Entertainment For Lively Minds
the slits - on tour again
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.
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there's a new album out too: "Trapped Animal" which (as my mate, another long-time slits fan, remarked) actually sounds like it pre-dates "cut" with it's infectious reggae punk enthusiasm...
old favourites were aired, alongside newer ones, including some bird-calls during "earthbeat", from their second album "return of the giant"
this could have been a nostalgia night, old punk heroes turning up to belt out some hits... but it felt like nothing of the sort, with ari-up's athletic stage presence and paul cook's very talented daughter on drums!
the set ended, and both original members came back for an encore, and did a freestyle spontaneous song with one of the audience members.
even the bouncers were smiling by the end of it all...
Love The Slits,
still waiting for the Word Mag 20 page retrospective, maybe now is the time with all this new activity? They were, I reckon, seriously underrated, and hugely influential. The first time I ever heard Bjork with the Sugarcubes, it reminded me of Cut. Ahhhh - heady days!
seriously underated...
is about right.
Cut was as important as "metal box", in terms of it's radical sound but a lot of people don't get past the album cover.
"return of the giant" still sounds like miles davis playing in a jungle.
i heard them a week ago, and i still can't believe how good they were.
tessa pollit is still a great and hugely under-rated bass player...