Ari Up the Essence of Punk - Bede's Beat

Five years ago, on October 20, 2010, Ariane Daniela Forster -- better known as "Ari Up" -- died of cancer in Los Angeles. She was only 48 years old.

Ari was the very essence of punk. After divorcing her German father, Ari's mother, Nora Forster, moved with Ariane to London and married John Lydon -- who was then in his "Johnny Rotten" incarnation -- making him Ari's step-father. Their household became a focus of intense musical and artistic activities of all sorts during the intensively creative period that followed The Ramones' first tour of the UK in 1976. That tour produced what is now referred to as "first generation punk", as well as "second generation punk", a term which covers bands such as The Buzzcocks, The Clash, The Ruts and The Slits, who were inspired by bands such as The Damned (the first band to record a "punk" single, "New Rose") and The Sex Pistols, which formed in reaction to The Ramones' 1976 tour, to DIY ("Spiral Scratch", the first Buzzcocks EP, was self-produced and self-distributed, which sparked an explosion in DIY labels and projects).

Despite her youth, Ari was an enthusiastic participant in all of this activity, co-founding the seminal punk band "The Slits" at the age of 14, after being taught to play the guitar by Joe Strummer and immediately beginning to compose music to accompany her poetry. Although The Slits are known as the first all-female punk band -- an all-female five-piece founded when Ari met former members of Flowers of Romance and The Castrators at her mum's place -- over the course of their career as a band, their line-up did include some men, including Budgie, who later became famous as the drummer for Siouxsie & The Banshees, and his and his wife Siouxsie's side-project, The Creatures.

As you can hear in "Typical Girls", Ari brought a dub influence to The Slits -- even persuading her band mates to have legendary reggae producer and bassist Denis Bovell produce their first album, "Cut", 1n 1979 (with a teenaged Neneh Cherry on loan from Rip Rig + Panic contributing backing vocals) -- which made them the perfect touring companions for The Clash in the late 1970s. Ari's flamboyance as a performer is well captured in Wolfgang Buld's 1980 documentary "Women In Rock", only a very short clip of which is available online.

Ari's irresistible energy -- and that of the early punk scene -- is featured in a 5-minute segment from another documentary, "Raw Energy", shot in 1978 and released in 1979 -- which alternates between live performances and interviews.

The Slits also made an unforgettable appearance in the 1978 "The Punk Rock Movie", trashing a bloke's car. The live portion of the footage of The Slits in performance included in the movie was shot in 1977 by Don Letts, most famous as a movie-maker and photographer who documented the birth and death of the original punk movement, who was also a member of Mick Jones' post-Clash project Big Audio Dynamite.

One of my favorite post-Slits side-projects of Ari's were her recordings and appearances with Adrian Sherwood's New Age Steppers -- who have been described as a "post-punk reggae supergroup" -- and which was/is comprised of many of the British-born "usual suspects" from the On-U stable of artists and produced by Adrian Sherwood. Here she is performing a reggae standard "My Guiding Star" with The New Age steppers.

Ari's best-selling hit as a solo artist was her infectious "Mi Done" from her 2005 album "Dread More Dan Dead."

Here is a more mellow dubwise version of "Me Done" with the lyrics delivered at a slower pace, recorded live by Ari Up & her band True Warriors live on the radio station that has done more to broaden my musical horizons than anything else in my life, WFMU, the world's oldest free-form radio station.

The Slits reformed in 2006, although Ari was only one of 2 original members to participate in the reassembly. For their initial EP, they recruited Paul Cook, who drummed for The Sex Pistols, and Marco Pirroni, who is best known for being Adam & The Ants lead guitarist and co-writer of most of Adam Ant's 1980s-era hits. As Narnack Records documented at her last label's website, the last project she worked on -- a video for The Slits' song "Lazy Slam" -- was released posthumously at Ari's request.

Sign of the Month - October 2015

A Planned Parenthood #PinkOut. Notice the men in the crowd who came to help out. Real men, gay and straight, heart women.  

Women vote. Do the Republicans know that Women have the vote? 

Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House? The "rape is just a method of conception" guy? Oh hell no. 

Rock'n'fucking'roll's Greatest Rhythm Guitarist - Bede's Beat

John William Cummings, better known as "Johnny Ramone," was born on October 8, 1948. The original members of The Ramones each took the surname Ramone to display their solidarity, unity and equality. The name was suggested by Dee Dee, who had heard that it was the surname that Paul McCartney used when he checked into hotels.

In a Guitar Player interview, collected in The Guitar Player Book, Johnny stated: "I guess that before me, people played downstrokes for brief periods in a song, rather than the whole song through. It was just a timing mechanism for me."

On the topic of The Ramones' songbook, Johnny often said that every Ramones song has everything a "regular" pop song has, only it's played really fast without any solos, so they simply end up being short.

On September 15, 2004, Johnny died of prostate cancer. He is buried at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Joey Ramone, who developed lymphoma, predeceased Johnny in 2001, Dee Dee Ramone died of a heroin OD in 2002. DeeDee's gravestone isn't far from Johnny's. The last of the original Ramones, Tommy, died, also of cancer, in 2014.

The best way to appreciate Jonny's artistry is to listen to the Ramones live. The "solos" that appear on Ramones records were actually overdubbed by either Ed Stasium, Walter Lure or Tommy Ramone. This is the oldest known footage of The Ramones performing at CBGBs on September 15, 1974:

Here is what was once extremely rare footage of The Ramones practicing a set, filmed at "the Fifth Ramone", Autoro Vega's NYC studio on February 3rd, 1975.

The most famous of The Ramones' live recordings is "It's Alive!" -- a full concert recorded on New Year's Eve 1977 at the Rainbow Theatre in London. The Ramones recorded four full concerts during their 1977 tour of the UK. The band's priority was to provide their fans with an accurate portrayal of their concerts, at which they played every song they'd recorded very very fast. To achieve this, they wanted to use a single, complete concert. Sire Records wanted to hedge its bets and cull the best performances from each concert and edit them together to form a "complete show". After 10 rows of seats were thrown at the stage after The Ramones left the stage for the last time at their New Year's Eve performance, and the London and UK musical press proclaimed it one of the best performances ever held at The Rainbow, Sire decided to use the entire New Year's Eve concert for a double-LP release. A little less than half-an-hour's worth of the New Years' Eve performance which was released on LP was also filmed;

October 8 is also the birthday of Tucker, who has done so very very much to keep we wanderers in the wilderness intact and in contact -- you may have noticed a few of us squatting all over Plum Street. Happy Birthday, Tucker!

BEDE ! WHERE ARE YOU ?

I cannot find the extra columns you made for me. I am still searching. We need a new Bede's Beat. And I worry about your raggedy ass. I worry a lot because I heart you.

"Yeah now, if I have to swim a river, you know I will.
And if I have to climb a mountain, you know I will.
And if he's hiding up on a blueberry hill,
You know I'm gonna find that child you know I will.'

Tune in! Turn on! Please do not Drop Out! Hat tip to Timothy Leary.