About this episode

The episode discusses the legacy and impact of The Slits, featuring insights from Zoë Howe's book on the band.

The Slits burned very brightly – but briefly - and were gone, their bumpy and courageous tale crisply told in Zoë Howe’s updated ‘Typical Girls?’. She looks back here at the unforgettable things they wore, said and did as “outsiders in an outsider scene”, a band celebrated before they’d even played a note. And touches on …   ... how other all-girl groups got started - the Moodies, the Runaways, Fanny, the Shaggs, Goldie and the Gingerbreads   … Nora Forster – Ari’s mum, German print heiress, the “punk rock Baroness Nica” who bankrolled the Slits   … Ari was a 14 year-old schoolgirl, Viv Albertine was 21: “I couldn’t have a relationship with her. It was like a having a child in the band” … Nick Kent’s account of the four of them “blazing down Oxford Street”   … producer Dennis Bovell’s dub reggae project with “the Witches of West London”   … their fractious relationship with Island Records and Radio One   … “No birds on the stage!”: the author’s life as a female drummer   … and the Pop Group, Rip Rig + Panic, “humour, playfulness, the freedom to be childlike” and the long legacy of the Slits.   Order ‘Typical Girls?: the Story of the Slits’…

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