it's a punky reggae party!
headed down to digbeth, to the rainbow pub last night to see "the slits" perform.
it's been 30 years now, since their seminal "cut" album was released, and it's been re-released(again... i have a previous cd version of it, with a couple of extra b-sides thrown in), now with additional demos and the likes... sounds worth buying all over again(singer ari-up was at pains to point out that the demos exhonerated them from the myth that they couldn't really play and that it was all down to the producer.).
i was there when it first came out, heard "typical girls" on david "kid" jenson's evening indie show on radio 1... and the next day was in the record shop handing over my pocket money for the album... it was a revelation for me, punk energy and dub-reggae gloominess, lots of shouting... liberating - i fell in love with the album!
with the band's associates of the highest punk royality: guitarist viv was dating mick jones, ex-drummer palmolive dated joe strummer, singer ari-up's mum marrying johnny rotten, budgie drumming on the album... "cut" is the perfect partner itself to Pil's "metal box", only slightly madder, and dare i say poppier!
there is even one song about keith levine on there...
"he is a boy, he's very slim..."
a few years later when i got myself a gig as a dj, i would slip the odd slits song into the usual early 80's alternative sounds... and they would boom out with this BIG dub bassline that i'd never experienced with my crappy little home stereo... i like to think i converted a few people on those nights.

but here we all are, 30 years on... older but none the wiser, and i'm standing in a pub surrounded by old punks, crusty types, young hipsters in PiL t-shirts and lots of earnest young people who weren't even born when i was hunting down copies of the slits "first" proper album "Y3" on the vinyl grapevine back in the far-off pre-internet days.

first up were support band "the courtesy group"
http://www.myspace.com/thecourtesygroup
local noise merchants, sounding like a pissed-off version of the pixies, at times... which is definately a good thing!

the slits came onto rapturous applause, and even though there are only two original members, Ari and Tessa... with a crew of talented instrumentalists, they sound better than ever.

just listening to Our Swimmer... great track, backed on the 7" by Midnight Banhof Cafe.
surely one of the UK's great underated bands of the 80's, seeing as they never appear on any retrospectives?

all this talk of the shads elsewhere in the forum, got me thinking about instrumentals, and what i like about them.
mostly it's the lack of singer(obvious) but perhaps it's that musicians put more into an instrumental track than they would with a vocal...
i've long admired those cool reverby songs, with sneaky basslines and plenty of tremelo(as well as heavy dub instrumentals from sly&robbie), even preferring the ventures over the shadows(this has caused me grief in the past).

but what other style/genre of instrumental do people on here like?
there's some good stuff by the high llamas that springs to mind(from a few years back)....
here's my current favourite track, which is a brand new one by the space cadets: