I Heard It Through The Grapevine / Liebe And Romanze
Debut 12″ release from The Slits, less Palm Olive who had left to join The Raincoats by the time of this recording. Budgie from The Spitfire Boys came down from Liverpool and drummed on these sessions, and then stayed for a while.
Two killers and two, well, fillers. The top ranking tracks are ‘Typical Girls’ and ‘Grapevine’. These are sublime and should be played over and over. The other two tracks are unfortunately poorer than the previous two, but it is a high bar to reach the excellance of ‘Typical Girls’ and ‘Grapevine’!
A picture of the girls to make up for the slight disappointment for the two fillers…
THIS POST HAS BEEN BROUGHT FORWARD FROM ITS ORIGINAL POSTED DATE 26/04/08 DUE TO THE SAD PASSING OF ARI UP SOMETIME ON 20/10/10 AT THE YOUNG AGE OF 48.
THIS IS WHAT ARI UP HAD STATED ABOUT THE KILL YOUR PET PUPPY BLOG
Ari-Up Says:
August 2nd, 2008 at 3:01 am
Hello – Ari from The Slits here – just wanted to drop a note to tell ya how impressive your site is.
I just spent 2 hours reading an bringing back sum insane memories – your blog is spot on and one of the few sites on early punk that i just did not skim through. Me an my son just stumbled on to this site and glad we did!
With help from son – I know barely how to do a thing on computers – we are downloading lots of music I have not heard in years!
The Slits we soon be touring with Nina Hagen in Germany for a few gigs in the cumming months.
Cheers for your excellent blog
Ari
HIGH PRAISE INDEED. BLESS HER AND THOSE SHE HAS LEFT BEHIND
Below is an orbitury written by Jon Savage for The Guardian newspaper
When I saw the Slits in 1977, Ari Up would howl, scream and hitch up her clothes. No audience had ever seen a young woman behave like this on stage. And like the best punk rock, she had a gleeful desire to shock and outrage
Ari Up, whose death from cancer has just been announced, was an extremely powerful energy force – a trailblazer who embodied the punk spirit. As singer and co-writer in the Slits, she completely redefined what a woman in music could do and – in the ethos of the time – opened up possibilities that would be explored by herself and many others in the years to come.
The Slits erupted during their appearance at the Harlesden Coliseum in March 1977. Like many groups at that time, they were learning as they went along: the performance was chaotic and violent. But no one had seen young women behave like this on stage: enacting a flagrant parody of sexuality, at the same time seemingly tougher and more disturbing than the other (male) groups on the bill.
I loved seeing them in 1977 and 1978. The shows became more coherent, but there was always this edge of chaos – which added to the excitement. Visually, drummer Palmolive was fantastic: standing up to play, beating the crap out of her set in thundering, tribal patterns. Bassist Tessa Pollitt stood stock still and watchful, while guitarist Viv Albertine prowled the stage like a tiger.
Up front, Ari howled, screamed, toasted, crooned, skanked, hitched up her clothes, pulled at her bird’s nest hair, and generally behaved in a most un-lady-like fashion. She was confrontational in person and on stage, but her courage went hand-in-hand with a gleeful, teenage desire to shock and outrage that was a major impulse in punk.
The Slits found it difficult to assimilate within a conservative, male-dominated music industry. The songs became clearer, and when you listened, they were tuneful, witty and extremely sharp. One masterpiece was FM – recorded for a John Peel session in 1977 – which tackles the insidious psychic effects of the mass media. It ends with a radio sweep that includes Union Gap’s salacious Young Girl.
By the time the Slits recorded their first album in 1979, they were a completely different band from their thrash beginnings. Produced by Dennis Bovell, the reggae-infused Cut is justly celebrated as a landmark statement that includes strong songs such as Newtown, Shoplifting and, of course, Typical Girls – an enduring manifesto for young women who seek to reject the norm.
Punk has now become so familiar that people forget its primal, revolutionary drive. For a brief period, everything had to be new. If it hadn’t been done before, do it: why not? What’s to stop you? Ari Up enacted this impulse on stage, on record, and in person into the 21st century. In any language, this was heroic, and I salute her for that: I’m sorry she’s gone.
Sam
December 16, 2009 at 8:13 pmIt’s too bad I’m living.
Cowuption!
Cowuption!
alistairliv
December 16, 2009 at 9:15 pmTonyEhrfucht – Viv Albertine played the Splitting the Atom gig (featured on this very site) in November – and we have the photos to prove it
http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb227/killyourpetpuppy/Nowadays/Splitting%20The%20Atom%20gig%20Nov%2009/VivAlbertineonstage1.jpg
From Viv’s website “After The Slits I went to film school. Didn’t drop out. Directed stuff for about ten years. Made some money not art. Now making sculpture and writing / recording / performing my own songs.”
I don’t think she is living in a luxury mansion in the Hollywood hills.
TonyEhrfucht
December 17, 2009 at 11:52 amCheers Alistair. Wish I could have got down to that, would have been great to see her play. Far from being rich, I am quite definitely broke tho and couldn’t afford it argh. I have seen Ari Up and the True Warriors live a couple of times in the last few years and they were fantastic. Would be good to see the new line-up of The Slits too.
Em
August 3, 2010 at 10:14 amhave you ever seen a promo film by don letts with interviews of the slits and videos from the songs of cut? i believe it’s called “the slits” or “wannabe a typical girl”….
Tom T
October 22, 2010 at 2:30 amTo date, i am still the only person I have ever known here in Los Angeles who actually saw The Slits on their original 1980 tour.
I am heartbroken by the death of this woman (I’ll always think of her as a kid sister of sorts) who taught me more about what it was like to be a woman than all the ten zillion other female singer/songwriters combined.
My poor wife when we first met had to live under the big poster of The Slits nude and covered in mud which came with the original US Typical Girls 7″.
I’m spinning the tunes now and grieving for the loss of the beautiful Arianna, as well as huge hunk of my own youth.
While I never got to see them in their ‘Punk’ incarnation (1977-79), I can tell you that the band I saw was far more challenging than anything else I was seeing or hearing from anyone else at the time.
My thoughts and mutual feeling of sorrow and grief go out to all of Arianna’s friends and family.
Thanks for letting me vent…
Penguin • Post Author •
October 22, 2010 at 8:54 amTom, nicely written, some of the US tour recordings are on this LP here:
https://killyourpetpuppy.co.uk/news/?p=4300
If you are interested, also both New Age Steppers LPs are on this site if you search for them using the search function. All the best.
tat
October 22, 2010 at 9:17 amR.I.P
ARI UP.
Heres a link to help remember her by a strange syncronocity I found it the day before her sad passing http://luckypsychichut.blogspot.com/2010/10/slits-once-upon-time-in-living-room.html
tat
October 22, 2010 at 9:23 amoops just started to read the comments its already been submitted sorry about that.
Typical Girls: Farewell Ari Up « The Singles box from back to front
October 22, 2010 at 9:24 am[…] , and found this single because of the sad news about Ari Up. For a nice view of this single go here, to Kill Your Pet Puppy. The copy I have only has Typical Girls and Heard it through the grapevine […]
Carl
October 22, 2010 at 2:23 pmSorry to hear about this.
R.I.P
DJB
November 7, 2010 at 4:19 pmBabylonian won’t lose much!
To everyone freaking about music being ‘free’ or should it be paid for, may I remind you all of the C30 C60 C90 Go! ethic at that time?
And as Ari herself sang on Shoplifting:
“Put the cheddar in the pocket
Put the rest under the jacket
Talk to the cashier, he won’t suspect
And if he does…
Do a runner!
Ten quid for the lot
We pay fuck all
Babylonian won’t lose much
And we’ll have dinner tonight
Do a runner!
Camera’s trying to watch us
Mirrors and TV
But they’re not gonna catch us
‘Cause we’re gonna gonna gonna run run run
Do a runner!
Run!
Ten quid for the lot
We pay fuck all
Babylonian won’t lose much
And we’ll have dinner tonight
Do a runner!
Run!
(I’ve pissed in my knickers)”
Cheers Ari!
Nick Hydra
May 24, 2023 at 12:48 pm08/10/79
“Who invented the typical girl?/ Who’s bringing out the new improved model?/ And there’s another marketing ploy/ Typical girl gets the typical boy”
Never a big fan of the Slits, but I really like this.
There’s a really funny bit in Viv Albertine’s book, where she makes a big deal that they didn’t swap the genders when they covered this, obviously not realising that the Marvin Gaye version is a cover in which he swapped the gender.
The dubs aren’t very good. For a dub to work there has to be enough of the original song for it to still be a song. This is just ‘pissing about with the mixing desk’