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Chrissie Hynde, from Akron, Ohio is a guitarist, lead vocalist, and the primary songwriter for the rock band the Pretenders. She moved to London in 1973, and worked at NME music magazine and Sex-Pistol-Manager Malcolm McLaren's clothing store, SEX. In England, and also in France, she attempted to start bands before returning, briefly, to Ohio. Then, back in England, in 1978, Hynde and bassist Pete Farndon formed a band with guitarist James Honeyman-Scott and drummer Martin Chambers. The band's name "The Pretenders" was inspired by the Platters' 1955 hit "The Great Pretender." Hynde is also an animal rights activist. |
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Alice Bag is an American punk rock singer, musician, author, educator and feminist archivist. She was the lead singer and co-founder of the Bags, one of the first wave of punk bands to form in the mid-1970s in Los Angeles. Her first book, Violence Girl—From East LA Rage to Hollywood Stage—is the story of her upbringing in East Los Angeles, her migration to Hollywood, and the euphoria of the early punk scene. A bilingual former elementary school teacher, Bag continues to work as an author, activist, feminist and a self-proclaimed troublemaker. Bag describes the early punk movement as an extremely welcoming community, open to everyone, especially women. |
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Wendy O Williams was an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Born in Webster, New York, she came to prominence as the lead singer of the punk band Plasmatics. She was noted for her theatrics which included nudity, exploding equipment, firing a shotgun, and chainsawing guitars. In 1985 she was nominated for a Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. In 1991, Williams moved to Storrs, Connecticut, with her companion and former manager, Rod Swenson. There she worked as an animal rehabilitator and at a food co-op. On April 6, 1998, allegedly struggling with deep depression, she committed suicide near her home in Storrs, by gunshot. |
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Nina Hagen is a German singer, songwriter, and actress. She is known for her theatrical vocals and rose to prominence during the punk and new wave movements in the late 1970s and early 1980s. At age four, she studied ballet, and she was considered an opera prodigy by the time she was nine. In 1972 and 1973, Hagen enrolled in the Crash-Course performance program at The Central Studio for Light Music in East Berlin. Upon graduating, she joined the band Automobil, becoming one of the country's best-known young stars. In 1977, living in West Berlin, Hagen formed the Nina Hagen Band. She is also known for her human and animal rights activism |
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Exene Cervenka is an American singer, artist, and poet, best known as a singer in the California punk band X. In 1977, Cervenka met musician John Doe at a poetry workshop in Venice, California. Bassist, Doe had founded X with guitarist Billy Zoom and drummer DJ Bonebrake. Cervenka then joined the band as a co-lead vocalist, and songwriter. X released their debut album, Los Angeles, in 1980 and, over the next six years, five more albums. In 1982, Cervenka published Adulterers Anonymous, first in a series of four books in collaboration with artist Lydia Lunch. In 1996, she and Lunch released a spoken word album, Rude Hieroglyphics. |
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Mia Zapata was an American musician and lead singer in the Seattle punk band, The Gits. Zapata was raised in Louisville, Kentucky and learned how to play the guitar and the piano by age nine. In 1996, At Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, Zapata and friends; guitarist Joe Kessler, drummer Steve Moriarty, and bassist Matt Dresdner, formed The Gits. In 1989, the band relocated to Seattle, Washington. And, in 1993, after gaining praise in the emerging grunge scene, Zapata was murdered while on her way home from a music venue. The crime went unsolved for a decade before her killer, was tried, convicted and sentenced to 36 years in prison. |
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Ari Up Ari Up was born in Munich, West Germany. Her parents were involved in the music industry: her father as a singer and her mother was a friend of Jimi Hendrix. In 1976, at the age of 14, Ari formed The Slits with drummer Palmolive and guitarist Viv Albertine. Ari sang in English, her second language and, as a fan of reggae and dub, she was also fluent in the English-based Jamaican Patois. When the Slits disbanded in 1981, Ari continued to make music, first with the New Age Steppers, then as a solo artist, using the stage names Baby Ari, Madussa, and Ari Up. On October 20, 2010, Ari died in Los Angeles, aged 48, after battling breast cancer. |
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Pauline Black is an English singer, actress and author. She came to prominence as the lead singer of the 2-Tone ska-revival band The Selecter, The Selecter, along with the Specials and Madness, are credited with starting the UK ska revival movement in the late 1970s. The Selecter split up in 1982 but have sporadically reformed since 1994. Outside The Selecter, Black has collaborated with many musicians including members of The Stranglers, Stiff Little Fingers and Bad Manners. She's also performed in theater, on television and in film. Most recently, Black has performed music with Gorillaz. |
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Poly Styrene Poly Styrene, was a British musician, singer-songwriter, and frontwoman for the punk band X-Ray Spex. In 1976, Styrene released her first solo single titled "Silly Billy". After watching an early gig by the Sex Pistols, Styrene advertised in the music journals for musicians and formed her band. Billboard described her as the "archetype for the modern-day feminist punk"; she wore dental braces, rebelled against the archetypal female sex object of the 70s, wore a gaudy Dayglo wardrobe, and was of mixed race. She was "one of the least conventional frontpersons in rock history, male or female". She died of breast cancer on April 25, 2011, at the age of 53. |
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Ruyter Suys, from Vancouver, began playing piano at age three and started guitar when she was eight or nine years old. In her teens she appreciated bands like Motörhead Slayer and Metallica. Her main female influences were Nancy Wilson of Heart and Wendy O. Williams. She attended the University of Saskatchewan, graduating Magna Cum Laude, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Since 1996, she has been the lead guitarist of the band Nashville Pussy, alongside her husband, singer/guitarist Blaine Cartwright. In 2009, Elle Magazine included Suys on their list of Greatest Female Electric Guitarists. |
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Patti Smith is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and poet who became an influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses. Called the "punk poet laureate", Smith fused rock and poetry in her work. Her most widely known song is "Because the Night", which was co-written with Bruce Springsteen. It reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1978 and number five in the U.K. In 2005, Smith was named a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. In 2007, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. |
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