Siouxie and the Banshees, The Early Years - Laurence Hedges

 

I absolutely loved the first SATB's release, The Scream, when it came out (and still do) and still listen to it regularly (it's in my car as I type this). I was certainly surprised to discover that there is a lost (to me, anyway) 2nd album that does not seem to be in print currently (although per YouTube listens, that is a crime) that continues in the same vein, before they moved into slightly more commercial sounds, even while keeping their own spirit. While I didn't follow their career closely as they became MTV icons, I always found their tunes enjoyable and when I discovered that there was this book on their early years, I happily picked it up.

Of course, there is the obligatory punk history lesson, especially as Sioux and Severin were in the Bromley Contingent. There’s not much about the early personal lives of the members but the band’s history, revolving members and important gigs are accounted for, as is their basic chronology.

It still astounds me that the ultra-poppy “Hong Kong Garden” was released before the wonderfully atonal, dark noise fear of The Scream, as it sounds like the band they became in the 80’s (when I first heard the song, as it was not a hit in the States in the 70’s). Hedges describes the various early songs but has an odd habit of making comparisons to much more modern bands like Radiohead or some such - I suppose to show the Banshees’ influence but in a weird and slightly obscure way.

Touring England after the release of The Scream and the success of "Hong Kong Garden", the band plays to thousands of people - once again, a surprise to me, as they were essentially completely unknown in the States at this time. But, by all accounts and per videos of shows of the time, the group was extremely tight and a terrific unit.

Hedges describes the songs from the first couple of records in detail, with particular emphasis on the lyrics, which is interesting to me as I never really knew what Siouxie was singing about. I always dug her style of whoops and wails and exhilarations but I could only catch phrases here’n’there. I’m sure it helps to be British!

Of course, the band changes after the 2nd album and funnily enough, Hedges calls Joey the drummer for the Ramones (twice!) when talking about future Banshees drummer Budgie’s influences! There's a few other typos'n'such as well, but that's being nit-picky. Hedges also goes into plenty of detail about the band Magazine, that future guitarist John McGeoch formed with Howard Devoto. In fact, McGeoch was still under contract when he joined the Banshees (despite various projects in the interim) so that he could not appear in the initial videos.

With the addition of the two new, more accomplished (in the traditional sense) musicians, the Banshees became much more polished, more poppy and hence, more commercial. They still had their own unique charm, but certainly lost some of the anarchic power and abrasiveness of the earlier work. But, their first album with the new lineup, Kaleidoscope, becomes a Top 5 hit, so their changes definitely resonated with the (British) buying public and, eventually, with the States, as well.

And this is where Hedges leaves off, which makes sense as the title of this tome is "The Early Years", and he does have a sequel, so he can sell two books instead of one! But, these are the years that I care about and he give sa good accounting of them. Definitely a worthwhile read for fans of the early works of this groundbreaking band!