’s, how the sixties dreams of revolution had died and left a vacuum. Also it was a lot easier for me to get to gigs because I lived in a suburb of London.
That’s a very personal question! but if you mean did I shop regularly in the shop Sex – then yes we did go there quite a lot. Ususally just to look because we couldn’t afford things . An only anarchists are pretty shirt cost £25 – that was a full weeks wage if you were working, we had Saturday and holiday jobs which we’d save up our money to go and buy a t- shirt and sometimes there were sales and I’d get a pair of shoes for a Fiver. That of course was after we’d plucked up courage to set foot in there in the first place. IT looked so scary from the outside and lets not forget the enormous presence and looks of Jordan. We were much younger, by about 2 years, than Siouxie and the others.
The atmosphere at the festival was electric. We’d seen the pistols several times before and the clash, they had 5 members then – Keith Levine was their guitarist for a while. Dreadful bands used to support them like the suburban studs – they were dreadful we nearly walked out before the pistols came on!. They brought a dead pigs head out on stage – so you see people were already trying to latch on to this new feeling but getting it terribly wrong.
It was an incredible 2 nights but it was marred by the glass throwing incident, which Sid was later blamed for. My cousin and I got small bits of glass showering over us into our face but it was a friend I’d met at the Blitz – Cherry- I think that was her name who got it straight in the eye. It blinded her in one eye and I think she was going to be an artist and that put paid to that. So obviously the atmosphere changed suddenly =- there was blood, screaming, crying and ambulances. It calmed down after she was taken away but everybody started to leave ands Siouxie stood on the stairs and asked people to stay and watch the Buzzcocks! we couldn’t coz we had a train to catch to get back home. Should have stayed to see them – it was Howard Devoto
All I can say about seeing the Pistols was that the first time Johnny stepped on stage I practically fell to my knees – it was like a religious experience - here was someone who understood what I was feeling inside- we no longer felt alone – we were individuals but with others, not some mindless gang, but a group of people who had finally found their way to a home.
The 100 club -
bruno and me and thats supposrd to be a ROXY MUSIC hair do but that's what you got when you went to Anne of Hayes - the pre-cursor POODLE!
johnny obviously i was po-going.
Glen
Glen again
glen again!
the Clash
siouxie with marco in background
rat scabies
Vanian in colour
Vanian in more suitable black and white
chris spedding
Too cool for School or what! sometimes i think i'm more known for this rather than the band - THANKS TO CAROLINE COON - another heroine of mine.
First proper band was the V.D.Us. They were started by jeff/julien Harvey ˆ I met him at ravensbourne art school ˆ where else would you meet musicians but before that bruno and I had bands in our head ˆ the first was syphillitic squirrel and the vd scabs ˆ I know but we were only 16 and our next creation was Passion Flower ˆ music to get your socks off to. Funny how you remember the stupid things. We wentall the way to Lee Green to a second hand shop to buy a guitar and bass and amps. They cost a lot about £25s each probably more and we were still at school- we must have saved our pocket money and Saturday job money for weeks.
Thing was my parents wouldn‚t let me have an electric instrument so I had to hide it in the wardrobe and only play when they went out. I used to play the bass whilst sitting IN the wardrobe for extra security but one day they came back early to find the light fitting shaking up and down to the bass line of My love lies limp (ATV). I was discovered when they followed the noise to the closed wardrobe and opened the door to find me sitting muffled between some coats.
Brigandage seemed to derive some of your direction influence not only form the Pistols but also the milleu and ideas that surrounded them (i.e. Seditionaries, Situationalism)...why was this such a key influence on the band?
How important was the look of the band? At the time bands looked very drab, was it important to the band to provide colour as well as substance to what was happening? You still design clothing, (insert plug here!) can one still get their hands on your shirts/other gear?
The pistols via talky malky and through him to Jaimie Ried introduced me to the exciting theories of the situationists.
I can't go into it here in abig way coz its too complicated but Guy Debords theory of the SPECTACLE is resonant one. Simply put the world that we see is not the real world but the world we are conditioned to see and the situationist agenda was to explain how the nightmare works so that everyone can wake up – in some ways the Matrix uses this premise. We are all trapped by a commodity culture of owning not being. If you think of Thatcher she didn’t want workers to own proerty from the goodness of her heart. Anyone tied up in a mortgage has no recourse but to work whatever the outrageous demands of employers coz there’s no choice- don’t work and you lose everything. When you’re in rented accommodation at least there’s housing benefit. It circumscribes the way you choose to live and lives you unable to resist oppression and live out your dreams.
Situationist theory can be very dense but their slogans are easy to understand. Tom Vague has a good synopsis in VAGUE*16/17 if anyone one can find a copy. Also read Greil Marcus LIPSTICK TRACES. Fascinating book.
If youu look at the early punk rock bands everyone had their own identity – it was full of colour – it was a show of defiance in a mundane drab world. It was like saying we might not seem to have much but in reality we have everything that you can’t touch or take away, look at Rubella Ballet! Clothes have always been important to me – not as stus symbols but as an expression of who you are. I’ve been slagged for my love of westwood’s clothes but I love her she’s my heroine. Her clothes made women powerful and sexy and that’s always a threat to certain sections of society.
I went to art school to become a fashion designer in 1977 but they were only interested in getting us jobs in M&S. I dropped out after 2 years for a number of reasons – the main one being that I suddenly realized I could never be Vivienne Westwood. When you are in your teens everything is black and white – no room for 2nd best. However, after a couple of years I began to realize that I could reconcile myself to 2nd best - that’s when I started looking for a band and later started making clothes again.
