Siouxsie Sioux, right, accepting a Peta
humanitarian award at a 2006 ceremony.
Courtesy of www.peta.org.uk.
By Todd Lavoie
Oh, 50 – it ain’t no thing. Just ask Siouxsie Sioux, the reigning queen of ice-water stares and sublimely detached vamping just hit the half-century mark this May, though you’d never guess it. Fifty, schmifty! I just read a recent interview with the punk/goth/you-name-it icon, and the former Susan Dallion listed off three biggies for keeping the ole middle-age uglies at bay: plenty of water, lots of fresh produce, and a pure blistering hatred of air-conditioning.
She’s lived in the South of France for years and years now – universes apart from the suburban drab-drab of her Bromley, England, upbringing – and she attributes the change of locale to her apparent eternal youthfulness. Proof? Ah, well, peep away at the artwork for Siouxsie’s first-name-only-darling solo debut, Mantaray (Universal), and tell me that’s not one of the most stunning fifth-decade women you’ve ever seen! So what if she’s beddin’ down with beetles, bees, and butterflies? I’m dazzled!
And do I spot the cracks of a smile on that face, eyes peering upwards and outwards into some warm light beaming down upon her? “Nah, can’t be,” you say? Go on, look again. Call me crazy, but that looks like optimism to me – oh, the Goths will be so disappointed.