By Frankie Mastrangelo
Punk & Post-Punk Journal
In This is a Message to Persons Unknown: The Story of Poison Girls, Rich Cross highlights a 1982 debate organized by Johnny Waller and Winston Smith, journalists from the 1970–91 weekly music magazine Sounds. Centred around the question of ‘Is Punk Dead?’, the panel brought together Poison Girls’ guiding force, guitarist and vocalist Vi Subversa, alongside Beki Bondage (Vice Squad), Colin Jerwood (Conflict) and others.
In many ways, Subversa’s response to this question captures the spirit of Rich Cross’s Poison Girls history by illuminating the complexities, integrity and legacy of a band foundational to anarcho-punk as a genre and ethic. Vi Subversa, born Frances Sokolov, responded to the Sounds journalists’ antagonistic question with the assured clarity and grounded wisdom of a woman refusing to entertain bullshit: ‘punk is about life; punk was about taking my life for myself. There’s no way I can say punk is dead, because while I’m still alive and kicking I need a word for it and “punk” will do’ (177). Poison Girls were not interested in getting caught up with petty genre debates, competitions for subcultural capital or the simplistic allure of nihilism. Poison Girls reminded us that punk is about life and all of the ugliness and beauty that comes with living. They showed us how we subvert power by asserting our own power and creating more possibilities for others to do the same.
Cross traces Poison Girls’ origins back to how Subversa established her creative life as a single mother in the days prior to punk’s emergence, discussing her role in radical cabaret The Body Show as well as anarchist and feminist political organizing. Poison Girls challenged the ‘year zero’ mentality of punk and drew vital connections to pre-existing countercultures that informed the punk ethos. Historicizing the band’s involvement in leftist movements showcases how Poison Girls were a rare entity within punk itself. The band’s Essex communal home, Burleigh House – located just a few blocks from Crass’s Dial House – became a hub for nurturing the parallel and ultimately convergent forces of Poison Girls and Crass through creative collaboration and radical dialogue. Vi Subversa and original drummer Lance d’Boyle – both of whom were years ahead of their Crass contemporaries – emerged as vital mentors to younger punks like Crass and Honey Bane (who was released to Subversa’s care from a group home). Poison Girls raised the consciousness of younger punks about motherhood, gendered divisions of labour and other pressing topics flying under the radar of boys singing familiar refrains about war.
Rich Cross’s book moves from meticulously charting the band’s early days into chapters organized around each of the band’s albums, considering Subversa’s lyricism, guitarist Richard Famous’s archival contextualization and formative creative partnerships that shaped Poison Girls’ evolving sound and aesthetics. He starts with the band’s 1979 debut album Hex, which asserted Poison Girls’ political perspective, conveying to audiences that the group had nuanced takes on topics such as non-violent resistance and the isolation of domesticity. Songs like ‘Crisis’ share how experiencing unfolding crises like economic downturn and geopolitical strife from the confines of the home is lonely and demoralizing in a way that only those responsible for feminized social reproduction can speak to. Subversa’s embodied resistance to social expectations within and outside punk as a 40-something-year-old woman steering a band made waves amongst journalists and punks alike. Male journalists like Phil Sutcliffe and Paul Morley of Sounds were intimidated by Poison Girls taking aim at topics like misogyny, as Richard Famous recounted Sutcliffe saying, ‘the men in the band must be masochists’ (74).
Funnily enough, while Paul Morley ultimately offered a positive review of Hex, that only happened after Subversa swung at him for taking cheap shots at her appearance in an earlier review of a gig, calling her ‘a middle aged woman stuffed in a red dress’ (46). Not only was Subversa unafraid of standing up to the ageism and sexism of male reporters, she was also insistent on not kicking young people out of shows who acted up and threw things at them. She recognized the band needed to earn respect as kids in the audience were rightly distrustful of authorities – of anyone over 30. From Burleigh House to the establishment of DIY space the Vault, to using each show to welcome rabble-rousers and supporters alike, Cross highlights a key thread of the Poison Girls ethos: cultivating space for anyone who
might benefit from their message, rather than creating echo chambers of like-minded punks.
Cross shifts into discussing the background of the 1979 Bloody Revolutions/ Persons Unknown split with Crass, noting how the title’s inspiration came from the May 1978 anarchist trials. Six defendants faced the extremely serious charge of ‘conspiracy, with person or persons unknown, at places unknown, to cause explosions’ (66). The benefit gigs for the six anarchist defendants surrounding this release garnered controversy, with National Front members attacking the bands at an infamous 1979 Conway Hall show. The Persons Unknown campaign era saw both Poison Girls and Crass jointly critiquing both the National Front and anarchist organizers alike for ‘colonizing the energy of gigs and attempting to turn young fresh blood into soldiers for various causes’ (69). Poison Girls were critical of anyone grappling for power and control across the political spectrum, and that same resistance to power and control ultimately took shape in their artistic collaboration with Crass. Poison Girls grew weary of the strictures imposed on them with the omnipresent Crass logo format integrated in all aesthetic output, and how their secondary status to Crass overshadowed their creative output.
1980’s Chappaquiddick Bridge built upon Hex by engaging their debut album’s sonic structure but kicking up their playfulness via the experimentation of style and pacing. Named after the 1969 ‘Chappaquiddick Incident’ when 37-year-old Ted Kennedy left his campaign worker Mary Jo Kopechne to die at the bridge following a drunken car crash, the album recuperated the woman’s lost memory while undermining blind reverence to political dynasties. With Chappaquiddick Bridge, we see Poison Girls beginning to distinguish themselves more from Crass’s aesthetic imprint by foregoing inclusion of the Crass logo and featuring tracks such as ‘Good Time Sartre’s’ refusal to give up some playful hedonism. While the focus for many anarchists was a serious attitude towards expanding struggle against the status quo, Poison Girls engaged parody and humour in Chappaquiddick Bridge’s lyrics and musical experimentation – as well as through Lance d’Boyle’s Poison Girls magazine Impossible Dream. Cross includes extensive visual references of the magazine (as well as vast collections of show flyers and band memorabilia) highlighting how the evolution of Poison Girls’ artistic point of view went hand in hand with their musical development – each wing of their expression keeping an eye towards how strategies like pastiche and comedy can be vehicles for commentary on sobering political subjects.
The often overlooked 1981 Total Exposure live album solidified their creative independence from Crass and crystallized a turning point for the band as an autonomous musical, artistic and activist force. Their live shows of this early 1980s era harkened back to their early interest in cabaret by integrating more theatrical and film elements, such as screening bassist Nils’s short films and agit-prop slides projected on canvas. ‘King of alternative comedy’ and Young Ones actor Tony Allen joined them on tour as an opener as the band struck out touring to different crowds than the usual Crass contingent. Recollections of memorable shows during this era of renewed independence, such as the 1981 Anarchy Club gigs in Belfast, Ireland, convey the band’s impact as they stepped into their creative power. Peter Jones of Paranoid Visions and DIY punk labels FOAD Records and Rotator Records said that when attending these shows at 15 years old, ‘the warmth of the artists, the amaraderie of the audience and the sense of belonging changed me forever’ (152).
1982’s Where’s the Pleasure continued Poison Girls’ independent path, exploring both the strengths and drawbacks of remaining autonomous from Crass and the musical mainstream. Poison Girls explored the utility of sharing punk with a wider audience as Where’s the Pleasure adopted a more polished and alluring sound. The same themes established during the Hex era run throughout the album – critiques of capitalist alienation and exploitation, pursuing pleasure alongside political struggle and connecting the personal and political through astute gender analysis – but Where’s the Pleasure is smoother, textured and complicated. Not only did this evidence an evolved confidence and self-assuredness, but this was also a stark contrast to the rough bluntness of Total Exposure. On the 1983–84 Singles collaboration with Illuminated Records, Poison Girls made an even more intentional effort to break into the cultural mainstream with ‘radio-friendly’ songs such as ‘One Good Reason’. Poison Girls were both broke and interested in sharing capitalist critique in broader commercial venues, yet the singles failed to capture public attention and chart.
Cross takes us into the 1985 Songs of Praise time period by emphasizing Poison Girls’ reassertion of an anarchist viewpoint through collaborating with acclaimed anarchist illustrator Clifford Harper and integrating reaffirmed commitments to organized movements, such as the ongoing Miners’ Strike of this era. The Thatcher era initiated a new class war against workers by gutting labour protections and increasing militarization of the national police force. Miners faced massive job loss through mine closures as well as rampant unaddressed safety concerns. The Miners’ Strike brought anarchist punk culture’s strong anti-work stance into view as bands like Chumbawamba, Flux of Pink Indians and Poison Girls held multiple truths at the same time. They encouraged other anarcho-punk bands to see that you can simultaneously reject wage slavery while fighting to make workers’ lives better through supporting the strike. This time period also celebrated Subversa turning 50 with a huge birthday gig that Chumbawamba, Toxic Shock and many others played and attended at the Ritzy in Brixton. Richard Famous noted that the apex of the band’s arc could be seen in this birthday show – it seemed to reaffirm the community the band fostered over the years, while reflecting back the band’s influence on various performers like Toxic Shock’s Heather Joyce and Nightingales frontman Robert Lloyd (243).
While a press release in 1986 noted that material for a new studio album tentatively titled Demonstration was in the works, that never progressed and Poison Girls wound down by 1989. Subversa and Famous dedicated creative energy to working on AIDS: The Musical in the late 1980s: a rekindling of their love for radical theatre established a decade earlier with The Body Show. Various reunion gigs came up throughout the 2000s, until Subversa passed away on 19 February 2016 at the age of 80, and Lance d’Boyle passed away at 76 on 16 January 2017. Cross urges us to see how Poison Girls’ legacy keeps their memory alive by closing his history with the reminder of how the band urged those in isolation, suffering from feelings of powerlessness and disconnection imposed on them by authority figures, to come out from hiding (281). ‘Invisible people, show yourselves’, they urged. Similar to Cross’s previous work on the band (see Cross 2014), the author’s history brings Poison Girls’
story into view, shedding generous light on the unconventional path of a band who paved the way for so many future radicals to make art about the structures, norms and expectations that confine us, but do not need to define us. After all, old people can be rebels too.
REFERENCE
Cross, Rich (2014), ‘“Take the toys from the boys”: Gender, generation and
anarchist intent in the work of Poison Girls’, Punk & Post-Punk, 3:2, pp.
117–45, https://doi.org/10.1386/punk.3.2.117_1.
CONTRIBUTOR DETAILS
Dr Frankie Mastrangelo is associate chair of the sociology department and assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. She received her Ph.D. in interdisciplinary studies (media, art and text) from Virginia Commonwealth University and her master’s degree in media, cinema and digital studies from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Her teaching and research examine how racialized gender and subcultures are mediated in digital and physical spaces. Her work has been featured in publications such as Gender and Society, Social Media + Society, Ephemera and Teaching Resistance. Contact: Virginia Commonwealth University, 827 W. Franklin St. Founders Hall, 2nd Floor Richmond, VA 23284, USA
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