Rod Swenson
| Plasmatics | |
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Plasmatics making a music video in New York City in 1980. From left to right: Richie Stotts, Stu Deutsch, Wes Beech, Wendy O. Williams and Jean Beauvoir.
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| Background information | |
| Origin | New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Genres | |
| Years active | 1977–83, 1987–88 |
| Labels | |
| Associated acts | Motörhead |
| Website | plasmatics |
| Past members |
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Plasmatics were an American punk rock and heavy metal band formed by Rod Swenson and Wendy O. Williams in New York City, New York, in 1977. The band was a controversial group known for wild live shows that broke countless taboos. In addition to chainsawing guitars, blowing up speaker cabinets and sledgehammering television sets, Williams and the Plasmatics blew up automobiles live on stage. Williams was arrested in Milwaukee by the Milwaukee police before being charged with public indecency.
The Plasmatics' career spanned five studio albums, and multiple EPs. The band was composed of vocalist/front person Wendy O. Williams and various other musicians rotated behind her over time. Aside from Wendy and manager Rod Swenson, guitarist Wes Beech was the only other permanent member of the group. Guitarist Richie Stotts was a co-founder of the band and a mainstay of the pre-breakup core group (1978–1983). After the breakup of the band following the release of Coup d'Etat, Richie was edited out of band videos and not referred to by name in a 2006 compilation DVD released by Plasmatics Media LLC (via plasmatics.com).
In 1977, Rod Swenson, who received his MFA in 1969 from Yale where he specialized in conceptual, performance, and neo-dadaist art, held the view that the measure of true or high art is how confrontational it is. He began a series of counter-culture projects which, by the mid-'70s, found him in the heart of Times Square producing experimental counter-culture theater as well as video and shows with the likes of the then-little-known bands The Dead Boys, The Ramones, Patti Smith, and others. It was there that he met Wendy O. Williams (her actual birth-given name, the O. standing for Orlean and her initials spelling "WOW") after Wendy happened upon a copy of Show Business Weekly someone had discarded on the bus station floor. The issue lay open to a page with an ad in the casting calls section for Rod's theater show Captain Kink's Sex Fantasy Theater. She answered the ad and applied for a job.
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