Fifth Column (band)

Fifth Column
Origin	Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Genres	Punk rock, post-punk, riot grrrl
Years active	1981–2002
Labels	K
Associated acts	Phono-Comb, Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, Opera Arcana
Members	G.B. Jones Caroline Azar Beverly Breckenridge
Past members	Charlotte Briedé, Anita Smith, Janet Martin, Kathleen Robertson, Michelle Breslin

Fifth Column, a Canadian all-women experimental post-punk band from Toronto, came about during the early 1980s.

They took the name Fifth Column after a military manoeuvre by fascist Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War, in which nazi-aligned nationalist insurrectionists within besieged Republican Madrid, called 'the fifth column', would aid the four columns (north, south, east and west) outside the perimeters.

One of the first releases was A 45" EP entitled BOY/GIRL-MONSIEUR BEAUCHAMP produced in 1982 by Voicepondence Records. More independently, GB and Caroline along with Candy Parker released their own underground packaged xerox art/ social commentary zine named HideZine (5 issues) which, after its first issue, came out with audio cassettes that were compilations of music by Fifth Column, along with their local post-punk and experimental contemporaries, like Anti-Scrunti Faction, The Dave Howard Singers, Mydolls, The Party's Over, Really Red, Rongwrong, and Michael Phillip Wojewoda.

The name of their first full-length recording To Sir With Hate was a play on the theme song from the British school film, To Sir With Love, performed by Lulu. Produced by Michael Phillip Wojewoda, it is now considered a classic of Canadian music; at the 2016 Polaris Music Prize it was named a shortlisted nominee in the 1976-1985 category for the Polaris Heritage Prize.

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