gordonzola (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gordonzola) wrote2006-11-20 08:28 am
gordonzola) wrote2006-11-20 08:28 am
Entry tags:
The return of the Slits
Maybe I need to stop writing about how busy work is this time of year. Everyone I run into is totally all, "How’s it going?" in hushed tones like I’m trying to survive cancer or something. It’s not really bad. I’m just focused and busy. And a little obsessed. Since I find fun in my obsessions, I’m actually kind of enjoying myself.
I went out after work on Saturday to see the Slits reunion show. It seems it is now my role in life to go see old punk bands and write about it on LJ. It was at Mezzanine which is an ok place despite the fact that it is the only place I ever see bands where I feel like I didn’t put enough effort into my wardrobe. They also have shows where the headliners never go on until after 12:30 or so. I saw about eight co-workers there and we were all complaining that old-timers shows should start earlier. But then again we are all in our time of work which is the Hardest, Most Painful Time that Any Human has ever Survived.*
I don’t even know what to say about the Slits. My feelings about the show were very love/hate. Some songs (mostly the old ones) sounded great. Other songs (mostly the new ones) were… uh… less great. But, as Ari-Up kept saying, "This is not retro! This is Slits 2006!" Lots of songs got played twice at the whim of Ari and some were arranged to be slower and more reggae than the original versions. There was an obligatory old punk song about the power of youth rebellion that was somehow rationalized to be relevant. Ari did a good job of setting up a SF-LA rivalry in terms of yelling and dancing and I have to say that no matter how stupid I know that formulation is, I’m still a Bay Area boy and it gets me every time.
Highlight for me and my co-workers was when they played "Shoplifting" and invited a couple of audience members up on stage. One of them was someone we caught shoplifting at our worker-owned coop and asked not to come back to the store. We laughed, but I’m not sure who’s laughs were bitter and who’s were ironic. The complexity of Ari’s choice of a stage dancer definitely added a layer of intrigue to the song. Not retro.
One of the new guitar players had such an unhappy put on her face that my friend suggested she must be Ari’s daughter. I have no idea if it is true but she looked young enough and certainly seemed to have the pouting teen look down pat. Was it an anti-retro statement about the youthfully cute disdain that we once had for the music of old people?
"Typical Girls" is one of the tone-setting songs for all that would become feminist punk:
Typical girls are looking for something
Typical girls fall under spells
Typical girls buy magazines
Typical girls feel like hell
Typical girls worry about spots, fat...natural smells
Taking fake smells
Who invented the typical girl?
Who's bringing out the new improved one?
And there's another marketing ploy
Typical girl gets the typical boy
Removing any trace of retro, Ari re-invented the song by inviting up "typical boys" to dance with the band while they played. In the moment it was funny and entertaining, especially the geeky-chic dude bowing down to Ari and dancing crazy. But upon reflection and after talking to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
final_girl, it was kind of striking to take a song that attacks the concept of compulsory boy/girl pairings and decorate it with (simulated) heterosexual pairings. It’s a visual interpretation of the song that is much more limited, suggesting that atypical girls should simply find their atypical boy pairing that is waiting for them out there.
Yes, I do overanalyze music. That's one of the ways I enjoy it. As for the show, I had fun when the reggae was minimized and the old songs were played. They actually sounded really good and they were certainly songs I never thought I’d hear live. The Slits were an awesome band and I would fully recommend "Cut" or the "Peel Sessions" CDs if you can find them
But the questions does remain, unfortunately. If this isn’t retro then why are we all so old?
* I do appreciate people’s concern though. I do.
**While looking up some Slits lyrics, I found this incredibly defensive site about how ‘77 punk wasn’t racist. This page might be more embarrassing than the original lyrics.
***I guess I just preferslit to the Slits. At least in 2006.
I went out after work on Saturday to see the Slits reunion show. It seems it is now my role in life to go see old punk bands and write about it on LJ. It was at Mezzanine which is an ok place despite the fact that it is the only place I ever see bands where I feel like I didn’t put enough effort into my wardrobe. They also have shows where the headliners never go on until after 12:30 or so. I saw about eight co-workers there and we were all complaining that old-timers shows should start earlier. But then again we are all in our time of work which is the Hardest, Most Painful Time that Any Human has ever Survived.*
I don’t even know what to say about the Slits. My feelings about the show were very love/hate. Some songs (mostly the old ones) sounded great. Other songs (mostly the new ones) were… uh… less great. But, as Ari-Up kept saying, "This is not retro! This is Slits 2006!" Lots of songs got played twice at the whim of Ari and some were arranged to be slower and more reggae than the original versions. There was an obligatory old punk song about the power of youth rebellion that was somehow rationalized to be relevant. Ari did a good job of setting up a SF-LA rivalry in terms of yelling and dancing and I have to say that no matter how stupid I know that formulation is, I’m still a Bay Area boy and it gets me every time.
Highlight for me and my co-workers was when they played "Shoplifting" and invited a couple of audience members up on stage. One of them was someone we caught shoplifting at our worker-owned coop and asked not to come back to the store. We laughed, but I’m not sure who’s laughs were bitter and who’s were ironic. The complexity of Ari’s choice of a stage dancer definitely added a layer of intrigue to the song. Not retro.
One of the new guitar players had such an unhappy put on her face that my friend suggested she must be Ari’s daughter. I have no idea if it is true but she looked young enough and certainly seemed to have the pouting teen look down pat. Was it an anti-retro statement about the youthfully cute disdain that we once had for the music of old people?
"Typical Girls" is one of the tone-setting songs for all that would become feminist punk:
Typical girls are looking for something
Typical girls fall under spells
Typical girls buy magazines
Typical girls feel like hell
Typical girls worry about spots, fat...natural smells
Taking fake smells
Who invented the typical girl?
Who's bringing out the new improved one?
And there's another marketing ploy
Typical girl gets the typical boy
Removing any trace of retro, Ari re-invented the song by inviting up "typical boys" to dance with the band while they played. In the moment it was funny and entertaining, especially the geeky-chic dude bowing down to Ari and dancing crazy. But upon reflection and after talking to
final_girl, it was kind of striking to take a song that attacks the concept of compulsory boy/girl pairings and decorate it with (simulated) heterosexual pairings. It’s a visual interpretation of the song that is much more limited, suggesting that atypical girls should simply find their atypical boy pairing that is waiting for them out there.Yes, I do overanalyze music. That's one of the ways I enjoy it. As for the show, I had fun when the reggae was minimized and the old songs were played. They actually sounded really good and they were certainly songs I never thought I’d hear live. The Slits were an awesome band and I would fully recommend "Cut" or the "Peel Sessions" CDs if you can find them
But the questions does remain, unfortunately. If this isn’t retro then why are we all so old?
* I do appreciate people’s concern though. I do.
**While looking up some Slits lyrics, I found this incredibly defensive site about how ‘77 punk wasn’t racist. This page might be more embarrassing than the original lyrics.
***I guess I just prefer
slit to the Slits. At least in 2006.
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Blech. I don't like hearing that at all.
Maybe it's for the best that I missed the show. I like to live in a fantasy world where we all keep our fuck-you attitudes in tact, even if that seems stodgy and retro.
And that site ... It's not even so much that it's defensive, it's just ... kind of silly!
'Nazi Baby' by the Vibrators -- A very old Vibrators song. If you take out the word 'Nazi' from the title and chorus there is nothing in the rest of the song that even links it to anything. Nothing more. Mind you why did they call it Nazi Baby? Again though its part of a catchy chorus.
Yeeeaaaah .... Okay. Good point!
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You know, these bands that died young, we got to believe in them without all the evidence of sell-outness that the bands who stuck around eventuially manifested. It's a lot to put of people who were teens when they started bands. It's like what, you didn't have a ten-year plan for the intellectual development of your politics? Of course not.
and hey, at least you also didn't get to hear Ari singing in "patois" either.
But those old records are awesome. You didn't buy their "new" one did you?
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When I saw the Vibrators defense up there, I was remembering how in the 1980s a friend of mine and I used to paint slogans on t-shirts, just things we made up that seemed really hilarious to us as teenagers. Among our peer group, we had a lot of demand for two shirts in particular: "Surf Nicaragua" (this, in c. 1986), and "Would you name YOUR kid 'Muammar'?" (yup, that would be Gaddafi we were referencing).
We thought we were so clever just then, with our limited interpretation of the six o'clock news. We honestly were just cherry-picking, but it seemed so political at the time. We didn't actually think through what statement we might be making -- it's just important to make a statement!
I try to forgive us in retrospect for whatever it was that we might have accidentally been saying with those t-shirts, given that we were landlocked in the Bible belt and be raised by conservative Republicans, but I'm also pretty thrilled that legions of folks aren't putting the analysis into these early creative endeavors of mine.
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so many classics..
When he sees us coming he runs for cover
(sample from "River's Edge": "You don't understand a goddamn thing, do you?...")
"One thing I forgot to mention..."
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Me, too, but you probably guessed that.
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just think of those fat paychecks!
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and the fat profit-sharing check is even a better thought!
"Put the cheddar in me pocket/put the rest under the jacket"
I thought I'd want to see them this time around, but I wonder if it's best left to my imagination. And no Budgie on drums, anyway.
--
* on the inside
Re: "Put the cheddar in me pocket/put the rest under the jacket"
That album is awesome. no 2006 performance can take that away.
They Didn't Pass the Test
I didn't go.
I hate thinking of my youth as nostalgia fodder.
I am pretty sure they are using The Fall for a Mitsubishi commercial these days.
Re: They Didn't Pass the Test
though my co-worker who saw them back in the day said the Saturday show was better(!) and had less bad reggae(!!)so go figure.
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give us more than that though. What was the funniest thing that happened that yu didn't print? How coherent were her answers? do you have a link? Did you go to see them when they played near you?
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And why does she sound German when she talks?
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Which I've just done here.
So...(hushed tones:) How are you surviving the season?
Two Questions.
2) If so, will you be working tomorrow evening when I stop by to pick up said Tofurkey? If so, I'll find you and say "hi".
Re: Two Questions.
definitely come say hi.
Re: Two Questions.