When Ari Up, the lead singer of The Slits formerly known as Ariana Forster, who has died aged forty-eight, played with her reconstituted all-female band at Glasgow’s ABC2 venue on May 9th this year, she was an inspiration. This appearance as part of a club tour by Up and co was the latest of several visits to Scotland since the band’s garrulous, mouthy and irrepressible leader brought a new, younger line-up to Glasgow for a Sunday afternoon show half a decade earlier.
Then, as at ABC2, Up proved to be a mother figure for a younger generation of female artists weaned on the 1990s Riot Grrrl movement who were in turn inspired by The Slits. On both occasions Up gave enthusiastic shout-outs for her all-female support acts who embraced the can-do DIY attitude of Up when she formed The Slits aged what must have been an exhaustingly precocious fourteen. On the Sunday show five years ago a band called I Love Lucy were the beneficiaries of Up’s warmth. This summer it was the eight artists known as Muscles of Joy, whose very name was a perfect reflection of the Slits influence.
With a pan-generational band that included original Slits bassist Tessa Pollitt as well Sex Pistol’s drummer Paul Cook’s daughter, Hollie, Up engaged with a natural dialogue with the audience that breached any divide there might have been with her as a performer, even though she looked every inch the Rastafarian warrior princess. Women were invited onstage to sing and dance with Up on a set of Dub Punk classics sired in London and Jamaica’s cross-cultural melting pot thirty years earlier.
One of Up’s earliest visits to Scotland was when The Slits supported The Clash at Edinburgh Playhouse as part of the headline band’s White Riot package tour in May 1977. Sharing a bill with first generation punk acts Buzzcocks and Subway Sect, The Slits were by all accounts a glorious shambles fired along by Up’s attitude as she berated leery men in the audience for their sexism. No matter, because, with no Glasgow date for the tour on account of strict council regulations, also in that audience were Alan Horne, Edwyn Collins and Davy Henderson. Between them they would be inspired to found Postcard Records, Orange Juice and Fire Engines, the Sound of Young Scotland effectively starting here.
More recent female Scottish bands to have drawn inspiration from the Slits are the likes of Sally Skull, The Gussets and Sellotape as well as Muscles of Joy. After the ABC show, several young women in the audience had clearly experienced some kind of epiphany, and even though Up may be gone, she might just have inspired a brand new female revolution.
The Herald, October 2010
ends
Then, as at ABC2, Up proved to be a mother figure for a younger generation of female artists weaned on the 1990s Riot Grrrl movement who were in turn inspired by The Slits. On both occasions Up gave enthusiastic shout-outs for her all-female support acts who embraced the can-do DIY attitude of Up when she formed The Slits aged what must have been an exhaustingly precocious fourteen. On the Sunday show five years ago a band called I Love Lucy were the beneficiaries of Up’s warmth. This summer it was the eight artists known as Muscles of Joy, whose very name was a perfect reflection of the Slits influence.
With a pan-generational band that included original Slits bassist Tessa Pollitt as well Sex Pistol’s drummer Paul Cook’s daughter, Hollie, Up engaged with a natural dialogue with the audience that breached any divide there might have been with her as a performer, even though she looked every inch the Rastafarian warrior princess. Women were invited onstage to sing and dance with Up on a set of Dub Punk classics sired in London and Jamaica’s cross-cultural melting pot thirty years earlier.
One of Up’s earliest visits to Scotland was when The Slits supported The Clash at Edinburgh Playhouse as part of the headline band’s White Riot package tour in May 1977. Sharing a bill with first generation punk acts Buzzcocks and Subway Sect, The Slits were by all accounts a glorious shambles fired along by Up’s attitude as she berated leery men in the audience for their sexism. No matter, because, with no Glasgow date for the tour on account of strict council regulations, also in that audience were Alan Horne, Edwyn Collins and Davy Henderson. Between them they would be inspired to found Postcard Records, Orange Juice and Fire Engines, the Sound of Young Scotland effectively starting here.
More recent female Scottish bands to have drawn inspiration from the Slits are the likes of Sally Skull, The Gussets and Sellotape as well as Muscles of Joy. After the ABC show, several young women in the audience had clearly experienced some kind of epiphany, and even though Up may be gone, she might just have inspired a brand new female revolution.
The Herald, October 2010
ends
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