Milton Keynes Seagull
Active member
From: Punked Out Magazine, 17/10/10.
The legendary bass guitarist of punk rock band Sal and The Slappers, Vi Brator, has been killed in a car crash. Returning home from a reunion at The Savoy Grill last Saturday, the 53 year old's vintage rolls royce corniche was in a collision with a NHS Delivery lorry taking needles to the Central London Rehabilitation & Drug Addiction Centre.
Vi Brator (real name Olivia St John Smythe) was born on October 1st, 1957 in Tristan da Cunha where her father was an assistant ambassador. Educated at Cheltenham Ladies College, she obtained a place at the LSE, but quickly dropped out to join the burgeoning punk rock scene in 1977. Her first band was Debbie Dyke and the Strap Ons, but she soon joined Sal and The Slappers a year later, where she met up with her old friend Chieu Mi who she knew from various squats and anarchist demos in London. Her work featured heavily in the brilliant debut album f*** Off, where her thumping bass lines on "Bollocks" earned her a place in rock and roll history.
She continued gigging in between various rehab sessions, and latterly was involved in the Alternative Art Gallery project in Neasden, and had also arranged several exhibitions at the Tate Modern including a notorious fifty foot high sculpture in excrement of Che Guevara in drag. Her partner for fifteen years David Fforbes-Watt better known as alternative poet Dick Head, paid her a glowing tribute:-
"I met up with Vi at a post gig party where the Slappers had supported The Crap at the Brixton Academy. I had only just left Charterhouse and was in London for a Smash the Rich demo earlier that day. I'll never f***ing forget her, she was quality".
The funeral will be a joint humanist/taoist celebration at the Green Cemetery in Kensington, on October 27th.
The legendary bass guitarist of punk rock band Sal and The Slappers, Vi Brator, has been killed in a car crash. Returning home from a reunion at The Savoy Grill last Saturday, the 53 year old's vintage rolls royce corniche was in a collision with a NHS Delivery lorry taking needles to the Central London Rehabilitation & Drug Addiction Centre.
Vi Brator (real name Olivia St John Smythe) was born on October 1st, 1957 in Tristan da Cunha where her father was an assistant ambassador. Educated at Cheltenham Ladies College, she obtained a place at the LSE, but quickly dropped out to join the burgeoning punk rock scene in 1977. Her first band was Debbie Dyke and the Strap Ons, but she soon joined Sal and The Slappers a year later, where she met up with her old friend Chieu Mi who she knew from various squats and anarchist demos in London. Her work featured heavily in the brilliant debut album f*** Off, where her thumping bass lines on "Bollocks" earned her a place in rock and roll history.
She continued gigging in between various rehab sessions, and latterly was involved in the Alternative Art Gallery project in Neasden, and had also arranged several exhibitions at the Tate Modern including a notorious fifty foot high sculpture in excrement of Che Guevara in drag. Her partner for fifteen years David Fforbes-Watt better known as alternative poet Dick Head, paid her a glowing tribute:-
"I met up with Vi at a post gig party where the Slappers had supported The Crap at the Brixton Academy. I had only just left Charterhouse and was in London for a Smash the Rich demo earlier that day. I'll never f***ing forget her, she was quality".
The funeral will be a joint humanist/taoist celebration at the Green Cemetery in Kensington, on October 27th.
