The Raincoats: Fairytale in the Supermarket

Maddy Costa wrote about the Raincoats in the Guardian back in 2009:

When Gina Birch and Ana da Silva decided to start a band in the late 1970s, they were art students who "knew nothing" about music. "Ana knew a couple of chords," says Birch, "and I could sing along with a few hymns and rock'n'roll tunes." 

But this was the do-it-yourself punk era, and the pair felt so inspired by their nights out at notorious London clubs like the Roxy (and by another female-fronted band, the anarchic Slits) that they forged ahead as the Raincoats. Only later did they realise that most punk musicians were more proficient than they let on.

But the Raincoats had their admirers. In 1992, Kurt Cobain went into the Rough Trade Shop in Talbot Road, London in search of a new copy of their first LP. He was sent round the corner to see da Silva at her cousin's antique shop. 

Cobain wrote about this meeting in the liner notes of Nirvana's Incesticide album. In late 1993, Rough Trade and DGC Records reissued the Raincoats' three studio albums, with liner notes by Cobain and Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon.

Others were less complimentary. Danny Baker wrote of an early Raincoats appearance in the NME that they were so bad that "every time a waiter drops a tray, we'd all get up and dance".

Me? I love the home-made, anyone-can-do-it aesthetic of punk. You found it earlier in skiffle and later in the glory days of blogging. But just as they have music, the big corporations have taken over the internet, and the world has grown grey from their breath.