Miss Black America (MBA) were a punk rock band formed in

Bury St Edmunds Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as Bury, is a historic market town, market, cathedral town and civil parish in Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St.Edmunds and Stowmarket Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – ...

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in 1999 and active until 2006. Following early patronage from

BBC Radio One BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including electronica, dance, ...

John Peel John Robert Parker Ravenscroft (30 August 1939 – 25 October 2004), known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey (DJ) and radio presenter. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly fr ...

, the band received press attention as part of

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

magazine's short-lived 'No Name' scene. They released two albums: God Bless Miss Black America (2002) and Terminal (2005), and recorded four

Peel Sessions John Robert Parker Ravenscroft (30 August 1939 – 25 October 2004), known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey (DJ) and radio presenter. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly fr ...

before splitting in 2006. The band's line-up changed frequently, with lead singer/guitarist Seymour Glass the only constant member.

List of former members

*Seymour Glass – vocals & guitar (1999–2006) *Mat Anthony – guitar & vocals (2002–2006) *Mike Smith – bass & vocals (1999–2002, 2005) *Neil Baldwin – drums (1999–2002) *Gish – guitar (2000–2002) *Ryan Banwell – bass (2003–2005) *Simon Chapple – drums (2004–2005) *Simon Cooper – drums (2003–2004) *Laura Kidd – bass (2006) *Richard Phillips – guitar (2005) *Dan Smart – drums (2006) *Jonny Steele – bass (2003)

Post-Miss Black America

Baldwin, Smith and Gish played together as My Hi-Fi Sister from 2003–2006. Glass, Baldwin and Smith played together as Ten City Nation from 2007–2012. They released three albums. Seymour Glass released a solo album, ''Import/Export'', under the moniker 'Open Mouth' in 2007. He has contributed guitars to the second album by former

The Dawn Parade The Dawn Parade were a British rock band from Bury St Edmunds formed in 2000. Greg McDonald was the main songwriter, and also provided vocals and guitar. The band performed 200 gigs in the UK and received critical acclaim from ''Rolling Stone' ...

frontman

Greg McDonald Greg McDonald is a British singer-songwriter who announced the forthcoming release of his debut solo album in 2008. He was the frontman of The Dawn Parade, a Bury St Edmunds based British indie band. He is the main man in contemporary folk band ...

; bass guitar for

country A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, while the ...

band The Blazing Zoos, alongside journalist

Andrew Mueller Andrew Mueller is an Australian-born, London-based journalist and author. He is a contributing editor at ''Monocle'', and also regularly writes for ''The Independent'', ''The Independent on Sunday'', ''The Financial Times'', ''Esquire'', ''The G ...

and members of Jesus Jones; and guitar and piano for singer-songwriter Lewis Mokler . He currently plays guitar with three-piece indie-rock band Horse Party and in artist/musician Kate Jackson's touring band The Wrong Moves. Gish has continued to record and release as a solo artist and producer, latterly under the moniker Hypermagic. Mat Anthony has since been involved in

drum & bass Drum and bass (also written as drum & bass or drum'n'bass and commonly abbreviated as D&B, DnB, or D'n'B) is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by fast breakbeats (typically 165–185 beats per minute) with heavy bass and sub-ba ...

project Baron Greenback, fronted

hard rock Hard rock or heavy rock is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard ...

outfit Alita's Curse, and played lead guitar with singer songwriter Elena and hard rock solo artist Curran. Laura Kidd is a music producer, solo artist and YouTuber working under the nam
Penfriend
She previously worked as a session musician (playing bass for Tricky,

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and Duncan James), filmmaker and photographer and released four-and-a-bit solo albums under the name

She Makes War Laura Kidd is a record producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist releasing music and podcast episodes as Penfriend, and formerly known as She Makes War. After releasing four full length albums between 2010 and 2018, She Makes War was formal ...

between 2010 and 2019. Performing solo on electric guitar, ukulele and loop pedal she has toured supporting

Chris T-T Chris T-T (born Christopher Thorpe-Tracey, 16 September 1974) is a retired English singer-songwriter based in Brighton. In a 20-year career he released 10 studio albums, two live collections and a number of collaborations. He is also a speaker, ...

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and

Viv Albertine Viviane Katrina Louise Albertine (born 1 December 1954) is an Australian-born British musician, singer, songwriter and writer. She is best known as the guitarist for the punk band the Slits from 1977 until 1982, with whom she recorded two studio ...

as well as performing with

and Carina Round. Richard Phillips and Neil Baldwin played together briefly in The Khe Sanh Approach in 2005, before forming three-piece rock band The Vitamins in 2011. Simon Chapple and Gish currently play together in Bury St Edmunds-based hip hop collective Scare The Normals. Simon Cooper and Gish currently play together in Bury St Edmunds-based metal outfit Men of Munga.

Releases

Singles

*"Miss Black America EP" (2000, CD only) (Self-release) *"Adrenaline Junkie Class-A Mentalist EP" (2001, CD only) ( R*E*P*E*A*T Records) *"Don't Speak My Mind" (2001, 7" only) (Dental Records) *"Infinite Chinese Box" (2001, CD/7") (

Integrity Records Integrity Records is an English independent record label based in Bedford, England. The label was founded in the early 1990s and specialises in discovering new bands in the Rock music, rock/independent music, indie/punk rock, punk genres. His ...

) *"Talk Hard" (2002, CD/7") (

) *"Miss Black America" (2002, CD/7") (

) *"Drowning By Numbers" (2003, 7" only) ( R*E*P*E*A*T Records) *"Beautiful Velocity" / "All I Want Is Out" (2003, 7" only) ( R*E*P*E*A*T Records) *"Dot Dot Dot" (2005, CD only) ( R*E*P*E*A*T Records) *"Drowning By Numbers" (2005, CD only) (Ruby Slippers Records) *"Emotional Junkmail" (2006, 2-part CD only) (Ruby Slippers Records)

Albums

* '' God Bless Miss Black America'' (2002, CD/vinyl) (Integrity Records (UK), Syft Records (Japan)) * ''Terminal'' (2005, CD only) (R*E*P*E*A*T Records) * ''Terminal'' (2005, CD only) (Re-Issue, Ruby Slippers Records)

References

External links

Miss Black America official MySpace page

Miss Black America official Facebook page

Miss Black America official website on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine

Miss Black America on Radio One's John Peel subsite

Interview with Seymour in 2010
{{DEFAULTSORT:Miss Black America English punk rock groups