Helter Skelter
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Artist:
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Siouxsie & The Banshees
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Genre:
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Punk
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Decade:
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1970's
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Title:
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Helter Skelter
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Author:
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Kevin
Bennett
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I don’t include this because I like it – quite the opposite. I hate almost everything Siouxsie Soux has done.Except for one thing. In the mid 70s I was the vocalist (note, I never claimed to be a singer) in a band based in Exeter. We were called Wasp – not the American hard-rockers, who must have stolen the name from us, but simply the best rock band in Exeter or, as our publicity posters boasted – Exeter’s Top Rock Band (no one found evidence to refute that claim, but nor did we find any to support it, ho hum). We were a strange combo – me on vocals, Steve Pearce & Steve Major on guitars, Steve Rickaby or Ernie Ballard on drums, depending on when you caught us, and the late, great Valdis Muncis on bass. A lot of our time was spent playing in The New Vic(toria) pub in Exeter, or drinking in there. We had a regular following including members of the Satan’s Slaves motor bike club, and many others and we played a selection or rock classics and our own stuff. In 76/77 the punk revolution hit London and then spread to the sticks, and we were affected by it. Soon our sound was a hybrid of Lynard Skynard and the Sex Pistols – but that’s probably because we wanted to be as successful and as accomplished as Skynard, but had a musical ability closer to that of the Pistols! Actually, in fairness to three Steves, one Vladis and an Ernie, musically they were all quite accomplished and I have some old recordings to prove it. Anyway, we had a manager who was the best bulls**t artist I’ve ever met – he’d do things like phone the editor of the local paper yelling, “I don’t care who you are: Wasp are not available for comment.” Somehow he always managed to leave a phone number for the editor to phone back, and sure enough, a few minutes would pass and the phone would ring, and we’d end up getting at least a small mention in the paper. It was this bullish approach that led to him booking Siouxsie & The Banshees to play at the Tiverton Motel, Devon. The plan was that they would headline, we would be second on the bill, and a local punk outfit called The Breaks would warm up the audience. Siouxsie & The Banshees were just breaking through on the London punk scene – they’d been written up in Melody Maker and NME as the next big punk thing, but had yet to release a record. I think the Tiverton gig was either late 76 or early 77, I really can’t recall the date. But what I do recall is that they turned up when we and The Brakes had already sound-checked. There was some equipment sharing going on – most was ours, only the guitars belonged to the Banshees – so all they had to do was try it out and relax. Their entrance went like this: Siouxsie and one black/spiky haired man sat on chairs on one side of the stage, two black/spiky –haired chaps sat on the other side of the stage, and at no point did one pair talk to the other. Nor did they talk to any of us, nor to The Brakes. That night, The Brakes put on the show of a lifetime, and we did likewise. Siouxsie & The Banshees got booed off stage after about ten minutes. We went back on, ‘cos The Brakes only had 20 minutes of material and they’d done it all. We received rapturous applause and were pelted with appreciative bottles – that how punks showed their appreciation, you know. So, getting booed off stage is the one thing Siouxsie & The Banshees did that I liked!
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