X-Ray Spex - Live @ The Roundhouse London 2008

X-Ray Spex
Live @ The Roundhouse London 2008
Year Zero

In the middle of their comeback gig X-Ray Spex frontwoman Poly Styrene curiously proclaims “I’m losing my voice,” as if she ever had one to begin with. Although this performance had the now-middle-aged punks in front of 3,000 people at London’s glorious Roundhouse, the band sounded just as raw and unrehearsed as in recordings of their infamous ’77 gigs at The Roxy and Styrene’s vocals remain just as delightfully indecipherable – fortunately, the hardback packaging of the CD/DVD package includes the lyrics to her brilliantly crass, abstract social commentary that would be lost in the anarchy of her vocal performance.

Chills run down the leather-clad spines of ‘77’s biggest fans as Ms. Styrene proclaims “Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard! But I think…” kicking off “Oh Bondage Up Yours!” a punk-spun Sadian commentary of neocapitalism that would come to be the group’s battlecry. The setlist includes the better part of the band’s 1978 debut, Germ Free Adolescents, along with early singles (learn the cultural theory of fairytalism 101 in “Highly Inflammable”) and B-Sides (most notably the beautifully simplistic “I Am A Cliché”).

The DVD portion of the release makes it apparent that fans of the band have thankfully not outgrown pogoing, slamdancing, and crowdsurfing and that the band has far from lost its riotous youthfulness. The voluptuous Styrene, now brace-free, playfully bounces across the stage shrieking anthemic attacks on pop stardom (“Obsessed With You”), the commodification of humanity (“Melancholy”), and the globalization diet (“Junk Food Junkie”) catchy enough to make Mussolini shake his fascist groove-thang. – Izzy Cihak

David Bowie - Storytellers

David Bowie
VH1Storytellers
Virgin

You’ve probably never envisioned Ziggy Stardust in a hoodie. However, the sight turns out to be far less revolting than you would have imagined. Finally available for home viewing in a CD/DVD package is David Bowie’s edition of VH1’s Storytellers, sickly cousin to MTV’s Unplugged. Despite our hoodied narrator performing in front of a collection of seated, faux “in-the-know” superfans who very likely have full bootleg’s of all eight shows Mr. Stardust performed at the Tower Theater between 1972 and 1973, yet have never donned a pair of gold lame pants themselves, the performance itself is the furthest thing from the drab collection of top ten hits, phoned-in from-the-space-station that one might expect.

“Life on Mars?,” Mr. Bowie’s masterpiece of all-time, begins the set in an unfortunately abbreviated format, followed with the very fortunately abbreviated rendition of “Rebel Rebel” (no one wants to see a middle-aged Englishman enacting the quintessential anthem of androgyny). Also included is the most raw and sincere performance Bowie has likely ever managed of “China Girl;” the Glamtastic early single “Can’t Help Thinking About Me,” and “Drive-In Saturday,” a brilliant but forgotten piece recently re-legitimized by St. Morrissey.

The set also includes a handful of tracks from 1999’s villainously underrated ‘hours…’, a piece far more worthy of unearthing than recent DVD re-issues of concerts from the Serious Moonlight or Glass Spider tours of the 1980s when the The Thin White Duke made a sincere attempt to get in touch with his heteronormativity. Izzy Cihak