The Slits

The Slits were a British band from London, founded in 1976, that combined punk with influences from reggae and world music. They emerged from a loose group of teenagers from the sex pistols and clash environment who played music in a squatted house in Shepherd's Bush in the summer of 1976. The group's early line-up consisted of Ari Up (Ariane Forster) and Palmolive (a.k.a. Paloma Romero, who played briefly with Spizzenergi and later left to join The Raincoats), with Viv Albertine and Tessa Pollitt replacing founding members Kate Korus and Suzy Gutsy

The group supported The Clash on their 1977 White Riot tour along with Buzzcocks, The Prefects and Subway Sect.Club performances of The Slits during this period are included in The Punk Rock Movie (1978). In November 1978, The Slits toured with The Clash again on the "Sort it Out Tour" and were joined by The Innocents who opened the shows.

Captured on a Peel Session, the Slits' originally raw and raucous live sound was cleaned up and polished by the time of their debut album, and overtime their style began to draw heavily from reggae, dub and world music. Their Dennis Bovell-produced debut album Cut was released in September 1979 on Island Records, with Neneh Cherry joining as additional vocalist. The album's sleeve art depicted the band naked, except for mud and loincloths. Paloma already left by the time the Lp came out.



The Slits' sound and attitude became increasingly experimental and avant-garde during the early 1980s, when they formed an alliance with Bristol post-punk band The Pop Group, sharing drummer Bruce Smith and releasing a joint single, "In the Beginning There Was Rhythm/Where There's a Will There's a Way" (Y Records). This was followed by a bizarre, uncommercial, untitled album of mostly homemade demo recordings, and a few more singles. The band toured widely and released another album, Return of the Giant Slits before breaking up in early 1982. Ari Up went on to be part of the New Age Steppers.



Ari Up and Tessa Pollitt reformed the band with new members in 2005, as Viv Albertine was unwilling to rejoin, and in 2006 released the EP Revenge of the Killer Slits. The EP featured former Sex Pistols member Paul Cook and Marco Pirroni (formerly of Adam and the Ants, and Siouxsie and the Banshees) as both musicians and co-producers.



The band toured the United States for the first time in twenty-five years during 2006's 'States of Mind' tour. In 2007, they toured Australia as well as returning to the US, where they opened for Sonic Youth. In their first visit to Japan, the band undertook a short tour in October 2007.In January 2009, the Los Angeles-based Narnack Records announced they had signed the band to a recording contract. A biography – Typical Girls? The Story of the Slits by Zoe Street Howe was published in the UK by Omnibus Press in July 2009.



Group founder Ari Up died in October 2010.

Shanne Bradley

Shanne Bradley (born 1957, London, England) is a punk musician, songwriter, and artist. She founded the punk band The Nipple Erectors (The Nips) in 1976 playing bass guitar and co-founded The Men They Couldn't Hang in 1984. Bradley was also known as Shanne Skratch and briefly as Shanne Hasler.

Initially consisting of vocalis-songwriter Shane MacGowan (known at the time as 'Shane O'Hooligan'), bassist-songwriter and punk artist Shanne Bradley, guitarist-artist Roger Towndrow and drummer Arcane Vendetta; The Nipple Erectors performed their first gig at The Roxy Club in Covent Garden, London in 1977. Inspired by The Stooges, the band incorporated elements of rockabilly and '60s garage rock into their music. Following the release of their first single, "King of the Bop"/"Nervous Wreck", in June 1978, on Soho Records, the band renamed themselves The Nips and released the song "All The Time in the World"/"Private Eye" with Phil Rowland of Eater on drums.

By May 1979, the band's line up had changed to include Gavin "Fritz" Douglas, on guitar. The Powerpop anthem, "Gabrielle" was released in November 1979, first on Soho Records, and then reissued on Chiswick Records. with John ("Grinny") Grinton on drums. By the time of its release, Grinny had been replaced by Roger Travis Williams. Gavin Douglas' guitar playing on this record marked a change in the band's sound to a more melodic style.

In 1980, The Nips recorded a demo for Polydor Records at their studio in Bond Street. It was produced by Paul Weller. There were four songs recorded for this session, including "Happy Song" "Nobody to Love", "Ghost Town" and "Love To Make You Cry". The Line up for this recording was, Shane MacGowan-vocals, Shanne Bradley-bass, Gavin Douglas-guitar and Mark Harrison-drums. "Happy Song"/"Nobody to Love" was released as a single in October 1981, on Test Pressing Records. The Nips announced to the press that they were quitting after a last gig at London's Covent Garden Rock Garden on 10 March 1980. MacGowan and Bradley did reform the band later that year, albeit briefly. The line up included James Fearnley on guitar and Jon Moss on drums.

During 1981, Bradley took the band in another direction away from the traditional rock band format to incorporate Greek, Cretan and Irish Roots/Folk music. The popular Irish folk and America folk song "Poor Paddy Works on the Railway" had previously formed part of their early live set with Guitarist Roger Towndrow. This line up included Macgowan and Bradley plus John Hasler on standup snare drum and Scots/Irish Folk Fiddler David Rattray. Later that year Bradley decided to take a break from music.



In 1984 Shanne Bradley co-founded The Men They Couldn't Hang to play "The Alternative Country and Western Festival" on March 1984 at The Electric Ballroom in Camden alongside the legendary Pogues and the Boot Hill Foot-Tappers. She played with them till 1987.

Exene Cervenka

Born Christene Lee Cervenka; February 1, 1956, in Chicago, is an American singer, artist, and poet. She is best known for her work as a singer in the California punk rock band X. She grew up primarily in Tallahassee, FL, before relocating to Santa Monica, CA, during the summer of 1976.

Through a local poetry workshop, Cervenka met John Doe, and the seeds of what would eventually become X were planted. With both sharing vocal duties (and Doe doubling on bass), Doe's friend Billy Zoom supplied guitar in a Duane Eddy style and was soon followed by the arrival of drummer D.J. Bonebrake, resulting in the birth of X in 1977. X's first record deal was with independent label Dangerhouse, for which the band produced one single, "Adult Books"/"We're Desperate" (1978). A Dangerhouse session version of "Los Angeles" was also featured on a 1979 Dangerhouse 12" EP compilation called Yes L.A.

As the band became the flag bearer for the local scene, a larger independent label, Slash Records, signed the band. The result was their debut, Los Angeles (1980) produced by the Doors' keyboard player, Ray Manzarek. It was a minor hit and well-received by the underground press and mainstream media. Doe and Cervenka co-wrote most of the group's songs and their slightly off-kilter harmony vocals served as the group's most distinctive element. Their lyrics tended to be straight-out poetry; comparisons to Charles Bukowski and Raymond Chandler were made from the start.

Their follow-up effort, 1981's Wild Gift, was similar in musical style. It featured shorter, faster songs and is arguably their most stereotypically punk-sounding record.



In addition to her X duties, Cervenka appeared as part of the country spin off the Knitters (1985's Poor Little Critter on the Road), and issued (also in 1985) a poetry collaboration with Wanda Coleman entitled Twin Sisters. But as the '80s wore on, after Zoom's exit and a few spotty albums the band split up. With X winding down, Cervenka launched a solo career, resulting in 1989's Old Wives' Tales and 1990's Running Sacred. Cervenka, Doe, and Bonebrake resuscitated X in the early '90s with a new studio album, 1993's Hey Zeus!, and 1995's acoustic affair, Unclogged. Later in the decade, Zoom signed back on, resulting in a re-formation of the original X lineup (no new studio recordings surfaced, however, just live dates). During this time, Cervenka found the time to launch a new albeit short-lived band, Auntie Christ (in which she also supplied guitar), including X bandmate Bonebrake as well as major X fan Rancid bassist Matt Freeman -- and also issued a third solo release, 1996's Surface to Air Serpents.

Vaginal Davis

The prolific performer, artist, writer and musician has been making art her entire life, in terms of punk rock, queer, trans, art, agitator, dominatrix and impresario.

 

 Davis was born intersex in South Central Los Angeles. As she tells it, her mother was a black Creole “femme lesbian separatist” who slept with her father, a Mexican-American Jewish man, just once at a Ray Charles concert in the 1960s. Davis’s mother refused to conform to doctors’ wishes to pick between sexes. While “male” was listed on Davis’s birth certificate, her daughterhood was always supported and upheld by her mother and four sisters.



By the 1970s, Davis was brought into the Los Angeles punk scene by her cousin, Karla DuPlantier, then the drummer of foundational LA punk band The Controllers. It was a time when Los Angeles punk originated with, and was then dominated by, women and queer folks. When Davis first started doing “artsy-fartsy creative things” with friend Greg Hernandez, messing around with tape recorders and talking over records, she went by the moniker Pussy Washington, but later changed it to Vaginal Davis, as an homage to her love for activist Angela Davis. As Vaginal Davis, she became the drag frontwoman of several art-punk bands, the first of which was the Afro Sisters, who became known for mixing drag with 1970s visuals and punk influences. The band released their first seven-inch EP Indigo, Sassafras & Molasses, produced by Geza X with Amoeba Records in 1978.

Davis would add renowned Chicanx punk Alice Bag of The Bags to the Afro Sisters lineup - Bag would add actual music where songs were previously all sung a cappella, 1960s girl group-style - and later collaborate with her in their band ¡Cholita!, the Female Menudo, a sassy pop band.

In 1989, Davis formed the band Pedro, Muriel, and Esther (PME) with Glen Meadmor. Davis had previously sung backup vocals for Meadmore, with RuPaul. PME disbanded after releasing a four-song EP on Amoeba records but the band reunited for a performance at the Queercore '95 festival in Chicago.

Davis formed the band Black Fag in 1992 with Bibbe Hansen. Black Fag's album Passover Satyr was released by Dischord Records that same year and was produced by Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon. The band's 1995 album 11 Harrow House was produced by Hansen's son Beck.

Davis never considered herself a singer, she found the punk scenes were the only places where she’d be able to perform onstage: usually, she said, black queens only performed lip-syncing as black divas, and their looks were far more traditional than her own signature genderqueer punk aesthetic. “I was always too gay for the punks and too punk for the gays,” she said in 2015.

Lorna Doom

Teresa Marie Ryan (January 4, 1958 - January 16, 2019), better known by her stage name Lorna Doom, was an American musician best known as the bass guitarist for the punk rock band the Germs from 1976 - 1980 and again after they got back together from 2005 - 2009.

Doom grew up in Thousand Oaks, California and attended Newbury Park High School, where she met Belinda Carlisle, , who would be the Germs' first drummer. The band's main early lineup consisted of singer Darby Crash, guitarist Pat Smear, bassist Lorna Doom, and drummer Don Bolles. The band's first live performance was at the Orpheum Theater.

The first single, "Forming", was recorded on a Sony 2-track reel-to-reel recorder in Smear's family garage, and arrived back from the pressing plant with the note, "Warning: This record causes ear cancer", printed on the sleeve by the plant staff. It was released in July 1977 on the What? label. They recorded two singles (with alternate tracks), an album-length demo session, and one full-length LP, (GI), each more focused and powerful than the last. Crash was generally regarded as a brilliant lyricist, and the final lineup of Smear, Doom and Bolles had become a world-class rock ensemble by the recording of (GI), considered one of the first hardcore punk records, and has a near-mythic status among punk rock fans. The album was produced by Joan Jett of the Runaways.

The Germs were featured in Spheeris's documentary film The Decline of Western Civilization along with , Black Flag, Fear, Circle Jerks, Alice Bag Band and Catholic Discipline.

Following the release of their only studio album, (GI), on Slash Records, the Germs recorded six original songs with producer Jack Nitzsche for the soundtrack to the film Cruising. Doom wrote one of the songs, "Now I Hear The Laughter". Only one of these songs, "Lions Share", ended up on the Columbia soundtrack album. Other songs from this session did not appear until the 1988 bootleg Lion's Share, along with four tracks from their infamous last show at the Starwood. The Cruising sessions were finally released officially on the CD (MIA): The Complete Anthology.

Doom quit the band originally in 1980 after Crash fired Don Bolles. Crash committed suicide on December 7, 1980, at age 22. After Crash's death, Doom moved from California to New York City where she lived until the late 1990s.




She died of cancer on January 16, 2019.

Alice Bag

Alicia "Alice" Armendariz, (born November 7, 1958) known professionally as Alice Bag, is a punk rock singer, musician, author, educator and feminist archivist. She is the lead singer and co-founder of the Bags, one of the first wave of punk bands to form in the mid-1970s in Los Angeles.

Both of her parents were from Mexico and she was born and raised in East Los Angeles, California. As a child, Bag was influenced by the music played by her family, including her father's rancheras and sister's soul music collections. Growing up she developed a certain liking in music such as Queen, David Bowie and Elton John. This stage in her life guided her to transform into a rebellious, yet attentive teenager. Alice Bag began singing professionally at the age of 8 recording theme songs for cartoons in both English and Spanish. She didn't gain exposure until after forming the Bags. Alice originally collaborated with Patricia Morrison and Margo Reyes in what they first called Mascara then Femme Fatale and ultimately evolved into the Bags,  pioneering an aggressive sound and style which has been cited as an early influence on what would become the hardcore punk sound. The aggressive sound that the band had was later noted to have a Mexican/Chicana influence that Alice unintentionally brought along from her childhood.

Alice Bag was the vocalist and Pat Bag played bass, and the rest of the comprised guitar players Craig Lee and Rob Ritter, and Terry Graham on drums. The Bags played their first concert at The Masque on September 10, 1977. In 1978, they released their only record, a single called "Survive", backed with "Babylonian Gorgon", released by independent record label Dangerhouse Records.

"We Don't Need The English" was included on the Yes L.A. punk compilation album released by the same label.

After this, Pat Bag left the band. In 1980 the group, minus Pat Bag, was filmed by Penelope Spheeris for the documentary film The Decline of Western Civilization, which also featured the Germs, Black Flag, Catholic Discipline, X and other Los Angeles punk bands. At the release of the film in 1981 the producers billed the group as "Alice Bag Band" to avoid any conflict with ex-member Pat, but the band had already broken up by then.

Bag went on to appear and perform in other Los Angeles–based rock bands including Castration Squad, The Boneheads, Alarma, Cambridge Apostles, Swing Set, Cholita - the Female Menudo (with her friend and collaborator, performance artist Vaginal Davis), Las Tres, Goddess 13 (the subject of a KCET/PBS produced documentary, "Chicanas In Tune") and Stay At Home Bomb.

Still today Alice shares her music with her followers. In addition to her musical talents she also inspires other women musicians and remains involved with her community. She also wrote her biography book “Violence Girl”.

Poly Styrene

Marianne Joan Elliott-Said (3 July 1957 – 25 April 2011), known by the stage name Poly Styrene, was a British musician, singer-songwriter, and frontwoman for the punk rock band X-Ray Spex.

She was born in Bromley, Kent and raised in Brixton, London. After seeing the Sex Pistols' performance at the Pier Pavilion in Hastings on 3rd July 1976, she decided to form the band. Poly Styrene, a name she chose from the 'Yellow Pages' when she was 'looking for a name of the time, something plastic.' She was described by Billboard as the "archetype for the modern-day feminist punk"; because she wore dental braces, stood against the typical sex object female of 1970s rock star, sported a gaudy Dayglo wardrobe, and was of mixed race. She was "one of the least conventional front-persons in rock history, male or female". Initially, the band featured singer Poly Styrene, Jak Airport (Jack Stafford) on guitars, Paul Dean on bass, Paul 'B. P.' Hurding on drums, and Lora Logic (born Susan Whitby) on saxophone. This latter instrument was an atypical addition to the standard punk instrumental line-up, and became one of the group's most distinctive features. Lora played on only one of the band's records.

The band played twice at the punk club The Roxy during its first 100 days. In March, the band played with The Drones and Chelsea. In April, they shared the bill with the Buzzcocks, Wire and Johnny Moped. Their first Roxy gig was only their second live appearance. It was recorded and their anthem "Oh Bondage Up Yours!" was included on the influential Live at the Roxy WC2 album. Styrene was nineteen years old at the time of the recording.

In late September 1977, a studio recording of "Oh Bondage Up Yours!" was released as a single. Today, the record is regarded as their most enduring artefact, both as a piece of music and as a sort of proto-grrrl catchphrase. Opening with the spoken/screamed line, "Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard but I think, oh bondage, up yours!", the song could be interpreted as a premonition of the riot grrrl movement 15 years later.

In November 1978, the band released their debut album, Germfree Adolescents. With the exception of "Identity", which was partially based on Styrene witnessing a friend slash her wrists in the restroom of the Roxy, the rest of the album dealt with the anti consumerist theme. They played at 'Front Row Festival', at the Hope and Anchor, in late November and early December 1977. Then, in February 1978, before the release of their second single, they recorded the first of two sessions for John Peel at BBC Radio1. They also played a fortnight's residency at New York's CBGB's. On 30 April 1978, the band appeared at the Rock Against Racism gig at Victoria Park. Later in the year, to promote the album, X-Ray Spex embarked on their first, and only, full UK tour. Exhausted by touring, Poly Styrene left the band in mid 1979.



After the original line-up of X-Ray Spex broke up, Poly Styrene recorded a solo album, Translucence, in 1980. She died of cancer on 25 April 2011, at the age of 53.

Gaye Advert

Gaye Advert (born August 29, 1956), a.k.a Gaye Black, is an English punk rock musician, who played bass guitar in the band the Adverts in the late 1970s.

She moved from Bideford, a small coastal town in Devon, to London in 1976. Her and frontman T.V Smith recruited guitarist Howard Pickup (Boak) and drummer Laurie Driver (Muscat), and the Adverts were born. The Roxy, London's first live punk venue,  played a crucial role in the Adverts’ early career. They were one of the pioneering bands who played at the club during its first 100 days. The Adverts played at the club no less than nine times between January and April 1977. In January 1977, after their first gig supporting Generation X, the band impressed Michael Dempsey so much that he became their manager. Their second gig supporting Slaughter & The Dogs was recorded, and their anthem "Bored Teenagers" was included on the 1977 UK Top 30 album The Roxy London WC2. In February, shortly after the band's third gig supporting the Damned, they signed a recording contract with Stiff Records. In March, the band supported the Jam at the Roxy.In April, the Adverts recorded the first of four sessions for John Peel at BBC Radio.  Days later, on 29 April 1977, their debut single "One Chord Wonders" was released by Stiff.

On 19 August 1977, the band released the first of their two UK Top 40 hit singles on Anchor Records. Lyrically, "Gary Gilmore's Eyes" was a controversial song based on the wishes of Gary Gilmore,  an American murderer, that his eyes be donated to medical science after his execution.

The band’s follow-up single, "Safety in Numbers", was released on 28 October and their fourth single, "No Time to Be 21", issued on CBS subsidiary Bright Records on 20 January 1978. Their debut album, Crossing the Red Sea was released by Bright on 17 February 1978. It has since become one of the most highly regarded albums of the punk era. Switching to RCA Records, the Adverts released three additional well-regarded singles, "Television's Over" on 10 November 1978, "My Place" on 1 June 1979 and "Cast of Thousands" on 19 October 1979. Their career stalled after the release of their second album Cast of Thousands, issued by RCA on 12 October 1979. For that album, the lineup was augmented by drummer Rod Latter (replacing Driver) and keyboardist Tim Cross. Pickup and Latter were then replaced by Paul Martinez (guitar) and Rick Martinez (drums). They split up shortly after the accidental death of manager Dempsey. Their last gig was a Slough College on 27 October 1979.



Gaye Advert is now an artist and an art curator.

Patti Smith

Patricia Lee Smith (born December 30, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, poet, and visual artist who became an influential component of the New York City punk rock movement. She was born in Chicago and was the eldest of four children. The family moved from Chicago to Philadelphia and then to New Jersey.

In 1967, she left Glassboro State College and moved to Manhattan.  She met photographer Robert Mapplethorpe there while working at a bookstore with friend and poet Janet Hamill. She went to Paris with her sister in 1969, and started busking and doing performance art. When Smith returned to Manhattan, she lived in the Chelsea Hotel with Mapplethorpe; they frequented Max's Kansas City. Smith provided the spoken word soundtrack for Sandy Daley's art film Robert Having His Nipple Pierced, starring Mapplethorpe. The same year Smith appeared with Wayne County in Jackie Curtis' play Femme Fatale. Afterward, she also starred in Tony Ingrassia's play Island. As a member of the St. Mark's Poetry Project, she spent the early 1970s painting, writing, and performing.


By 1974, Patti Smith was performing rock music, initially with guitarist, bassist and rock archivist Lenny Kaye, and later with a full band comprising Kaye, Ivan Kral on guitar and bass, Jay Dee Daugherty on drums and Richard Sohl on piano. Financed by Sam Wagstaff, the band recorded a first single, "Hey Joe / Piss Factory", in 1974. The Patti Smith Group was signed by Clive Davis of Arista Records, and in 1975 recorded their first album, Horses,  produced by John Cale. The album fused punk rock and spoken poetry and begins with a cover of Van Morrison's "Gloria". The austere cover photograph by Mapplethorpe has become one of rock's classic images.

As the popularity of punk rock grew, Patti Smith Group toured the United States and Europe. The rawer sound of the group's second album, Radio Ethiopia, reflected this. Considerably less accessible than Horses, Radio Ethiopia initially received poor reviews. However, several of its songs have stood the test of time, and Smith still performs them regularly in concert. She has said that Radio Ethiopia was influenced by the band MC5. On January 23, 1977, while touring in support of Radio Ethiopia, Smith accidentally danced off a high stage in Tampa, Florida, and fell 15 feet into a concrete pit, breaking several neck vertebrae. The injury required a period of rest, during which time she was able to reassess, re-energize and reorganize her life. Patti Smith Group produced two further albums before the end of the 1970s.  Easter (1978) was her most commercially successful record.

Wave (1979) was less successful, although the songs "Frederick" and "Dancing Barefoot" both received commercial airplay. Through most of the 1980s Smith was in semi-retirement from music, living with her family north of Detroit. In June 1988, she released the album Dream of Life, which included the song "People Have The Power".



Smith is still active, releasing records, playing and publishing books. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.

Cherry Vanilla

Cherry Vanilla (born Kathleen Dorritie; October 16, 1943) is an American singer-songwriter, publicist and actress. She was born in Woodside, New York. Adopting the stage name Cherry Vanilla, she starred in the London productions of Andy Warhol's play, Pork, and other theatre of the ridiculous plays. She worked for MainMan LTD as David Bowie's publicist, in the early 1970s.

After parting ways with Bowie in 1974, Vanilla formed her first band with Kasim Sulton, which played under her name. In 1976, she formed Cherry Vanilla & her Staten Island Band, with Buzzy John Vierno (bass guitar), Frank La Rocca (drums), Thomas Morrongiello (guitar), and Gary Cohen (piano). The group's first released material was the track "Shake Your Ashes", on the Max's Kansas City album of 1976. 1976 also saw the release of Vanilla's art book, Pop Tar.




Her high profile in New York was the impetus for Miles Copeland III to invite her to England. She relocated to London in 1976, becoming part of the burgeoning punk scene and was signed by RCA Records. The London-based Cherry Vanilla Band initially consisted of guitarist Louis Lepore and pianist Zecca Esquibel, along with bassist Gordon "Sting" Sumner, guitarist Henry Padovani and drummer Stewart Copeland. A more permanent line-up comprised of Louis Lepore (guitar), Zecca Esquibel (keyboards), Howie Finkel (bass guitar), and Michael (Manny) Mancuso (drums). Their first release was the single "The Punk" in September 1977, followed in February 1978 by the debut album Bad Girl.

Finkel and Esquibel left the band and with a string of replacements the band continued, releasing another single and a second album, Venus D'Vinyl, in 1979. She split up with Lepore and the group disbanded, with Vanilla returning to the U.S.

In 1980 she performed the narrative on Vangelis' "Not A Bit - All Of It". In 1985, she played the hitchhiker and the waitress on Roger Waters' album, The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking. In 1987, she was the composer in the boxing club documentary film Broken Noses. She returned to recording in the early 1990s, releasing Blue Roses, with Man Parrish and Barb Morrison, plus two singles. Her autobiography, Lick Me: How I Became Cherry Vanilla, was published in October 2010 by the Chicago Review Press.

Jayne County

Jayne County (born June 13, 1947) is an American singer, songwriter, actress and record producer whose career has spanned five decades. She was the vocalist of influential proto-punk band Wayne County & The Electric Chair and has been known for her outrageous and unpredictable stage antics. She went on to become rock's first openly transgender singer. 

Born in 1947, County left her hometown of Dallas, Georgia, in 1968 to move to New York City, where she became a regular at the Stonewall Inn and took part in the historic riots. In 1969 County was asked by Warhol superstar and playwright Jackie Curtis to appear in her play, Femme Fatale. Patti Smith also starred in the play. Andy Warhol cast her in his own theatrical production of Pork, which was adapted and directed by Tony Ingrassia. After a run in New York, the play was performed in London with the same New York cast. David Bowie went to see the play in London.

In 1972 County formed Queen Elizabeth, one of the pioneering proto-punk bands. County was signed to MainMan Artistes, David Bowie's management firm, but no records were ever produced. The company spent over $200,000 to film the 1974 stage show, "Wayne at the Trucks", but footage has never been released. The show featured numerous costume changes and some of County's raunchiest material. Eight songs from the show were released on the 2006 album, Wayne County At the Trucks, on Munster Records. County claims the show was the inspiration for Bowie's Diamond Dogs tour. In particular, County maintains that the song "Queenage Baby" was a prototype for Bowie's song "Rebel Rebel".

In 1974 County formed Wayne County and the Backstreet Boys, which recorded three tracks for Max's Kansas City: New York New Wave, a compilation that also featured Suicide, Pere Ubu, Cherry Vanilla and The Fas. Wayne County and The Backstreet Boys played regularly at CBGB and Max's Kansas City, where County was also a DJ. In 1976, she appeared in the film The Blank Generation, directed by Amos Poe and Ivan Kral. The film, the recording and the shows were the beginnings of what came to be known as punk rock, and helped define the movement.

In 1977 County moved to London, where the English punk scene was just emerging, and formed Wayne County & The Electric Chairs. County released the EP Electric Chairs 1977, plus a single  on Illegal Records. This was followed by "Fuck Off", recorded as a single for Safari Records and supported with a European tour.

While in London, County met Derek Jarman, who cast her in the seminal punk film Jubilee. County and band are also featured in The Punk Rock Movie, by Don Letts, containing part of a 1977 performance at The Roxy club in London. 

In 1978, Wayne County and The Electric Chairs recorded their first, eponymous album, as well as another EP, Blatantly Offensive, which contained "Fuck Off" and "Toilet Love." After their touring in support of these releases was done, they recorded Storm the Gates of Heaven. Their next album, released in 1979, was Things Your Mother Never Told You, which featured several songs based on County's experiences in Germany.After it was released, the band broke up and County, along with guitarist Eliot Michaels, returned to the U.S.

When County moved to Berlin in 1979, she changed her stage name to "Jayne County", publicly identifying as a woman for the first time. County's release of Rock and Roll Resurrection (In Concert) on Safari Records was under this new name.