Wendy O. Williams

While she never earned the critical acclaim of artists like Patti Smith, Siouxsie Sioux, or Exene Cervenka, for many Wendy O. Williams was the first female face of punk rock. As the lead singer of The Plasmatics, Williams proved a woman could dish out on-stage mayhem as well as any man -- hoisting a chainsaw or a sledgehammer, Williams routinely destroyed guitars, smashed televisions, blew up automobiles, and generally left a trail of destruction in her wake. Williams also blended sex with anarchy, often appearing on stage stripped to the waist with shaving cream or electrical tape covering her nipples as a towering Mohawk bloomed from her scalp, creating a vision of a wildly empowered outlaw woman whose echoes would be felt in music and culture long after The Plasmatics called it quits.

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