Women in punk | blog hit sally inside

As tough and badass as any man to have ever grabbed a microphone, or chainsaw, Wendy O Williams was a force with which to be reckoned. Wendy took the typical sexual exploitation of female stars into her own hands with an in-your-face, overt sexuality, that was as much menacing as it was titillating. With her band, The Plasmatics, she took live Rock and Roll performance into previously uncharted territory, blowing up Cadillacs, sledgehammering TVs and chainsawing guitars, all in an anti-materialist Punk Rock psychodrama. By comparison to a Plasmatics show, a concert by a theatrical group like Kiss, might seem cute, but certainly not threatening. Her thrill seeking activities carried over into videos featuring acts such as running around on the top of a speeding bus and diving off as it plows into a wall of TVs, or a similarly speeding convertible that she exits via a rope ladder and plane, or walking on a plane’s wings, all with no harness. She was nothing if not a daring risk taker, in both her life and music, a fact that often found her at odds with the law. Wendy suffered harassment and physical violence at the hands of law enforcement, but never compromised her art or ideals.

In deference to her character well beyond her persona, it should be noted that she was a tireless animal rights activist and vegetarian.

Their television performances on Tom Snyder, Fridays, SCTV and Solid Gold (?!) never failed to excite and invite controversy

The Plasmatics hanging with John Candy for this SCTV sketch

Wendy with Ace Frehley

Wendy and Lemmy