Primal Fear

Meshuggah

Jorn

Firebrands

Eluveitie

A.O.T.W.

more interviews?

Band:Wendy O Williams and The Plasmatics DVD:10 Years of Revolutionary Rock and Roll Released by:MVD Writer: The Vish Media: Myspace Click Album Cover To Buy Now

Wendy Orlean Williams (WOW) is, by far, the most influential woman in the history of rock. Her fearlessness, her strength, the ground and barriers she broke and her passion for the art she created are unparalleled by any other woman (and most men) to ever grace the rock scene. She had more balls to say and do what she wanted to do than most people, regardless of gender.

What blows my mind is how many people have not heard of WOW. Most people have no clue how deep her contributions have gone towards the liberation of women in music. If you remember the uproar over Marilyn Manson in the late 90’s by religious groups, then you have seen a fraction of what WOW and her band, The Plasmatics, had to deal with in their 10 years (1978-1988) of making music and visual art on stage. They were arrested numerous times, even accosted by police once in Milwaukee. Shows were cancelled due to political outrage as well as some feeling that shows could cause a safety hazard. Wendy and The Plasmatics made Alice Cooper and KISS seem like kid stuff. They exploded cars on stage, Wendy chain sawed guitars in half while wearing practically nothing. The list of outrageous things done on stage is staggering. Oh, and the music kicks some serious ass too!

Wendy was ahead of the curb in so many ways. She was the first person in rock music, male or female, to have a Mohawk haircut. She grew her own food and was a vegetarian before it was popular. She did most of her interviews in gyms to show that a woman can weight lift and still be feminine.

My only gripes about this documentary are that it moves so fast from the start that you gotta rewind it to make sure and catch what the narrator is saying. It goes on like this for the first 20-25 minutes and then it finally hits a groove with the narrator and it isn’t so hard to pay attention afterwards. I had to watch this twice because on screen there would be newspaper clippings or lyrics to read while the narrator is talking about something completely different. If you want to take in all of the content, you gotta listen to the narrator and then pause to read what is on the TV screen, or just listen one time through, and then read one time through.

The music videos portion of the DVD is vast. Live performances and professionally made music videos from all 10 years of The Plasmatics existence. The live performances show WOW and The Plasmatics doing what they do best: blowing and tearing shit up. The professional music videos for MTV are absolutely awesome! Wendy did all of her own stunts including driving a bus loaded with explosives through a wall of televisions, standing on top of the speeding bus and jumping off before it explodes, women wrestling, driving a car and jumping onto an airplane at high speeds and a car driving off of a cliff and exploding.

There were some extra clips in a special features section, but none of that was very interesting, so I won’t say much about it. This DVD is really easy to navigate through, and that is nice, because you shouldn’t have to get a headache from trying to figure out how to get from here to there on a goddamn DVD.

I really admire what Wendy and The Plasmatics did throughout their career. Questioning authority, bringing injustice to light, upsetting the status-quo and making people really think about issues. This DVD shows all of it and celebrates their legacy. I would suggest to anybody that likes some good rock n roll music to go buy this. I would suggest to anybody that wants a rebellious role model to go buy this. I’ll give this 4 stars out of 5.

Band:Wendy O Williams and The Plasmatics DVD:10 Years of Revolutionary Rock and Roll Released by:MVD Writer: The Vish Media: Myspace Click Album Cover To Buy Now

To post comments CLICK HERE!