Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
WSally Wainwright’s book Riot Women appeared last fall, to great acclaim beset by a few questions about authenticity. “There’s an interesting TV series that should be made about a menopausal music group – Riot Women isn’t it,” wrote Tiff Bakker in the Guardianmocking the fictional group as “a bunch of middle-aged punk rockers who, until now, seem to have only heard of Abba”.
If Wainwright wants to inspire a second series, he could do worse than head to south Wales to experience the real-life Riot Ladies. NaNaz is a six-piece punk band formed last year by a group of women in their 50s and 60s. Many of their songs deal with everything from domestic bills, to men’s attitudes toward older women, to the frustration of giving back. And it’s probably the only group that was featured on the home page of guitar.com and Age Cymru’s photography campaign.
I meet the NaNaz in the dark of the Cab’s cave, a tough punk club at. Newport. Recent headliners include Murderburgers, Pizzatramp and Siberian Meat Grinder. To my uninitiated eyes, this sounds like a menu from hell, but it was within these walls that the story of NaNaz began.
“After the first episode of Riot Women While we’re on TV, many people have contacted us, they all say: this is an old story – you’re already doing it,” says Anne-Marie Bollen, 60, a bassist, musician and former public nurse. afternoon. So I thought, I’ll just leave it at that,” she says with a laugh.
The daughter of a miner, Bollen grew up in the South Wales and as a misfit teenager she was inspired by the first generation of female punk musicians. “I really liked X-Ray Spex, Pauline Murray of Penetration, Siouxsie Sioux. I was in choirs and always liked to sing. Later, I was a backing singer for a local band.
The Nana Party the project was created by Jude Price, a community worker and musician who suffered a stroke. He saw firsthand the isolation of many elderly women, especially when they were chronically ill or cared for.
Bollen said: “We like to write and sing songs that tell the truth about things we’re passionate about. The band’s first single was 60 Lies, a song in support of Waspi’s campaign against women’s pensions. Okay, so a punk song about pensions might not seem like an obvious choice but it sounds like an angry song, with beautiful B-52s-style vocals.
You could be forgiven for fearing that a random group of insults would sound intimidating, but you’d be wrong. This is no doubt because all of them have been music lovers for a long time, and many of them have learned to play their instruments. Deborah de Lloyd, the group’s viola player, has been playing since she was eight years old. Not to mention that they are all buzzing with ideas and thoughts and bring a lot of life to the party.
Lead guitarist Ange Pearce, 62, grew up in Newport surrounded by music. His father was a jazz drummer who taught him to play from the age of three. He left school without having his GCSEs and signed up for the Youth Opportunity Scheme to work at a Spar supermarket. “As soon as I got my first paycheck, I went out and bought my first acoustic guitar.”
With his sharp haircut and bravado, Pearce looks the part but admits that during the punk era he was a big fan of Elvis. That is, until they found Yazoo. “I thought Alison Moyet’s words were amazing, they changed everything. After that, I met my first partner, a woman, and we set up our businesses.
After the friendship ended, Pearce devoted himself to running his own business. But life was lonely. “I was working all hours. I just bought a computer and my friend showed me this site GaydarGirls. This was before dating apps. There was no one online that first night, except for a few lights in Texas. That was Liz.”
Within a few months, Liz moved from Austin to Newport and the two have been married for 18 years. Eventually, a supermarket opened nearby and Pearce’s store was forced to close. Then he bought an ice cream truck, where he worked for a while. He said: “I let it go. “Maybe the same way – I was giving a lot of free money to kids who couldn’t afford it,” he adds with a laugh. Since then, he and Liz have raised 36 children. Although rewarding, the events can be unexpected and powerful. Currently, Liz is recovering from a stroke. Naz has provided a welcome break, and her happy life will provide enough music for countless songs.
“From the beginning, I loved the community,” says Pearce. “We started writing lyrics and that’s when I collaborated with them on my first song, Idiots Everywhere.” The result is a terrifying but loving letter to Newport town centre.
For several women, the opportunity to sing came at a good time. “I got to a point where I gave up everything,” says Marega Palser, 60, a former actress, now singer and singer in NaNaz. “I don’t know if you can call it a breakup, but I lost a lot of things that were stable – my relationship, my house, my studio. I was also overworked and burned out. I worked full time in the theater but even that didn’t seem to me anymore.”
The first conference she attended was hosted by Cassie Fox, founder of Loud Women, a group that advocates for more opportunities for women and non-binary musicians. He said: “It was great fun and I haven’t looked back.
After a troubled childhood, Palser discovered punk at the age of 11. “It was something that I could strongly relate to. In a strange way, even though there were amazing female role models – bands like the Slits, the Raincoats and Kleenex – it also felt unmanly. I felt that women at the time were standing up to men when they were anti-racists. Everything was so beautiful. for someone who felt that they didn’t fit in in any way.”
He started going to a punk club where his parents were friends. “I met a lot of things – musicians, people who use drugs, people who smell like glue. I think that’s why I never had children because I couldn’t bear to bring a child into the world, knowing how alone I was. I had a lot of life. When I was 14, I was ready to leave home.” Instead, she settled down until she was 16 and successfully applied to train with the London Contemporary Dance School. “My reading section is set to Bela Lugosi’s Dead and Bauhaus!” He keeps on remembering.
What happened at dance school was very competitive and took her out of the industry. Instead, he worked in an art gallery and eventually returned to Cardiff to study art and build a career as an artist.
Palser has enjoyed the opportunity to be with a group of women of a similar age. “The thing about menopause is that you’re being changed by drugs, so you start to experience the world in a different way.” This can mean feeling isolated at times, but it’s also amazing to connect with other things like playing music that allows you to create this magical energy, between you, the other musicians and the audience.
NaNaz, which was created from Nana Punk’s discussions, has no manager, no label or PR assistant, but is still kept in clubs and festivals every weekend until the end of the year. The band crossed my radar through a record producer Laura Martin Robinsonwho is filming the BBC Our Lives documentary about these women.
Some musicians are still struggling to grasp the speed of their evolution. “I never had any ambition to do it – I signed up for the workshop because I liked the experience,” said Claire Symons, 52, who plays rhythm guitar. A former theater assistant in Devon, she now lives in Newport with her husband and 16-year-old twins.
A few weeks after Symons picked up the guitar for the first time, Nana Punk booked him for a gig at the Hope and Anchor in London. I told them, ‘No, you’re crazy!’ I only knew two songs at the time,” says Symons. “Then the next thought was: let’s start our own band. I said that I will join but with the understanding that I will not go on stage. And then somehow we had our first reservation, which was to sing at Anne-Marie’s 60th birthday. I thought: that’s not so scary. Except when it turned out that there were 80 people in his garden. Symons has written her first song, Harness the Darkness, which is remarkable because it is about the unwarranted anger that one experiences during menopause.
He believes that a big part of the group’s appeal is how casual and fun they are. “Young women in particular seem to like us a lot. Maybe it’s because everything they see on social media is about perfection. They’re motivated by watching a show where they can see older women make mistakes and just laugh and carry on.”
Perhaps the most interesting story about the magical life change of joining the band comes from the “baby” of the band, 29-year-old drummer Jade Ball. The group’s former drummer, Nina Langrish, 65, left for Thailand but still appears on the maracas. After earning a master’s in music therapy, Ball worked for many years as a music therapist. However, it has not been an easy ride.
At the age of 18 he was diagnosed with a neurological disorder called “essential tremor”. “That means I have to learn to play the drums again,” Ball said. Then I got Covid and this caused my heart to start getting sick. For a year, I didn’t know if I would be able to play the drums again.
Last year, Ball was in and out of the hospital seven times. “So I was in a state of shock when I got the call that the Nazis needed a drummer. It wasn’t easy to find a replacement for Langrish who was in South Wales, who was going to far away gigs, and strong enough to play the drums very loudly.
Another proof of the group’s influence is the number of women who approach them after gigs. “For every person who says they love us, and that they leave with a big smile on their face, there is someone who will tell us that we inspired them to pick up a guitar or write a song,” says Symons. “And I think that’s the whole point. Our job is not to make everyone follow the Nazis. It’s to make them realize: I can start a band too. Which, let’s face it, is a very punk idea.
