Rubella Ballet

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rubella Ballet playing at the Clarendon Club, London, Christmas Eve 1985

Rubella Ballet is a punk rock band formed in 1979 by Sid Ation (Flux of Pink Indians) on drums with Pete Fender of the Fatal Microbes on guitar, Gem Stone on bass, and Annie Anxiety and Womble on vocals. Annie and Womble were involved only initially. Their swift exit from the band left Sid without a singer temporarily, this then led to the famous Crass gig where the Crass invited the audience to use their equipment and finish off the evening doing their own thing as they wanted and left the crowd in charge, so Sid got up on the drums and his girlfriend Zillah Minx grabbed a mic and it was brilliant and quite possibly the birth of Rubella Ballet who are still fronted and managed by Zillah Minx who has also with all her friends over the world created the whole Day-glo Death Rock punk scene..

The band managed to get through a vast array of guitarists due to Pete Fender leaving at the end of 1982.

The band have become infamous for their different and innovative style of music and the shock value of wearing ultraviolet day-glo clothes to brighten up London's east end, dark, violent, poor, ghettoized, drug dealing, working class shithole that they lived in into a different land as everywhere they went people smiled and laughed instead of wanting to kill them.

The band released one album on cassette tape, entitled Ballet Bag (1981) and a 4 track 7" EP, "Ballet Dance" (1982), both for XNTRIX Records. Following these early releases they went on to produce four further albums. The first two, on Ubiquitous Records, were 'At Last Its Play Time' (1985) and 'If' (1986). The next album 'Cocktail Mix' (1987) was produced on the Red Rhino label and the last album release 'At The End of The Rainbow' (1990) on Brave Records.

It was at this time that a compilation CD 'Greatest Trips' (1990) was produced on the Brave Label featuring many of the tracks from the first three albums.

[edit] Discography

Chart placings shown are from the UK Indie Chart.^[1]

Ballet Bag - 1981 - (cassette only, with booklet and badge)
"Ballet Dance" - 1982 - (EP) (#6)
"42%" 1984 (#10)
At Last Its Playtime - 1985 - Ubiquitous day glo two
IF - 1986 - Ubiquitous Day Glo 4
Cocktail Mix - 1987 - Red Rhino Day Glo Five
The Ballet's Birthday Box (double LP) - 1988 - Ubiquitous Day Glo 6 - (two lps with badge, poster, cut-out doll, sticker & booklet)
At The End Of The Rainbow - 1990 - Brave BND2LP
Greatest Trips (CD) - 1990 - Brave BND3CD
Death Rock Daze (CD) - 2007- UVP Productions UVP001 (Limited Edition) Best of Rubella Ballet's gothy tracks mixed by Sidation