Rock of ages

Miss Barbrafisch is a woman who knows what turns her crank.

In addition to her role as a DJ extraordinaire, and part of the spinning trio at the queer glam rock night, Vaseline, she hosts the radio show Satan Takes A Holiday on CKLN Saturday nights.

Due to this diva’s expertise, we asked her for her five rock essentials – the albums no one worth their rocker salt should legally live without.

From Palm Spring, California, Kyuss rocks like no other. After their debut album Wretch hit the streets they were a mere warmish on the rock out scale. Then came their second release, Blues For The Red Sun. And after that it was all touring with Danzing and Faith No More. This quartet of high school friends ruled the world. Miss Barbrafisch says, “Blues For The Red Sun embodies everything that is sleazy, fabulous and heavy in rock. It is a classic stoner rock album and is sheer nastiness.”

Anything from the Motorhead library is fine, although Barbra has a favourite. No Sleep At All: Everything Louder Than Everything Else was recorded on Oct 15, 1988 in Finland at the Hammeenlinna Giants Of Rock festival. Along with a wealth of other good stuff, this album includes the track “Just ‘Cos You Got The Power” which is responsible for Barbra’s long-standing love affair with metal.

The Runaways by the Runaways is a completely seminal album, or so says Miss Barbrafisch. What could be better than five hot chicks who are full-on glam, truly rocking out, and responsible for the classic “Cherry Bomb”? This band, whose better known members Joan Jett, Lita Ford and Sandy West went down in rocker herstory, had a collective sexuality which included straight/bi/queer – and it was no secret.

Nina Hagen is a woman with a singular vision. And for that alone she shows up on the top five list of Barbra’s rock essentials. Well, she’s also pretty talented. Fearless, released in 1984 on the CBS label, is the one to get. And just in case your only knowledge of Ms Hagen is the “99 Red Balloons” incident, Nina was born in 1955 and saw her debut album, Nina Hagen Band, released in 1977.

Another absolute must is The Voluptuous Horror Of Karen Black. Their first album released in 1991 was put out by Vital Music and had only one track on each side. Having moved along in the world, by the time they reached their third album Blind Date in 1998 on Cleopatra Records, they were described as “AC/DC meets the kindergarten from Hell.” Need we say more?