XRAY SPEX (1970s punk band)

X-Ray Spex were an English punk rock band formed in 1976 in London.
During their first incarnation (1976–1979), X-Ray Spex released five singles and one album.[1] Their 1977 single "Oh Bondage Up Yours!" and 1978 debut album Germfree Adolescents are widely acclaimed as classic punk releases.[sources 1] The band has briefly reformed several times in the 1990s and 2000s.
1992.

On 30 April 1978, the band appeared at the Rock Against Racism gig at Victoria Park, Bow, Tower Hamlets. Also on the bill were Steel Pulse, The Clash, The Ruts, Sham 69, Generation X and Tom Robinson Band. Later in the year, to promote the album, X-Ray Spex embarked on their first, and only, full UK tour. Exhausted by touring, Poly Styrene left the band in mid 1979. Footage of her performing with the band was later included in the 1980 film, DOA. She released a solo album, Translucence, before joining the Hare Krishna movement (as did Logic, after she left the band).

Without Styrene, the group lost its momentum and split up. Hurding and Airport went on to form Classix Nouveaux, while Paul Dean and Rudi Thompson went on to form Agent Orange with Anthony "Tex" Doughty, who would later become a founding member of Transvision Vamp.

The first incarnation of X-Ray Spex existed from mid-1976 to 1979, during which time they released five singles—"Oh Bondage Up Yours!", "Identity", "The Day the World Turned Day-Glo", "Germfree Adolescents", and "Highly Inflammable"—and one album, Germfree Adolescents.[17][32] One retrospective review described the singles as "not only riveting examples of high-energy punk, but contained provocative, thoughtful lyrics berating the urban synthetic fashions of the 70s and urging individual expression".[33]

The same reviewer in The Virgin Encyclopedia of Popular Music sums up the band's 1970s contribution as "one of the most inventive, original and genuinely exciting groups to emerge during the punk era"