IF there were never slits

Well, Yoko Ono and the B-52s were functioning

You're way off beam here, Mike.

Speaking as someone who saw both Slits and Sugarcubes in their prime (the former is one of my fave bands ever), I can't see even the slightest connection. As magnetic as Bjork undoubtedly was back then, the Sugarcubes were to all intents and purposes a formal rock band. Something the Slits, by no stretch of the imagination, were. The Sugarcubes roots were in their former band of Kukl, or however you spell it, whose roots were more in the early noise/dub formulaism of Annie Anxiety and the Crass label experimentalists.

Slits had barely any influence on music. That's kind of obvious, right? That's why there's so much crap around.

Also, Kleenex were far more similar to Kukl.

Well, ok, but all I'm saying is this collection of slits stuff I just got sounds mighty like Byork and the Renegades

I saw the Slits New Years Eve 1980 in NY. I was up front and transfixed 'cos I loved their records. After a while I turned around to see most of the crowd had left!

Alas - they crashed the system too creatively which why no-one ever got them. I recall a great bootleg interview of them (shortly after Palm Olive left) with some US station that was absolutely hysterical. Fans and critics would ask serious questions and get answers back in screams, stomps and grunts. Brilliant!! Bjork and co did have similar intent, but they didn't have this sense of outrageous play that the Slits had.

Fuck... any of you who saw the Slits.

I don;t know, the odd drumming, the voice style, the sparseness...sounds like sugarcubes

Well, sure, this isn't a link to a Slits performance, but if you're itching to see Ari Up strut her stuff, click here for the Punkcast archives.

I'd like to say fuck y'all that saw any of them there "seminal" punk / post-punk bands. Seeing Wire last year was interesting and "cool", I guess, but a little underwhelming. (SLIGHTLY underwhelming, mind you - I came in with ridiculous expectations.)

As far as the topic at hand - I have a hard time finding common ground between the Sugarcubes' forced hyper-quirkiness and the Slits' casual strangeness. Must be the cheeba - loosened Ari & friends up something good.

I never appreciated Motown until I heard The Slits do "I Heard It Through The Grapevine." One of my all-time favorite performances.