Of all the great female-fronted bands that punk produced – Siouxsie, Slits, Raincoats, Delta 5, Kleenex – the most confrontational were the Au Pairs. They were also my favourites.

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This Northern Soul classic came out in 19675, two years before The Invitations came to the UK to perform. It didn’t go quite as they expected.

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Of all the oddballs produced by punk (and there were many), one of the oddest was Kenneth Spiers – universally known as Spizz. He’s best known (if at all) for his habit of constantly changing the name of his band – always using ‘Spizz’ somewhere – over the course of his long career.

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Like so many Sixties soul singers, Northern soul favourite Jackie Ross started singing in church, though her first performance was at the age of three, on the radio show of her preacher parents.

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The Mekons were one of the quintessential punk groups, coming out of art school in Leeds in 1976 – the same scene that spawned Gang Of Four and Delta 5. Where Were You? – a minimalist masterpiece of bare-bones punk rock – remains one of the defining songs of the era. (more…)

The more I delve into the vaults of vintage soul, the more previously unheard gems I unearth. I guess that goes without saying. Like this classic example, a tune that’s better than many of the similar soul singles that packed the charts in the Sixties and Seventies.

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Pere Ubu came out of Cleveland in the mid-Seventies with an abrasive avant-garde sound unlike anyone before or since. This was their remarkable debut.

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Cabaret Voltaire were England’s answer to Suicide, and a key component in the development of industrial and dance music.

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I love Suicide. They were punks before punk and their debut album is the template for nearly all the electronica to emerge since its release in 1977. This is their first release – the version of Rocket U.S.A. that appeared on the Live At Max’s compilation the year before. And this is the article I wrote for The Quietus when Alan Vega died in 2016:

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