It all got started sometime in 1976. At that time, the band featured fourteen-year-old singer Ari Up (Arianna Forster) and Palmolive (Paloma Romero) on drums, with guitarist Kate Korris (originally of another all-female outfit called the Castrators) and bassist Suzi Gutsy completing the original line-up. After Kate left to form the Mo-dettes and Suzi quit to join the Flicks, Viv Albertine and Tessa Pollitt (who had also played with the Castrators) appeared on the scene. This incarnation of the band is the one most are familiar with, as it was this line-up that supported the Clash during their 1977 White Riot Tour with the Buzzcocks and the Subway Sect. While on this tour, the Slits were immortalized in all their primitive glory in The Punk Rock Movie.

Interesting tangent: For a very short period before the Slits, both Palmolive and Viv were in a band called The Flowers of Romance with everyone's favorite punk poster-boy, Sid Vicious. But, no doubt because he was such an excellent musician himself, a true virtuoso of the instrument known as the bass, he decided to kick them out for an apparent lack of talent...

Their first public appearance was on March 11th, 1977 in Harlesdan. The Slits' aggressive and confrontational sound was most definitely their own: the foundation was a stuttering, stumbling rhythm pounded out with grim determination by Palmolive and accentuated by Tessa's thudding, reverberating bass; choppy guitar chords on maximum fuzz (and always ever-so-slightly off-key) scratched through the racket at irregular intervals like jagged shards of cut glass; and undulating over the whole live, solid mass came Ari's signature wobbly, screeching wails and yelps.

As the Slits continued to play the British pub circuit throughout 1977, it took them a fairly long time to secure a record contract. By the time they finally signed with Island Records in late 1978, Palmolive had left the band to play for The Raincoats. She was replaced by Budgie (definitely a male), who later went on to play for Siouxsie and the Banshees. The Slits' first album was the dub-influenced Cut, which was recorded at Farm Ridge Studios with renowned reggae producer Dennis Bovell. Although this LP is perhaps more infamous for its cover than for its contents, Viv recalls: "Nobody could see the strength, the joke, the little twist that we were all a bit fat."

After drummer Budgie was replaced by Pop Group's Bruce Smith in 1979, the band parted with Virgin and underwent several more personnel changes, reggae musician Prince Hammer and trumpeter Don Cherry (father of Neneh Cherry) lending their respective talents. Meanwhile, with time and experience and lots of practice on their side by that time, the Slits were starting to sound much more cohesive and accessible. During this time they released a series of singles, including a surprisingly accomplished version of John Holt's Man Next Door. Next came the authorized bootleg Retrospective, an anthology of old studio tapes and early live tracks. For their swan song, the band signed with CBS and released The Return of the Giant Slits in 1981. This offering leaned more towards African, rather than Jamaican rhythms, and attempted to ease the Slits towards a more commercial angle. But by that time, the Slits had pretty well run out of momentum and they ended up disbanding at the end of the year.

Regarding posthumous releases, the Slits' Peel Sessions EP, dating from 1977, was released in 1988. More recently, the CD titled In the Beginning was released in late 1997; a compilation of live material, it comprises both the Slits' older songs (in the traditional punk genre) as well as newer compositions (heavy on the reggae, dub and other experimental influences), and spans the period 1977 through 1981.

Slits drawing by Alex Michon (Viv, Ari and Tessa); Dress Up: Art Show at the VOID Gallery, November and December 2000

Interesting news item (received November 2000): [Here is...] some more info about the Dress Up art show at the VOID gallery in London. The show went really well and Alex Michon managed to contact Tessa from the Slits to tell her about her drawings of the band. The show managed to coincide with a re-release of Cut and so this generated a lot of interest. We would love it if you could put some of the pics on your great website. You can find them on the following site http://liketv.com/catfunt/dressup/ ... The Slits pics are under Alex's name (the artist). Thanks, Cathy Lomax