RECUTTING SLITS HISTORY.Byline: Fred Shuster Music Writer The Slits, one of the first British punk groups, came together in the mid-'70s when 14-year-old Ari-Up met drummer Palmolive at a Patti Smith concert and agreed to sing with her band. During the next few years, the Years, The the seven decades of Eleanor Pargiter’s life. [Br. Lit.: Benét, 1109] See : Time girl group made some of the wildest noises in British punk, toured with the Clash, infamously posed topless (but caked in mud) on the cover of their major-label debut and grew from a raucous, abrasive punk band to a convincing dub-reggae ensemble. By the beginning of the '80s, the Slits had slipped into the history books, leaving two albums and a handful of memorable 12-inch singles in their wake. Now, in the most unexpected reunion since the Gang of Four regrouped last year, Ari (Ariane Forster), original bassist Tessa Pollitt Tessa Pollitt (born on 1st January 1959) was the bass guitarist for the punk rock outfit, The Slits, between 1976 and 1981, when the band finally dissolved. She returned to the band when it was reformed in 2006. and four new Slits (Palmolive left the group almost as quickly as she joined) are set to appear tonight at the Troubadour troubadour One of a class of lyric poets and poet-musicians, often of knightly rank, that flourished from the 11th through the 13th century, chiefly in Provence and other regions of southern France, northern Spain, and northern Italy. in West Hollywood West Hollywood A community of southern California northeast of Beverly Hills. It is mainly residential. Population: 36,600. . Backup vocals are handled by Hollie Cook, the 20-year-old daughter of Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook
Paul Cook, born on July 20, 1956, is an English drummer and former member of the Punk rock band Sex Pistols. . Punk pantheon ``Tessa called from London and said we should get the Slits back together,'' explained the Munich-born Up, who lives in Kingston, Jamaica The City of Kingston is the capital and largest city of Jamaica. It is located on the southeastern coast of the island country at Coordinates: . , and still wears her Medusa-like mop in several feet of tangled dreadlocks dread·locks pl.n. 1. A natural hairstyle in which the hair is twisted into long matted or ropelike locks. 2. A similar hairstyle consisting of long thin braids radiating from the scalp. . ``The songs haven't really dated. They're still relevant. But we want to keep going forward. We don't want to be some sort of retro band.'' The Slits couldn't be retro even if they knew how. Their groundbreaking debut album, ``Cut,'' considered alongside records by the Sex Pistols, the Clash and the Gang of Four among the greatest punk albums of all time, still sounds as fresh and intriguing as it first did in 1979. Produced by veteran reggae bassist and bandleader Dennis Bovell Dennis Bovell (born 1953, Saint Peter, Barbados, West Indies) is a reggae guitarist and record producer. He was a member of the British reggae band Matumbi, and released dub-reggae records under his own name as well as the pseudonym 'Blackbeard'. , ``Cut'' was sparked by the imaginative drumming of Peter ``Budgie'' Clarke, who later joined Siouxsie & the Banshees and married the group's leader. The album's punky punk·y n. Variant of punkie. Noun 1. punky - minute two-winged insect that sucks the blood of mammals and birds and other insects biting midge, no-see-um, punkey, punkie reggae rhythms Reggae Rhythms is a Reggae radio station on Sirius Satellite Radio channel 97 and Dish Network channel 6097. Reggae Rhythms moved from channel 32 to its current location on February 14, 2007. , spiky guitar, and Ari-Up and Pollitt's tribal call-and-response vocals, set off witty, tuneful songs about heroin abuse (``Instant Hit''), stereotyping (``Typical Girls''), consumerism (``Spend, Spend, Spend'') and poverty (``Shoplifting''). ``We were surrounded by dub and reggae music where we lived in West London,'' Pollitt says. ``It didn't seem unusual to try to play it ourselves. We heard reggae everywhere we went -- every party, every club, every gig.'' One early Slits fan was Green Gartside, leader of the British post-punk outfit Scritti Politti, who recently blew through Los Angeles on tour. ``Whenever I go down to my local (pub), I put them on the jukebox,'' he said. ``They were a great band with a lot of personality. It's music that lifts you up, whatever your mood.'' Post-punk life During the Slitless years, Ari-Up and Pollitt had kids and mostly stayed out of music. Ari (whose mum, Nora, is married to John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten) resurfaced in the mid-'90s, doing cameos on others' albums, and releasing a solo album, ``Dread More Dan Dead,'' just last year. Pollitt still lives in West London's perennially hip Ladbroke Grove enclave, doing reflexology Reflexology Definition Reflexology is a therapeutic method of relieving pain by stimulating predefined pressure points on the feet and hands. This controlled pressure alleviates the source of the discomfort. at a center for alcoholics and drug addicts. For the current tour (early members Palmolive and guitarist Viv Albertine declined to participate), Ari and Pollitt are accompanied by two guitarists known simply as Adele and No, plus drummer Anna Schulte and singer Cook. The set takes in originals from ``Cut'' and the band's second album, 1981's import-only ``Return of the Giant Slits,'' along with covers of the reggae classics ``Man Next Door'' and ``Revolution,'' and numbers from the new Slits EP, ``Revenge of the Killer Slits.'' Asked if she was enjoying herself on the road in the U.S., Pollitt was positively chipper chipper Drug slang An occasional user of illicit drugs. See Recreational drug use Tobacco A popular term for a person who smokes < 5 cigarettes/day, who may be resistant to nicotine dependence or addiction, and often born to non-smoking parents. . ``It's so great to be out of London and in a place where you can actually see the horizon,'' she mused from a sunny Arizona highway on a day when the weather back home was gray, rainy and cold. ``You can spend your whole life never seeing the horizon. It's good to see it.'' Fred Shuster, (818) 713-3676 fred.shuster@dailynews.com THE SLITS Where: Troubadour, 9081 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood. When: 10:15 tonight. Tickets: $20. (213) 480-3232. ticketmaster.com. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Original Slits members Tessa Pollitt, left, and the dreadlocked Ari-Up have reassembled their '70s London punk band to make an EP called ``Revenge of the Killer Slits'' and go on tour. Says Up: ''The songs haven't really dated. They're still relevant.'' |
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