RhoDeo 1310 Aetix

Hello,  as the weather blankets NW Europe in an unseasonal thick blanket of snow, where not even the Eurostar was able to plough through, however those silly buggers that went on the road with their cars really had it coming four wheel drive or not. Funny thing that in a few days time there will be nothing left that reminds of the chaos. Meanwhile Aetix continues with females in the lead, and today a rather special 'lady' in the spotlight.

Poison Girls' lead singer Vi Subversa, currently 77 years old, knocks out incredibly emotional vocals that on occasion remind one of the heroin-on-the-rocks warblings of Marianne Faithfull, but Vi is even better. The group's insightful lyrics make comment on love, isolation, people's ill use of others (and why we allow it), political/economic systems that lay waste to their own populations, and mundane life in general.. ......  N'Joy

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Vi Subversa real name Frances Sokolov Sansom (born 20 June 1935, London) was the singer and guitarist of UK anarcho-punk band Poison Girls. She was born of East-European Jewish parents. In 1979, at 44 years old and a mother of two, Vi Subversa released the first single with the Poison Girls.

The Poison Girls were an English punk band. The female singer and guitarist, Vi Subversa, was forty one years old and a mother of two children at the band’s inception in 1976, and she wrote songs that explored sexuality and gender roles, usually from an anarchist perspective. The original Poison Girls line-up also included: Lance D’Boyle on drums; Richard Famous on guitar and vocals and Bernhardt Rebours on bass, synthesizer and piano.

Poison Girls formed in Brighton in 1976, before moving to Burleigh House in Essex, near to Dial House, the home of fellow anarchist band Crass, with whom they worked closely for a number of years, playing over one hundered gigs with the band. In 1979 the band contributed to the revival of the peace movement by playing a number of benefit gigs with Crass and paying for the production of the first CND badges since CND’s heyday in the late 1960’s.

The band released two slabs of vinyl in 1979 firstly ‘Closed Shop / Piano Lessons’ on Small Wonder Records which was a split 12″ single with Fatal Microbes, a band that contained two of Vi Subversa’s children, Pete and Gemma. The absolutely brilliant ‘Hex’, a 45 rpm LP was also put out on the Small Wonder Record label in 1979 and through it’s popularity was re-released on Crass Records in 1981. Hex, was produced by Crass drummer Penny Rimbaud, as was the following year's Chappaquiddick Bridge

‘Chappaquiddick Bridge’ the debut 33 rpm LP was also released on Crass Records in 1980 plus ‘A Statement’ flexi disc was slipped into the gatefold sleeve packaging. While the guitar-based music on both records was fairly subtle, Subversa's lyrics were anything but, tackling issues of politics, normalcy, romance, and feminism with fury and intelligence.

Their song ‘Bully Boys / Pretty Polly’ (flexi disc given away free with In The City magazine) was an attack on violent machismo that led to the band being blacklisted by the left wing Socialist Workers Party and attacked by members of the right wing National Front both these political movements were convinced it was an attack on there organisations. Of course it was!

The band went on to set up the label Xntrix alongside a publishing arm for the Impossible Dream magazine and recording studios for other artists. The ‘All Systems Go’ 7” was the bands last Crass Records release and came out in 1981. Poison Girls stopped touring with Crass toward the end of that year. After releasing Total Exposure, a stopgap live album recorded in Scotland in mid-1981, the Poison Girls returned in 1982 with a newly skilled and sophisticated sound on Where's the Pleasure, which found Subversa streamlining her material to focus solely on the subject of sex.

By the 1983 EP I'm Not a Real Woman, the band had virtually abandoned its punk roots in favor of Celtic folk singing and cabaret-styled pop; 1985's Songs of Praise even found elements of funk creeping into the mix.
In the late '80s, the Poison Girls called it quits. A four-CD retrospective, Statement: The Complete Recordings 1977-1989, was issued in 1996,  their songs also frequently appear on punk anthologies.

Poison Girls were involved with the production of Aids — The Musical, through a company called The Lenya Hobnoobs Theatre Company. They did another show called Mother Russia was a Lesbian in 1992, and reunited for a show at the London Astoria II in 1995, celebrating the 60th birthday of Vi Subversa. Currently, Richard Famous works as a painter and decorator. Vi Subversa lives in Spain. The pair have performed as That Famous Subversa, a cabaret act they did together before the Poison Girls.

ps

Subversa’s last musical venture was with the cabaret trio Vi Subversa’s Naughty Thoughts, which she formed with Michael Coates and Judy Bayley. She played her final live performance with Naughty Thoughts at Brighton’s Green Door Store on 5 December 2015, with the Cravats. Subversa's son Pete Fender announced on Facebook on 19 February 2016 that she had died, following a short illness.

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Poison Girls - Statement (Box Set)

Poison Girls were more akin to Brechtian punk cabaret acts, such as the highly talented Dresden Dolls or Nina Hagen; like such acts, Poison Girls were multi-faceted - displaying far too much personality to be accurately categorised under same label as Crass. Like the Dresden Dolls, Poison Girls expressed tender feelings as well as more violent ones. They sang about personal intimate thing as much as about greater political issues. Vi Subversa was a vivid, versatile performer - well-adapted to playing many different roles; in 'Old Tart's Song' she plays a prostitute, in 'Bremen Song' she is a witch, in 'Whiskey Voice' she is an aging alcoholic, in 'Idealogically Unsound' she is playfully flirtatious and wonderfully girly, whilst in 'Velvet Launderette' she plays a sinister Johnny-Depp-style Willy Wonka. Fantastic stuff. Dramatic, theatrical and highly entertaining. Great tracks all of them.

A mosaic of sound effects is interwoven into many of these songs; On the first album 'Hex' (German for 'Witch') - 'Bremen Song' begins with bird song and mantra-like harmonics, whilst 'Reality Attack' begins with the sound of supermarket tills etc. On the second album (Chappaquiddick Bridge) vocal sounds are played around with and tweaked more - ie on 'Underbitch' the word 'bitch' mutates into 'Spitz', whilst in 'Hole in the Wall' the words 'Seek and Hide' become 'Seig und Heil' etc. 'Chappaquiddick Bridge' conjures up a film-noir world of criminal mobsters, cold war espionage and nervous breakdown, whilst the third album 'Where's the Pleasure' has a maturer, world-weary vibe and is even more musically divergent - the opening track, has echoing reggae-rifts. Other songs seem closer to folk music than to traditional rock and roll.

The final LP - 'Songs of Praise' - has a more commercial feel to it - as if geared for the bland mass market, rather than the authentic underground from which it had emerged. This box set comprises of four albums plus singles and EPs - 72 tracks in all. Anyone who appreciates intelligent music will find some track of appeal and interest amongst this box set.

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Poison Girls - Early Recordings + Hex (flac 404mb)

01 Revenge 2:11
02 Cats Eye 2:31
03 Piano Lessons 3:47
04 Closed Shop 2:45
05 The Moon (I Wanted) 2:48
06 Old Tarts Song 2:21
07 Crisis 3:26
08 Ideologically Unsound 2:40
09 Bremen Song 7:15
10 Political Love 2:31
11 Jump Mama Jump 3:03
12 Under The Doctor 2:49
13 Reality Attack 5:25
14 Persons Unknown 7:14
15 State Control 2:54
16 Bully Boys 2:19
17 Tension 2:52
18 SS Snoopers 4:36

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Poison Girls - Chappaquiddick Bridge + Singles (flac 405mb)

01 Promenade Immortelle 6:55
02 State Control 3:31
03 Another Hero 5:02
04 Hole In The Wall 4:16
05 Underbitch 4:19
06 Alienation 6:50
07 Pretty Polly 4:06
08 Good Time 5:06
09 Other 5:53
10 Daughters & Sons 5:19
11 Tender Love 1:48
12 Dirty Work 4:31
13 Statement 5:10
14 Don't Go Home Tonight 3:31
15 Fuckin' Mother 2:31

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Poison Girls - Where's the Pleasure + Singles   ( flac 381mb)

01 Where's The Pleasure 3:07
02 Lovers Are They Worth It? 2:49
03 Done It All Before 3:20
04 Whiskey Voice 1:03
05 Menage Abattoir 4:30
06 Take The Toys 2:24
07 Soft Touch 2:37
08 Toys (Reprise) 0:57
09 Velvet Launderette 3:28
10 Rio Disco Stink 4:16
11 Cry No More 3:15
12 Mandy Is Having A Baby 2:59
13 Fear Of Freedom 6:22
14 Happy Now (12" Mix) 4:31
15 Cinnamon Garden 3:14
16 Offending Article 4:41
17 Perfect Crime 4:48
18 Tell The Children 3:09
19 Cream Dream 3:59

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