BIOGRAPHY

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                                                                                            Mari Elliott

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Mari Elliott was born in London and grew up in Brixton. Mari was always beng told "not to try so hard" when she was in the chior at primary school as her voice was so loud, so she ended up miming to all the songs. 

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At secondary School, Mari developed an interest in the fringe theatre and spent a lot of time hanging  out at the Oval House, the cradle of most successful fringe groups. 

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Just after her fifteenth birthday, Mari ran away from home life pressures, and to see how long she could survive on three pounds!. After five months on the road and a series of strange adventures, she found herself in Bath where she did a few odd jobs. She was soon involved in the Theatre Workshop there where she and a girlfriend put together a song and dance routine and gigged locally.

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One day Mari saw her ex maths teacher Brian May on Top of the Pops as lead guitarist with Queen. "That looks good for a laugh" she thought, but  not not knowing where to start she abandoned the fantasy of becoming a pop star.

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After a year in Bath, Mari began to feel restless and a throw of the Tarot Cards confirmed her feelings. So back to London she came, finding herself a job as an office junior. Mari felt slightly disillusioned as it wasn't quite what she hoped for but there seemed little choice. She then ran into Poducer, Falcon Stuart, who she had met ot the Oval House, and who jokingly asked her if she  had written any good songs lately. It just so happened that she had. Mari was in business. 

 

Mari had been writing songs since she was fourteen, and her first single, on GTO Records, "Silly Billy", reflects the trials and errors of a young girl in Brixton.      

                                       

                                                                                      Maharani Devi Dasi

 

 

 

 

                                                               

 

 

 

 

 

 

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 Poly Styrene

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Poly Styrene was a singer-songwriter, an artist, a free-thinker, a post-modern style pioneer and a lifelong spiritual seeker, a true punk icon. But this rebel queen with the cheeky grin was also a latter-day pop artist with a wickedly peceptive gift for satirising the world around her. Her brightly coloured, playful aesthetic sharply at odds with the stark monochrome style nihilism of punk.  

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Poly Styrene emerged as the most significant and quoted lyricist from the onslaught of new wave in 1976/77. Her intensely critical lyrics painted a new picture of the world through the vision of X-Ray Spex.

 

Poly was the first new wave artist to feature in a serious arts programme, "Arena" on BBC TV and this was followed by several other television documentries. The band recieved extensive press coverage and Poly Styrene soon became a household name.

 

 "Oh Bondage!  Up Yours! X-ray Spex first single is widely regarded as a classic of the new wave era. But while the band grew with the movement so did the individual ideas and this eventually lead to their split.