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A new documentary film, Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché, clears up some of the mystery around the remarkable biracial woman born Marian Elliott. The film, directed by Paul Sng and Celeste Bell, Poly’s daughter, is also a welcome reminder of the power of X Ray Spex and London punk scene to shape cultural conversations. It arrives soon after the appearance of Dayglo: The Poly Styrene Story, co-authored by Bell and Zoë Howe. Neither portrait flinches from the darker aspects of Poly Styrene’s struggles with mental illness, racism and sexism, or her finding refuge as a Hare Krishna devotee. Richie Unterberger spoke with Howe about Poly Styrene for PKM. ....
“3 July 1976, Hastings Pier. It’s my birthday and I’ll party if I want to.” Marianne Joan Elliott-Said is attending a Sex Pistols gig on her 19th birthday. “I stand centre point in an almost empty ballroom; three Swedish babes stared at Johnny.” Inspired by Rotten and co, the teenager decides to form her own band and places an ad in Melody Maker: “Young punx who want to stick it together,” she writes. She adopts a new moniker from the Yellow Pages – a send up of popstar attributes (plastic, disposable) – and shortly after, Poly Styrene and her band X-Ray Spex are playing their first gig at The Roxy in Covent Garden. A British punk legend was born. ....
You didn’t pick your mother’s biggest hit, “Oh Bondage Up Yours!” Celeste Bell: There are so many gems that are lesser-known. So instead, you’ve chosen that single’s B-side. Celeste Bell: There’s a bit where it goes, “Yama, yama, yama, yama, yama, yama, boredom, boredom, boring boredom”. She was probably like, “This is fucking boring” as she was writing the song, and just put that in. I think it’s genius in how rushed it is, and how little thought went into it. In the documentary, your mother talks about how, around this time, as a mixed-race woman, she felt like an outsider, and that’s why she joined the punk scene – they were meant to be for outsiders. Yet alternative guitar-based music was, and still is, predominantly white men. ....
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