These included chainsawing guitars, destroying speaker cabinets, sledgehammering television sets and blowing up automobiles live on stage.

He began a series of counter-culture projects which, by the mid-'70s, found him in the heart of Times Square producing experimental counterculture theater as well as video and shows with the likes of the then-little-known bands The Dead Boys, The Ramones, Patti Smith, and others.

[citation needed] Williams and Swenson began auditioning potential band members in 1977 and, in July 1978, the Plasmatics gave their first public performance at what had become the rock shrine CBGB on New York City's Bowery.

[citation needed] From their initial gig at CBGB, the Plasmatics quickly rose in the New York City punk underground scene of the time.

for short) spends most of the Plasmatics' show fondling her family size breasts, scratching her sweaty snatch and eating the drum kit, among other playful events".

[10] Rod Swenson soon made a deal to book what was then a little-known polka hall called Irving Plaza from the Polish War Veterans who ran it at the time.

Having then caught the attention of important people in the entertainment world of New York City, the Plasmatics headlined the Palladium on November 16, 1979, the first group in history to do so at full ticket prices and without a major label recording contract.

Chris Knowles of Classic Rock magazine wrote: the Plasmatics "were the biggest live attraction in New York... and the media was on them like white on rice...

[12][13] Artists and Repertoire (A&R) from Stiff Records flew to New York City to see a show in person to determine if what they had been reading and hearing could possibly be real.

As creative decisions go, Stiff's choice to ask long-time Rolling Stones producer Jimmy Miller to be behind the console for these recordings was not the best.

The Plasmatics visited the UK for a tour, which met with opposition from some quarters including the Greater London Council (GLC), particularly for their intention to blow up a car on stage and Williams' semi-nudity.

To capitalize on the band's popularity, the US edition of the album was packaged with a poster for the canceled Hammersmith Odeon show and an insert for the Plasmatics Secret Service, the official fan club.

Even though it cost virtually the entire advance for the US release of New Hope for the Wretched to do it, Williams was quoted by a reporter from the Associated Press as saying, "It was worth it because it showed that these are just things and... people shouldn't worship them," a point she'd repeat more than once.

[11] In January 1981, Williams' stage performance in Milwaukee led to her arrest on charges of indecency after she reportedly "simulated masturbation with a sledge hammer in front of an audience".

[19] After objecting to being searched she was thrown to the ground and reportedly kicked in the face (later requiring a dozen stitches), with manager Rod Swenson also beaten unconscious when he tried to intervene.

[6][20] A subsequent performance at The Palms nightclub sold out, and passed without incident, although the venue was raided after the show by the vice squad, with more than 30 police officers in attendance in case of trouble.

Bruce Kirkland at Stiff agreed to put up the funds as long as Swenson produced and the album was done in less than three weeks at a quarter of the cost of the first.

During the album's recording, the Plasmatics were booked on Tom Snyder's late night TV show, on which the host introduced them as possibly "the greatest punk rock band in the entire world."

Bruce Kirkland at Stiff was ready to release it and that summer Metal Priestess was recorded at Hartman's private studio off his schoolhouse-turned-home in Connecticut.

[21] In October 1981, the band made an appearance on the Fishin' Musician segment of SCTV on NBC, shortly after the release of Metal Priestess.

She pushed her voice so hard she had to make trips into Cologne, Germany, where the album was being recorded, each day for treatments to avoid permanent damage to her vocal cords.

[6] With Mohawks now starting to become common, Williams decided to let her hair grow in, and the cover Swenson shot for what would be called the "album of the year" in the pages of Kerrang!

After the archetypal minimalism, both lyrically and musically of Kommander, the new album, which would again carry the Plasmatics name, was filled with complexity and returned to the social and political themes previously found most strongly in Coup but also in 1984 before it: environmental decay and a world where excess and abuse led directly to a doomsday scenario.

Called by many the first "thrash metal opera", the central theme of the album is an end of the world scenario that follows from genetic engineering and global warming, something that was not at all part of the general public awareness of the time.

The final scene has Cindy White trying to fight off the attacking maggots and running out onto a fire escape where she sees the crowded streets below as the record shows the entire human population is headed for imminent annihilation.

Williams did a performance piece to inaugurate the album at New York City's Palladium, which had been transformed from a proscenium theater into a huge multi-level club where she sledgehammered and chainsawed to smithereens a facsimile all-American living room.

"Maggots: The Tour" began a week later using the Plasmatics name for the first time in two albums with slogans such as "Those Now Eating Will Soon Be Eaten," "The Day of the Humans is Gone," and lyrics such as "soldiers for the DNA dissidents are put away, dragged off in the dead of night, disappear without a sight".

Williams' vocal work "reduces Celtic Frost's Tom G. Warrior's 'death grunts' to mere whimpers" it went on coupled with "a mixture of hedonistic operatic melodies..gut forged to some of the heaviest armadillo beats you're ever like to hear committed to vinyl."