Here’s an odd coincidence – just heading out the door to see seminal punk act Penetration, and there’s a feature on the radio – ‘Women in punk’.
Odder still, there’s no mention of tonight’s headliners. Instead, The Slits, X-Ray Spex, Huggy Bear and Bikini Kill – all pre-dated by the Durham act founded by Pauline Murray – are those chosen to represent the “Female-fronted” genre.
Or maybe it’s not so strange. Penetration are often, bafflingly, overlooked when punk acts of any gender composition are cited, despite having made several classic singles and two excellent studio albums followed by a third equally good long-player 30-odd years later.
Opening up tonight’s show at a pretty-busy-for-7.20pm G2 are a band with roots in that same late ’70s scene. To be honest I’m not too sure what to expect from Essential Logic – the band formed in 1978 by Lora Logic, who was at the time best known as sax player for X-Ray Spex, but quickly carved out her own reputation as a leading figure in the burgeoning post-punk scene.
As it turns out the stage fills up pretty quickly around her, with – deep breath – original Essential Logic guitarist Phil Legg, Euan Hinshelwood (formerly of Younghusband), bassist Dave Miller, and, Lora’s daughter Malini Murphy, who joins her mother on vocals as well as keyboard.
As it turns out, the band’s debut album ‘Beat Rhythm News’ is 45 years old and gets a deluxe 2xLP (and CD debut) release in December, so understandably this classic is the focus of the attention tonight.
Opener ‘Aerosol Burns’ sets the stall out for the set, this early single having pop overtones in a spasmodic angular way, propelled as it is by twin saxes.
From then it’s something of a lesson in alternative music of the late 1970s – proto post-punk on ‘Quality Wax Cyan OK’, hints of no wave acts like ESG in ‘Alkaline Loaf In The Area’, or the Au Pairs in ‘Wake Up’. Bearing in mind of course that Essential Logic either predated or co-existed with these acts, justifying the “pioneering” epithet.
It’s inevitable that there’s some referencing to the past, but rather than wallow in nostalgia, Ms.Logic instead pays tribute to Poly Styrene with ‘Identity’ but instead reducing it to a slowed-down, almost funky take on the X-Ray Spex hit.
The penultimate track is ‘Alien Boys’, from the 2022 album ‘Land of Kali’ – produced with Youth, this is also getting the reissue treatment, a ‘Rekalibrated’ version of the album featuring a mix of the track by Grammy winner Dave AudeĢ arriving on vinyl at the end of November. Now sounding decidedly up-to-date, modern touchstones might include Warmduscher while harking back to that distinctive New York sound – an irresistible combination.
Last time Laura Logic played in Glasgow it was as guest saxophonist for Bis’s cover of ‘Germ Free Adolescents’, and they decide to have a little fun tonight too, with a coruscating take on ‘Oh Bondage Up Yours’ to close.
If it’s nostalgia you want then look no further than half-time DJ Tam Coyle, whose crowd-pleasing set has subtle easter eggs to it – what was Penetration bassist doing after the band split in 1979? Producing the Scars album, of course. Where did his band get their name? From a track on the Stooges’ ‘Raw Power’, and it’s Iggy’s ‘The Passenger’ that fades down to welcome the headliners to the stage.
But tonight is of course an unashamed exercise in nostalgia – celebrating 45 years of the band’s ‘Moving Targets’, coincidentally with a ‘Recalibrated’ (but correctly spelled) version of their 1979 debut. The new vinyl pressing is, we’re advised, of better quality than the luminous or indeed almost transparent black versions all those years ago.
Indeed, I get the feeling we’ve been here before – or at least at Audio five years ago when the album got its 40th birthday celebration. The setlist for that show is lost in the mists of time, but tonight it’s pretty straightforward – kicking off with ‘Future Daze’, its marching motorik beat and meandering guitar lines the perfect backing for Pauline Murray’s soaring vocal. From then on there are no surprises – well, apart from how well the band have aged, the frontwoman still able to take on the big notes while cunningly switching up and down the scales so as to save the vocal cords for the rest of this five-date tour.
‘Life’s a Gamble’ exemplifies the band, which as Murray reckons in her autobiography were “too spiky” for daytime radio, perhaps solving the riddle of why they weren’t bigger despite the track’s catchy chorus. It may be that ‘Stone Heroes’ offers another clue, its almost metal guitar and mystical lyrics putting the band somewhere on the unmarketable verges of ‘true’ punk.
Despite this, the crowd of certain-aged fans are well-pleased – “Stands up well as a set on its own” says one front-row punter of Side One, as the perspiring band reach the end of a “rowdy” mini-set. “Time to make a cup of tea, and turn your record over,” Murray quips as the band kick into ‘Movement’, the singer aptly marching frantically around the stage. It’s a brilliantly odd album in a few ways, not least that it closes with two cover versions – Buzzcocks classic ‘Nostalgia’ is as good as the original, while a frantic ‘Free Money’ is wrenched from the hands of Patti Smith as the band, as Simon Cowell might put it, “make it their own”.
And then, we’ve reached the end, able to recall how hearing ‘Moving Targets’ all those yers ago shaped the lives of many a young music fan. Murray’s “I never thought I’d be doing this again – probably the last time,” is met with something of a collective intake of breath, but nothing lasts forever. Rather than having the crowd clamour for more, a break of a couple of minutes is announced.
The mini-set that follows may be more of a challenge, not following the fixed setlist of an album – with, it seems only one band member able to read the “too small” print. However, it’s pretty straightforward – aside from the previously-aired ‘Life’s A Gamble’, it’s The Singles in order. “You’ve been my idol for 45 years,” calls a deceptively sprightly-looking woman making her way down the front. “You’re giving your age away,” the singer responds, before the band roll back 46 years with a on-the-money ‘Don’t Dictate’, Murray leaning into the crowd and making that reborn teen’s night by giving her the mic for a chorus.
Of course then it’s a frantic ‘Firing Squad’, the stomping ‘Danger Signs’, and just to show that nostalgia takes many forms, a couple from the 2015 comeback album ‘Resolution’ – ‘Makes No Sense’ and particularly ‘Beat Goes On’ showing that if anything the band’s ear for a tune developed further during their lengthy hiatus, leading us to wonder what Virgin Records might have done with that.
Another cover, the Flaming Groovies’ ‘Shake Some Action’ is followed by the new-ish ‘Calm Before The Storm’ which almost makes for an anti-climactic ending, before the band heed the encore calls having been informed that curfew is in fact 10pm, and come back for two tunes from underrated sophomore album ‘Coming Up For Air’ – ‘She Is The Slave’ followed by a highly appropriate closer in ‘Shout Above The Noise’, exactly what Pauline Murray and those female musicians who followed in her wake have been doing for their entire careers.
And if it does turn out this is the last live outing for ‘Moving Targets’ let’s not be too despondent – it’s pretty clear that Penetration are well capable of writing new material on a par with what they were producing all those years ago, And anyway, ‘Race Against Time’ is 45 next year…
Also chief newshound at Jockrock
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