Finally. The wild and wonderful story of The Slits is now available on paper. Zoe Street Howe was responsible for this one, for which she’s spoken to people like Keith Levene, Don Letts, Dennis Bovell (who produced Cut), all four members of The Slits and other key characters. She also displays a vital and warm understanding of what exactly made The Slits so special: their kookiness and candor, their sense of adventure and their inventive sound.
Here’s them doing their reggae-punk best on Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” – a fantastic, fantastic cover.
“Their real potency lies in their freedom of thought, their creativity, and the determination they had to go their own way and be themselves without playing up to ideals, to try new things bravely and joyously, with humour and a sense of fun, as opposed to anger. Anger is an energy, of course, as John Lydon would say, but it’s refreshing to also see the honesty, oddness and sheer glee these people had in experimenting musically without fear of judgment, the result would always be their own sound, which often sounded as if it had come from space as much as it did the streets of west London.” – Zoe Street Howe