Not Much Longer

One of my favourite cover versions- I Heard It Through The Grapevine by The Slits. In 1979 The Slits released their debut single, the exhilarating, spiky, punky Typical Girls. The Slits were original punks, London living waifs and strays who found themselves energised and then unleashed by punk. Dennis Bovell produced them, bringing some heavyweight reggae skills to their untutored, learning- on- the- job sound. 

Their cover of I Heard It Through The Grapevine is a blast, off kilter dub punk, a version with entirely its own spirit and energy. Singer Ari completely re- imagines Marvin Gaye's impassioned vocal, turning it into something very different- the infidelity that Ari has heard about has empowered her, transforming the song. 

I Heard It Through The Grapevine

Budgie played drums on their album and on Typical Girls but here the drums by Max Edwards (who played with Zap Pow and Soul Syndicate as well as on a slew of recordings with The Heptones, The Ethiopians and Augustus Pablo). The Slits version of I Heard It Through The Grapevine never quite does what you expect it to, it's got a life of its own, the hmmm hmmmm backing vocals are loose and the wayward rhythm keeps the listener on their toes, the bass and drums almost sliding around. 

V.A. Saturday

Another V. A. Saturday, another Soul Jazz compilation- this one a 2001 post- punk/ punk- funk/ industrial party with the demob suits and short back and sides groups from the UK in the late 70s and early 80s. In The Beginning There Was Rhythm has action from the regional outposts of the punk funk/ industrial scenes, from Manchester (two ACR songs, Shack Up and Knife Slits Water) and Sheffield (The Human League's Being Boiled and Cabaret Voltaire's Sluggin' Fer Jesus) and also the London based bands 23 Skidoo, Throbbing Gristle and This Heat.

The title track is a song by The Slits, originally a 7" single released by Rough Trade and Y Records in 1980, The Slits on one side and Where There's A Will There's A Way by The Pop Group on the flip. 

In The Beginning There Was Rhythm

It's a spindly, scratchy and idiosyncratic five minutes, the bass and beat bumping along and Dennis Bovell's dub production at the fore, Viv's abstract guitar and bursts of piano and Ari stopping every now and then to declare, 'Silence is a rhythm too'.

The Pop Group's She Is Beyond Good And Evil is also on the CD, a 1979 single with Mark Stewart using the language of unconditional love as an act of revolution, romance and politics bound together with some dub bass, wire scratch guitars and reggae drums. 

She Is Beyond Good And Evil

From Bristol to Leeds and Gang Of Four's thumping, atonal, driving racket, the 1981 song To Hell With Poverty, a song that dances in the face of having only a fiver in your pocket until Giro day/ pay day, 'To hell with poverty/ We'll get drunk on cheap wine'.

To Hell With Poverty

We finished school for the summer holiday yesterday, six weeks off working stretching out ahead of me, thirty one years of teaching completed and like Jon King and Gang Of Four, cheap wine tonight's option. 

Cool And Deadly

Jean 'Binta' Breeze, Jamaican dub poet and storyteller, died a couple of days ago aged sixty five. Jean's poetry took her around the world, her performances described as 'a one woman festival'. Her 1991 album Tracks was produced by Linton Kwesi Johnson and Dennis Bovell, a proper pair of UK dub/ poetry heavyweights, and opened with this- forty nine seconds of street smart, earthy, Jamaican poetry.

Dubwise

If you're anything like me the first time you'll have heard this poem (or two excerpts from it) will have been on this record also released in 1991 where Andrew Weatherall sampled Jean and sent Saint Etienne and Neil Young to dubbed out splendour. 

Only Love Can Break Your Heart (A Mix Of Two Halves By Andrew Weatherall)

''The DJ eases a spliff from his lyrical lips and smilingly orders... 'cease' ''

RIP Jean 'Binta' Breeze

Take My Advice Now Hear You This

Steve Cobby, Dennis Bovell and Jimmy Brown have recorded together as BBC and since the start of the month have been offering Quality Weed for your enjoyment. This is serious stuff, heavy duty Jamaican rhythms and sonorous, chanted vocals from Mr Bovell, deep and dubby with instrumental and remixed versions. The remix version, which picks up the pace a bit, is currently my favourite. Quality Weed will be available in a physical format in September but in the meantime you can buy Quality Weed from BBC's page at Bandcamp.

English Black Boys

I'm keeping the reggae riddims riding for Factory Friday with X-O-Dus, a Moss Side reggae band who released a single for Factory way back at the start. Produced by Dennis Bovell English Black Boys is a wonderful slice of politically conscious roots reggae. X-O-Dus played the Russell Club where Rob Gretton saw them and recommended them to Factory, with Tony Wilson and Alan Erasmus jumping at the chance to release a 12", although various delays meant that English Black Boys and the B-side See Them A Come were recorded in 1979 but not released until 1980. Wilson managed to get Bovell to man the controls, who was riding high having produced records by The Slits and The Pop Group. X-O-Dus played several Factory nights including sharing the stage with Joy Division, Durutti Column, The Distractions and ACR. They gigged regularly, got played repeatedly by John Peel but this was their only release during the band's lifetime.

English Black Boys

Giant Return

I'm interrupting the run of clothes themed posts today but, don't worry,  they'll be back.

The Slits second album, 1981's Return Of The Giant Slits, is a step on from Cut. Full of African sounds alongside their Jamaican interests it lacks the clearly post-punkiness of their debut but takes in a wider variety of sounds and is fuller, wider, worldlier (and WOMADier). It is also less scratchy, less sought after, less celebrated. Return... was produced, like Cut, by dub reggae man Dennis Bovell. It seems very much less '79 and more '81. It is also, as far as I can tell, out of print here and has been for some time. Second hand copies on popular internet selling and auction sites are offered at anywhere between twenty-two pounds and fifty-nine pounds. Uh?!

Luckily, if you can put up with Youtube's lo-fi uploads, it is available for listening to.



Tracklist...
Earthbeat
Or What It Is?
Face Place
Walk About
Difficult Fun
Animal Space/Spacier
Improperly Dressed
Life On Earth

Yesterday Dub

No not Sir Paul. Steve Mason, ex of The Beta Band, released an album last year- Boys Outside- that has been thoroughly reworked and dubbed up by Dennis Bovell (legendary British reggae man who also worked with The Slits and Orange Juice). Mr Weatherall provided two dubs of Boys Outside which were pretty much my favourite tracks of last year. Now Mr Bovell takes Steve Mason's haunting original songs and adds horns, dub bass and lashings of echo, as shown here. Very, very good and highly recommended.

Yesterday Dub