C-Q
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Joined: 26 Sep 2005
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| [b]WEEK 5-"Bromley Contingent"[/b] |
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In this seminar our groups task is to research on "Bromley Contingent" and have it placed in Power Point Format. |
Mon Oct 24, 2005 10:26 am |
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iliyah
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Joined: 26 Sep 2005
Posts: 6
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The Bromley Contingent were the group of followers and fans of the Sex Pistols that constituted the core of the fashion avant-garde of the early UK punk rock movement, so named from the Bromley area where some of them lived. The group included Siouxsie Sioux, Sue Catwoman, Simon Barker, Debbie Juvenile, Linda Ashby, Philip Salon, Simone Thomas, 'Berlin' (Bertie Marshall), Tracie O'Keefe, Steve Severin and Billy Idol.
The Bromley Contingent attained a degree of notoriety due to their involvement with the infamous "Bill Grundy incident" in December 1976 wherin goaded by interviewer Bill Grundy, Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones used the word "fuck" on Thames Television's early evening television programme "Today", as well as calling Grundy a "rotter" after he made a rather inept attempt at "chatting up" Siouxsie. Although the programme was only seen in the London ITV region (and although Glen Matlock had, unnoticed, been the first to utter the word "fuck"), the ensuing furor occupied the tabloid newspapers for days and The Sex Pistols were shortly after dropped by their record label, EMI.
Many of the Bromley Contingent went on to form bands themselves including Siouxsie & the Banshees and Generation X. In the end they were perhaps even more important than Malcolm McLaren's shops and Vivienne Westwood's designs to the development of the early UK punk movement. The fashion statements made by Siouxsie Sioux, in particular, incorporating fetish and bondage clothing, and her innovative style of makeup, continue to live on in punk and goth fashion.
-wikipedia.com |
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Mon Oct 24, 2005 10:29 am |
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iliyah
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Joined: 26 Sep 2005
Posts: 6
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In 1976 The Bromley Contingent followed the Sex Pistols to France and Siouxsie was punched by an Arab. She was wearing a cupless bra, black vinyl stockings and a black armband with a swastika on it. She liked Salon Kitty and disliked those who banged on about being in the war; the swastika was intended as a campy joke and she did not, then, appreciate the panorama of implications. "The Nazis were not only anti-Semitic but anti-anyone different, anti-anyone like me." The regalia backfired. The National Front started to pay attention and she was horrified.
Grundy interview
One of Siouxsie's first public appearances was with the Sex Pistols on Bill Grundy's television show. It was on that show that the Pistols garnered attention for releasing a stream of expletives in reaction to Bill Grundy's provocation. In the course of Grundy's interview with the members of the Sex Pistols, he tried to flirt with Siouxsie:
Grundy: "Are you worried, or are you just enjoying yourself?"
Siouxsie: Enjoying myself.
Grundy: "Are you?"
Siouxsie: Yeah.
Grundy: "Ah, that's what I thought you were doing."
Siouxsie: I always wanted to meet you.
Grundy: "Did you really?"
Siouxsie: Yeah.
Grundy: "We'll meet afterwards, shall we?"
It was to this that Steve Jones reacted by calling Grundy a "dirty sod" and a "dirty old man," and the interview went downhill from there. |
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Mon Oct 24, 2005 10:33 am |
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JamesMiller
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Joined: 26 Sep 2005
Posts: 5
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One of the contingent was Simone Thomas "I was 16 at the time. My life revolved around David Bowie and Roxy Music and dressing up and going to gigs. I'd met Siouxsie at a Roxy Concert. She was from the same part of London as me and she started going out with Steve Severin....we became known as the Bromley Contingent after the Sex Pistols played Orpington College....we were the first fans in fact"
Says Johnny Rotten in his biography commenting on the fashion element. "At first it was just the boys.. (but) slowly... it came together. The first girls to join in was the Bromley Contingent, Siouxsie &The Banshees and people like that. They joined in for a more fashionable reason. They were into the Roxy Music look of sophisticated elegance. Eventually they got bored with that ,so they started to rip their fishnets and wear plastic bin liners. They got their name from Bromley, a suburb of south London. After a pistols concert , they'd invited all of us over to their house for a party...(h'mm Siouxsie was topless and knickerless wearing tights, stilettos and an apron and carrying a whip !!!... Punk77) We discussed how this whole thing should be approached, and what we should be thinking about...we were definitely pointing the direction."
Says Steve Severin "When our paths crossed the group's, it was more a meeting of the minds. It was never so much that we were fans as they just happened to be guys who played in a group...Although it may seem unusual for a band to be close to their fans, we became more like friends since things hadn't really gotten to the stage where the notoriety had set in."
Says Billy Idol "They were what we wanted to happen. If we could visualise the rock band of the mid-seventies, there it was in front of us. The Sex Pistols." |
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Mon Oct 24, 2005 10:37 am |
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iliyah
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Joined: 26 Sep 2005
Posts: 6
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http://www.punk77.co.uk/groups/bromley.htm
While the music and image of punk was being formed by McLaren / the Sex Pistols and Vivien Westwood's clothes there were two other groups of people who would contribute to the scene. One was the loose pool of musicians like Mick Jones, Tony James and various members of the Damned and Clash etc who would be sparked into action by the Pistols and a group of fans who would come to be associated closely with the Sex Pistols many of whom would themselves form bands as the Pistols roller coaster trundled on.
This group of fans would come to be known as the Bromley Contingent and featured among others Siouxsie, Debbie, Sue Catwoman, Sharon, Tracey, Billy Idol, Steve Severin to name a few and lovingly described in 'The Boy Looked At Johnny' by Burchill / Parsons as 'a posse of unrepentant poseurs , committed to attaining fame despite the paucity of talent other than being noticed; achieving their aim by displaying themselves in a manner meticulously calculated to kill.' Praise indeed !!!. Read what she says about Siouxsie & The Banshees !!!
Here's Norah, Rotten's now wife, describing Siouxsie at the above gig "I was shocked...she was walking around wearing some suspenders and a bra with her whole tits out. I was stunned... That night I couldn't listen to the Pistols at all because Siouxsie was sitting one row behind me. I was so uncool because I couldn't stop looking at her tits"
Comparing breast size opposite. Steve Severin, Siouxsie and Debbie in the Pistols audience at The Screen On The Green. (behind Severin's head a moody looking Shanna from the Nipple Erectors!) Photo Joe Stevens
Anti-clockwise. Debbie Juvenile, Siouxsie, Phillip Salon, Spunker Severin,
Simon Barker, Sue Catwoman, Linda Ashby, Berlin
Last edited by iliyah on Mon Oct 24, 2005 10:44 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Mon Oct 24, 2005 10:44 am |
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