Musician, artist, video maker and mum Gina Birch of The Raincoats talks punk philosophy with Killing Joke’s Youth

Youth: How did you get into punk?

Gina: My friend Alex Michon and I were on foundation together in Nottingham in 1975 and we had a wild time. We completely fell in love with fine art. Alex had a very good friend at St Martins doing fashion. And [another friend] Christina said we could stay in her room, and then said, “There’s a band playing tonight you might be interested in.” It happened to be the Sex Pistols’ first gig.

Y: Oh my God, let me pick my jaw up off the floor! You were at the Sex Pistols’ first gig?

That was 6 November 1975, with the Pistols supporting pub rock band Bazooka Joe & his Rhythm Hot Shots – featuring Stuart Goddard before he was Adam Ant – in the St Martins common room.

G: There were only about 30 people there. Alex and I really bonded. We didn’t really know what it was, but we just knew it was really exciting. They only played about five songs and then they were gone and we were like, “What was that? That was incredible!” Eventually we both ended up coming to London. Alex was living with Christina and a bunch of fashion students. I was living with some posh drug dealers in Islington. I finally moved to a squat in Westbourne Grove. [The Clash’s manager] Bernie Rhodes found out there were these fashion students living in this house and went round there. He wanted one of them to make clothes for The Clash. So he banged on the door and all the fashion students went, “Nah, not interested.” But Alex, who was a Sex Pistols fan by then, said, “Yeah, come in.” She had no experience in fashion but her mother – a Polish immigrant – was a sewing machinist. And so Alex thought, “Well, I’ll give it a crack.” The punk spirit.

Y: So did they do the painted White Riot clothes?

G: Bernie wanted a prototype jacket and some trousers. Alex decided lots of zips, they were into zips all over the place. She lived in New York with The Clash for a few years. Alex and I, we went in parallel. She was working with The Clash, but we were going to lots of gigs together and we’d see various bands and get so vibed up. I loved Subway Sect. I was completely besotted with The Clash, and I thought the Sex Pistols were incredible, John Lydon particularly. It was so exciting, it felt like everything was on fire and it was for us.

The Raincoats’ first gig was at the Tabernacle in Notting Hill on 9 November 1977. Johnny Rotten was an admirer of the band, and later said: “The Raincoats offered a completely different way of doing things, as did X-Ray Spex and all the books about punk have failed to realise that these women were involved for no other reason than that they were good and original.” He put their eponymous debut album in his top 12 albums of all time. The Raincoats’ distinctly uncommercial sound didn’t appeal to everyone; after witnessing an early performance by the band, Danny Baker remarked that “They are so bad that every time a waiter drops a tray we’d all get up and dance.” Their first album was released in 1979.

Y: How did you arrive at that Raincoats look?

G: I was living in a squat. I had a mirror that was about six inches round. I never had a long mirror so I often didn’t know what I looked like. You’d go into a charity shop, try stuff on, you’d like the fabric, you’d like the spots, you’d like the stripes, you’d like the shape. I would buy things that didn’t fit me and I would cut them up.

Y:  You’re very self deprecating and that’s part of the philosophy of The Raincoats.

G: We certainly never saw ourselves as stars. I remember The Raincoats being in Paris with The Slits. We were sitting in a hotel reception and they were all dressed up in their more glam outrageous way, and we dressed in our usual more spotty, stripey, inside-out, mismatched way. We were the poor relations, not much glamour, but with a thrilling excitement of making our own way. The Slits really inspired me, though – their sound and what they were doing, their bravery or apparent lack of self awareness. At those very early gigs, I could really relate to their unruly passion. When they sang songs it was like they were singing to me, about me, for me, and it was the first time I really felt that. I really dreamed at that moment of being in a band. Shame I couldn’t play anything or sing. That was what punk was about. To give you the freedom to be who you are. And I was just finding out who I was.

This is an extract from a longer interview with Gina Birch which appears in Idler 86, Sept/Oct 2022.

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