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Chrissy Amphlett and guitarist Mark McEntee photographed by Deborah Feingold.

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Born on this day 65 years ago: Christina Amphlett (née Christine Joy Amphlett, 25 October 1959 – 21 April 2013), feral and perverse raspy-voiced frontwoman of Australian post-punk band Divinyls. I’ve seen madmen Iggy Pop and Lux Interior of the Cramps perform and Amphlett matched them for lunacy and intensity. And like Lydia Lunch, she created a sense of tension and drama simply by turning up. In her warts-and-all 2005 memoirs Pleasure and Pain, she-devil Amphlett recalled that when Divinyls toured the US for the first time, audiences frequently recoiled in horror from her onstage antics. You can see why Jim Farber of Rolling Stone would summarize her demonically possessed St Trinian’s girl persona as “all four Shangri-Las rolled into one – with a snatch of pre-exorcised Linda Blair tossed in.” I was privileged to see Divinyls perform and interview bad girl Amphlett for my university newspaper in 1991 in Montréal (when Divinyls had their fluke late-career international hit with “I Touch Myself”). She was great! The Montréal audience was totally nonplussed by the volatile Amphlett’s confrontational sex kitten-gone-berserk “glamour fits” (there was lots of deep stripper squats, breast-cupping and crotch-grabbing delivered with a snarl). The New York Times critic absolutely nailed this combativeness: “Ms Amphlett often touched herself as she sang, but she wasn’t flirting with the audience or the band… Many of her gestures were those of a hostess at a party she didn’t want to give, with contemptuous curtsies and over-elaborate arm waves … The audience … didn’t seem to approve of Ms Amphlett’s mixed messages … pop audiences like their come-ons without irony; otherwise, there’s a possibility that the joke might be on them.” Pictured: Amphlett with Divinyls’ co-founder and guitarist Mark McEntee circa 1985. The two were in a tempestuous romantic relationship and Divinyls’ music is essentially the sound of them fighting. Amphlett died far too young from a combination of Multiple Sclerosis and breast cancer.