In the 1970s, The Raincoats were a group of women who revolutionized the British rock scene. And it was Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain who offered the band an opportunity of a lifetime after they inspired him
An unlikely quintet of menopausal women form a punk band in Sally Wainwright’s new Sunday night BBC One drama Riot Women.
The six part series – episode 2 is on tonight at 9pm or on iPlayer – makes nostalgic viewing for Gina Birch and Ana da Silva, who formed punk group The Raincoats nearly 50 years ago.
“Polar opposites” form the band after meeting as art students in London in the seventies with Gina, a lively 21-year-old from Nottingham, and Ana Da Silva, a chilled 28-year-old from the Portuguese island of Madeira.
“We had a very good working relationship even though we were living our own lives. We sometimes argued. We excel at doing that. Gina, 70, laughs with an especially sharp smile.
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Rebellion was more important than musical prowess during The Clash and The Sex Pistols’ heyday. London provided freedom for Ana, now 77, who had grown up in an Estado Nova-ruled dictatorship. She says: “People could look how they liked to look and no one hassled them. Portugal has its own rules, but I love it there. At that time, you couldn’t kiss in the street. People did, but it was a law that you couldn’t”!
Ana, who adds, “It was like a door opened and I embraced a lot of it and then became a part of it,” found Punk to be particularly appealing. I liked how I expressing myself. London’s sense of adventure also gripped Gina, who made a squat in bohemian Notting Hill her home. She says, “When I moved to London, it was very much the big city, and I felt very provincial.”
In a neighborhood with a lot of musicians and artists, I had two rooms at the top of the house. But it was very dilapidated. Everything appeared to be deteriorating. She first spotted Ana at art school at this time, according to the statement. I noticed her because she was very, very suntanned, she had hair down to her waist and she was a little bit older, “says Gina”. I had just finished my A levels and had socialized with Nottingham’s crazies.
“Ana would order a glass of water and a black coffee at the nearby cafe,” she said. Nobody I knew had a glass of water. In Nottingham we would have orange squash or Ribena”! We immediately became friends, and Ana continues, “My cousin and I started going to a lot of gigs together, and he had a car.”
They were fans of bands like The Slits and their regular home, The Roxy, which had a lot of regulars. Gina says: “It was only really when I saw The Slits and there were four women on the stage playing their first show. In some ways, it was completely new and fresh. It was terrifying. It was about mischief, it was about comradery. It was about breaking the law as a young woman.
It only made me realize that I could do it. Previously, it had been men. Four women were suddenly in charge of their own destiny. “Then, one day, Gina entered a music store and purchased a guitar without even trying it out. She says:” I took this bass home. I spent a lot of time listening to music where the bass could be heard, and someone even taught me how to tune it.
She and Ana had already formed a band the day after that. In 1977 The Raincoats were born! Gina continues, “We hoovered them up when they got thrown out of the Slits.” When Palmolive, one of The Slits musicians, joined the band, we were thrilled. Then Palmolive wanted a violin or keyboard player and that’s when we got Vicky (Aspinall) We created a voice that was our own. We weren’t attempting to play four-four. We were examining it as if it were a heartbeat or a life rhythm.
They released their first single Fairytale in the Supermarket and their debut album The Raincoats on the Rough Trade label two years after their creation, according to Ana. “There were three moments for me that were miraculous,” they say. One was finishing the song in the rehearsal space. The first was when the album was released, which indicated that we were a real band, and the second was when the single was released. On the way there, I can recall crying as I drove from my house to Rough Trade to look at it. Those three moments were magical. “
Their fourth concert in Poland, which was then performed behind the Iron Curtain, was another career highlight for Ana. She says, “The audience was so eager for something new that having a punk band was magical for them. We may as well have come from Mars. It was incredible.
Odyshape, their second album, was released in 1981, but there were still some intriguing themes. Ana – who says they broke up after every record – explains:” We all had strong ideas about things and sometimes those ideas clashed. When they recorded a live album, The Kitchen Tapes, in December 1982 in New York at a venue known as The Kitchen, which was a hub for experimental music, tensions were at an all-time high.
The cassette version of the record sold for a lot in the Big Apple and became a hidden gem. But, a year later, they received the disappointing news from their label that no more copies of their records would be produced in the UK. The band eventually disbanded in 1983. Gina attended The Royal College of Art before working in an antiques store in Notting Hill before producing music videos. But in the summer of 1992 something very exciting happened. The Raincoats’ music was extremely difficult to obtain, and The Kitchen Tapes was the only album that was still available.
That’s when Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and his wife Courtney Love came into their lives – tracking Ana down at the antiques shop. She recalls that these two young people entered our conversation while we were talking. I was unaware of Courtney Love or Kurt Cobain’s identity. I found out later. At the time, she was expecting. He made a personal introduction. Kurt said, ‘ When I listen to your music I fall on the floor. ‘ His body sort of sways out of sync or something. They attempted to obtain a copy of the first album when they went to the Rough Trade store.
When no one could help, they directed the star to Ana’s workplace, where he asked if she could sell him a copy and she said she’d find him one. She recalls Kurt and Courtney’s style as “I liked it.” It had an impact.
When Ana found a copy, the band signed it, she put some photos inside and sent it to him. In the liner notes to his upcoming album, Incesticide, he thanked me for his kindness toward me. He remarked, “I feel like a stowaway in an attic when I listen to the Raincoats.” Rather than listening to them I feel like I am listening in on them. I have to be completely still while we are together in the same old house, or I could hear them spied from above. Everything will be destroyed if I’m caught because it’s their thing.
The Nirvana endorsement sparked a resurgence of interest in The Raincoats – prompting their label to reissue their albums, while Kurt also released them on his label in the US. According to Ana, “It made a lot of young women believe they could do this as well.” And the Raincoats reconnected their musical chemistry.
We simply made the decision to have fun. It sounded good. Then things escalated”, says Ana. The chance of a lifetime arrived when Kurt learned they were playing together at a party in London without even listing them. Gina recalls that Nirvana’s agent called her while she was working on a music video that day that she wanted to tour with The Raincoats. I was just starting a potential film career. However, we were aware that Nirvana was amazing at the time.
The band decided to go for it despite the band’s subsequent hiccups. They were in New York doing a gig a little while before the tour when they got the terrible news that on April 5, 1994 Kurt Cobain had killed himself. We were conducting a soundcheck, Ana says, and DGC’s Ray Farrel said, “I have bad news. Cobain passed away.
“It created this really sad atmosphere. I thought he was speaking to the lyrics to the song I wrote. Gina continues, “We really felt that we wanted to dedicate this set to him.” The tragedy meant the tour was cancelled, but two years after Kurt’s death, The Raincoats released a fourth album, Looking in the Shadows.
Ana describes the singer as having the impression that he had somehow become a kind of guardian angel for us. He gave us a new life. While The Raincoats are no longer performing, Gina adds: “I think that’s a lovely way to think of him as a guardian angel. His devotion to us has made a significant contribution to history. Even so, I believe we would have had a place in history, but his presence is much more evident.
Source: Mirror
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