Siouxsie...

I think back in the day I was too young or hung-up on 4-chord progressions to appreciate her work but recently I’ve come around to liking the work of Siouxsie and the Banshees more and more.

I think that things started to really change when I saw her on The Alternative on VH1. I knew the back story: she had been a punk back before I was born in the early London scene, Robert Smith’s litttle band had made their way into fame on her coattails, and she has sufficent eyebrow to stack books upon.

Note to the subtlety-impaired, the Cure are a quite famous band who have sold bazillions of records. As such, my assertion that the band is “little” is to be taken with a grain of salt.

However, seeing her on television recently really got me into enjoying the artistic spectacle that is S&B, they’re audio, they’re visual, and at the center of it all is this strange, avant garde coutourista chanteuse.

She’s rather mysterious really, but in interviews she seems quite like the urbane Londoner I would expect - a nice lady who would show you her Chagal prints before tea.

For someone that was making big music before she was 20 she’s also very well-spoken and well-educated, I am amazed by her natural sense of narrative and ease in interviews.

I suppose that after watching all the recent tsunami footage I kept thinking of her haunting howling line:

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