THE SLITS - CUT @ 45

Celebrating its 45th anniversary today is the debut LP by The Slits, Cut, which was released on September 7th, 1979. It's an album that would highlight the core of the "girl power" substrata inherent in the punk and post-punk scenes of the era, with a collection of distinctive and innovative songs, influenced and infused by dub reggae and underlined by the DIY idiosyncrasies of the culture.

The band originally came together in late 1976 after founding members Viv Albertine and Palmolive had a stint earlier that year in the mythical Flowers of Romance, a band that never performed live or recorded, but which had a revolving door of notable members who included the likes of Keith Levene (The Clash, Public Image Ltd), Sid Vicious, Marco Pirroni (Adam & the Ants, Siouxsie and the Banshees) and Kenny Morris (also a Banshees member). The impetus for The Slits formation was an October 1976 Patti Smith gig attended by Ari Up, Palmolive and early member, Kate Korus. Ari had got into an argument with her mum, future wife of John Lydon, Nora Foster, before being approached by Palmolive and Kora with the idea to form a band. After an initial lineup shuffle, the principal early lineup stabilized with Ari, Viv, Palmolive and Tessa Pollit.

This configuration of the group spent the next couple of years performing and touring, mostly as a support act, often with bands like The Clash, Buzzcocks or The Jam as headliners. Their early sound was characterized by the dominance of Palmolive's primal, tribal aggressive drumming style. However, after she left the group late in 1978, joining The Raincoats by January of 1979, the addition of future Banshees drummer, Budgie, had a profound effect on the band's sound. His style helped to push them into the more refined, bass heavy dub reggae influenced sound that would be their calling card by the time they got to recording their debut LP.

Recorded at Ridge Farm Studios in Rusper and produced by Dennis Bovell, the album was a proper fusion of punk and reggae, two musical styles which had intertwined throughout the previous few years, without being a case of cultural appropriation. What the group took as influence was a sincere hybridization, rather than a case of white people ripping off black music. It had its own originality and distinction that was completely idiosyncratic to The Slits. Provocatively packaged in a cover showing the band's female members topless, covered in mud and sporting loincloths, it was a thumb in the eye to the concept of sexual exploitation and, rather, was a proclamation of female empowerment, with the album's title, as it was, being but one letter shy of obscenity. These girls weren't anyone's playthings or victims, and were in complete control of their creative process and what it manifested.

Cut's mark has been noted on several musical movements. The Guardian's Lindesay Irvine saw the album explore "adventurous" sonics while maintaining a "defiant" attitude. This included a full embrace of Jamaican music influences, with which he credited the Slits as one of the first bands to do so. Indeed, PopMatters felt that Cut spoke to post-punk's appropriation of dub and reggae clearer than any other of the genre's records. While only modestly successful at its release, it has become enshrined as one of the essential albums to have come from the UK punk scene of the late 1970s. It may have taken some time for the band to get a record on the shelves, but it sure was worth waiting for.
 

INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - THE BOLLOCK BROTHERS, NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS 1983

The scene surrounding the Sex Pistols was a complex patchwork of different crews and a lot of them ended up spawning their own bands, whether it was Siouxsie and the Banshees form the "Bromley Contingent" or The Slits or any of the dozen bands that popped up from Manchester. Closest to home, the scene behind Johnny Rotten was primarily John's close friends and his brothers and their mates. First to emerge from this crew was 4" Be 2", fronted by Jimmy Lydon and featuring occasional contributions from Martin "Youth" Glover and alleged production assistance from Rotten himself. The other main character involved in this was Jock McDonald, a somewhat disreputable scallywag of a character who would go on to form The Bollock Brothers as a side project, which eventually became his main outlet.

I'd previously come across some singles by both 4" Be 2" and The Bollock Brothers based on this supposed production involvement of John Lydon. As it turned out, slapping his name on the records as producer was little more than a sales ploy. Some of it was pretty good, however, but in 1983, McDonald concocted his best "swindle" of all, his 1983 complete reinterpretation of the entire Sex Pistols debut LP, Never Mind the Bollocks. Titled, Never Mind the Bollocks 1983, this was one of the first times I'd ever encountered a complete cover of an entire album, so my curiosity was immediately piqued as soon as I spotted it in the new releases bin at my local import records shop.

What Jock had done with the Pistols music was tantamount to sacrilege by using very early digital sampling technology to electronically recreate the album in a kind of robot-punk style with snappy, machine-like drum machines and digitally deconstructed guitars. He even took the liberty of reworking some of the lyrics as another level of disrespect. The thing was, this utter and complete disregard for the sanctity of the source material turned out to be the best way to approach it as the album still screamed with a legitimate "punk" attitude because of this stance. In truth, punk should never be treated with too much reverence as so much of it was about blasting away those edifices of rock hero worship.

When I put on the record for the first time, I was immediately displaced by the cheap sounding fake digital stomping signalling the intro to Holidays in the sun. It was like a shoddy computer version, a pathetic imitation. As it went on, however, the consistency of the production and it's singularity and commitment to its vision drove home its secret power. It was the ultimate subversion of the subversive, making a comment on the commodification of the movement while recasting it as rebel robot music.

McDonald and the Bollock Brothers never managed to hit this height again on subsequent albums of his own original material, but the fact that this desecration of punk's sacred cow exists at all is good enough to remind us not to be too precious about what we put on pedestals.

POP DOES PUNK - IGGY'S FOUR STEPS TO CREDIBILITY

The following reviews were originally posted on my Facebook timeline, but I figure they're a significant enough bit of writing to warrant a more permanent placement here on this blog. As I've been editing and reading through these, I've done a bit of work to fill things out and fix up some things that may have been fine for social media, but don't really cut it for this context.

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I recently watched the new Iggy Pop produced 4 part docu-series, PUNK. Watching it brought me back through a lot of the music of my youth, which inspired me to write down a few thoughts.

The first episode starts things off by covering the genre's American roots in Detroit with bands like The MC5 and The Stooges before moving over to the east coast to The New York Dolls. These bands set the stage in the late '60s & early '70s by breaking away from the fuzzy freakishness of the hippie era and delving into something much more dark and primal. Among the three of them, you have the Stooges bringing the rawness and simplicity that would be the foundation of the sound, the MC5 laying down some political awareness and the Dolls bringing in a warped sense of fashion and outrage. Pretty much the perfect building blocks of what was to come.

From there, we move into the CBGB's scene with artists like Ramones, Blondie, Wayne/Jane County and Richard Hell. There's a few references to The Dead Boys and Dictators as well, but, disappointingly, no mention of Suicide, Talking Heads or Patti Smith. This, unfortunately, leaves a few noticeable holes in the narrative, but what they do cover is dealt with well enough. The interviews are generally very informative and give a solid sense of the evolution of the scene.

This first part culminates with the failed attempt to revitalize The New York Dolls by Malcolm McLaren and ends with him hightailing it back to London to try to put a band together utilizing the scruffy boys hanging about in front of his clothes shop. Obviously, they're building the bridge to the second episode by showing the migration of influence from New York to London. I suspect the producers are trying to show a chain of causality from one scene to another and, indeed, there is some lingering controversy in terms of who influenced who and who originated "punk". And though it can be said that NY/US scenes came first, there's something else I got from all of this laying of groundwork.

You can see how the scene in NY was so much a case of a lot of fuel piling up, but no spark to ignite it all. All this stuff was going nowhere by the mid 70s and this is stated as much in the first episode. It was only known by a small group of local hipsters and had no national presence. If it had ended there, if there had been nothing happening in London, I suspect we would never have heard of bands like Ramones or many of their contemporaries and people like Pop and the Dolls would have been no more than mere footnotes in the history of rock & roll. There just wasn't any "buzz" to drive a national, let alone global, awakening towards this music. It's not until the Sex Pistols come along and capture the attention of the global mass media that the match is put to the woodpile and the flames really go up.

This brings us to the second episode, which puts the focus pretty heavily on the Sex Pistols, as expected. However before that, there is a wonderful bit that deals with the role of women in punk and that was a real treat. The Slits were the main focus, which featured interviews with founding members Palmolive and Viv Albertine, who both offered unique insights into their involvement and evolution within the scene.

As an aside, I must add that it's surprising how many people didn't get interviewed for this, but I suppose you get who you can in this sort of production. The Damned and the Clash also feature significantly with Dave Vanian offering some perceptive contributions, but only having Terry Chimes representing The Clash was a bit disappointing. He was never a particularly significant member and didn't frankly care much about the politics or the deeper themes the band were known for. Either Paul Simonon or Mick Jones would have had a much better understanding of the band and their impact.

However, as I said, this second installment was very much the Sex Pistols show and with good reason. It's hard to comprehend how weird it was for a band like the Pistols to create such a media frenzy. Not that we aren't saturated with sensationalism now, but to have it driven by a bunch of guys with guitars is nothing short of surreal. Nobody really cares about musicians these days. Sure, you've got people like Kanye driving tabloid sales, but it's all no more than a trash fashion fixation and not that sense that the world has been seized by the "anti-Christ", which was a very real perception of Johnny Rotten in some circles. The fact that this little band could spend a week in America at the beginning of 1978 and upend the music industry in the process is rather inexplicable and unprecedented. That crazy little tour made "punk" a household word. John Lydon does most of the talking for this particular piece of the punk puzzle and, while he can come off as rather arrogant in some instances, more often than not, the points he's making are quite valid, if you take the time to look at things objectively. And while this second episode didn't have quite the narrative cohesion of the first, it did eventually work its way into the death throws that were the Pistols breakup and Sid's self destruction, which wrapped it up with a tidy, though bloody, bow.

Episode three shifts the focus back across the Atlantic and to the US scenes again, starting in NY, moving to DC and finally LA, with a welcome aside to good ol' VANCOUVER! I was very happy to see DOA feature so prominently and deservedly for their pioneering work establishing touring resources and routes for many other bands to put to use in those days. We also have representation from groups like Bad Brains, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys and a few others. However, this is the part of the story where my interest drops away pretty steeply as the emphasis on violent male aggression becomes the primary calling card of the day and leads far too quickly into the whole "skinhead" and white supremacy cultures.

This is the slippery slope you slide down when you are perceived as an excuse to kick heads instead of kicking ass. It is clear to me that people like Henry Rollins and Jello Biafra are true intellectuals who are capable of understanding and insight and I love hearing their perspectives, but I can't help but express some kind of frustration and disparagement for the way that what they did paved the way for Doc Martin wearing racist thugs to give voice to their hatred. I don't want to put this all at their feet, but some of it has to land there given the types of crowds they attracted.

But I also can't point the finger only at the punks for allowing this faction into the fold. The Industrial and Neo Folk scenes are just as guilty of inviting this sort of rubbish along for the ride as anyone else. Shock tactics, violence and extremism offer ways to jolt people out of their complacency, but they're a double edged sword and people are often too seduced by their sadistic impulses into treating these things as sensational ends in themselves rather than a means to alerting people of the dangers of herd conformity and ignorance.

It becomes destruction for its own sake, but the true spirit that started this movement was about breaking down walls and restrictions in order to move forward. This is why the majority of the originators of the sound moved on to more experimental and investigative approaches after the initial rush of nihilism had blasted a path clear into something new. But those who chose to stay in the rubble and keep smashing at the fragments only managed to dig themselves into a hole of brutish self destruction. You can't simply be content with that one act of rebellion. You have to be able, and willing, to build once you've knocked something down.

The fourth and final episode brings things home by starting in the early 90s with the shift from "hardcore" to "grunge" and then examines its infiltration into the mainstream music industry and finally wraps up with the decimation of the industry caused by the internet and pirating. Again, we have a much welcome section at the start which looks at the significant role of women as the grunge scene counteracted against their seeming exclusion by the often misogynistic hardcore culture. These forays into the feminine contribution, while welcome, also serve to highlight how desperately we need a documentary series that focuses on the ladies and their contributions to alternative music. I'll put it out there to the universe that someone like Patti Smith needs to do a take on this.

The overarching theme to this finale, however, comes down to that fine line between art and commerce, for as much as "punk" wants to be rebellious, it also wants to succeed. If the Ramones had been able to crack the marketplace the way Green Day did, they would have been thrilled for it. They ALWAYS fancied their songs as hit singles. You can't tell me they wouldn't have been on cloud 9 if they'd had a hit like Dookie. The fact that their songs eventually became iconic, finding eternal life as sports anthems and the like, only means they were right about the accessibility of what they were doing. Their timing was simply off.

Success can also be a curse, however. Fame is often poison for the soul. Popularity creates a kind of insulation around a person where they're suddenly surrounded by parasitic "yes men". Once that happens, reality warps into some distorted fantasy supported by people who will never tell you the truth or say "no" to whatever you ask for. As is pointed out, when "cool" things become popular, they lose their "coolness". It's a challenging balancing act to be progressive without being trendy. It's the difference between those who are true seekers on the edge of experience vs those who merely seek validation for the act of being ahead of the curve when they really have no understanding of why that has any value in the first place. Are you cutting a new path or just sweeping up the discards of those who have trodden one that's already well worn?

Beyond this, there is this essence of wanting to break free. I've seen it repeat itself the past 50 years, over and over again. Whenever there's an awakening to the realities of oppression and restraint and a desire to break free, this spirit crops up again.  Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam, is a wonderful documentary that gives an excellent example of this process happening in the Arab/Islamic world and shows how intrinsic it is to human nature.  I think, as long as there's someone trying to keep a lid on the human spirit, there's gonna be some kids somewhere who are going to pick up a guitar or a synth or a microphone and say "fuck your bullshit". It'll take new forms, but that desire to smash through the walls will always find some expression somehow.

All together, I think this series does a pretty commendable job of showing the origins, evolution, history and future potential of what has become (sometimes regretfully) labeled as "Punk" rock.  It gives us a clear insight into an elemental aspect of human nature unique to the 20th and 21st centuries.  It's something which is a response to our industrialized, technological civilization which, on the one hand, seeks to advance humanity while, simultaneously and conversely,  trying to stifle it and force it to conform to a kind of artificial homo-geniality which is contrary to its basic nature and therefore inspires rebellion and protest.