Skip to main content

Clothes, Music, Boys by Viv Albertine: book review



Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys (2014) is Viv Albertine’s memoir from 1976-1982. Guitarist of a female punk group, Albertine writes of her involvment in the punk scene, from 1976-1982, in the company of Sid Vicious and Mick Jones, as well as post-punk to the present day.  

With short, but chronological, chapters, written as simplistic snippets of memories, Australian-born Viv Albertine (1954-) begins with her childhood – the sea voyage from Australia to England at the age of four, school, her brutal father, and boys, boys, boys. 

She writes of the first time a song knocked her socks off: it was 1964, she was 10 years old, and the song was The Beatles, ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ and the flip-side, ‘You Can’t Do That’ – ‘Now everything’s changed: I’ve found the meaning of life.’ She writes of the power of the cover of Patti Smith’s 1975 album Horses – the iconic black-and-white Robert Mapplethorpe photograph. She writes of her involvement with The Clash, and a veritable list of musicians and artists. She continues with her musical influences – records and bands – free concerts, experimental music, rock, and guitars. Albertine and Sid Vicious form the band, The Flowers of Romance, in 1976. Their punk sound and influences come to the fore, and ends with the release of her solo debut in 2012. So that’s music, music, music. 

Clothes, clothes, clothes – with punk music, there has to be punk clothes – beginning at art school in the Fashion and Textiles course. And then there’s designer Vivienne Westwood.

Easy to read, the memoir reveals the pioneering development of the punk music and fashion scene. Told in an excited tone, with feeling and passion, Albertine becomes young again, and takes readers with her – back to London where and when it began. She is honest in Side Two (post-1982) – very honest – in her accounts of the break-up of the band The Slits in 1982, trying to reconnect with her father, her cancer, and her comeback 25 years later. 

It’s a great no-frills, raw-written memoir, and the photographs are amazing.








MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh  (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. That
1 comment
Read more

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass
Post a Comment
Read more

The Beggars' Strike by Aminata Sow Fall: book review

The Beggar’sStrike (1979 in French and 1981 in English) is set in an unstated country in West Africa in a city known only as The Capital. Undoubtedly, Senegalese author Sow Fall writes of her own experiences. It was also encapsulated in the 2000 film, Battu , directed by Cheick Oumar Sissoko from Mali. Mour Ndiaye is the Director of the Department of Public Health and Hygiene, with the opportunity of a distinguished and coveted promotion to Vice-President of the Republic. Tourism has declined and the government blames the local beggars in The Capital. Ndiaye must rid the streets of beggars, according to a decree from the Minister. Ndiaye instructs his department to carry out weekly raids. One of the raids leads to the death of lame beggar, Madiabel, who ran into an oncoming vehicle as he tried to escape, leaving two wives and eight children. Soon after, another raid resulted in the death of the old well-loved, comic beggar Papa Gorgui Diop. Enough is enou
8 comments
Read more