| The Plasmatics: Wendy O.Profile Records(1987)
Plasmatics Media, Inc.In addition to chainsawing guitars on stage, blowing up speaker cabinets and sledgehammering television sets, Williams and the Plasmatics blew up automobiles live on stage.Williams's and the Plasmatics' career spanned seven albums, several of which were released as Wendy O.The influence of the group's innovative mix of punk rock and heavy metal pioneered the music genre known as crossover punk.The band's influence can best be felt in many female rock vocalists and bands that have come out in the last 20 years.Stand by Your Man (EP)
4 Wendy O.Williams performances
5 Band members
5.It was there that he met Wendy O.Orlean and her initials spelling "WOW") after Wendy happened upon a copy of Show Business Weekly someone had discarded on the bus station floor.The earliest known photo of the Plasmatics taken in the 1970s.Wendy and Rod began auditioning potential band members in 1977 and, in July of 1978, the "Plasmatics" gave their first public performance at what would later become the rock shrine CBGB on New York City's Bowery.It was quickly realized that the group needed another guitarist to hold them together musically and guitarist Wes Beech was added to become, after Wendy, the only permanent member of the group playing or touring behind or involved in the production of every Plasmatics and Wendy O.Williams record ever recorded.From their initial gig at CBGB's, The Plasmatics quickly rose in the New York City Punk Underground scene of the time.The band repeatedly sold out the venue, with The Plasmatics helping to give Irving Plaza national recognition, and launch it on the path to becoming an established rock venue in New York City.Having then caught the full attention of the most important people in the entertainment world of New York City, the Plasmatics headlined the Palladium Theater on November 16, 1979, the first group in history to do so at full ticket prices and without a major label recording contract.The date was historic for being the first time Wendy O.The Plasmatics were soon selling out shows in Philadelphia, Boston, venues in New Jersey, and elsewhere in the Northeast.Chris Knowles of Classic Rock magazine wrote: The Plasmatics "were the biggest live attraction in New York...It's one thing to play at subversiveness, but The Plasmatics, unlike other Punk bands...R) from Stiff Records flew to New York City to see a show in person to determine if what they had been reading and hearing could possibly be real.The Plasmatics began to record songs in New York City for what would become the album New Hope for the Wretched.Unfortunately, Miller's heroin addiction took almost complete control from the day he arrived in New York, which threatened the record from being completed.The record company fired Miller, and the album was finished by Engineer Ed Stasium and Rod Swenson over in England.In addition to songs like "Corruption" and "Living Dead", which were linked to TV smashing and automobile destruction the song Butcher Baby featured a chainsaw sawing through a guitar in place of a guitar solo which also took place during their live shows.The Plasmatics UK debut was booked in the famed Hammersmith Odeon, where Wendy intended to do her famous routine of blowing up a car.After seeing the demonstration, the GLC banned the show.To capitalize on the band's popularity, the US edition of the album came packaged with a poster of the banned Hammersmith Odeon show and an insert for the Plasmatics Secret Service, the official fan club.The day of the performance, over 25,000 showed up, jamming the downtown streets and lining the rooftops.Even though it cost virtually the entire advance for the US release of New Hope for the Wretched to do it, Wendy was quoted by a reporter from the Associated Press as saying, "It was worth it because it showed that these are just things and...The Plasmatics debut in Los Angeles was at the famed Whiskey A Go Go.Being the first woman in the public eye and member of a band to do so, the response was shock.Wendy said in a much publicized interview.Saturday Night Live, booked Wendy and the Plasmatics to appear in late December to go live on national TV.Constant struggles with censors went on to within minutes of airtime."Conservatives (across) America," Chris Knowles would write in Classic Rock, "All of a sudden had castration anxiety when they saw Wendy wielding a chain saw."The Milwaukee beating and arrest
On January 19, 1981, Wendy was arrested and brutally beaten by Vice unit police officers after a performance at The Palms Nightclub in Milwaukee on an obscenity charge for allegedly simulating a sex act with a sledgehammer.Bail was raised, but large legal bills and the threat of going to jail became a problem for the future of the band.Cleveland the next night was canceled as both Wendy and Rod were still in jail.The legal fees continued to grow.Mugshot taken by the Milwaukee police the night she was arrested in 1981.Milwaukee police and the new song "Pig is a Pig" (lyrics penned by Rod), also dedicated to "them and fascists everywhere!"The Plasmatics were booked into Bond's for two more shows on May 15th and 16th, where she blew up two facsimile Milwaukee police cars and then back on the Tom Snyder show were she blew up a car again during the song "Masterplan".The trial was still construed as the Wendy O.Plasmatics trial and the media was there full force.Fans came in from more than 2,000 miles away and it was standing room only in the court room.Courageous citizens who had witnessed the events came forward and after days of testimony, the jury deliberated only 3.The charges against Wendy were soon dropped afterwards.In between touring drummers, Alice Cooper's Neal Smith was brought in to do the drumming for the record, and the album, with its Orwellian and apocalyptic theme and songs such as "Masterplan", "Pig is a Pig", and "Sex Junkie", was released a few months later.During recording for the album, The Plasmatics were booked on the Tom Snyder late night TV show, where Tom Snyder introduced them as possibly 'the greatest punk rock band in the entire world."In Cleveland, Wendy faced trial for obscenity.Touring continued with repeated attempts by local authorities to shut down shows, which in some cases they managed to do.The 1984 World Tour continued with the bold slogan "Down On Your Knees and Pledge Allegiance!".Hartman, who produced acts .Special, James Brown, and others, had been working on a session in LA when he picked up a copy of "Beyond the Valley of 1984" and couldn't stop playing it.It was "ground breaking" he said, "I knew I wanted to meet these people and do something with them."Bruce at Stiff was ready to release the EP and that summer Metal Priestess was recorded at Dan's private studio off his schoolhouse turned home and studio in Connecticut and released early that fall.Dieter Dierks, who had just come off a number one album with the Scorpions, also expressed interest in producing.She also broke ground for her unique singing style, She pushed her vocals so hard she had to make trips into Cologne in Germany, where the album was being recorded, each day for treatments to avoid permanent damage to her vocal cords.The Hartman demo was released 20 years later under the name "Coup De Grace".Before the premiere, however, MTV's legal department and the record company insisted that a warning be put at the beginning of the video warning the audience not to try anything like this at home.The warning was added, and the premiere went on, but the video was put instead in extremely light rotation and then pulled within weeks.Soon after the album was released, Capitol Records dropped The Plasmatics.Williams and Gene Simmons in 1982.In 1982, Kiss asked for Wendy and the Plasmatics to appear as a Special Guest on their tour.Kiss wanted the controversial street edge that Wendy would bring as part of their tour and for the Plasmatics it was a chance to play in front of different audiences in different markets than they would ordinarily play.By the end of the tour with Kiss it was clear that, although the formal notice that Capitol would not pick up their option for a second album didn't come in for six months, the relationship with Capitol was done.So as to avoid any wasted time in legal issues with Capitol Records, it was decided not to use the Plasmatics name on the record at all and was simply called W.Gene Simmons felt it would give him the freedom he wanted to add more new players to the album.Tolliver, the drummer on Coup d'Etat, remained to play on the new album.Kiss drummer Eric Carr did one song as guests.Review copies were sent out to the various media outlets.Wendy would later receive a Grammy nomination as 'Best Female Rock Vocalist of the Year.Fans received it fairly poorly; It was seen as a departure from the sound that made the Plasmatics great, and more of a Kiss album than a Wendy album.With Mohawks now starting to become common, Wendy decided to let her hair grow in, and the cover for what would be called the "album of the year" in the pages of KERRANG!There was tremendous excitement in tackling the project a kind of minimalist, stripped down concept, or rite of purification.The tempo of the WOW album had been slower than previous albums in an effort to open it up, but the new album Kommander of Kaos or KOK was to bring back the speed and then some.Songs would be played at breakneck speeds, with screaming leads and vocals.Plasmatics Projects including three studio albums with what the group fondly called "The Fairfield Sound".They approached Rod about producing the title track for the film and having Wendy sing it.The band reluctantly agreed to do it.Rod to produce and direct playing the sax and wearing a tutu.After the archetypal minimalism, both lyrically and musically of Komander, the new album, which would again carry the Plasmatics name, was again filled with complexity and returned to the social and political themes previously found most strongly in Coup but in 1984 before it: environmental decay and a world where excess and abuse led directly to a doomsday scenario.Maggots: The Record was recorded in 1987 and set 25 years in the future where environmental abuse and the burning of fossil fuels have created a greenhouse effect leads to an end of the world scenario.Called by many the first "thrash metal opera", the central theme of the album is that a group of scientists trying to eliminate trash in the rivers and oceans develop a breed of maggot designed to eat the garbage and then, when the trash is gone, the maggot dies.Scientists and politicians are overheard discussing exactly what can be done, trying to calm the doomed populace.The family is devoured while watching a TV game show.Bruce is devoured by three massive maggots while lying in her boyfriend's bed."Maggots: The Tour" began a week later using the Plasmatics name for the first time in two albums with slogans such as "Those Now Eating Will Soon Be Eaten," "The Day of the Humans is Gone," and lyrics such as "soldiers for the DNA dissidents are put away, dragged off in the dead of night, disappear without a sight".Rear screen projectors ran film of human disasters, fascists and other historical horrors, environmental carnage and human rights violations on huge screens behind the band during all the songs from the Maggots album.Wendy's vocals "reduces Celtic Frost's Tom G.Warrir's 'death grunts' to mere whimpers" it went on coupled with "a mixture of hedonistic operatic melodies..The Final Tour, "Hiatus" (1988)
Wendy soon put out another solo album, this time a " Thrash Rap" album called Deffest and Baddest under the name "Ultrafly and the Hometown Girls."The tour was filled with enthusiastic fans, but was to become the last tour Wendy and the Plasmatics were to do, although the decision wasn't made until several months after the tour ended and then fairly quickly.Wendy and Rod had agreed from the beginning that when a point came where diminishing returns meant having to compromise the integrity of their effort, they would stop.To continue would have meant compromise in one or many ways or another.In 1988, it was officially announced that Wendy and the Plasmatics were "going on hiatus."Rod later told Classic Rock magazine that they both knew they had stopped.On April 6, 1998, Wendy O.Williams committed suicide, ending all hopes for a reunion.In 1998, shortly after Wendy's death, the Plasmatics launched an official website.Plasmatics and Wendy O.The original card for members of the Plasmatics Secret Service.In the USA release of New Hope for the Wretched, a card was inserted for the Plasmatics fan club, the Plasmatics Secret Service.The membership card had the Plasmatics logo, a place to write your name, and a modified SS Nazi Symbol on the front.On the back, it state the following:
As a Plasmatics Secret Service Member, I agree that I will:
Call up and harass my local radio station if they have not played Plasmatics records.Pester local record stores if they are not properly displaying Plasmatics records.Write abrasive letters to media morons and critics who write negative things about The Plasmatics.Uphold and support the Plasmatics name under any and all circumstances.After hearing of Wendy's wild stunts, and "she did take a good picture", a collaboration between the Plasmatics and Motorhead took place.Plasmatics, have been pretty much forgotten nowadays, but she was a completely outrageous punk rock agitator.She sawed guitars in half with a chainsaw and blew up police cars on stage.Many saw the recording as a major battle between punk and metal, two genres that did not get along well at the time.The Plasmatics covered "No Class", Motorhead covered "Masterplan", and both groups would combine to record a cover of "Stand By Your Man", the title track of the EP.Wendy took a long time to get in tune, and it wound Eddie up.She tried her parts a few times and sounded terrible, I will say that.You'd think she was never going to get it, but I knew she would if I just worked with her.Williams performances
In addition to chainsawing guitars on stage, blowing up speaker cabinets and sledgehammering television sets, Williams and the Plasmatics blew up automobiles live on stage.Wendy would normally appear topless during shows.To avoid arrest, she began covering her nipples with electrical tape.Of course, she took this all in stride, and often cryptically commented on it in such a way that only those familiar with the situation would get the joke.For more details on this topic, see Plasmatics discography.White Line Fever Lemmy and Janiss Garza pub.Ed Rivadavia, All Music Guide review.You can help by expanding it.All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.Please help improve this article by adding reliable references.Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.April 6, 1998), better known as Wendy O.Dubbed "The Queen of Shock Rock," Williams was widely considered the most controversial and radical woman singer of her day.She often sported a trademark Mohawk haircut.With the Plasmatics
2.Yale MFA graduate Rod Swenson's experimental "Captain Kink's Theatre".Plasmatics some two years later.With their debut in New York City clubs in 1978, Williams and the Plasmatics took the underground scene by storm.In Milwaukee, police arrested her in January of 1981 for simulating sex on stage.Charged with battery to an officer and obscene conduct, she was later cleared.Later that same year in Cleveland, Williams was acquitted of an obscenity charge for simulating sex on stage wearing only shaving cream.Meanwhile, the Plasmatics toured the world, once getting banned in London, where the press dubbed them "anarchists".The Plasmatics last tour was in 1988.Williams appeared in Pucker Up and Bark Like a Dog, directed by Paul S.Despite her reputation as a fearsome performer, Williams in her personal life was deeply devoted to the welfare of animals, a passion that included a vegetarian diet and working as a wildlife rehabilitator, while also personally being a natural foods activist.In one infamous TV talk show appearance on KPIX's The Morning Show, she openly accused Debbi Fields (of "Mrs.Fields" cookie fame) of being "no better than a heroin pusher" for using so much processed white sugar in her products.This is what she is said to have written in a suicide note regarding her decision:
I don't believe that people should take their own lives without deep and thoughtful reflection over a considerable period of time.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.Williams' longtime friend Lemmy said that he wanted to dedicate this song officially to Wendy.Williams at the Internet Movie Database
Photos
"Plasmatics' Wendy O.Due to circumstances, this website will no longer be updated or maintained after July 1999.Long live the Plasmatics!The Plasmatics and their lead singer, Wendy O.Formed in 1978 in New York City, the Plasmatics were extremely popular with their select fans, filling venues throughout the USA and the rest of the world.Looking for Plasmatics Records or CDs?Check out his Plasmatics site and drop him a line and say hello!What: Her energy infused Sessions performance.Highlights: A smokin version of her hit single Tambourine and a killer verse from Party Like a Rockstar.Get behind the scenes footage from other Sessions alums.Plasmatics were noticed led alone outlawed.Williams has become an institution...The album, the last of the 7 full studio albums (or 8 counting Coup DeGrace) that make up Wendy O's and the Plasmatics career, was never intended in its original concept to have Wendy's or the Plasmatics name on it at all.It allowed Wendy to do a few things she'd wanted to do and hadn't done including bring in a female guitar player to play alongside Wes Beech and use female voices for backup.Wendy's name was added at the last minute, spoiling what might have been an interesting effect.When Wendy and Rod decided to go ahead with the project Wes flew into NYC and he and Rod with Wendy checking vocal parts, wrote the entire album in less than a week, moved out to Brocolli Rabe and recorded and mixed it there.People don't realize how much bullshit is around them...For the Deffest tour the band was back to two guitars, bass and drums since all the tours always contained favorites from all the previous records.The tour was filled with enthusiastic fans in city after city, but it was the last tour Wendy and the Plasmatics were to do although the decision wasn't made until several months after the tour ended and then fairly quickly.Wendy and Rod had agreed from the beginning is that when a point came where diminishing returns meant having to compromise the integrity of the effort, they'd shut down and bail out, and the point they felt had been reached, or at least was too close to gamble.About doing material that would appease rather than assault the status quo, there could be no compromose; about softing the image, the edge, the trademark vocals, the attitude so as to be more acceptable to radio or corporate America tthere could be no compromise; and without such compromise there was a price to pay and it wore on over time.Town after town where confrontations of one kind of another made it impossible to get bookings.Promoters would privately say how much they loved Wendy but many would not take the local heat.The world has spent the last three decades trying to catch up and in most regards never has, and has never seen anyone really like Wendy ever since.PLASMATICS AND WENDY O.WILLIAMS: THE HISTORY
The Plasmatics were founded
by radical conceptual artist Rod Swenson around the now legendary
Wendy O.Before there was MTV, CDs, music videos, the
Plasmatics and Wendy O.Plasmatics CDs, Wendy O.Williams
CDs, and videos are now available, but it's hard to imagine there
were no CDs at all not to mention Plasmatics CDs, or Wendy O.CDs when the group was first put together in 1978.Williams
and the Plasmatics not only made albums that are NOW AVAILABLE
ON CD, but made music video before there was MTV, or VH1.They
synthesized punk rock and heavy metal before it was cool to do
so and introduced the mohawk haircut into current fashion.THE WORLD'S MOST COMPREHENSIVE WENDY O.WILLIAMS AND PLASMATICS
WEB PORTAL EVER!Williams and the Plasmatics at CBGB punk rock capitol of the world
in New York, the Plasmatics and Wendy O.Williams were the most
controversional rockand roll band in the world.Before putting the Plasmatics together Rod
Swenson produced some of the first Ramones videos and the Plasmatics
videos (see below) were legendary.For more on the CBGB punk rock
scene and Wendy O.WILLIAMS AND PLASMATICS: MUSIC VIDEO PIONEERS
Not only were there no Wendy
O.Williams and Plasmatics CDs, because CDs and digital audio
did not even exist at the time, which most rockand rollers know,
but there were no music videos, no MTV or VH1 at the time when
Wendy O.For more on Plasmatics
videos, Wendy O.Williams videos, Wendy O.Plasmatics go here
PLASMATICS AND WENDY O.Williams and the Plasmatics at CBGB punk rock capitol of the world
in New York, the Plasmatics and Wendy O.Williams and the Plasmatics pioneered in all these areas.The Ramones connection, can be found in Rod Swenson's production
of some of the first Ramones videos at CBGB in 1977 before anyone
ever heard of the Ramones or punk rock or CBGB either for that
mater.Ramones drummer Tommy was involved in some of the first
plasmatics and wendy o.Jean Beauvoir
who was the bass player on the second Plasmatics and Wendy O.Williams tour produced Ramones album.Williams solo album
featuring many of the players from KISS, including not only Gene
Simmons, but Paul Stanley, Ace Frehely, and Eric Carr all KISS
members, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley always the foundation of
KISS.For more on Gene Simmons and KISS
and the Plasmatics go here
WENDY O.WILLIAMS AND PLASMATICS: MERCHANDISE, CDS, POSTERS,
VIDEOS, RECORDINGS (ON VINYL, TAPE AND CD) IN AND OUT OF PRINT
Fortunately, while almost all
of the Plasmatics recordings have been out of print new CDs seem
to be coming out fast now.In fact almost the whole Plasmatics
and Wendy O.Williams
retrospective CD last year, and this year four new Plasmatics
and Wendy O.Williams CDs were released.Plasmatics: Beyond the Valley
of 1984 (CD)
Wendy O.Williams and the
Plasmatics: Maggots the Record (CD)
Wendy O.Wiliams: WOW album
(CD)
Plasmatics: Coup D'Etat (CD)
Wendy O.Williams Headquarters
visit the archives here
and
Also released last year the
first Plasmatics Wendy O.Williams video:
Plasmatics and Wendy O.The Plasmatics Gallery
These images are made available for your viewing pleasure, so enjoy!All of them are available for download by clicking on the thumbnail or the highlighted title.Creem InterviewAn interview with Wendy and the Plasmatics from the pages of Creem Magazine, Sep 1981.From the MetalPriestess period.JPG format, 15kb)
Photo courtesy of Mahi.W, JPG format, 8kb)This image courtesy of Bryan.Wendy Licking a MirrorA version of this shot was published in People magazine.Wendy from PopRockyTaken from an article on Motorhead in this German magazine.W, GIF format, 286kb)Originally from the KISSserv Website!One of Bill Skid's mosttreasured possessions .Some great WOW Concert Photos from Sidd!Reform School Girls, Tom DeSimone!LYRICS
Here's the lyrics to most of the Plasmatics songs, which is taken from their Your Heart In Your Mouth fanbook.WAVs
Here's some sound samples of Plasmatics songs.Hz recordings, and you may have to do a little converting for them to play properly on your system.Plasmatics,hanging out on the street corner.Plasmatics Secret ServiceJoin the Plasmatics Corps!The Secret Service awaits .Color, JPG format, 54kb)Thanks to Michael for this scan
Fashion!Tickets, get your Tickets!You wish you were there .Her most radical bit of fashion accessorizing consisted of covering her nipples with black electrical tape.GWAR by nearly a decade.Plasmatics were all show and no substance.Jean Beauvoir, apparently on a quest for legitimacy, quit the band, and the focus became Wendy O.She made another solo LP, 1986's Kommander of Kaos, and that same year appeared in the movie Reform School Girls; after a 1989 Plasmatics reunion outing, Maggots: The Record, she made a few more acting appearances before essentially dropping from sight altogether during the early 1990s.On April 8, 1998, it was announced that Williams had committed suicide; she was 48.They were so punk that it was impossible to describe them as that.FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: MVD Visual by exclusive arrangement with Pandemonium Merchandising announces the home viewing release of Wendy O.Williams and the Plasmatics: The DVD, 10 Years of Revolutionary Rock and Roll on DVD.Plasmatics, the band of changing musicians built around her, revolutionized American culture and music creating a seismic shock wave still being felt today.This DVD shows why Wendy O. |
