Slits vs. Tom Tom Club

ari up played here recently. it was spectacularly entertaining.

Tom Tom Club were just an amusing little side show to the main Talking Heads event.

The Slits, as Stirmonster rightly says, were one of the bestest bands EVAH!

Yeah, that's pretty much how she was when she opened for the Damage Manual.....affecting a cringe-inducing "Jamaican" accent and exhorting 'NO MORE CREW WAR! at the perplexed audience, while a gaggle of little girls and dreadlocked dancers limply gesticulated behind her.

fwiw Ari seems to have spent the latter part of the '80's and the whole of the 90's living in the wilds of JA; so I wouldn't imagine the accent was affected (cringe-inducing quite possibly, but not affected!).

As for "batshit crazy".... well, yeah, of course, your point is?

Tracer Hand, your thing about seeing The Tom Tom Club was so funny it made them sound really interesting.

Unfortunately the only recordings of The Slits from those days are the Y official bootleg, a couple of John Peel sessions and some rather scrappy live recordings; but the transformation from there to what they did on Cut is extraordinary.

Of course by the time The Slits got a recording contract, they had not only acquired a male drumer (first Budgie then Bruce Smith from The Pop Group) but they also had first Dennis Bovell then Adrian Sherwood helping them to explore their reggae influences.

The Raincoats had a far lower profile at the time (their profile was raised dramatically by Kurt Cobain citing them as a major influence!) and were left to make their own way more, without the level of external (/ male) influences that The Slits had.

That accent is so fucking affected!

I think Michael Jackson's quite a good analogy insofar as (when she's on stage) Ari acts like she's 4 years old - but I can assure you she hasn't "travelled" - she's always behaved like that!

"That accent is so fucking affected!"

Please explain why you think it's affected, preferably by reference to other half-German Londoners who've spent 15 years living in JA.

Bingo!

return of the giant slits is titanic

by contrast, i've been playing "return of the gigantic" all weekend, which is amazing

(i've still got my giant cut wall poster though — the other jazz insects gave it to me as a birthday present!!) (we were produced by d.bovell also — WE PUT IT IN GIANT LETTERS ON THE SLEEVE as he was a million times more famous than us)

I delayed picking up the S/T Tom Tom Club all this time because I thought it would be all "Wordy Rappinghood" and "Genius of Love", and filler. Why does no one give major props to "Lorelei"? Holy shit, what a song, better than the two aforementioned and more well-known tracks. "Lorelei" makes me wish I owned a car again and had somewhere to drive. That bassline!

am i the only person who prefers pleasure of love to genius of love? i always have. don't get me wrong, i love genius of love, but pleasure hits every spot that ever needed hitting. and then some.

The first album has lots of good album tracks. "Lorelei"! "On and On"! "L'Elephant"!

I pulled out Tom Tom Club's Genius of Love today. That is a fucking classic track. My god. One step closer to Grandmaster Flash/Afrika Baambaataa.

I'm going to pull out Blondie's Rapture tonight I think.

I've got Wordy Rappinghood, too though. Fucking classic, man.

am i the only person who prefers pleasure of love to genius of love?

wow, i haven't heard this song in 20+ years. it's good, waaaay better than the man with the 4 way hips which is the only song i remembered from the second record until now.
first record is still genius.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joB2-baMCBg

I love the Slits, but I also love this video

BOOM BOOM CHI BOOM BOOM

http://people.mozilla.com/%7Eschrep/ApplesAndOranges.jpg

tom tom club duh

JJ: depends on what you are looking for. 80's white people paying homage to their 70's funk heros: Tom Tom Club. 70's white people paying homage to their Jamaican reggae/ska heros: the Slits. The only reason this isn't quite apples vs. oranges is its essentially a question of what kind of collegiate (or collegiate by reading) appropriation you prefer.

I guess for me its Tom Tom Club. Funk, for me, is more powerful and more enduring than ska/cod-reggae. But on the whole its a silly comparison. They're both good, in small doses, they both made lousy albums, they're both of their time, they both can be exerpted into a superior late-70s/early-80s mix.

well. the only slits song i can listen to i s "i heard it through the grapevine". so, tom tom club wins.

I'm biased, the Slits are Holy to me; so they win, even though I like TTC.

Their 1992 album Dark Sneak Love Action is, like, really. fucking. good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHmempzqp5Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVVxp89iJWc

Slits were more impt in the history of music vs. Tom Tom Club, who had one or two good songs, and were in a less transgressive genre.
― Orbit (Orbit), Friday, August 15, 2003 5:57 PM (9 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

many things wrong with that sentence. many, many things.
― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Friday, August 15, 2003 5:59 PM (9 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

jess otmfm tbh

This is the thread where mark s talks about how great Return of the Giant Slits is. Convinced me to check the album out for myself; now its one of my favorite of the decade. Slits are amazing.

return of the giant slits is ledge (as my kids would say).
Still have a vivid memory of the first time I heard Peel play this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynVFwk3Ejgc

Their 1992 album Dark Sneak Love Action is, like, really. fucking. good.

Yep!

Anyone wanna share my love of Dark Sneak Love Action? I think that's a totally slept-on disc in their catalog. It's not all great, but years ago I edited out the cuts I didn't like to make a 45 minute cassette, and I used to rock that on the regular.

― I turn it up when I hear the banjo (Dan Peterson), Friday, 23 April 2010 16:42 (2 years ago) Permalink

I'm gonna go ahead and repost this and assert that it is better than "Genius of Love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHmempzqp5Q