did you know that the 'beat girl' is a trans woman ? — all about brigitte bond 🏳️⚧️
most punks / rudies should be familiar with this character. she's the beat girl — the mascot for english ska band 'the beat' and a somewhat-counterpart to walt jabsco (the rude boy character who appears on many 2-tone records). much like walt, whose design was inspired by that of peter tosh, the beat girl also has a real-life inspiration — brigitte bond, a singer, dancer, actress and pioneering transgender woman.
i first learnt about this whilst reading a magazine — i forget which one, but brigitte instantly stuck with me, and she's become one of my favourite people to infodump about. before i get into this however, i will say there's a lot of unknown and inconsistent information, so keep that in mind ! i would also like to acknowledge the youtuber miss upsetter designs, as she has been monumental in the archiving and research of brigitte's story.
the story begins in 1979, with cartoonist hunt emerson attempting to design a logo for the beat. he turns to the latest copy of melody maker, and finds a 1964 photograph of prince buster — the king of ska — doing the twist with a young woman. she was 19 year old brigitte bond, a rude girl and fan of buster, who travelled to heathrow airport to greet him upon his arrival.
left: prince buster & brigitte bond dancing at heathrow airport (feb 25, 1964). right: emerson's illustration of the beat girl
it was this image which emerson referenced when designing the beat girl — obviously. but what do we know about the girl herself ?
born in the mid-40s in either france or malta, there's not much known about brigitte's early life. what we do know is that by the early 60s, she ended up in london and got her start performing at the 2i's coffee bar — one of the most important venues in rock 'n' roll history. it was here where she was noticed by an agent and signed to blue beat records, and subsequently released the single 'blue beat baby'.
here's the song ! ⬇️
the first mention of brigitte being trans came in mid-1964. brigitte was due to marry a man known as sir john waller, who needed an heir in order for him to access a large inheritance. he proposed to brigitte in the hopes that they'd have a child together, but being trans, of course brigitte couldn't get pregnant ! this was written about in various articles.
my favourite anecdote about brigitte occurred on 18 june, 1966. billy graham, an evangelist and all-round rotten person, visited soho (which he called a "notoriously sinful area") to preach his conservative beliefs. it was here where brigitte crashed his appearance. furious over a comment he made about miniskirts being sinful, she proceeded to climb on top of his car and shout "billy, what do you think about my miniskirt?" true punk attitude ! there are numerous articles about it and even a video — take a look :
( you can see her climb onto the car at 2:58 ! )
being a singer, dancer and all-round legend weren't the only things brigitte dabbled in however — she was also a model (particularly for adult magazines) and an actress ! she began her acting career in 1967 under the name 'brigitte st. john', and starred in films such as 'herostratus' and 'la muchacha del nilo'.
to conclude, i absolutely adore the bones of brigitte. her enduring pride and self assurance — all the way back as far as the 50s — goes to show that trans people have always existed, and will continue to do so for as long as this earth keeps spinning ! as mentioned before, miss upsetter designs cannot be praised highly enough for the amazing job she's done at archiving information about this amazing woman. below i will link both a timeline and documentary — both created by miss upsetter designs. if you're interested in learning even more about brigitte, PLEASE go show miss upsetter designs some love !
Hello! If you are reading this post, chances are you saw my documentary, "Blue Beat Baby: The Untold Story of Brigitte". First off, thank yo
IT'S FINALLY HERE!!! My Debut record "Bothered / Unbothered" Is now streaming everywhere!!! click here to check it out
--- I can not begin to describe the amount of time, effort, money, and emotions that went into this record. I began writing this record before the pandemic. in the fall of 2019, I started demoing out some of the first tracks. The majority of this record came together during a very intense time. Watching a global pandemic take off, watching my own people drop like flies at the hands of a violent state, watching people who I thought care about me never put any time and effort into me as a person. The world-my world-was a complete mess.
At a time where every single aspect of my life was making me lose my mind. I truly did take time to learn how and where to direct my energy. This record exists as a real time discovery of that, and I hope that those who were in a similar situation like me, constantly being denied your humanity, those who constantly battle the doomer mentality, those who are consistently having their emotions and identity invalidated can find some sort of peace in this thing I created. To learn to be Unbothered.
Like I said, this record was over a 2 year process. From first inception to this very moment, i put so much heart, soul, and a year of my savings into bringing this record to life with the help of so many incredibly talented people. If you could give it a listen and share it around, that would be incredible! It truly is the proudest thing I have ever worked on.
Thank you, everyone for the continued support here on Skatune Network!!! -JER https://lnk.to/JERbothered
Historical curiosity alert - in 1978, a group from Coventry known as the Automatics traveled down to London to records some demos. It’s a bit rough but you can see where the Specials were headed. My advice would’ve been to get a better drummer (they did - John Bradbury)
