That Lora Logic and Poly Styrene would loom so large in my view so much later on, like two car windshields in a vast parking lot angled just right to catch the setting sun as I watch from an apartment balcony, could not have been anticipated at the time. I don't even think I knew of their connection until a decade or two later. I had a friend who bought whatever the British music papers raved about -- not a bad strategy at the time -- and lent me vinyl to impress me. I flipped through those papers while visiting him, but I was too distracted by the music.
These two women, adding their furious energy to that of the time, what might they have accomplished if they had been able to continue to work together? And how improbable is it that, after breaking apart and achieving brief success leading their own groups, they would both give it all up and, separately, each join the Hare Krishnas?
Greil Marcus made the choice that I unconsciously did, choosing the one that was less popular but more memorable, writing of Lora as the one to watch. He was to be disappointed. I didn't know enough to be. Music came to me in dribs and drabs, pre-Internet, pre-iPod. I had this one memory of an album, a recording in an obscure tape format, but mostly an impression to sustain me through the years before CD rereleases. I had someone better connected than I search, and later played the EP version of "Wake Up" for a class, knowing it was futile, that they couldn't understand the minor miracle of this song in an era when one can wallow in sound all day long.
It isn't possible to forget, now.