The entry in Allmusic (by Chris True) for the band SLOVENLY starts off: “Loved by those who were lucky to hear them”. The band was assembled by drummer Rob Holzman after leaving his previous band Saccharine Trust. They have an offbeat indie rock sound with punk overtones and strange meandering lyrics. The monotone singing of Steve Anderson is backed by wandering guitars and unexpected musical passages. Following their move to the well-regarded SST Records label, their second album, Thinking of Empire is described (by Patrick Foster) in Allmusic as a “flowering of art-punk influences and California punk mindset that is one of the great lost classics of the 1980’s.” The album that I picked up, Riposte is considered to be nearly as good and heralded a subtle shift in their style by the addition of acoustical guitars and a more abstract sound that continued on their next two albums.
My copy of Riposte went through Katrina before I even played it the first time, and today, it is so scuffed up and warped that it is difficult to appreciate the nuances of their musical stylings. I can tell that I would like to have more Slovenly albums, and they are definitely on my list for future record-buying expeditions.
As can likely be inferred from the above paragraphs, I know next to nothing about this band. What attracted me to the band was the front cover, an abstract drawing of a boy with very long, thin fingernails. It caught my eye immediately, and once I saw the name of the band, I knew what it was: It was an illustration from a German children’s book dating from the mid-1800’s called Der Struwwelpeter. Mark Twain translated the book into English and named it Slovenly Peter (in fact, the original name of the band was Slovenly Peter). The idea of the book was to promote good behavior and hygiene in children, but the punishments for those who did not cooperate are nothing short of monstrous. “The Dreadful Story of Pauline and the Matches” ends with the girl burning to death. In “The Story of Flying Robert”, a boy who goes outside during a storm is carried away when his umbrella is caught by the wind, apparently to his death. The most notorious tale is probably “The Story of Little Suck-a-Thumb”, where a boy is warned by his mother not to suck his thumb; he doesn’t listen of course, and eventually a tailor comes along and cuts off his thumbs with giant scissors.
Some scholars say that this was a send-up of the overly pious children’s books at the time, and maybe it was; but I doubt the kids were in on the parody. (You’ve probably heard the old joke about the shortest book in the world being 200 Years of German Humor). I first read of Slovenly Peter in a book I got for Christmas decades ago called The Worst of Everything. And what better way to honor this dubious achievement than by having a cool rock band take the name Slovenly.
