“Untypical Girls”: Early Photographs Of Women In Punk From Between The Late 1970s And Early 1990s

Punk girls with Belinda Carlisle from the Go-Go’s in the center. Los Angeles, 1978. Photo by Mike Murphy.

These rarely seen, personal photographs, taken from Sam Knee’s forthcoming book, Untypical Girls: Styles and Sounds of the Transatlantic Indie Revolution, chart the rise of women in alternative music.

From the advent of punk in late-70s Britain to grunge via no wave, indie, and hardcore, Untypical Girls traces the evolution of indie girl styles, and, more important, the transformation and explosion of voices long suppressed in the music industry.

As Knee writes in the introduction, “This book is by no means an indie girl A-Z. Merely a glimpse into a journey from nascent radical stages to the full flower of revolution, the looks and attitudes of which are frighteningly relevant today.”

h/t: vice, vintag.es

Kim Gordon. Somewhere in Connecticut, 1987. Photo by Scott Munroe.

Poly Styrene from the X-Ray Spex at the Red Cow. London, 1977. Photo by Jeremy Gibbs.

Two riot girls at the March for Women’s Lives. Washington, DC, 1992. Photo by Pat Graham.

Gee Vaucher of CRASS at Eric’s Club. Liverpool, England, 1979. Photo by Mark Nick Jordan.

Hüsker Dü fan. Somewhere in New Jersey, 1984. Photo by David McKenzie.

Slant 6 at the Embassy. Washington, DC, 1992. Photo by Pat Graham.

The band Dolly Mixture. Doncaster, England, 1981. Photo by Rich Gunter.

Riot girls at the March for Women’s Lives. Washington, DC, 1992. Photo by Pat Graham.

Stef Petticoat of post- punk band the Petticoats. London, 1980. Photo by Stefanie Heinrich.

Two post-punk fans pose. Wimbledon, London, 1980. Photo by Anita Corbin.

Clare Kearney and Liz Gutekunst of the Cancer Girls. Washington, DC, 1979. Photo by Peter Muise.

Riot grrrls performing. Washington, DC, 1992. Photo by Pat Graham.

Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth at Maxwell’s. Hoboken, New Jersey, 1984. Photo by Dave Rick.

Neo Boys, likely Portland’s rst all-girl punk group. Portland, Oregon, 1981. Photo by K Saul.

Dancing to the Big Boys. Houston, 1980. Photo by Ben Tecumseh DeSoto.

Gillian Elam of Bi-Joopiter, 1989.

Ari Up of the Slits, 1979. Photo by Graham Macindoe.

Bikini Kill, 1993. Photo by Pat Graham.

Bodysnatchers, 1980. Photo by Neil Anderson.

Skinned Teen, 1983. Photo by Greg Neate.

Strawberry Switchblade, 1982. Photo by Peter McArthur.

Lunachicks, 1989. Photo by Joe Dilworth.

Two women during the Revolution Summer in Washington DC, 1985 – an upswell of activism against the violence and sexism in the US punk scene Photo by Lloyd Wolf.