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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).
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