Question: RIP John Lennon. The list of sudden and unexpected celebrity deaths is long—Princess Di, Heath Ledger, Kurt Cobain, Marilyn Monroe, and many more. Which one affected you the most on an emotional level?
No question: Wendy Orleans Williams of The Plasmatics. (1949-1998)
No question: Wendy Orleans Williams of The Plasmatics. (1949-1998)
One of my favorite rock bands to this day, The Plasmatics were a pack of musical terrorists who provided my first real taste of Punk Rock in 1980. I caught them on Tom Snyder's Tomorrow show, the first mass-market stage of the Punk invasion, thanks to some savvy music directors and Tom's snide willingness to play along with the insanity. Immediately, I was hooked, both on the sheer ferocity of the band and on the Kong-sized balls of its singer, Wendy O. Williams.
While many of the most visible Punk bands were (and remain) drunken goons, The Plasmatics had definite methods to their madness. One of the first bands to merge Heavy Metal with Punk Rock, The Plasmatics declared war on the materialistic excesses of American consumerism in general and the 1970s in particular. Although each member was a walking affront to society (especially tutu'd beanpole Richie Stotts and Haitian-giant-with-white-mohawk Jean Beauvoir), the band's lead shock trooper was busty Wendy, whose daredevil antics and ample charms both seduced and repelled mainstream America. Wendy sang like a trash compactor and castrated guitars with glee. The press - and fans - could not get enough of her. Neither could I.
Roughly 15 at the time I first saw them, I had finally found music that fit the smash-em-up mood of my adolescence. Thanks to a new school and a short-lived residency with my father ('78-'80 or thereabouts*), I discovered a succession of bands that blew my world inside-out: Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Led Zepplin, Van Halen, Queen, The Sex Pistols, Rush, AC-DC, The Ramones and The Plasmatics, among many others. Unusually savvy for his generation, Dad had told me about the existence of Punk. He even rather liked The Ramones, and we planned - but never made it - to go see Rock-n-Roll High School together when it first came out. Dad had heard of The Plasmatics and Sex Pistols, and although he wasn't a big fan of their excesses, he seemed to respect their spirit. Intrigued, I caught the infamous Tom Snyder show episode featuring Wendy and Co., and was totally floored. I've loved 'em ever since.
It wasn't just that Wendy was hot, although that part certainly didn't hurt. What blew me away - then and now - was the raw daring of the so-called "Demon Queen of Destruction." In an era where few rock women even picked up a guitar, Wendy hefted chainsaws, guns and dynamite. She drove buses through walls of TVs, jumped cars loaded with explosives off of piers, and eventually skydived off a biplane (after wing-walking it) naked. She fought cops fist-to-face, and spat out war-cries against the status quo. An avowed vegetarian and animal-rights activist, she walked the walk even as she blew it to pieces. To this day, Wendy's life and career make most rock stars - male and female - look like utter pussies. How could I not love that?
The band's first several album-length releases - New Hope for the Wretched and Beyond the Valley of 1984, plus the EP Metal Priestess - (**) remain some of my all-time favorites. Sadly, The Plasmatics began to decline, first by releasing a fairly lame Metal album called Coup d'Ea't and a weird concept album called Maggots. By then, the band and its schtick were wearing thin. Wendy broke away for a solo career - jump-started by Gene Simmns and several members of Kiss - and that's when I finally got to see my beloved Demon Queen of Destruction live.
It think it was 1986, on her tour for Kommander of Kaos, that Wendy came to Richmond, VA. The fact that my friends in Death Piggy(***) were opening for her made the show that much more essential. How can I describe this? It was one of the most intense concerts I have ever seen, with bodies flying and danger swirling in the air. Wendy's fan base of skinheads, metalheads, punks, bikers, anarchists and gods-knows-what-else made for a wild and uncompromising mosh pit. I literally hung onto the stage for the first few songs, taking pictures, but when a H-U-G-E dude ripped me out of his way and flung me back several feet so he could have a better view, I decided to take my chances in the pit. If I had my flatbed scanner and photo albums here in Seattle, I'd post the shots I did get that night. As it was, the show wound up with Wendy topless (as usual), sweaty and cheered by a packed-house crowd. The next day, the local music reviewer wrote, "Weep, moan and gnash your teeth if you missed the best rock concert in Richmond this year." I didn't miss it, and I'm very glad for that.
Wendy more-or-less retired soon afterward, retreating to Conneticut with her former manager and long-time companion Rod Swenson. By then, her face had grown hard and her voice was almost completely destroyed. She worked as an animal-rights activist, health-food store employee, and occasional guest star on MacGyver(****). Aging apparently did not agree with her, however. On the same depressing week in which Rozz Williams of Christian Death hanged himself, Williams committed her final act of mayhem. Appropriately enough, she blew her own head off with a shotgun, after writing:
I don't believe that people should take their own lives without deep and thoughtful reflection over a considerable period of time. I do believe strongly, however, that the right to do so is one of the most fundamental rights that anyone in a free society should have. For me much of the world makes no sense, but my feelings about what I am doing ring loud and clear to an inner ear and a place where there is no self, only calm.
Rest easy, Ms. Williams. you earned it.
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* - This period also introduced me to roleplaying games. Dad lived in Springfield, Virginia at the time. Being shy and knowing no one, I spent a lot of time walking to Springfield Mall or listening to Dad's stereo, which was set to DC101 and WAVA105. Through the first pastime, I discovered the newly-released Advanced Dungeons & Dragons books and related miniatures; through the second, I discovered Hard Rock Music after years of listening to Top 40 stations or Dad's old '60s albums and Doo-Wop tapes. Sadly, the stores and stations of my youth are long gone, but the impact they'd had on me then remains strong.
** - This is not actually the cover of the album's original U.S. release, but it's the only one I could find online without lots of digging.
*** - The band that later morphed into Gwar. Their CD collection Smile or Die features photos I took at that very show, given afterward to Russ Bahorsky, who was in my Theatre Lit class at the time. (Thanks, Bunche, for giving me a copy of that CD!)
**** - Supposedly, she dated Richard Dean Anderson during part of the show's run. I recall reading about this, but haven't looked it up.
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