BEYOND THE IMPLODE 3 - BRITISH AIRWAYS 0

Prole Art Riot? Don't bother looking to music or the art world. Whatever Zizek was chatting about on the 'Art Shock' programme on Channel 4 last night ((PS-which I didn't watch, I was busy bawling my eyes out and sobbing "nobody loves me" in a pub)) ((PPS- Never mind what Stewart Home says, Zizek actually wears sandals without a trace of shame - how on earth did any of you fall for someone so patently repulsive? Marx was too gutless and lazy to say it, but the first duty of any TRUE socialist is to hack the legs off the sandal-wearers* - even Idi Amin knew the score on that one)) was rendered obsolete by yesterday's "Sun" headline - I WATCHED HUMAN GUINEA PIGS EXPLODE. No fuss, no mess, just pure art impact.

(* this excludes the Vietcong, obviously, who can wear whatever the fuck they like - you Western nonce!)

Similarly, forget modern indie for any high jinks. I've never seen such a troupe of Toni&Guy-treated Ken Dolls in all my years. We Are Scientists? The Editors? Why not just call yourselves The Geography Field Trip or The Guitar, Bass and Drumkit and be done with it. The NME Awards are now the last place you'd look for crazy behaviour - you're better off going to a community meeting in a freezing church hall in Hackney, with local drunks wandering in and heckling speakers at random -about what, nobody's quite sure, but it beats the hell out of watching the Kaiser Chiefs simper about, collecting trophies without fear of assassination.

So I've decided to commemorate the glorious '92-'94 UK Riot Grrrl scene instead, and to recuperate the essential documents from that era. I expect these records will substantially shoot up in value on eBay, so try and track them down now. Or look them up on Soulseek and defraud the artists of royalties - I don't care!

VOODOO QUEENS - Supermodel Superficial 7" (1993)

The Voodoo Queens were led by a Brit-Indian go-go dancer from East London called Anjali. Apparently she used to dance with The Cramps, til they kicked her out for being too feisty. This merely confirms my opinion that The Cramps were 'boring'. Oh come on, let's be honest ; this 'legendary', 'cool' band were as dull as a fortnight in Gibraltar. Now, Screaming Lord Sutch swooping into a crowd of nervous, giggling schoolgirls, yelling "JACK THE RIPPER!" into their prim, post-war austerity-mottled faces- that's ace. But The Cramps? Pah, Voice of the Beehive with a few spiders and tombstones thrown in, rubbish!

Anjali graduated to the girl punk band Mambo Taxi, whose definitive release was 1992's "PROM QUEEN" 7". This is a class piece of punky Riot Grrrl, barely 2 minutes long. Lyrically, it was based on a true news item at the time, where one US high school mom had murdered another, to ensure that her little poppet would be crowned 'prom queen' - having reasoned that the victim's daughter would be too grief-stricken to turn up to compete!

This black humour was the perfect antidote to Kurt Cobain's miserable ramblings. Sadly, Mambo Taxi's next EP was so boring, I'd actually managed to erase its title from my memory until 10 minutes ago, when I looked it up on Google (it was called 'Poems on the Underground'). I think another single came out after that, but then Anjali went on to form the Voodoo Queens and things really kicked off.

While Huggy Bear were busy cooking up manifestos about "the nucleus of intercourse", the VQs took more of a street level approach, singing about how crap and shallow 95% of the boy race were and urging girls to eat chocolate and not give a toss about their weight. These themes all came flooding together on "Supermodel Superficial", a rant that still sounds good today, and one of the best UK Riot Grrrl singles ever. However, the best songs the VQs EVER recorded were "Summer Sun" and "Princess of the Voodoo Beat", 60s style trash pop that pisses all over the Cramps' meagre attempts to dig up Link Wray's missing lung. Sadly, neither of these were released on single, so you'll have to track down the Peel Sessions CD or LP. "Princess....", played at full blast, is completely essential. I also have to say that the time I saw them play at the White Horse in '93 was one of the best gigs I've been to.

Then what? Well, what do you want, the truth or the bullshit ending? Anjali started to seriously dabble in voodoo, resulting in the much-celebrated deaths of both Kurt Cobain and Skrewdriver croaker Ian Stuart, before spontaneously combusting during a soundcheck in Camden. Back in the real world, she appeared on the awful Caitlain (sp?) Moran-hosted yoof pop programme "Naked City", doing some sordid sort of street-busking 'competition' for hoots. And then the band just kind of imploded and the NME started wetting its Y-fronts over the vastly inferior Elastica. She now makes "lounge exotica " (ie- trip hop) records, some of which are alright actually (some are abysmal) - though for me she'll always be the Haji lookalike with her leg slung up on a monitor, strumming her plank and screeching "AND ALL OF THE BOYS IN THE WORLD WILL FRY!" As far as hellfire preaching goes, it made Nick Cave sound like Serge Gainsbourg stumbling around a dark landing looking for the toilet. The Voodoo Queens rocked.