THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

PUNK PIRATES were a punk rock band from Fryup, North Yorkshire. Their debut single, We Are Punk Pirates, reached number ten in the UK charts in October 1985, despite being widely denied radio airplay. Their debut album, We are Punk Pirates – Now Fuck Off! made number twenty despite also being withdrawn from sale in many record shops. The band’s second single, Seaside Semtex, reached number six in the singles chart. Following the disappearance and presumed suicide of lead singer Johnny Pitcairn in December 1986, the band announced it was splitting up. However, with Pitcairn’s former girlfriend Mary Celeste on lead vocals, it returned in 1987 with a UK tour and a second studio album, Leopard Girls. The album reached number twenty-five in the charts; an eponymous single reached number twenty.

Pirates/unpub

Seirra Leone – so named after a misspelling on a map of local shipwrecks – danced and shook a tambourine on stage during the band’s shows. Leone caused controversy by appearing naked on the original cover of the band’s first album, We are Punk Pirates – Now Fuck Off! at the age of sixteen. Initially, Leone performed on stage wearing her school uniform, and went on to sport a series of increasingly bizarre and risque outfits, including being body-painted as a smurf, and wearing a ballgown made entirely from see-through bubble-wrap, which she invited audience members to pop. The band’s 1986 US tour was curtailed two minutes into the opening gig at the Four Queens casino in Las Vegas, when Leone defied prior warnings by appearing on stage covered only in whipped cream. Federal agents invaded the stage and arrested Leone for gross indecency; the remaining band members were also detained for inciting a subsequent riot that left ten people hospitalized. Charges were dropped in return for the band immediately leaving the country.

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