Friday 2 June 2017

X-Ray Spex - "Live at the Roxy 1977"


Of course to round up the career of Susan Whitby,aka Lora Logic,the sax playing Buddhist. Here's one of the few recordings of her playing with X-Ray Spex at the infamous Roxy punk club in covent garden, Wearing a very dodgy outfit indeed.:
X-Ray Spex were one of the new waves' most instantly readymade groups.Hitting the ground running,with a bunch of incredibly simple and catchy,if piercing, tunes that anyone could learn and play in a few minutes.
Whitby provided a different edge in the legions of bandwagon punks,with her spidery sax lines,and was later heard to moan about the lack of writing credits provided by her chum, and ,weirdly, another future Buddhist, Marion 'Polly Styrene' Elliot (RIP).
Their career was just about the right length,as there was nowhere left to go in this format by the end of 1978.Like the Pistols, one LP was all that they had in them, or was needed....in fact as great as these songs were,hear more than 7 or 8 in a row tends to be too much for the ears.
As for Lora, she left after the first single to go to more progressive area's, along with the other early punk rock ship jumpers who saw the writing on the wall quickly.(Devoto,Perry,Lydon etc).
So here we have a faltering,sometimes inept, muffled recording of a performance at the Roxy Club in 1977.Don't know when, but it doesn't seem to be the one used on the 'Live at the Roxy' album.

Tracklist:

1 Oh Bondage! Up Yours! 2:42
2 Identity 2:25
3 Let's Submerge 3:05
4 Plastic Bag 4:10
5 I Live Off You 2:18
6 I Am A Cliche 1:48
7 I Can't Do Anything 2:59
8 Oh Bondage! Up Yours! 2:52

2 comments:

Ollie Stench said...

Drummer BP Hurding and guitarist Jack Airport formed the New Romantic band Classix Nouveaux after the Spex broke up. Airport didn't last long and was replaced by Gary Steadman. Sal Solo, singer of Classix Nouveaux, is not a Buddhist, but a Catholic youth minister. What is it with all these people finding "God"?

Jonny Zchivago said...

Pop stars and religion!?.....probably more common in American bands i wager.
Which reminds me of a toe curling discussion between Brandon Flowers from the exceedingly shit Killers pop group, and Richard Dawkins. An intellectual gap the size of the grand canyon was evident.....check it out on you tube here:
https://youtu.be/MMlgbfxt3qc