Laurence Hedges – författare

With JonKlein and Martin McCarrick now full-blown members, Siouxsie and The Banshees embarkon one of its most creative and ambitious odysseys, culminating in themultidimensional complexities of the 1988 album Peepshow. Both lyricallyand musically, the Banshees continue to confound expectation with theirprogressively sophisticated and erudite artistry, yielding the groundbreakingsingle ‘Peek-A-Boo’ and propelling the Banshees to number one on the AmericanBillboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. Live, the Banshees continue to be a breathtaking entity;the theatricality of their stage shows paralleling the grandiosity of theirsongs. However, the revolving door of personnel changes again threatens toderail the band, this time in the form of their (mis)management, until TimCollins starts to unpick and stabilise the Banshees’ shambolic financialaffairs. Amplifying the strained relations, the first majorrupture between founder members Siouxsie and Steven Severin, while on tour,leads to the Banshees’ hiatus between the end of the Peepshow gigs in December1988 and the release of  ‘Kiss Them ForMe’ in May 1991, reaching the Modern Rock Tracks number one slot for the secondtime; a noticeable divergence from their volatile chart fortunes in the UK.There is a resurgence of The Creatures’ activity, and thealbum Boomerang is released in 1989. At the same time, Severin composesthe film score for director Nigel Wingrove’s Visions Of Ecstasy film. Invited to play the inaugural Lollapalooza tour in Julyand August 1991 alongside bands such as Nine Inch Nails, Jane’s Addiction andButthole Surfers, the Banshees consolidate their growing popularity in the USAand go down a storm! Convening for two more studio albums, Superstition(1991) and The Rapture (1995), as well as the 1992 Twice Upon A Time:The Singles compilation album, the Banshees go to Hollywood, co-writing thesong ‘Face To Face’ with composer Danny Efman for the 1992 Tim Burton-directedfilm Batman Returns. With tranches of time between activities becomingincreasingly prolonged, it begs the question: have Siouxsie and The Banshees, aband that have stayed the course against often insurmountable odds since 1976,finally reached their journey’s end?

Monday 20th September 1976 saw one of the most unexpected moments in music history when what was to become one of the most iconic, important and mimicked bands of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s took to the stage at The 100 Club in Oxford Street, London. A last-minute addition to the '100 Club Punk Special' that included The Clash, Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks and The Damned, an unknown Siouxsie and The Banshees, comprising Sid Vicious, Steve Severin, Marco Pirroni and Siouxsie Sioux, unleashed twenty minutes of 'performance art' improvisation, featuring fragments of 'Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles', 'Twist And Shout' and 'Satisfaction'. 'The Lord's Prayer', which was to become a staple of Siouxsie and The Banshees' early live repertoire, was a white-noise assault on the senses and a barometer of the alienation many teenagers felt from the bloated nature of mid-1970s 'arena rock'. Several line-up changes later, in 1978, Siouxise and The Banshees were propelled into the pop stratosphere. Signed to a major record label, the band released 'Hong Kong Garden' and wrote one of the most influential post-punk albums of all time, The Scream, a savage critique of curtain-twitching suburbia, the cheap titillation of the tabloids, and the dangers of believing and following any one doctrine.1979's Join Hands, influenced by the political landscape in Britain and further afield, and the catastrophic loss of life in World War One, was a milestone of the band's increasing maturity, from the adrenaline-fuelled stomp of 'Icon' to the phased guitar, saxophone and bells of 'Playground Twist'. After a tour fraught with fractiousness, a new line up with Slits' drummer Budgie and Magazine guitarist John McGeoch, together with Siouxsie Sioux and Steve Severin, released the band's most experimental album, Kaleidoscope, which was a heady mix of psychedelia and sonorous adventures including the singles 'Happy House' and 'Christine'. Siouxsie and The Banshees The Early Years explores the adventures, trials and tribulations of a band defying categorisation. Their uncompromising brilliance is exemplified by three unique albums, which are chronicled in the pages of this authoritative survey.