The
Slits and the Raincoats... they had much in common of course. Both formed out
of the punk era, and both became irked by the 'girl group' tag which
made them sound like novelty acts. Yet both came at things from a
place guy groups never would; eschewing heavy riffing, they stitched
songs together from skittering polyrhythms, non-standard influences
and a love of the unexpected. They even traded a member, for
Palmolive swapped her Slits drum stool for one with the Raincoats.
Yet
what really made them so perfectly complementary was how very
opposite they were to each other. By unwritten law
you're supposed to pin all band comparisons to the Beatles and the
Stones. In which case the Slits would surely be the Stones. But a
better comparison might be Can and Faust, with the Raincoats quite
definitely coming in as Can.
While
the Slits came out at you, the Raincoats drew you in. The Slits
appeared to play the boy's game of rock then subverted it, the
Raincoats played their own game from the start. The Slits did the
punk thing of wearing their stage clothes on the street, the torn
t-shirts, the Union Jack knickers and the tampon ear-rings. The
Raincoats did the post-punk thing of wearing their street clothes on
the stage. They're about as different from each other and as vital as
the sun and the moon...
...there's
no point in me telling you any of this really, you might as well play
the two YouTube clips below. It's all in there.
As
I
said much of what I had to say about the Slits after Ari
Up's untimely death two years back, let's concentrate on the
Raincoats from hereon in. Perhaps the key quote about them is Kurt
Cobain's from an America reissue: “When I
listen to The Raincoats I feel as if I’m a stowaway in an attic,
violating and in the dark. Rather than listening to them I feel like
I’m listening in on them. We’re together in the same old house
and I have to be completely still or they will hear me spying from
above and, if I get caught — everything will be ruined because it’s
their thing.” Band member Gina Birch herself commented of the rehearsal-like
quality of their gigs: “it was like
watching a process, which the audience kind of felt they were
privileged to kind of spy in on.”
Their
tracks always seemed murmury and understated. I'd try to turn the
volume up to catch them, but it just seemed to push them further
away. The distant polyrhthyms are like looking at a 3D sculpture from
a fixed angle, you feel like you're only getting a limited part of
it, and that makes you crane in and pay more attention. In the same
interview, Gina also says: “Sometimes, the more secret things are,
the more people want to find out about them.” But,
above all else, there was never a band for outsiders like the
Raincoats. After punk's stridency and sloganising, they were so
gloriously unresolved - musically and lyrically.
I
saw them one, during their Nineties reformation. They ended up having
to soundcheck before the audience, with the gig part starting by Gina
saying “err... we're going to start now.” Of course it got less
rock and roll from there. They were awkward and geeky. And they were
awesome. It was like being in an alternate world
where everything made perfect sense from within, only someone opening
the door and letting in the outer world could break it. I can quite
clearly remember thinking “the sad part is I'll never be able to
explain to anyone just how much all this means to me.”
The
Slits from the glory days, tearing into 'New Town',
Ari as if possessed. (Fast-forward the first minute, which is a scene
from 'Jubilee'.)
Two
tracks from the second (and best) Raincoats album, 'Odyshape.'
The album dates from 1981, so the gig's presumably from a similar
time, though no-one in the comments seems to be sure. With a cut
between the tracks, there's perhaps a hope the whole gig was filmed
and exists somewhere.
...and
finally. The Raincoats from 2009, playing the outsider's anthem
'Lola' with the Slits' Viv Albertine.
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