Punk's real architects are taking back the stage. According to Rolling Stone, a supergroup featuring members of X-Ray Spex, the Raincoats, and the Slits will perform at London's Electric Brixton on October 16 as part of Up Yours! God Save the Queens!, a festival celebrating five decades of She-Punk.
The lineup reads like a punk history textbook. X-Ray Spex's Lora Logic and Paul Dean are joining forces with the Raincoats' Gina Birch, the Slits' Hollie Cook, punk historian Vivien Goldman, and Celeste Bell, the daughter of X-Ray Spex icon Poly Styrene.
For decades, the women who invented post-punk aesthetics, DIY ethics, and confrontational stage presence were footnoted while male contemporaries received the spotlight. The Slits' raw aggression, X-Ray Spex's art-school swagger, the Raincoats' experimental noise, these were not secondary to punk. They were foundational.
Goldman, who authored Revenge of the She-Punks, said in a statement: "This festival, and the incredible night we are putting together at Electric Brixton, is that book coming to life on stage." The one-off performance is a statement that the female narrative in punk is not history, it is an ongoing movement.
The timing reflects a generational shift in music culture. Women's punk pioneers are being recognized as foundational rather than rediscovered. The festival includes never-before-seen archival imagery and photography, but the real archive is on that stage: living proof that women did not just participate in punk. They pioneered it.
Big Joanie and Essential Logic are also performing at the October event, which connects to a flagship exhibition opening at the Museum of Youth Culture in Camden on October 23. Museums, festivals, and curatorial work are being deployed to permanently shift how punk's story is told.
For fans who grew up thinking punk was three chords and the truth (as delivered by men), this is overdue recognition. For the artists themselves, it is vindication.
