Reflections on ... Nico in Strip-tease (1963)

 

/ Pic above via /

In June 2025, I screened Strip-tease at my monthly Lobotomy Room film club. As I put it on the event page:  

"Join us on Thursday 19 June, when the FREE monthly Lobotomy Room film club at Fontaine’s (committed to cinematic perversity!) whisks you away to early 1960s Paris with Strip-tease (1963)! Note that this film is in French (ooh la la!) and will be subtitled (so bring your reading glasses!). This one (directed by Jacques Poitrenaud) should be catnip for cult cinema connoisseurs. For one thing, it stars Nico. Yes, that Nico! Strip-tease follows the German diva’s earlier vivid appearance in Fellini’s La dolce vita (1960), but it captures her a good few years before she became a Warhol superstar and the Velvet Underground’s chanteuse. (For some reason lost in the mists of time, she’s billed as “Krista Nico” – which seems to partially acknowledge her real name, Christa Paffgen. Strip-tease would be Nico’s sole starring role in a relatively mainstream film: her destiny lay in the underground cinema of Andy Warhol and her lover Philippe Garrel). And the moody finger-snappin’ cool jazz soundtrack is by Serge Gainsbourg (and he even appears in the film! The theme tune is huskily warbled by beatnik chanteuse Juliette Greco). Not without justification Strip-tease was promoted as a sexploitation flick (it was released in the US as The Sweet Skin in 1965 with the tagline “Fills the screen with more adult entertainment than you dare to expect! The intimate story of a striptease goddess!”), but more accurately it’s a stylish, melancholy melodrama. Nico plays Ariane, an idealistic ballet-trained German dancer in Paris with high-minded artistic ambitions. Out of economic necessity, Ariane reluctantly accepts a job at Le Crazy burlesque club – and soon captures the attention of a rich, louche playboy (John Sobieski). If you’ve seen Lobotomy Room’s presentations of other burlesque-themed movies like Too Hot to Handle (1960), Beat Girl (1960) and Satan in High Heels (1962), you won’t want to miss this obscure French gem!"

/ Italian movie poster for Strip-tease / 

Strip-tease is a criminally unsung and fascinating movie and boy, do I have notes. So, I had to write a blog post about it! 

In brief: Strip-tease shows Nico like you’ve never seen her before! So why have you probably never heard of this movie? Neither director Jacques Poitrenaud nor Nico herself took a lot of pride in Strip-tease. For Poitrenaud (1922 - 2005), this was probably just another assignment and he’s also seemingly not well known outside of France. (He’s certainly not a filmmaker I’m otherwise au fait with). 

Strip-tease is Nico’s sole starring role in a relatively mainstream film, but for the rest of her life, Nico never discussed it in interviews. It most definitely didn’t align with the deeply serious, austere and gloomy “Moon Goddess” image she embraced later in the sixties. BUT: within a few years after its continental debut Strip-tease was belatedly released in the US under the title The Sweet Skin (which makes it sound like a movie aimed at cannibals). In the 1995 book The Velvet Years: Warhol’s Factory 1965-67 by photographer Stephen Shore, there’s a great shot of Nico standing outside The World Theatre in New York where The Sweet Skin is showing on a double bill (“2 Daring Adult Films!”) accompanied by a group of her Warhol Factory friends, so clearly she assembled them to “come see this film I made in France in the early 60s!” (See below. Left to right: John Cale, Dutch author Jan Cramer, Paul Morrissey, Nico and Gerard Malanga). The other “daring adult film” on the double bill is called The Love Statue (1965), which I’ve Googled and it sounds interesting. 

Similarly, in her lifetime Nico seemingly never mentioned that singing the bossa nova-tinged theme tune to Strip-tease (by none other than Serge Gainsbourg) was her true recording debut. (It’s always been widely assumed that the 1965 folk single “I’m Not Sayin’” was Nico’s debut). For whatever reason, Nico’s rendition was ultimately scrapped (we hear the sublime Juliette Greco huskily crooning it over the opening credits instead) and went unreleased for many decades. (It’s easy to hear online now, and Nico’s hushed, whispery singing is alluring in the tradition of The Velvet’s “I’ll Be Your Mirror” and “Femme Fatale”). 

Anyway, Strip-tease beautifully captures Nico (née Christa Päffgen, 1938 - 1988) at 24 years old. By this point, she had been modelling since the mid-1950s (by today’s standards, she’d be described as an international supermodel). Nico had already appeared (essentially playing herself, and beguilingly so) in Federico Fellini’s La dolce vita in 1960. Yet to come: being discovered and adopted by Andy Warhol, joining the Velvet Underground as their resident chanteuse and then her own long, erratic musical career as a solo artist. 

We do know that Nico was serious about pursuing acting: when in New York on modeling assignments, she studied Method acting at Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio (and used to claim Marilyn Monroe was in her class – something we’ll never be able to verify).   

/ Above: Nico - like you've never seen her before! /

What is relevant for Strip-tease: Nico gave birth to her only child, a son called Ari, in August 1962. (Ari Boulogne - who died in 2023 - was her son by the French mega-star Alain Delon. Delon never accepted or acknowledged paternity). Filming began in November ’62. According to Nico’s definitive biographer Richard Witts, she was sensitive about her post-natal body (and Ari was delivered by Cesarean so there was a scar to conceal). In any case, Nico looks impressively svelte in various degrees of undress in Strip-tease – almost certainly via diet pills. (Nico always claimed her introduction to drug-taking was diet pills – which in the 1950s were essentially amphetamines). Interestingly, Witts also suggests that the reason she’s billed as “Krista Nico” in the credits might be for tax reasons! 

Strip-tease was promoted – not without reason – as a sexploitation flick, but I’d argue it’s more of a romantic melodrama – and a deeply moody and stylish one. Nico portrays Ariane, a gloomily earnest German ballet dancer barely scratching out a living in Paris. (As a bonus, we see glimpses of what Paris looked like in winter 1962, especially around Pigalle. Later we see the Seine and Notre Dame at dawn in misty grey light). Just when it appears the struggling Ariane’s dreams have come true (“I had the lead in a ballet!”), they are abruptly snatched away. Due to some bad luck, Ariane is dropped from a big production – and is flat broke! 

At this low ebb, by sheer coincidence Arianne reunites with Berthe (Dany Saval), an old friend from dance school.  Under the “stripper name” Dodo Voluptuous, Berthe has been raking it in as an exotic dancer at a high-end burlesque joint called Le Crazy – and she urges Ariane to consider it. “I could never be a stripper,” the idealistic Ariane protests. “It’s not the money; I just couldn’t do it!” If not an actual beatnik, Ariane is “beatnik-adjacent” and is a habitué of the smoke-filled Blue Note jazz cellar, where she seeks the counsel of her confidant and adopted father figure, African American jazz musician Sam (played by Joe Turner, but NOT “Big Joe Turner” as sometimes implied online – that’s someone else entirely). The worldly-wise and protective Sam is wary of her taking the job at Le Crazy. (As mentioned earlier, Strip-tease’s stunning cool jazz and Latin exotica soundtrack is by the young Serge Gainsbourg – and we even get a fleeting glimpse of him smoking and playing piano at the Blue Note). 

Nonetheless, needs must and soon Ariane is auditioning at Le Crazy. She may be a trained ballerina, but as an exotic dancer she is stiff, self-conscious and uncertain. (Nico was many things, but she was not a dancer and it’s fun to see how Poitrenaud attempts to conceal this). Interestingly, throughout Strip-tease other characters offer meta-critiques of Nico’s performance: “You walk like a marble statue!” “You’re hard to read …” and most significantly, “She’s wooden!” The latter comment leads to a unique gimmick for Ariane’s stage act – she’s partnered with a lookalike wooden marionette. (Strip-tease has a weird emphasis on marionettes). 

/ Pic above via /

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Le Crazy has a packed house for the big unveiling of its new starlet, but Ariane is a reluctant, conflicted “strip-teaseuse” who hates being stared at and at the climax, she stops short of baring all. (There’s an eerie moment where her lookalike marionette seemingly makes eye contact with Ariane and silently judges her). Rather than being disappointed, Le Crazy’s clientele finds her shyness adorable, declaring “Very charming!” “What style!” and “Post-modern striptease!” Le Crazy’s owner Paul (played by Thierry Thibault) is thrilled by Ariane’s reception: “Do the same thing every night!” 

/ Pic above via /

(One fascinating aspect to note here: we see ample burlesque sequences of Le Crazy’s performers onstage with copious boobage and buttage on display, but these scenes are deliberately designed to be easily deleted or censored if required depending on the local market without disrupting the narrative). 

Within no time, Ariane is a nightlife sensation in Paris. Pierre (Italian actor Umberto Orsini), an associate from the ballet troupe, discovers Ariane’s current workplace, assumes she’s “easy” now and turns ugly, sneering, “Can’t be too choosy in the work you do. I’m as good as all the others …” More happily, one night Ariane encounters impossibly pretty playboy Jean-Loup (played by Jean Sobieski, who I also know from the bizarre 1968 Italian giallo Death Laid an Egg and who possesses sapphire blue eyes Paul Newman himself would envy) and they embark on a love affair. 

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“You’re a very complicated girl,” manipulative Jean-Loup sweet-talks Ariane. “Et alors?” (So what?) she shrugs. “There’s a sadness about you. That’s what attracted me,” Jean-Loup continues. But alarmingly, he also confesses, “I’m naturally cowardly. A bit of a liar.” “Poor little rich boy,” Ariane chides. Later, Jean-Loup – who’s never worked a day in his life - patronizes Ariane by saying, “It’s good that you work. Work is ennobling. Even if it’s stripping.”  The sight of Jean-Loup and his jaded idle rich entourage of chic nightclubbing friends smoking and drinking cocktails, in formal evening wear can’t help but help but overlap with Fellini’s La dolce vita. (As Poitrenaud summarized in the 8 December 1962 issue of La Cinematographie Francaise, Strip-tease is “a film with two main themes: the solitude of a beautiful girl, one is who vulnerable and foreign, but also the life of Paris between midnight and morning, the life of those that fritter their existence away”). 

Strip-tease adopts an almost soap opera tone as their romance deepens. There’s a misunderstanding when Ariane insists that she can’t be “bought” with a diamond brooch that Jean-Loup attempts to gift her. “You’ve got it all and yet you’re as lost and lonely as me,” she consoles him after they reconcile. We see a campy whirlwind “date montage” representing their sojourns together: hunting weekend. Racecourse. Nightclubbing. Ariane’s birthday party scene feels overtly autobiographical for Nico. Like Nico, Ariane is from Cologne. They are both German women living in Paris and were children during World War II. Talk of fireworks makes Ariane reflect on the dropping of bombs (“Cologne in flames … I lost my parents that night …”). Jean-Loup gives her a mink coat: “Take this as reparations …” Later, we see Jean-Loup and Ariane in his car. She is swathed in her new mink and lighting a cigarette with hands gloved in black leather. It’s an impossibly chic image, sleek, fetishistic and almost kinky, worthy of Helmut Newton. 

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Ariane continues her ascent to stardom. (Watch for her very strange new burlesque routine wearing a harsh jet-black bouffant wig). Sam is concerned Ariane is being corrupted and has forgotten her ballet aspirations. Ominously, Jean-Loup takes Ariane home to meet his aristocratic old money family ... Will Ariane come to her senses and swap the mink for the modest old cloth trench coat she was wearing at the beginning? No spoilers, but in the finale of Strip-tease, Ariane’s number is like Marilyn Monroe’s “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” routine in reverse … I’ll say no more! 

/ Doesn’t Nico resemble Italian actress Silvana Mangano here with the black wig? (In fact, Nico and Mangano were friends; Nico credits Mangano for Federico Fellini casting her in his 1960 masterpiece La dolce vita. But that’s just one of many theories – others have claimed it was via Nico’s friendship with Anouk Aimee! There are MANY myths surrounding the eternally enigmatic Nico) /

/ Pic above and below via /

And what of Nico’s acting? “Her acting is only fair – she moves stiffly, a simple wave goodbye seems difficult, as if she’s never done it before,” Don Stradley – not inaccurately - assesses in his This Dazzling Time blog in 2016. I’d argue her approach is hesitant, remote, ethereal and inscrutable in the tradition of Kim Novak. At some points, Nico is so detached she suggests a gorgeous sleepwalker. Maybe she’s more of a presence than a conventional actress. Unsurprisingly, Nico communicates best in spectacular close-ups. Crying perfect crystal tear drops, she suggests an idealized illustration of a woman, like “Crying Girl” by Roy Lichtenstein. (Nico was already pop art even before Warhol!). Revealingly, her finest acting moment is entirely wordless. For a laugh, Jean-Loup and his parasitic friends go slumming at a low-down dive, very different from Le Crazy. The resident stripper gyrating onstage is older, rougher, raunchier, fleshier. “It takes genius to be so disgusting …” Jean-Loup sneers, almost admiringly. Ariane silently listens and absorbs his contempt in a giant hypnotic close-up that moves ever closer until Nico’s features fill the screen. The moment is akin to the famous close-ups of Nico’s spiritual godmothers Greta Garbo (especially at the end of Queen Christina (1933)) and Marlene Dietrich (especially at the end of Morocco (1930)), in which the viewer is invited to contemplate their exquisite faces and attempt to unravel their mystery. 

In cinematic terms, Nico’s contribution was to bridge the gap between the glamour of classic Hollywood and the avant-garde. She casts a melancholy spell over Strip-tease.  

Remembering Jackie Curtis (19 February 1947 – 15 May 1985)

 

/ Above: portrait of Jackie Curtis by the late, great Leee Black Childers /

“The first time I ever really spoke to Jackie, I saw her walking along Christopher Street, this bizarre creature with frizzy red hair, a ripped dress, no eyebrows, bee-stung lips. A Puerto Rican queen yelled out, “Girl, I could read you from blocks away!” The other drag queens didn’t really understand Jackie. She wasn’t trying to be a woman; she had this totally individual freaky style … She walked around in ripped stockings and big tears in her dresses with threads hanging off but, in her mind, she thought she was Greta Garbo. She knew she was eccentric, a freak, but in some weird way she visualised herself as Garbo or Marlene Dietrich. She had that combination of trash and glamour, and it made a really big impression on me. A lot of her dresses were from the 30s and 40s, things that she’d pick up from thrift stores for 25 cents, and most of them had big BO stains under the arms, because Miss Curtis was not renowned for her personal hygiene. She wore old lady shoes that she sprayed silver, and her tights were always ripped … nobody else was dressing like this at the time. Jackie was a total innovator. She wasn’t trying to pass as a woman; she developed her extreme style as a direct result of the way she lived. I took that idea from her; my whole attitude towards clothes and make-up and everything changed. Everyone started to deck themselves more and more. But it all started with Jackie, really.” 

/ Jayne County reflecting on the influence of her friend Jackie Curtis in her 1995 memoirs Man Enough to Be a Woman, co-written by Rupert Smith / 

To paraphrase the Ramones: Jackie Curtis was a punk rocker! The pioneering, visionary and outrageous gender-bending underground actor, playwright, Warhol superstar, amphetamine enthusiast and Max’s Kansas City habitué (19 February 1947 – 15 May 1985) died on this day 40 years ago. Search out the 2004 documentary Superstar in a Housedress. 

My First Article for Interview Magazine: “I’m a Woman, Darling”: The Life and Times of Warhol Superstar Holly Woodlawn

 

/ Pic: portrait of young Holly Woodlawn by Jack Mitchell, 1970 /

What a trip to be published in Interview (as in, the esteemed Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine, which celebrated its fifty-fifth anniversary last year). Believe me, as a teenager, I used to hungrily devour issues of Interview and the original incarnations of Details and Paper magazines every month! Read my ultra- juicy interview with author Jeff Copeland about his new book Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn: A Walk on the Wild Side with Andy Warhol’s Most Fabulous Superstar (published this month by Feral House!). Copeland first met Woodlawn in 1989, co-wrote her rollicking 1991 memoirs A Low Life in High Heels and now – almost a decade after her death in 2015 – reflects on their stormy friendship in Love You Madly. Read the article to find out why Copeland calls Woodlawn his “auntie Mame”! 

To whet your appetite, a snippet from my introduction .. 

“Holly Woodlawn was Andy Warhol’s spiciest superstar, the Factory’s own Anna Magnani. Following her volcanic breakthrough performance in the Warhol-produced, Paul Morrissey-directed Trash (1970), the Puerto Rico-born transgender trailblazer would be immortalized by Lou Reed in the lyrics to his 1972 hit “Walk on the Wild Side,” dressed by Halston, photographed by Richard Avedon and feted by Truman Capote as “the face of the seventies” (although rumour has it the writer may have said those exact words to Woodlawn’s peer, Candy Darling, too). By the time the naïve aspiring screenwriter Jeff Copeland encountered Woodlawn in Los Angeles in 1989, the diva’s fortunes had taken a downturn. The odd couple would collaborate on Woodlawn’s 1991 autobiography A Low Life in High Heels and now, almost a decade after Woodlawn’s death, Copeland reflects on their friendship with exasperated affection in his juicy new book Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn: A Walk on the Wild Side with Andy Warhol’s Most Fabulous Superstar …”

Read my article here. 

Reflections on ... The Velvet Underground documentary (2021)

Recently watched: Todd Haynes’ documentary The Velvet Underground (2021). My quick thoughts!

I found it hypnotic, but it’s intended for Velvet Underground fanatics (my boyfriend Pal and I watched it at The Institute of Contemporary Art. He found it numbing and admitted to almost falling asleep!). The first note of music you hear is the lacerating scrape of John Cale’s viola on “Venus in Furs.” It still sounds alien and abrasive! As the kids would say today, it’s a “deep dive”: Haynes is keen to provide context, so there's an emphasis on the early sixties avant-garde / experimental music and underground cinema subcultures that spawned The Velvet Underground in the first place. (I shuddered in ecstasy when clips from Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising and Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures cropped-up). As an unapologetic Nico obsessive, I was thrilled by how respectfully and seriously she’s depicted. (All too often she’s been dismissed as a footnote in The Velvet Underground story). In the past drummer Moe Tucker has spoken contemptuously about Nico, but in the doc, she clearly states that no one sang those three songs better and that it always sounds wrong when anyone else tries. (Tucker isn’t asked about her subsequent embrace of far-right Tea Party politics!). Either Gerard Malanga or Danny Fields notes that when Nico first emerged and wasn't famous yet in her own right, she'd get compared to Dietrich or Garbo as a reference point and that now other singers get compared to her. My interest in the VU peaks with the timeless 1967 debut album and once Warhol, Nico and Cale split, that's it for me. But it does make you wonder: why was Reed such an antagonistic prick? He's still an enigma. But Reed was very cute, sexy and charismatic in his youth so got away with murder. Reed's older sister Merrill - a therapist - is intensely likable. At one point we hear a sixties novelty song called "The Ostrich" that one of Reed's pre-Velvet Underground bands recorded, and she obligingly jumps up and does the dance that went with it! The perennially fierce Warhol superstar Mary Woronov is always a welcome presence. There's a fascinating home movie clip of life at Warhol’s Factory with everyone lounging around acting bored and sullen while a woman reads aloud horoscopes from the newspaper. Everyone pointedly ignores the camera except for International Velvet, who strikes pin-up poses and clearly yearns for attention. At the centre of the documentary is the conflict between “frenemies” Reed and Cale. It’s explained that as a child of the fifties, Reed’s musical imagination was steeped in doo-wop and rockabilly. The collision of that with Cale’s classical / experimental sensibilities resulted in the signature Velvet Underground and Nico sound. Haynes’ greatest triumph is that you completely forget watching it that there is virtually NO concert footage of The Velvet Underground performing in existence. He well and truly overcomes that obstacle.

Reflections on ... the death of Warhol Superstar Ivy Nicholson

/ Pictured: Ivy Nicholson in her 1950s supermodel heyday /

“Ivy Nicholson was a working-class girl from New York City who lit up the 1950s as one of Europe’s top fashion models, married a French count, posed topless for Salvador Dali and became one of the first “superstars” in Andy Warhol’s Factory. It was a flashbulb life built on bravado and sheer magnetism. But it was not a solid life, and when the 1960s ended and the big checks stopped coming, she was left on her own. She spent her last decades in or near poverty, sometimes homeless, telling anyone who would listen that she was on her way back up.” 

The New York Times obituary for erstwhile fashion model and Warhol Superstar Ivy Nicholson (née Irene Nicholson, 22 February 1933 - 25 October 2021) – who has died aged 88 – is compulsory reading! My highlights from her fabulous, messy life: 

“In her 20s Ms Nicholson appeared on the covers of Vogue, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Bazaar and other magazines. She built a reputation: fearlessly inventing characters and looks for her shoots, but often arriving hours late to the studio and refusing to pose until someone brought foie gras or met some other demand.” 

“When Howard Hawks flew her to Egypt in 1954 for a role in his epic movie Land of the Pharaohs, she objected to the studio’s multiyear contract. So, as she later told the story, she bit one of the actors to get out of the deal. Her replacement was Joan Collins.” 

“She went on to get small parts in Italian movies and by her account became obsessed with the actor Anthony Perkins. When he did not return her affections, she later said, she slit her wrists. The suicide attempt cost her a role in Federico Fellini’s 8½, according to her unfinished memoir.” 

Reading it, I was struck by Nicholson’s parallels with her fellow Warhol superstar Nico (another international supermodel in the fifties who actually did appear in a Fellini film) and Maila Nurmi (aka horror movie hostess Vampira), who also heedlessly squandered opportunities and burnt bridges in her prime and later lived in poverty. (Nurmi also romantically pursued Tony Perkins!).  

/ Andy Warhol and Ivy Nicholson in 1964 /

As a frequently homeless older woman, Nicholson maintained her sense of style and looked strikingly ravaged and wraith-like (like Nico, Chet Baker or Anita Pallenberg she exuded ruined glamour). Despite clearly difficult hardships, the admirably resilient Nicholson seemingly lived on her own terms and remained a free spirit until the end. What a woman! 

Read the full obituary here. 

See late-period portraits of Nicholson by photographer Conrad Ventur here. 

A nice insight into what Nicholson was like in her New York bag lady phase. 

My 1995 Interview with Punk Diva Jayne County

As you may know, I paid my dues throughout the late eighties and nineties writing for hardcore punk zines like Flipside and MAXIMUMROCKNROLL. None of these pieces are online, so I’m gradually endeavoring to posting them on here for posterity. So far, I’ve uploaded my interviews with The Cramps, Divinyls and Lydia Lunch (actually, there are two articles with Lunch – here and here). Here are some articles I did about outrageous pioneering transgender punk icon Jayne (formerly Wayne) County in 1995. 

Quick bit of context: at the time, County was London-based and playing semi regular gigs at a now-defunct pub called The Intrepid Fox in Soho that attracted a punk and heavy metal clientele. I was always thrilled to see this punk legend perform in such an intimate space. The Intrepid Fox was a pub rather than a music venue. There was no stage and County wasn’t backed by a band. The shows were therefore more like raunchy one-woman performance art than a conventional rock gig and all the better for it. Jayne would arrive with a flurry of drama and excitement (the first thing you’d see entering the building was her gigantic bouffant haystack wig, and then the crowd would part) and then sing over taped musical accompaniment in the corner by the window. Inevitably, passersby outside would be transfixed by the spectacle of County - wearing her signature shortie babydoll mini dresses and laddered tights - thrashing and flailing around in a glamour fit and stop and stare, which would only spur County to freak out the squares even more. Glorious! The MAXIMUMROCKNROLL interview was conducted at The Intrepid Fox before one of County's gigs. I remember buying her a drink and I seem to recall County's cocktail of choice was Southern Comfort, black currant and lemonade. 

/ My own shot of County performing at The Underworld in Camden Town, London in 2005 /

When I encountered County in ’95 she was busy promoting two projects: her memoirs Man Enough to Be a Woman and her first new album in many years, Deviation. Note that the book – co-written with County’s friend, journalist, novelist and literary homme du monde Rupert Smith – has recently been reissued by Serpent’s Tail and is essential reading. Also note that in these articles County and I sometimes use expressions that have now fallen out of favour but were commonly used in the nineties. When I post these articles, I'm tempted to tweak things (I'd write them entirely different now!) but always resist. At the time, I was also contributing to the music publication Vox and the men's magazine Ikon - both long defunct!  

/ County and kindred spirit / contemporary Divine in 1974: in terms of outsider drag royalty, this pic is the equivalent of those 1950s paparazzi shots of Jayne Mansfield and Sophia Loren together / 

From the May 1995 issue of MAXIMUMROCKNROLL

Punk rock’s number one transsexual is back! Straight out of the gutter and into your arms, trash icon Jayne (formerly Wayne) County is resuming her one-woman assault on good taste, complete with a forthcoming autobiography Man Enough to Be a Woman and her first new LP in years Deviation. Despite a low-key period in the eighties, County’s sleaze-rock sensibility, whorish dress sense and paint-stripping vocals are as fierce as ever and ready to terrorize a new generation of audiences. We chew the fat over her past, present and future. 

Early years: little Wayne County was raised Pentecostal in Atlanta, Georgia. County still retains a Southern accent and a taste for Southern Comfort. As an androgynous teen, she met antagonism from the locals. 

MRR: I heard that when you used to leave the house in your Beatles suit and Cuban heels, the local rednecks wouldn’t just shout insults or even beat you up they would literally shoot at you! 

Jayne County: I got shot at one time. That’s what the song “Are You a Boy or a Girl?” is about. We used to get chased through the streets all the time. I used to carry two pairs of shoes: one to walk in and one to run in in case I had to make a quick change! We used to run from the police as well, they were just as bad. Horrible redneck police. You’d have to hide behind trees when they’d come around the corner. In those days men could be arrested for female impersonation if their hair touched the top of their ears! They could legally arrest you for female impersonation! (Laughs). They’d just use any excuse to arrest you. It was weird. A weird time. Really strange. One night me and another transgender person, Davina Daisy who looked like Liz Taylor, were walking down the street.  We were always on acid! We were sailing down the street, stoned out of our minds, and we heard these (does “whoosh!” noise). It’s very strange to hear bullets whizzing past your ears! I said, “You know, they’re fucking shootin’ at us!” It was a truck full of rednecks and they had the gun right out the window and were shooting right at us! 

MRR: It sounds like something out of Easy Rider! 

JC: Yes, exactly like Easy Rider. I kind of decided right there I wanted to split, leave Atlanta. 

County left Atlanta for good in ’68 – originally meant to go to San Francisco but got sidetracked to New York – arrived in time to participate in the legendary Stonewall Riots in ’69 – became active in the extreme fringes of Off-Off Broadway underground theatre scene. She landed the role of Vulva in the play Pork, a parody of the Andy Warhol Superstar Factory crowd. 

JC: It was 1971. (The play) was based on all these tapes, Warhol’s personal tapes. He taped people on the phone. He had all these taped conversations of people sayin’ awful stuff. He gave them to a friend of mine, Tony Ingrassia, and he put them into script form, into a play and called it Andy Warhol’s Pork. Basically, we were just saying real lines that people had rang up and said to Andy Warhol. Tony was a real good friend of (the Warhol Superstars) Jackie Curtis and Candy Darling and had appeared in lots of Theatre of the Ridiculous underground stuff. He had been directing a play of mine called World: The Birth of a Nation, Castration of Man. It was called that ‘cause we had all these traditional male figures doin’ weird things. Like John Wayne gave to a baby out his asshole. Stuff like that. Warhol came to see the play and he was totally impressed. He wanted me to be in the play and for Tony, who’d directed my play, to direct Pork. So, we got lots of attention with that. 

/ Andy Warhol (centre) with the cast of Pork. That is - of course! - County on the left /

A production of Pork went to London later that year, where County found an admirer in David Bowie – unfortunately, this was pre-Ziggy Stardust Bowie and instead of finding a kindred spirit, County lamented that he was “just another folkie” – musical debut at a 1972 gig at New York University, which turned ugly – County’s onstage antics included squirting the audience with a  dildo-shaped water pistol and eating dog food out of a toilet bowl.

JC: This guy from the Gay Liberation Front saw me onstage and went to the dean, and the dean came down and said he wasn’t going to allow NYU to be turned into a 42^nd Street smut shop! I was pretty over-the-top then. We didn’t get to do shit. The power went off during “It Takes a Man Like Me to Find a Woman Like Me”, where I was layin’ on the floor with a fake vagina strapped around me and fucking myself with a double-headed black dildo, and the power just went! And this person started screaming at us, “Being gay has nothing to do with hating women!” We were looking at each other like, huh? This has nothing to do with hating women. This is just over-the-top shock tactics. See, my problem is I always expected people to get it and they hardly ever do! 

County became a regular in the VIP backroom of the legendary pre-punk hangout Max’s Kansas City – as a tribute, she would later write and record the club’s theme song “Max’s Kansas City” on the first Electric Chairs LP in ’78. 

JC: It went through a lot of different phases. The backroom could be vicious. You dared not walk out of the backroom with your back turned because everyone was gonna be saying horrible things about you. That was where the elite hung out. You could find just anyone back there at any given moment, from people like Grace Slick to Janis Joplin to Jimi Hendrix to up-and-coming underground people like the Warhol people, the Theatre of Ridiculous, to the lowest drug dealer in town to someone strung out on the floor on Quaaludes. It was just such a mixture. Intellectuals, famous writers, movie directors. 

MRR: Pre-Blondie Deborah Harry used to be a waitress there. 

JC: Yeah, that’s in my book. She was famous for dumping cheeseburgers into peoples’ laps, walking into the walls. She was so stoned half the time she got fired! 

Around this time County entered into a competitive friendship with Warhol’s drag queen Superstars Holly Woodlawn, Jackie Curtis and Candy Darling, the trio name-dropped in the lyrics of Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side.” 

JC: I used to live in a flat with Holly. It was Leee’s flat, really. (Photographer and scene-maker) Leee Black Childers. I was there with Holly, Jackie Curtis. Jackie moved in first. She was running away from this guy who was producing her in this play she’d written. She’d run away because he was a maniac – he was torturing her. Driving her crazy, basically. So, she quit the play. She was in hiding. He was threatening to kill her and everything. Jackie was a total speed freak. She put speed in her coffee, speed in her orange juice. She sprayed the apartment silver. It would have been nice if it’d been done right, but she just sprayed over the dishes, skipped the corners, sprayed the refrigerator. We came home one day, and it was horrible, blotches of silver everywhere, and she thought it was wonderful. She was speeding, y’know. We didn’t have a phone and she had a telephone put in and she put a lock on it so that we couldn’t use it. She was in Long Island, and I broke the lock off. She was visiting somebody – was it Candy? No, she’d had a big falling out with Candy before then. She was in Long Island, and I had the number and I’d broken the lock off the phone and called her. I said, “Oh hi Jackie. I’m calling from the apartment.” And she was like, Oh. I said, “Jackie, you don’t live in this apartment and put a lock on the phone.” It was easy to have a falling out with Jackie because everybody did. She’d fall out with people quicker than she could be friends with them. Always. She fell out with everyone I know. 

/ Portrait of Jackie Curtis (1947 - 1985) by Leee Black Childers /

MRR: So, you and Holly were closer? 

JC: Well, I fell out with Holly because of Jackie. Holly had the bad habit of getting her welfare cheque, her dole cheque, and all bills were due, and she’d promised to pay up with the bills. So, she got her dole cheque and what does she do? She went off and bought a fucking feather boa with it. Came home and said, “Oh darling, isn’t it glamorous?” Yes, but our electricity’s going to be cut off in two days! So, I got really nuts about that. Jackie wouldn’t go to Holly herself, so she asked me to do it, to ask Holly to leave. We were the only ones bringing in money. We’d be sleeping, it would be four o’clock in the morning and Holly would come in and she’d be rolling around in the middle of the floor with someone. Anyway, it got too crazy and there were too many people living in the flat and I was the one chosen. I was the villain, and I regret it. I shouldn’t have let Jackie manipulate me like that. 

/ Holly Woodlawn (1946 - 2015) /

MRR: Did you and Holly ever patch things up? That was over twenty years ago. 

JC: Oh yeah. Of course, we have. Everything’s fine now. We never mention that. But she’s fine now. 

/ Diva summit meeting: County and Woodlawn in the eighties/ 

MRR: Candy was more stuck up. 

JC: She was snobby, yeah. She hated Holly’s guts. She didn’t like me at all. She had a big falling out with Jackie too. The minute Jackie decided to start wearing dresses all the time Candy hated her. Candy wanted to be the only underground drag queen, she didn’t want anyone giving her any competition. She was very jealous of her position. She didn’t want any challenge. We didn’t have any fights or nothing, but I would purposely do things to upset her. Purposely wear the same top or some hat I’d seen her in three days ago and watch her face as I walked into the backroom. Or copy her eye make-up on purpose and watch her go crazy! I did that once. 

/ Portrait of Candy Darling (1944 - 1974) by Gerard Malanga /

MRR: How come you didn’t end up acting in any of the Warhol / Paul Morrissey films? 

JC: Because I wouldn’t go to the Factory every day and kiss their asses, basically. I was more into the rock’n’roll thing. Apparently, Morrissey was quite taken with me, but I think Candy would have basically tried everything in her power to stop me from being in their films. But I never really tried anyway. I didn’t want to be typecast into being just a Warhol Superstar type thing ‘cause everyone who was typecast like that hardly did anything else, ‘cept for some of the later ones. I mean, Sylvia Miles had already done Midnight Cowboy. Joe Dallesandro, he did a few more movies but nothing really after that. 

MRR: Well, virtually all the Warhol Superstars came to a bad end. 

JC: Yeah, they died. Suicides. ODs. I didn’t want people to think of me as a Warhol Superstar, because immediately people would think, “A junkie who just rants in front of a bad movie.” A lot of people didn’t like Warhol and you wouldn’t have got an even break. There was a lot of antagonism, particularly in California. When the Velvet Underground played there everyone hated them. “How dare these fucking junkies come out here?” They wanted to keep everyone on acid so they could love, and then all these junkies come out from New York. Oh, it was horrible. They hated the Velvet Underground! I didn’t want to get stereotyped. And I knew I wanted to get into rock’n’roll. 

Friendship with the New York Dolls – County continues to include Dolls covers in her act – sings “Lookin’ for a Kiss” while lolling her tongue lewdly, scanning the audience for a likely candidate – wrote “Johnny’s Gone to Heaven” as a valentine to Johnny Thunders following his death in 1991. 

JC: I knew Johnny for years. I did some shows with the Dolls. Leee Childers, who’s been my flatmate on and off for years, was managing The Heartbreakers when they were in London. We were part of the same scene, hung out in the same places. You couldn’t really help bumping into everyone. There was always something goin’ on. You could run into anyone on the street anywhere: Patti Smith. Dee Dee Ramone. 

County contributed backing vocals to a few songs on Thunders’ last studio LP, Copy Cats in 1988 -- County is also featured on the recent Thunders tribute LP I Only Wrote This Song for You (1994). 

JC: I sing on “Help the Homeless.” When they told me about it, I just went – get outta here! Is this a wind-up? I’m not singin’ on no fuckin’ song about that. Not because I don’t agree with helping the homeless ‘cause I do, but I thought this must be some kinda pisstake. I’ll do it and I’ll look like a fool. But then they explained it to me, and I said Oh, cool. But when I first heard about Johnny Thunders doing a song called “Help the Homeless” I just thought – I ain’t doin’ that! But then when I heard the lyrics, the lyrics were really cynical. I said, Yeah, I get kit. But my first reaction was I don’t want to do that! It might come off like a do-gooder song, not well, corny and tacky. But it’s a good track and I’m really glad I did it now. My first reaction to a lot of stuff is immediately the first three minutes is negative and the next few minutes I’ve totally changed my mind. I do that all the time. 

From glam in New York to punk in the UK – moved to London in time for the emerging punk scene – found a receptive audience and a record contract with the Safari label – teamed up with the band The Electric Chairs and released self-titled debut in 1978. 

JC: I’d been playing at Max’s forever. Leee Childers had gone over with The Heartbreakers, and he called my manager and said, “There’s a scene developing in London that Wayne would really go down a storm in.” The scene in London was more theatrical. And so my manager got me over there. We went over to play The Roxy. That was my first gig there. It was packed to the rafters, queues around the block. It was incredible. The London scene was incredible. They loved it. The punk scene in London was very showy. First time I ever went into The Roxy someone was sitting there with a razor blade, cutting themselves and bleeding. It was very much “Look at me, I’m suffering. I’m a masochist.” It became a bit uncool later, but there were lots of people wearing swastikas. Johnny (Thunders) used to come onstage with a swastika armband on, I think they got that from him. And then Siouxsie did it and it grew trendy. But people wised-up later. It was very showy; it was a fun scene. It was less serious than the New York scene.  The people in New York were more serious, more arty: Talking Heads, Television, Patti Smith. The punk thing in London was more fun and more energy, more just jumping around and sticking your tongue out. “Look at me, I’m brainless!” More that trip. It worked well with the music because the music was so fast and energetic. The punks in London got a lot of the style from the Ramones, whereas in New York the Ramones were the only band that played like that. The rest was like Patti Smith, Talking Heads. More variety. But the early days in London was more like that. The Damned, even the Pistols. A lot of Steve Jones’ guitar sounds were lifted from Johnny Thunders. 

/ County's memorable appearance as Lounge Lizard in Derek Jarman's art-y punk epic Jubilee (1978). I can't believe I didn't ask County about this film when I interviewed her, or mention it anywhere in the article! County's musical number (singing "Paranoia Paradise") is probably the highlight of the whole movie  / 

MRR: Who from that period impressed you the most? 

JC: (Long pause, then laughs). I wasn’t really impressed! It’s hard to impress me.

MRR: Did you feel like you were coming from a totally different place? I mean, you were American, older, a transvestite … 

JC: I knew I was the odd person out. But then I was in New York as well. 

MRR: What was it like for you in punk circles, being a transvestite and then a transsexual later? How much acceptance or prejudice did you encounter? 

JC: A lot of prejudice at times, from people you wouldn’t expect. 

MRR: Well, a lot of the most so-called liberal hip people are the most hypocritical. 

JC: Yeah. I remember running into Patti Smith on the street and I was wearing a t-shirt and my tits were just beginning to grow. There was this look of horror on her face as she focused in on my breasts. She got totally speechless and couldn’t even talk to me. Dee Dee Ramone’s reaction was fabulous. “Oh, your tits are growing great!” He’d pinch them and say, “You’re gonna have great tits! Don’t get big silicone tits, Jayne. Just get a nice handful. That’s all you need.” Dee Dee was always really nice to me. Johnny Thunders was always a little strange with me. He’d still call me Wayne just to irritate me. “Hey Wayne!” I went to Max’s one night and he said to me, “Oh Wayne. I love you anyway. I don’t care if your tits are pointed!” 

/ Bad boy Ramones bassist Dee Dee Ramone (1951 - 2002). I covet his killer Mae West t-shirt hard /

MRR: You emerged from the glam scene when it was trendy to pretend to be androgynous. You must have seen right through that, being the real thing. 

JC: Yeah. I was just doing an extension of what I’d been doing in the underground theatre in New York, but I was doing it to rock’n’roll. Early Alice Cooper really impressed me. I was trying to merge theatrics into rock’n’roll. And I was doing it long before David Bowie! 

MRR: Well, you got revenge on Patti Smith because you used to do a vicious parody of her in your act. 

JC: Oh, I did. But I didn’t mean it to be mean, I meant it to be funny. She was always taken so serious and I had to take the mickey. I’d come out in a black wig and a man’s shirt and tie and I’d spit. She started that whole thing, spitting onstage. I did “Horses” and then I went into “giraffes … giraffes” and then “chimpanzees … chimpanzees …” 

MRR: Did she ever see it? 

JC: I don’t think she ever came to see it. I think her manager saw it and warned her not to come. She took her work very seriously. Patti was a little bit funny with me, although I’d worked with her twice in the theatre already, so I don’t know why. A lot of people, when I first started doing rock’n’roll, were taken aback. They couldn’t believe I was gonna do rock’n’roll because drag queens didn’t do rock’n’roll. They didn’t know how to react to it. 

MRR: I guess they expected you to mime to show tunes, do Carol Channing or something. 

JC: That’s right. But I’ve always been a rock’n’roll person ever since I was a kid. Most transgender people are not rock’n’roll-oriented, they’re more into dance music and show tunes. Not that I don’t appreciate different types of music sometimes but I’m a rock’n’roll person. It’s in my bones.

Infamous punk feud: County’s onstage fight with Handsome Dick Manitoba of The Dictators at CBGB’s in 1976 – after exchanging words, County attacked him with her microphone stand, breaking his collarbone. 

MRR: What exactly did Manitoba say to you that led to you hitting him? 

JC: Oh, he was saying all kinds of things from the back of the room. The typical things: “Oh, you fuckin’ faggot … you fuckin’ drag queen … you fuckin’ slag.” He’d been there the night before calling Debbie (Harry) a slag. I said, “What? I can’t hear you. Come up.” So, he came up to the stage and started yelling, “Oh, you fuckin’ …” So, I got vicious back. “Oh, go home, go on a diet, you bum, you fat fuckin' pig …” And then he stopped for a while, and I went on singing and all of a sudden, he was up on the stage! My first reaction was, he’s going to fuckin’ clobber me. So, before I even knew, I picked up the mic stand and clobbered him with it. Later he said he was just on the way to the bathroom, the loo was behind the stage, but he was walking too close to me, and he had a glass in his hand. I didn’t want to stop and find out if he was really just goin’ to the bathroom, so I just whacked him one. And then he fell off the stage and hit his head on a table and gave himself a concussion. They had to take him out on a stretcher. He was bleeding. And the next song was “Rock’n’Roll Resurrection”: “rock me Jesus / roll me Lord / wash me in the blood of rock’n’roll …” and I performed the whole song dripping in Dick Manitoba’s blood! He pressed charges (eventually dropped). They arrested me, took me to the tombs overnight. The tombs is like a nightmare – hardened criminals. They put me in a cell with another drag queen. They must’ve taken one look at me and went, “We know where to put you!” So, there was this queen with no eyebrows and dyed hair, and all the others were like (mimes slurring and lunging). We were like, “Thank God.” At least they were that understanding. New York police, they can surprise you. They actually asked me, “Do you want to be put in a special place?” and I said, “I’m not going in there with them!” So they said, “OK you don’t have to.” They were very nice. Years later (Manitoba) came up to me at a bar and he was showing me the scars in his head. I said, “You fell off the stage! I didn’t hit you there! You fell off the stage and hit a table!” He said, “I do realize that you felt threatened …” (County’s voice rises at the memory). Somebody comes up onstage, twice as big as you and holding a beer mug in their hand, what would your first reaction be?! After that person had been screaming at you from the audience. Wouldn’t you have thought that person was going to kill you? I thought you were going to hurt me! And he agreed. He won’t talk about it anymore. They interviewed me about that for the CBGBs documentary about a year ago and they tried to get him to talk about it and he refused.

After scoring punk hits with triple-X gutter rock tunes like “Cream in My Jeans” and “Fuck Off”, The Electric Chairs and Wayne County parted acrimoniously by the end of the seventies. At the time, The Chairs issued a press release stating they’d kicked County out of the band and would continue without her. 

JC: No, they didn’t kick me out. They were covering their own egos. What happened was I went to New York to do a few solo gigs and they got mad. So, to get me back, they decided to do a few solo gigs without me, but there was no kicking out of the band. My manager wanted me to get on the next plane from New York to come back and I wouldn’t do it. They wanted me to come back desperately and I wouldn’t. No one wanted to know The Chairs without me. They knew that. 

County now a solo act again – Wayne became Jayne – re-emerged in 1981 with Rock’n’Roll Resurrection, a live recording of a New Year’s Eve gig in Toronto – enjoyed nightclubbing in Berlin at the expense of her career – would be five years of obscurity until next studio LP Private Oyster (aka Amerikan Cleopatra) in 1986 – she surfaced in a “Whatever Happened To?” article in Rolling Stone magazine – the EP Betty Grable’s Legs in 1989 brought the grand total of County’s recorded output for the decade to up to one album and a half. 

JC: Berlin was a great stomping ground for me. I was becoming more serious about my sexuality and everything. I went there just to sort of hang out. It was probably a mistake. I should have come back to London, but I was going through a lot of changes, and I was very stubborn. I’m a lot more loose about things now. But basically  I just fell in love with Berlin and didn’t want to leave. It was very exciting. The Wall. The clubs were open all night. It was like a 24-hour coffee shop. I made all these incredible friends who were also TS’s and TV’s. There were fabulous people. I just thought, this is great. I can’t leave. It practically ruined my career. I should have come back to London, gotten back with The Chairs and got on with it. I was a fucking fool. I’m still paying for my mistakes. But never mind. That’ll teach me for being a stubborn know-it-all. The eighties were pretty much of a slow gap. I hated the eighties! Everything in the eighties was horrible! I just didn’t feel like I was part of anything. I just sort of kept my head above water. I was active, performing in clubs, but not very high profile. 

MRR: At one of your last shows at The Intrepid Fox here, you introduced an old song by saying it was by someone called Wayne County and asking, “I wonder whatever happened to him?” Do you really feel that way? 

JC: (Laughs). That just came off the top of my head. There’s still a bit of Wayne County in me. You always retain the original character, the original person, despite the changes over the years. I may be Jayne County now, but there’s still a lot of Wayne in there. I don’t want to murder him! 

/ The evolution of Wayne to Jayne /

MRR: You’re heading back to spend some time and play a show in New York. What city would you ideally stay in? 

JC: No city permanently. I’m too itchy. I’m a bit of a gypsy. I stay in one place too long, I feel trapped. I gotta get out. It’ll always be Atlanta – New York – London. I wouldn’t live in Berlin again. I’d go back for a while. But my real base is always going to be London and New York. 

County is poised to inflict herself again on an unsuspecting public this year with double whammy of new LP (Deviation) and autobiography (Man Enough to Be a Woman) – the album promises to be a return to form including Jayne-ified anthems like “Everyone’s an Asshole But Me” and a cover of The Runaways’ “Cherry Bomb”. 

MRR: Is the new material going to be the classic Jayne sound or have you changed much? 

JC: It’s the classic Jayne sound, but a little punchier. It’s all rock’n’roll-ish but some of the songs are varied with different guitar sounds. It’s all really driving. It’s seventies punk but with a modern feel to it. I can’t describe it. It’s just the best thing I’ve ever done. I don’t see how anyone who likes rock’n’roll can listen to this and not like it. 

MRR: So, the nineties are going to be your big return to the scene. 

JC: (Fatalistic). Well, I don’t know. They always seem to have accepted me more in Europe. I’m going to be working there a lot soon. We did a European tour in April as a test to see what the reaction would be like after being away so long, and the reception was incredible. We couldn’t get off the stage. We had to do songs over again. They went fucking mad. I was over the moon. 

MRR: I promised Sexton Ming I’d ask you what are your favourite colour of tights. 

JC: Tights? I don’t really have any favourite tights. I like the kind that don’t fall down. I hate it when you have to keep pulling them up. Oh, I like fishnets. What I like to do now is wear three or four different pairs of rights of different colours on top of each other. That looks fabulous. 

MRR: Final question. So many of the people you started out with are now dead … 

JC: They’re either dead or mega-stars! 

MRR: But you’re still here. Do you ever wonder what kind of survival skills or whatever you must have? You must be tough … 

JC: Either that or very lucky. I’ve always managed to keep my head above water. I’ve always had a place to live. I’m very streetwise. I do know how to survive, because I’ve had to since a very early age. In my teens when I was living on the streets of Atlanta, running from the police. I’ve learned to survive over the years. I can suss people like that (snaps fingers). I can suss out a situation on the street. But this is all I know how to do, really. I’m a rock’n’roller and that’s why I’m still doing it. I’ll do it until I drop because that’s what I do. That’s what I am. 

MRR: Well, you could be like the Marlene Dietrich of punk. She was still performing onstage into her mid-seventies. 

JC: (Laughs). And she’d break her hip and they’d tape her back together! Her face was all taped back under her wig. It pulled everything back, and once she was right in the middle of a song and one of the grips broke and one side of her face just fell, and they had to bring the curtain down! She was amazing. (County sucks-in her cheekbones and sings a bit of “Falling in Love Again” with a fake German accent). I am a rock’n’roll person. It’s not an act. That’s what I love. It’s what’s kept me alive. Everything’s rock’n’roll with me. I am rock’n’roll. 

/ Portrait of County as a young starlet by Leee Black Childers /

Missing In Action piece from Vox magazine. July 1995 issue 

Jayne County’s career is like a one-transsexual assault on good taste. In the seventies with The Electric Chairs, County (then billed as Wayne) vomited up sewer-mouthed diatribes like “Fuck Off” and “Cream in My Jeans” to receptive British punk audiences. After the band split, County relocated to relative obscurity in Berlin. But 1995 sees her resurfacing with two new projects, an autobiography entitled Man Enough to Be a Woman and an album called Deviation. 

Born in Dallas, Georgia, County’s music career began in the sixties as a nightclub female impersonator, miming to Dusty Springfield and Janis Joplin records. 

“Straight drag queens used to do people like Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand,” she recalls, “and I’d come out and do rock’n’roll people, which would really flip people out. Dusty was my favourite. She had such a strong, stark image and I really aspired to that image.” 

With the Backstreet Boys, County carved a niche in New York’s rock scene, hanging around CBGBs with the New York Dolls, the Ramones and Patti Smith. She had to leave the US though to find a recording contract. Moving to London in 1977, County was lapped up by the punk subculture. 

“The punk scene in England was more theatrical, more showy,” she says. “They’d incorporated the David Bowie make-up left over from the glam era. The safety pins, the no-eyebrows look, the heavy make-up. In New York it was more arty and less theatrical. It was more visual in London. I fit into that a lot better.” 

Re-naming her band The Electric Chairs, she specialized in scatological gutter-rock outbursts, the most notorious remaining “Fuck Off”, with “Eddy and Sheena” the most fondly remembered. They became a popular live act due to County’s outrageous stage antics, the most printable of which was wearing tattered babydoll nighties long before Courtney Love. 

“Is she wearing babydolls?” County rasps in mock horror. “They don’t look like mine, do they? I’m gonna kill her!” 

In 1979 The Chairs imploded and County left London to find kindred spirits among Berlin’s transgender nightclubbers. It was a turning point. 

“My looks had changed quite dramatically, and I couldn’t go on calling myself Wayne. In a club one night this drag queen said to me: “You’re not Wayne. You’re Jayne now.”” 

After a low-key solo career in the eighties, County seems due for a rock’n’roll resurrection in the nineties. Gender’s gone crazy and drag is suddenly hip again, with transvestites on the catwalks and films such as The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert pulling in large audiences. 

“The glam thing in the seventies, they took that from drag queens,” nods Jayne. “Drag queens would not have been accepted, so people took from the underground and made it more commercial. It’s come around again, and I think people can now accept trannies.” [Note: this term was still considered acceptable in 1995]. 

Deviation sees County repaying old debts by vowing “I’m in Love with Dusty Springfield.” She also re-interprets the old Runaways jailbait anthem “Cherry Bomb.” If anyone can claim the line “Hello world, I’m a wild girl” it’s Jayne County. 

/ My own shot of County performing at The Underworld in Camden Town, London in 2005 /

From September 1995 issue of Ikon Magazine 

Let Your Backbone Slip: the Best of Wayne / Jayne County Volume 2

Deviation 

Hot on the (white stiletto) heels of her autobiography Man Enough to Be a Woman come Jayne County’s latest musical offerings, and these two releases more than adequately flesh out the lurid past and present of the toilet-mouthed American transsexual punk chanteuse. Let Your Backbone Slip, a sequel to RPM’s earlier greatest hit compilation Rock’n’Roll Cleopatra, traces County’s progression from the punk era, when she was billed as Wayne and backed by The Electric Chairs, to her later (post-nose job and female hormones) solo career as a self-made woman. On raunchy glitter-punk rants like “Bad in Bed” and “Are You a Girl or a Boy?” the former Wayne Rogers trashes his / her own Deep South Bible belt upbringing and rasps your face off in the process. 

Reassuringly, she hasn’t cleaned up her act at all during her long absence. The raucous Deviation, the artist’s first new album in years (the last – Goddess of Wet Dreams – was never released in the UK) confirms that County’s voice, saturated in Southern Comfort and gravel, is still one of the lewdest instruments in rock. “I’m in Love with Dusty Springfield” is a beating valentine to an early hairstyle role model, and County explores misanthropy on the anthemic “Everyone’s An Asshole But Me.” Best of all, on “Transgender Rock’n’Roll” she surveys her own history as the Glen or Glenda of punk and snarls, “I’m looking fierce / So don’t you piss me off.” 

In the seventies, Wayne County was the undisputed drag queen of choice for hardened punks. Today, Jayne looks like a genuine cult figure for the nineties.

/ My own shot of County performing at The Underworld in Camden Town, London in 2005 /

Further investigation:

Explore County's back catalogue on Spotify.

County's official website.

County on Instagram.

Filthy Dreams blog's appreciation of County as a queer role model. 

/ Role models / filth elders for life: a recent photo of Jayne County and John Waters. Via /