RIP IN PEACE ARI UP

"When Ari Up was just fourteen years old she formed what was arguably the most important all girl band of the punk era, the Slits. They were a politicised, detuned monster of punky reggae party, marshalled by the unique vocal warblings of Ari Up, who characterised the musical fall out from the venomous spitting of a punk movement defanged by its own pretensions and its subsequent acceptance by the mainstream. The great American music journalist Lester Bangs recalled seeing Ari Up on tour with the Clash in 1977 “In all sorts of rags and a fishnet shawl, high footing around the dance floor like some mix of spider and strutting ostrich.” A better example of Ari’s terrifying individuality is hard to find."