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Obituaries

April 7, 1998

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wendy O. WiIliams Lead Singer of the Plasmatics Passes Away

Storrs, CT -- Wendy O. Williams lead singer of the radical and influential punk-metal Plasmatics died Monday night, April 6 of a self-inflicted gun shot wound to the head.

The outspoken and style-setting singer, who was found dead by Plasmatics' co-founder and manager Rod Swenson, was forty-eight years old. The Plasmarics, founded in 1978, rose to fame from sensational beginnings at CBGB's in New York City where Wendy and the band were known for fast aggressive music and on stage theatrics which included Wendy's regular chain-sawing of guitars and the detonation of speaker cabinets. After inking a record deal with Stiff records they rapidly grew to large venues where the "queen of shock rock", as she came to be known, expandcd the theatrical repertoire to include blowing up cars on stage and collapsing lighting trusses. After having a show banned in London in 1979 the group retuned to New York, were helicoptered onto a New York pier where, in front of some 20,000 people after playing a short set, Wendy drove a cadillac into a stage loaded with explosives jumping out of the car seconds before it hit the stage and car and stage blew up. The band made numerous TV appearances inclubing two on Tom Snyder's "Tomorrow" Show where they also blew up a car in the studio. Among other things, the band is generally credited with bringing the mohawk haircut to rock'n roll. Wendy being the first high-profiled woman to wear a mohawk, and with her carefully shredded clothing was voted to People Magazine's Best Dressed List. She was also nominated for a grammy award as Best Female Rock Singer. The band, which in an early review Billboard magazine said "makes Kiss look like greasy kid stuff" toured from 1978 until 1988. Ironically, Gene Simmons of Kiss would later produce one of three Wendy O. Williams solo albums in 1982. Other notable pairings included a speed-rnetal cover of Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man" with lead singer for the UK's number one speed metal band Motorhead.

Yesterday. in Storrs, CT. Rod Swenson, who had been Wendy's significant other for more thantwenty years, returned from shopping to the wooded area where the two had lived since moving to Connecticut from New York. He found a package that Wendy had left him with some special noodles he liked, a packet of seeds for growing garden greens, some oriental massage balm, and sealed letters from Wendy. The suicide letters which included a."livlng will" denying life support, a love letter to Swenson, and various lists of things to do set Swcnson searching the woods looking for her, After about an hour, and after it was almost dark, he found the body in woods near an area where she loved to feed the wildlife. Several nut shelIs were on a nearby rock where she had apparently been feeding some of the squirrels before she died. Swenson checked the body for a pulse, and there was none. A pistol lay on the ground nearby, and he returned to the house to call the local authorities. "Wendy's act was not an irrational in-the-moment act," he said, she had been talking about taking her own life for almost four years. She was at home in the peak of her career, but found the more ordinary 'hypocrisies of life' as she called them excruciatingly hard to deal with. In one sense she was the strongest person I have ever known, and in another, a side which most people never saw, the most vulnerable. She felt, in effect, she'd peaked and didn't care to live in a world in which she was uncomfortable, and below peak any longer. Speaking personally for myself, I loved her beyond imagination. She was a source of strength, inspiration, and courage. The pain at this moment in losing her is inexpressible. I can hardly imagine a world without Wendy Williams in it. For me such a world it is profoundly diminished. "

One of the suicide notes Wendy left read as follows:

"The act of taking my own life is not something I am doing without a lot of thought. I don't believe that people should take their own lives without deep and thoughtful reflection over a considerable period of time. I do believe strongly, however, that the right to do so is one of the most fundamental rights that anyone in a free society should have. For me much of the world makes no sense, but my feelings about what I am doing ring loud and clear to an inner ear and a place where there is no self, only calm. Love always, Wendy,"

Wendy asked that no flowers be sent, but those who would like to make a donation in her memory can do so to: The Quiet Corner Wildlife Center, 109 Ashford Center Road, Ashford, CT 06276

*My thanks to WVIT for faxing this press release to me.

Punk Singer Wendy O. Williams Dies/AP

STORRS, Conn. (AP) - Wendy O. Williams, whose stage theatrics as lead singer of the punk band The Plasmatics included blowing up equipment and chain-sawing guitars, has committed suicide. She was 48.

Williams' former manager and longtime companion Rod Swenson said he discovered her body Monday in a wooded area near their home. The state medical examiner said Williams died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Swenson said Williams had been despondent for some time.

Williams, dubbed the ``queen of shock rock,'' sported a trademark Mohawk haircut and was nominated in 1985 for a Grammy in the best Female Rock Vocal category during the height of the band's popularity.

A native of Webster, N.Y., Williams with her on-stage antics quickly attracted a following for the Plasmatics, who debuted in New York City clubs in 1978.

Police in Milwaukee arrested Williams and Swenson in 1981 after she allegedly simulated a sex act in concert at a nightclub. Charges of battery to an officer and obscene conduct against Williams were later dropped and a jury cleared Swenson of obstructing an officer.

She was acquitted in April 1981 of an obscenity charge in Cleveland filed for performing covered only with shaving cream and simulating sexual activity.

In November of that year, she was sentenced to one year supervision and fined $35 by an Illinois judge for beating a free-lance photographer who tried to take her picture while she was jogging along the Chicago lakefront.

The band made several international tours, was once banned in London, and appeared on Tom Snyder's ``Tomorrow'' show, where they blew up a car in the studio.

Swenson said he and Williams moved to Storrs in 1991, three years after the group's last tour. She had not performed for several years and had worked most recently as an animal rehabilitator, he said.

She is survived by her mother and two sisters.

Wendy O. Williams

STORRS, Conn. (AP) - Wendy O. Williams, whose stage theatrics as lead singer of the punk band The Plasmatics included blowing up equipment and chain-sawing guitars, committed suicide Monday. She was 48.

The state medical examiner said Williams died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Williams, dubbed the ``queen of shock rock,'' sported a trademark Mohawk haircut and was nomimated in 1985 for a Grammy in the female rock vocal category during the height of the band's popularity.

Williams' on-stage antics quickly attracted a following for the The Plasmatics, who debuted in New York City clubs in 1978.

The band made several international tours, was once banned in London, and appeared on Tom Snyder's ``Tomorrow'' show, where they blew up a car in the studio.

Plasmatics lead singer Wendy Orleans Williams shot and killed herself Monday night in Storrs, Connecticut. Williams was 48.

The singer's body was found by her former manager and confidant Rob Swenson in a wooded area near the Storrs home the two shared. Swenson alerted MTV News of Williams' death.

Williams, an ex-topless dancer and 9th grade drop-out who had worked in a few of Swenson's blue films in the mid-70s, moved from porn to punk after Swenson began shooting videos for the likes of Patti Smith and the Ramones and decided to build a band around Williams.

As frontwoman for the thrash glam Plasmatics, the mohawk-adorned Williams was as at least as well known for her outrageous stage antics as she was for her singing. The band, which debuted at CBGB in New York City on July 26, 1978, frequently incorporated such outlandish stunts as smashing a television with a sledgehammer, cutting up a guitar with a chainsaw and firing off a machine gun into its stage act. Williams often appeared on stage adorned with little more than bits of electrical tape.

The Plasmatics broke up in 1983 after releasing four albums, although Williams continued on to pursue a solo career. Ironically, one of her best known hits was for a cover of Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man," on which she collaborated with Lemmy from Motorhead.

In her later years, Williams retired from music and adopted a cleaner lifestyle, becoming a prominent health food advocate while working for a natural foods co-op. Williams also attempted to mount an acting career, earning parts in the film "Reform School Girl" and on television in "McGyver."

Swenson and Williams had moved to Storrs in 1991.

TIME Magazine

Died. Wendy O. Williams, 48 radically raunchy star of the '80's punk band the Plasmatics who shocked fans with her onstage shenanigans (chain-sawing guitars sometimes clad in little more than strategically placed electrical tape); of a self-inflicted gunshot wound; in Storrs, Conn.

Connecticut Post April 8, 1998

STORRS -- Wendy O. Williams, whose stage theatrics as lead singer of the punk band The Plasmatics included blowing up equipment andchain-sawing guitars, has committed suicide. She was 48.

Williams' former manager and longtime companion, Rod Swenson, said he discovered her body Monday in a wooded area near their home. The state medical examiner said Williams died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He said she had been despondent.

Williams, dubbed the "queen of shock rock" sported a trademark Mohawk haircut and was nomimated for a Grammy as Best Female Rock singer during the height of the band's popularity more than a decade ago.

Williams had requested to be cremated, Swenson said. No memorial service was planned.

Wendy O. Williams, Plasmatics singer, dies

Associated Press

STORRS

Wendy O. Williams, whose stage theatrics as lead smger of the punk band The Plasmatics included blowing up equipment and chain-sawing guitars, has committed suicide. She was 48.

Swenson said Williams had been despondent for some time.

Williams, dubbed the "queen of shock rock" sported a trademark Mohawk haircut and was nominated for a Grammy as Best Female Rock singer during the height of the band's popularity more than a decade ago.

A native of Webster, N.Y, Williams' on-stage antics quickly attracted a following for The Plasmatics, who debuted in New York City clubs in 1978.

"She felt she was past her peak and found it difficult to lead a normal life", he said. "This was something she had planned; it was no spur-of-the moment thing."

Williams had requested to be cremated, he said. No memorial service was planned.

The Sacramento Bee Wednesday, April 8, 1998

Wendy O. Williams, 48, 'queen of shock rock,' commits suicide

Associated Press

STORRS, Conn. - Wendy O. Williams, whose stage theatrics as lead singer of the punk band The Plasmatics included blowing up equipment and chain-sawing guitars, has committed suicide. She was 48.

Ms. Williams' former manager and longtime companion Rod Swenson said he discovered her body Monday in a wooded area near their home. The state medical examiner said Ms. Williams died of a self-inflicted gunnshot wound.

Swenson said Ms. Williams had been despondent for some time.

Ms. Williams, dubbed the "queen of shock rock," sported a trademark Mohawk haircut and was nominated in 1985 for a Grammy in the best female rock vocal category during the height of the band's popularity.

A native of Webster, N.Y., Ms. Williams with her onstage antics quickly attracted a following for The Plasmatics, who debuted in New York City clubs in 1978.

Police in Milwaukee arrested Ms. Williams and Swenson in1981 after she allegedly simulated a sex act in concert at a nightclub. Charges of battery to an officer and obscene conduct against Ms. Williams were later dropped and a jury cleared Swenson of obstructing an officer.

The band made several international tours, was once banned in London, and appeared on Tom Snyder's "Tomorrow" show, where they blew up a car in the studio.

Swenson said he and Ms. Williams moved to Storrs in 1991. She had not performed for several years and had worked most recently as an animal rehabilitator, he said.

Daily News, Wednesday, April 8, 1998

Wendy O. Williams kills herself

STORRS, Conn.-Wendy O. Williams, whose stage theatrics as lead singer of the punk band The Plasmatics included blowing up equipment and chain-sawing guitars, has committed suicide. She was 48.

Swenson said Williams had been despondent for some time.

Williams, dubbed the "queen of shock rock," sported a trademark Mohawk haircut and was nominated in1985 for a Grammy in the best Female Rock Vocal category during the height of the band's popularity.

A native ofWebster, N.Y., Williams, with her onstage antics, quickly attracted a following for The Plasmatics, who debuted in New York City clubs in 1978.

The Hartford Courant, Wednesday, April 8, 1998

Shock-Rocker Commits Suicide

Plasmatics Singer Dies Near Storrs Home

STORRS - Wendy O. Williams, who led one of the most brazenly flamboyant careers in rock while fronting notorious '80s shock-rockers the Plasmatics, killed herself in the eastern Connecticut woods where she quietly lived in recent years.

Williams' former manager and long time companion, Rod Swenson, said he discovered her body Monday in a wooded area near their home. The state medical examiner said Williams died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. She was 48.

Post-punk and pre-alternative, Williams' career for a time caught the attention of the rock n' roll world, where she served as the Marilyn Manson of her day - an example of the furthest rock could go.

Despite their visual appeal, which included blowing up banks of TV sets and smashing Cadillacs, the Plasmatics' records never sold very well.

Williams and Swenson moved to Storrs in 1991, three years after the group's last tour. She had not performed for several years and had worked most recently as an animal rehabilitator, he said.

Swenson, founder of the Plasmatics, said Williams had been despondent for some time.

"She felt she was past her peak and found it difficult to lead a normal life," he said. "This was something she had planned; it was no spur-of-the-moment thing."

There was some serious intent with the Plasmatics, who debuted at New York punk club CBGB's 20 years ago. Swenson, a Yale graduate with a master's degree in fine arts, formed the band after doing early video clips for Patti Smith and the Ramones. He met Williams, a runaway from Webster, N.Y., turned stripper, while he was working in the porn industry in New York. With her skimpy outfits, scowl and penchant for destruction, they quickly got a lot of attention.

At the height of her notoriety, she blew up a car on Tom Snyder's late night TV talk show, jumped out of a car just before it plunged into the Hudson River and somehow earned a Grammy nomination for best female rock vocals.

It wasn't as if the band didn't have talent. The band's Jean Beauvoir later went on to join Little Steven Van Zant's Disciples of Soul group before recording a pair of solo albums and becoming a punk producer of note.

But Plasmatics albums such as "New Hope for the Wretched," "Beyond the Valley of 1984" and "Metal Priestess" never sold well.

Critics'were unrelenting. Jim Green called their 1980 debut album "entertaining for its sheer crassness perhaps, but hardly listenable."

The lyrics, often spoken or breathed by Williams, were about murder, sex and junk culture grotesqueries. An early hardcore punk single pictured Williams chainsawing a guitar in half.

Still, the Plasmatics filled a role in the days between the Sex Pistols and Nirvana. Skimpily dressed with magnetic tape covering her nipples, she played with menacing sexual roles years before Madonna flirted with the same ideas.

Swenson said Williams requested to be cremated. No memorial service was planned.

She is survived her mother and two sisters.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Rock Stars: Long May They Rule!

Wendy O Williams: WOW!

By Matthew Ostrowski

Wendy O. Williams, the former sex-show performer who more than achieved her 15 minutes of fame as lead singer of the Plasmatics, shot herself to death in the woods near Storrs, Connecticut. She was 48.

The Plasmatics was an invention of Williams' Svengali, the pornographer-turned-record producer Rod Swenson. The band was active from 1978 until 1983. The band became notorious for smashing televisions with sledgehammers and chainsawing guitars on stage. As their popularity grew they moved on to bigger game - Cadillacs and lighting trusses. Wendy herself achieved renown for performing in little more than a g-string and electrical tape, leading to prosecution and banning in some places, while also making People Magazine's Best Dressed list and the cover of Vegetarian Times. After their first two records, New Hope for the Wretched and Beyond the Valley of 1984, the punk scene had calmed down too much, and they started pushing the heavy metal market. Metalheads being essentially conservative types and afraid of women, the Plasmatics found themselves a band without an audience, and after a couple of diffident solo outings, Wendy retired from music in 1987, working in natural food co-ops and animal shelters until her death.

Although undoubtedly a cynically-created band designed to exploit the punk-kid-wanker market, the Plasmatics were so crazy that they had a lot of influence almost despite themselves. They brought the speed-metal aesthetic of bands like Motörhead to the punk scene, and without doubt there are many speed-metal and hardcore musicians with copies of old Plasmatics singles with their spines turned backwards in their record collections.

Ironically, Williams killed herself one day after Tammy Wynette's death. Williams recorded Wynette's "Stand By Your Man" with Motörhead's Lemmy Kilmister. And Wendy herself walked a strange line between feminist icon and exploited dominatrix-bimbo, humping microphones on stage one day and promoting vegetarianism and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals the next. The Plasmatics took rock theatrics to a new level of excess while eschewing the slickness of the heavy metal scene. Williams was one of the truly scary women in rock, and paved the way for bands like Silverfish and Tribe 8, although sadly, credit is not given where it is due in rock's puritanical culture.

WENDY AND ME

A Plasmatic Is Dead, and a Nation Mourns

by Ted Rall

"For me, much of the world makes no sense, but my feelings about what I am doing read loud and clear to an inner ear and a place where there is no self, only calm."

* Wendy O. Williams' suicide note

IOWA CITY, Iowa -- Once again, a generation is asking itself where it went wrong. On April 6, former Plasmatics lead singer Wendy O. Williams, now an unbelievable 48 years old, killed herself with a bullet to the head near her home in Storrs, Conn. Friends say the teutonic princess of punk metal madness had failed to find happiness as a wildlife animal rehabilitator; she decided some time ago to kill herself to cure her social irrelevance.

Some irrelevance! Williams received full-length obits in every major publication in America, including The New York Times and People magazine. Acknowledged as a musical precursor to Courtney Love's Hole and the riot grrrl movement of the mid-'90s, Williams proved that a complete lack of musical competence could be amply overcome by a drive to succeed and a willingness to wear nothing but duct tape strategically placed over her nipples.

Critics dismissed such early-'80s Plasmatics records as "New Hope for the Wretched" and "Beyond the Valley of 1984" as sexploitative dross marketed to white pubescent males utterly devoid of musical sophistication. Of course, the critters were right, but they missed the point. Williams' standard act, which involved buzz-sawing a guitar in half -- while it was being played -- was a post-Pete Townshend act of revolution disguised as pre-Judas Priest self-parody, the ultimate statement of knowing irony at the dawn of a period of Reaganist nihilism and a gleeful generational bridge from Boom to X. Williams routinely appeared at packed stadium shows wearing nothing but shaving cream -- the duct tape had begun to take its awful toll -- taunting her loutish audience into dousing her with buckets of water smuggled past unsuspecting security guards. Unlike free-speecher-come-lately Frank Zappa, however, Williams was repeatedly arrested for her insistence on showing off her spectacularly well-toned body; thanks to her we all breathe a little deeper from the sweet beery air of liberty.

Williams' finest musical moments are memorialized on 1982's "Coup d'Etat," a sadly neglected gem that somehow got lost in the shuffle between Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" and A Flock of Seagulls' "I Ran (So Far Away)." Ditties like "Put Your Love in Me" revealed the sensitive side of the singer that her boyfriend, former pornographer/manager Rod Swenson, confided to People: "She was sweet and shy ... very vulnerable and so sensitive."

But with Williams, the music was hardly the point. She was the last of her breed, an icon famous for nothing other than who she was, and who she was was truly frightening. She was the human manifestation of thousands of Marvel-DC superheroines, an ominous titan of massive breasts and developed triceps, the original version of "Star Trek Voyager's" Seven of Nine. Her shining moment in the American cultural zeitgeist occurred with the 1986 release of Tom DeSimone's magnum opus, "Reform School Girls," in which she played the brutal prison archdyke to Sybil Danning's whimpering brunette-gone-wrong. "Let's beat the sh-t out of each other," Williams demands with authority no po-mo dominatrix could muster today. Perhaps it was her face, which was strangely featureless. In any event, what could be a better statement for a nation hell-bent on doing just that during the go-go '80s?

By that time Williams had split up the Plasmatics, finding the legend she had created too artistically confining. She entered a rich period of musical experimentation, releasing the sludge-metal classics "W.O.W." and "Maggots: The Record," as well as a primordial rap effort under the nom-de-guerre Ultrafly and Hometown Girls. Ultimately, the ascendancy of the kinder-gentler Bush era vaporized Williams' place to stand from which to leverage the world, and the proto-punker hung up her ripped leather bras. During the last decade of her remarkable life, Wendy drove to her job teaching cooking at The Learning Annex rather than diving off the stage into the audience. Sometimes she even took the subway.

In 1989 -- I think it was 1989, anyway -- I was riding a downtown "C" subway under Yoko Ono's Upper West Side apartment building when I spotted an older, shockingly used-up woman wearing very, very, very tight tiger-print leggings and a surly expression on her manly face. I knew it was her at once. "Wendy," I ventured, leaning across the aisle, "I just want to tell you that I think you're the greatest. You rule!" "F-ck off, a--hole," she growled, oozing spittle from the right side of her lip. I moved to the next car.

Wendy has joined Sid and Kurt and Stiv, and the world is a little safer tonight.