Jazz at one extreme there’s the “psychedelic cosmic love from California” with Carlos Niño and Build An Ark and at another, there’s Japan’s Soil & “Pimp” Sessions (via Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings label) but if you’re of the “Anything can be jazz. It’s how you approach playing music. Not a specific genre” school, why not a reformed X-Ray Spex come-back gig recorded live at The Roundhouse?

Perhaps being in Rough Trade East shop last night with Carlos Niño (Ed. name dropper - see interview HERE) after we’d been talking about music that has stood the test of time. First time around of course, X-Ray Spex were a significant part of the punk explosion of the mid 70s. I was quite happy to bop around the living room in front of the TV with Poly Styrene (aka Marian Joan Elliott) belting out/shrieking the lyrics to their big hits on Top Of The Pops like ‘Identity’, ‘The Day The World Turned Dayglo’ and ‘Germ Free Adolescents’ to name just a few.

X-Ray Spex formed in 1976 when it was possible to have a pop star who wore braces (on teeth) but now she’s all grown up, does the music stand the test of time? Well, ‘Warrior In Woolworth’ is dated for obvious reasons, but the lyrics (which I always thought were a bit too clever for a punk band, say compare with Sham 69) do stand up as angst/adolescent poetry that just happens to be set to a raw music (which, again, stood above the rest mostly on the back of the original sax playing of Lora Logic). Logic’s style was trad. rock’n’rock style if anything rather than anything jazz but it was another pathway into Rashaan Roland Kirk, Albert Ayler or more immediately, the second generation punk of Rip, Rig & Panic.

Back to the lyrics, who’d have thought she’d predict a generation of ‘Genetic Engineering’ and obesity obsession of ‘Junk Food Junkie’, ANTM culture ‘I’m a Poseur’, virus pandemics ‘Germ Free Adolescents’, cigarette bans ‘Cigarette’ and nuclear war/Skin’s with ‘The Day The World Turned Day-Glo’?

The CD/DVD has has a real feel of ‘for the fans’ rather than other punk band ‘for the money’ reformations. So if you missed them playing live back in the 70s, the DVD is OK, even if Poly looks more yummy mummy than punk icon. But whilst she might not look the same (although kids, note how good her teeth look now), Poly vocally sounds like she did 30 years ago and thankfully they’ve not tried to do anything fancy with the productions, all tracks are fairly raw ‘Let’s Submerge’ and ‘I Am A Cliché’ being particularly good.

As Poly effectively retired in 1979, this was the first live performance since then; with Paul Dean (bass), Gt. Saxby (how punk!), Sid Truelove and Flash. In front of 3000 fans, this is an exception to the usually rather poor live recordings of punk show. For such a short period in the limelight, Poly left a legacy for a whole raft of female bands. Could a whole new set of germfree adolescents fall in love with X-Ray Spex, I’d like to think so if only to shout those immortal lines, ‘Oh Bondage Up Yours!’ Is the jazz?

Reviewed: X-Ray Spex - Live @ The Roundhouse, London 2008 (Year Zero) Cat No. YZCDVD001 Release date: 9th November 2009.

Links:
x-rayspex.com
www.futurenoisemusic.com
www.roughtrade.com
Rough Trade East, Address. Dray Walk, 91 Brick Lane, E1 6QL. Transport Aldgate East/Liverpool Street - Read about Rough Trade East at www.timeout.com