All-girl punk band, 1976-81. Became famous for not being able to play their instruments, despite the fact that they obviously could. Hit high point with two excellent sessions for John Peel (both in Peel’s personal top ten sessions of all time) and superbly-produced dub-crossover opus Cut. The cover of the latter featured the band topless and caked in mud (‘They couldn’t see the joke,’ whined guitarist Viv Albertine. ‘The fact that we were a bit fat, I mean...’). Only real low point came with excruciatingly evangelical ‘In The Beginning There Was Rhythm’, an ad-libbed abomination about nothing.

Scary under-aged German singer Ari Up, who wore Silver Jubilee knickers over her tights and had a wank on Whistle Test, is now John Lydon’s step-daughter. Equally scary drummer Palmolive currently plays in a Christian rock band called (prepare to wince) Hi Fi and is now called Paloma McLardy. Tessa Pollitt (which sounds like a rubbish punk moniker, but is actually her real name) works in martial arts, while Viv Albertine is a film director. They’ve all got kids.

The Slits were magical. But anyone who says they were the forerunners of girl power will get a kick up the cunt.

Johnny Rotten’s stepdaughter, like he fucking deserves her

The Slits’ radical feminist agenda allowed Ari Up to simulate a double-entry wank on the telly

The first example is the song ‘So Tough’, which is clearly an attack (affectionately or otherwise) on Sid Vicious, who - prior to The Slits’ inception - had sacked drummer Palmolive and guitarist Viv Albertine from his early band The Flowers Of Romance. Johnny Rotten doesn’t get off lightly either. ‘You have fun and experience/Nothing he does ever makes sense/Sid is only curious/John don’t take it serious’ sang Ari, while the others sarcastically chorused ‘So tough!’ and ‘So strong!’ to mock his supposed machismo. On the album version (released seven months after Vicious’ death), both ‘Sid’ and ‘John’ were replaced with an ambiguous male pronoun (‘He is only curious..’ etc).

The reference to Sid hanging around with someone who’s a ‘good fuck’ (hitherto broadcast on the second Peel session) was changed to a non-sweary alternative for the LP, which seems odd. Was it an artistic decision by The Slits to tone down the venom in the song? The LP version is considerably softer in other ways too, with the reference to ‘needle marks and shooting up’ changed to ‘ice cream and cherry cheesecakes’.

In general, it remains unclear what Radio 1’s policy was concerning expletives at this time. ‘Shoplifting’ (from the first session) was victim to very obvious censorship on the line ‘Ten nickers [sic] for the lot, we paid fuck all’, where Ari slurred ‘we paid ffff...all’ instead. The Peel Sessions version also contains the line ‘Mr Paki won’t lose much’, which may take listeners aback slightly, and this was changed for the LP to ‘Babylon Yen won’t lose much’. The original line was almost certainly a result of naivety on the group’s part (in the same tradition of Siouxsie Sioux’s swastika armbands), although Palmolive’s handwritten lyrics refer to ‘Mr Packy’, which could have been the name of a King’s Road boutique for all we know.

The other contributing factor to the change in ‘Shoplifting’ may have been the presence of black producer Dennis Bovell. The Beatles and Billy Preston anyone?

[NOTE: Punk rock is a minefield of edit news, none more so than in Julien Temple’s The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle (1979) where (a) they couldn’t get clearance for the Bill Grundy Today interview (1/12/76) and so replaced the intended clip with a crude, jabbering voice-over and the caption ‘CENSORED BY THAMES TV’ in lieu of visuals, and (b) someone somewhere got worried by Sue Catwoman’s prepubescent muff and so decided to obscure it by drawing on a pair of electronic pants. Meanwhile, Sid Vicious wandering around the Jewish quarter of Paris in a swastika t-shirt to the horror of the inhabitants (a nasty piece of film-making, unfair to everyone...including the pretty vacant Vicious) didn’t phase anyone. By the way, an audienceful of twentysomethings at the test-screening for Temple’s Pistols biopic The Filth And The Fury (2000) were confused by the references to Silver Jubilee celebrations, believing them to be something to do with the London Underground. Whether Temple will re-cut the film to allow for their ignorance remains to be seen.]

Ari Up demonstrates static electricity. And rubs her tits.

7" single: "TYPICAL GIRLS" (b/w "I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE")Island WIP 6505 (September 1979)

Viv Albertine gobs at a Rod Stewart LP, then points at said handiwork

12" single: "TYPICAL GIRLS (BRINK STYLE)" (b/w "I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE" & "LIEBE AND ROMANZE")
Island 12WIP 6505 (September 1979)

Album: "CUT"
Island ILPS 9573 (LP; September 1979)
Island IMCD 89 (CD; April 1990)

Instant Hit [2’41]
So Tough [2’39]
Spend, Spend, Spend [3’15]
Shoplifting [1’34]
FM [3’32]
Newtown [3’46]
Ping Pong Affair [4’14]
Love Und Romance [2’25]
Typical Girls [3’59]
Adventures Close To Home [3’23]

Total running time: 32’01

Tessa Pollitt and Palmolive - friends forever

7" single: "IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS RHYTHM" (b/w "WHERE THERE’S A WILL" by The Pop Group)
Rough Trade/Y RT 039/Y-1 (March 1980)

Album: UNTITLED aka "BOOTLEG RETROSPECTIVE"
Rough Trade YY3 (LP; May 1980)

An official - and genuinely untitled - album, designed to look like a bootleg. The sleeve was completely white, and the song titles were scrawled crudely on the inner label. The Slits, being nice middle-class girls, obviously hadn’t seen many bootlegs or they’d have realised that said LPs always feature really elaborate designs and a neatly-typed tracklisting. Like this one, in fact::

*Alternate title for ‘Vindictive’ (See Peel Sessions)

7" single: "MAN NEXT DOOR" (b/w "MAN NEXT DOOR (VERSION)"
Rough Trade/Y RT 044/Y-4 (June 1980)

Viv Albertine and Ari Up. And people still think Travis are important?

7" single: "ANIMAL SPACE" (b/w "ANIMAL SPACIER")
Human HUM 4 (November 1980)

7" single: "EARTHBEAT" (b/w "BEGIN AGAIN RHYTHM")
CBS A 1498 (August 1981)

12" single: "EARTHBEAT" (b/w "EARTHDUB" & "BEGIN AGAIN RHYTHM")
CBS A 131498 (August 1981)

Album: "THE RETURN OF THE GIANT SLITS"
CBS 85269 (LP; October 1981)

with 7" single: "AMERICAN RADIO INTERVIEW" (b/w "FACE DUB"), also incorporated onto cassette release

We could only find a white label version of this one, which pissed us off because, y’know, we wanted to know what was on it.

It’s this, anyway:

*New mix, incorporating both ‘Animal Space’ and its instrumental flip side. Fans could now enjoy a fade-out chorus that didn’t fade out! And a bit in the middle that went ‘boing’.

EP: "THE PEEL SESSION 19.9.77" (First session)
Strange Fruit SFPS 021 (EP; January 1987)

Vindictive [2’24]
Love And Romance [2’14]
Newtown [3’28]
Shoplifting [1’29]

Total running time: 9’35
Recorded 19 September 1977; broadcast 27/9/77
Producer: Tony Wilson

Mini album: "THE PEEL SESSIONS" (First and second sessions)
Strange Fruit SMFPA (Mini LP; November 1988)
Strange Fruit SMFPACD 207 (CD; November 1988)

As above, plus:

So Tough [2’17]
Instant Hit [2’29]
FM [3’31]

Total running time: 18’13

Recorded 17 April 1978; broadcast 22 May 1978
Producer: Tony Wilson

Note. A third Peel session was recorded on 12 October 1981 for transmission on 26 October: ‘Difficult Fun’, followed by ‘In The Beginning There Was Rhythm’ and ‘Earthbeat & Wedding Song’ (two segued tracks?). Neneh Cherry was on backing vocals, with Bruce on drums, Steve on keyboards and Sean on bass (2 tracks only).

Album: "IN THE BEGINNING: A LIVE ANTHOLOGY, 1977-81"
Jungle FREUD CD 057 (CD only; October 1997)
A compilation, plundered from bootlegged material.
Recorded at Dingwall’s, London (6/9/77):

Vindictive [3’00]
A Boring Life [3’00]
Slime [2’26]
Newtown [4’04]
Love & Romance [2’43]
Shoplifting [1’51]
Number One Enemy [2’04]

This performance appears to be unedited, and is recorded - worryingly well - in stereo. Ari Up (who announces that she has changed her name to Ari Peat) complains that she cannot hear herself sing, to which an off-mic fan implores ‘But you sound great!’.

Acoustic home demo (featuring Nina Hagen):
Number One Enemy [2’03]

German television masturbatress Hagen’s connection with The Slits is ambiguous, but this demo was recorded in Nora Forster (Mrs Up)’s living-room. It prematurely fades out, presumably depriving us of ‘Shall we switch it off now?’ or ‘Tea’s ready, girls’ laffs.

Recorded in Cincinnati and San Francisco, 1980:
In The Beginning [6’05]
Newtown [4’29]
Man Next Door [7’12]
Grapevine [3’30]
Typical Girls [4’08]
Fade Away [3’41]

Recorded at the Hammersmith Palais, December 1981 (with Neneh Cherry):
In The Beginning [12’15]

Total running time: 62’51

TV & film appearances :

Something Else (BBC2, 1978)
The Old Grey Whistle Test (BBC2, 1980)
Slits Pictures (Dir: Don Letts, 1977; 25m)

Clip shown on Peel Night, with ‘Shoplifting’ overdubbed (BBC2, August 1999)

Typical Girls: Promo video (1979; 5m)

Dancing In The Street: ‘No Fun’ (BBC2, 1996; 50m)
includes 34-year old Ari Up, interviewed under a palm tree

Women In Rock (1980)

Jubilee (Dir: Derek Jarman, 1978; 100m)
The Slits (credited as ‘Street Girls’) knock the shit out of an abandoned car.

Something A Bloke In Camden Told Us About (1978)
Introduced by Michael Palin with the words ‘It’s…The Slits!’. Not really. The bloke said it featured three live performances anyway. He said he had his own copy, but it’s not something he gets in very often. Still, he previously sold us an American Derek & Clive sampler so what are we complaining about?

The Punk Rock Movie (Dir: Don Letts, 1977)
Rehearsal of ‘Number One Enemy’, and live performances of ‘Vaseline’ and (in a school hall) ‘Newtown’. Also footage of Ari on tourbus with various stray members of The Clash.

Interspersed between the rehearsal footage is the following dialogue:

PALMOLIVE She’s fucking useless, right. She’s crap, she can’t play…

ARI She can’t play proper…she doesn’t know what she’s doing, and then she takes the fucking drugs, right? I mean, she doesn’t concentrate, she doesn’t try. But, you know…she doesn’t even try to play the bass off the records, y’know. She’s not into reggae, she hasn’t one reggae…

VIV Not one scrap of equipment…

PALMOLIVE We got it…

VIV We bought it for her…

PALMOLIVE Yeah, we wanted to show her, we pursed her, we thought we’d try one gig with her…

ARI And she doesn’t even listen to a record. When she doesn’t try to play the bass off the record, it’s really important…

ARI God! She goes on like this, if she’s at a gig, like, fuckin’ hell, I…oh, I dunno…

CRYSTAL Is it Nick?

VIV Yeah.

PALMOLIVE No…it’s not anyone’s…

ARI Have they come after you?

Viv Albertine takes time out from her radical feminist
agenda to smile nicely for the camera