Listening to Ari

We are starting to work on the documentary again, by picking up where we left off, reviewing what we have and working out where the gaps are. Yesterday Gina and I listened to the interview that I did with Ari for the book- so this would be probably around 2005 or 2006. The interview was done in the back room of the 12-Bar (that's a bit of history in itself) and in the background you can hear the venue gradually filling up as the afternoon progresses into evening.
Tessa and Nadya are there too, and Ari's replies gradually become more thoughtful as the hour passes. She talks about how helpful the guys in the punk scene were- but also how dangerous it was to walk around in public dressed the way they were. It took The Slits a long time to get a deal that would give them control over the way they looked and the sound of their music, and by that time they had evolved sonically away from punk and more into the dub reggae influences that they later became so famous for. Keith Levene was heavily involved in the production of their first Peel session.
Revisiting the interviews is going to be very interesting in the context of the absolutely deafening silence from women in the music industry about bullying, both sexual and otherwise. You have to feel very stable and powerful to call out bullying from people who can destroy your career either directly, or through whispering campaigns. One of the best things about writing music history and documenting it on film is allowing female performers and producers to have a positive voice and speak about their own history and experiences. Some of the people we spoke to for the film have well-documented pasts, but others who have maybe retired from the music business still have interesting stories to tell. We didn't even touch on the harassment issue, actually. Who wants to be famous only for being a survivor? People have a right to thrive.
It still fills my heart with joy just to think about her: I feel like laughing out loud at her sheer defiance and originality. Ari was a fantastic person.