Hippies vs. Punks: Siouxsie and the Banshees, Pt. 2, the McGeoch Albums

Following Siouxsie and the Banshees' Join Hands (1979) album, guitarist John McKay and drummer Kenny Morris are replaced by Magazine co-founder and guitarist John McGeoch and Budgie, the drummer on the Slits' debut album, Cut (1979). With this lineup -- Sioux, Severin, McGeoch, and Budgie -- Siouxsie and the Banshees would record their most influential albums by far -- Kaleidoscope (1980); their masterpiece, Juju (1981); and the proto-House music, A Kiss in the Dreamhouse (1981) -- before McGeoch is purged following what is termed a "nervous breakdown" due to alcohol and exhaustion.

McGeoch is called "the Jimmy Page of New Wave." His work with Howard Devoto on Magazine's Real Life (1978) defines Post-Punk and, as I proffered in a previous Hippies vs. Punks, presciently captures the sound of the 1980s. McGeoch's 2004 obituary in The Independent describes his joining the Banshees:

In 1980, the "guitarist for hire" came to the attention of Siouxsie and the Banshees, then a trio of the singer Siouxsie Sioux, the bassist Steve Severin and the drummer Budgie, with occasional help from the Cure's Robert Smith. "I was surprised to get the call," said McGeoch. "Steve Strange told me to wear black and we met up in a pub in Notting Hill. They invited me along to their rehearsal studio in Camden and, within two days, we'd routined 'Happy House.' They really liked that guitar line, that was the clincher. I was going through a picky phase, as opposed to strumming. 'Happy House' was lighter and had more musicality in it. They invited me to join. I was sad leaving Magazine but the Banshees were so interesting and it felt like a good move."

I had both Kaleidoscope and Juju back in the day in the early 1980s. I remember being home, skipping class in order to finish papers that were due at the end of the week. I remember sitting in the kitchen at the kitchen table in front of the television which also doubled as a computer monitor. My live-in girlfriend had a Texas Instruments TI-99, one of the first personal computers; it hooked up to the TV. We used it mostly as a word processor on which we composed our college papers. It was balky, and if you jostled the software cartridges that fit into the keyboard you could lose everything you were working on.

Like I say, I have memories of being home alone on dark overcast afternoons, probably in 1984, and sitting in the kitchen in front of the television / Texas Instruments TI-99 monitor and listening to Siouxsie and the Banshees records I had playing on the stereo in the living room. "Spellbound" was my favorite track. It seemed at the time to have more testosterone than anything else around.

Immersing myself this week in the three McGeoch Siouxsie and the Banshees albums, it is clear that these are great records. Kaleidoscope is fantastic. I particularly like "Trophy" and "Clockface."

Kaleidoscope is more like Join Hands in that the individual cuts cohere to form a whole whose sum is far greater and more different than its parts. But with Juju you have an album that is loaded with songs that rock and rock hard repeatedly throughout the album. "Sin in My Heart" and "Monitor" are two fine examples, but really every track has ass-kicking quality. McGeoch's guitar playing and Budgie's drumming drive the album.

I never owned A Kiss in the Dreamhouse, McGeoch's last album with the band. At first I was put off by the Flashdance (1983) vibe of the first track, "Cascade":

The drums have that flat, bottom-heavy, slightly echoey sound that becomes prevalent in the 1980s. This is not noticeable in the video clip above. Budgie's drums sound warm here. (But look at the size of the audience, and the size of Budgie's kit; he's a veritable Post-Punk Carl Palmer!)

In any event, after listening to A Kiss in the Dreamhouse several times, I got over my aversion to its Flashdance aspects. It is a complex, rich album that was ahead of its time; it forecasts the urban dance hall revival of the 1980s. But at the same time it also is the end of the line for Post-Punk.