There is nothing not to love or even adore about Viv Albertine’s book Clothes Music Boys. Nothing from its oh-so-perfect title (more of a life manifesto for a generation) to its perfectly formed little vignettes of 1970s pre-punk life. I love how she divides life and years into the key elements – what she was wearing, who she was seeing, and what she was listening to. It’s a brilliantly natural filing system for music fans.
Albertine (for those of you who don’t know the self-taught guitarist with seminal all girl punk group The Slits – one of the earliest of all Punk Groups in the wake of the Pistols, and a very important moment in women in rock. Check their seminal Peel session of 1977 for a flavour of recording as perfectly formed chaos ) tells the story of how cutting edge punk rock was through tales of everyday life for two thirds of the book, and humanises people who have become so iconic as to be almost caricatures. So we meet Rotten (crap blow job), Johnny Thunders (heroin sleazebag), Sid Vicious (just nice actually and sad for it), Nancy (tried to shag the singer first), Adam Ant, Siouxsie, Vivienne (Westwood) & Malcolm (McLaren), Mick Jones (wore girls clothes), Keith Levene (taught her to play like herself), Don & Neneh Cherry as they were – not as history has cast them.
[above is a bunch of them together in the shortlived and un-recorded band The Flowers Of Romance: Marco (later Adam & the Ants), Viv, Sid V, Siouxsie, Severin]
She is always humble and self-effacing – never more so than telling how The Slits supported The Clash on the White Riot tour and started with a 1,2,3,4 in pure tribute to The Ramones without realising that was the time signature … until Mick Jones said they were all supposed to stop in time too!
But best of all she talks about the role music and musicians played in her life and growing up, and it’s incredibly powerful:
“Musicians are our real teachers. They are opening us up politically with their lyrics and creatively with experimental, psychedelic music. They share their discoveries and journeys with us. We can’t travel far, no one I know has ever been on an aeroplane. We can’t meet the Maharishi, but we learn about him through music. We can hear Indian influences by listening to George’s Harrison’s sitars, discover Timothy Leary, R.D.Laing, Arthur Janov and “the Primal Scream”, acid, California, Woodstock, riots .. whatever they experience , we experience through their songs. It’s true folk music – not played on acoustic guitar by a bearded bloke – but about true life experiences”.
I don’t know if it will work this way now, or ever again, in the age of streaming, instant access to media, and so many other sources of inspiration. It is hard to imagine it in a chart full of Pitbull, Flo Rida and Redfoo. But you can see why it mattered to her and her generation so easily, and where the rebel yell came from.
And if you cross your fingers and wish hard maybe it could just happen again??
-TH
[Further reading - When you’ve finished with Viv try bandmate Tessa’s version which is very inspiring too]
