Happy Birthday to Viviane "Viv" Albertine, musician, author, visual artist and filmmaker, formerly of the UK Punk bands The Flowers Of Romance and The Slits, born Dec. 1, 1954. With The Slits she released two albums, Cut (1979) and Return Of The Giant Slits (1981); during this time she also contributed to the New Age Steppers Dub collective and Flying Lizards debut records.
After the breakup of The Slits she intensely pursued a career in film directing, and blossomed into an acclaimed writer. She published two memoirs, Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys (2014) and the book drawn from her late mother's personal diaries To Throw Away Unopened (2018). As a solo artist she has released one EP, Flesh (2010) and one album, The Vermilion Border (2012).
In a 2023 interview with Punk Globe Magazine, Albertine revealed that she is working on more books, and discussed her first two bands--the courage it took to get onstage and play original, outsider music she later channeled into laying out her life on paper.
Punk Globe: When did The Slits form, Viv? What was the idea for forming the band?
Viv: The Slits were already a band when I joined. I saw them play at Harlesden Colosseum in 1977 and thought Ari and Palmolive in particular were fantastic. I called them up the next day to say how much I enjoyed the gig ( there were so few of us in this new ‘movement’ that we all knew each other) and they laughed because they’d asked me to join the band six months earlier but I’d said no. I was in a band with Sid Vicious at the time, called The Flowers of Romance but Sid chucked me out and then he joined The Sex Pistols, so by the time I saw The Slits play I was free. There was no big idea about forming the band as far as I know there was a general ethos in the air called (now called punk) that you didn’t have to be able to play, or be male, or be able-bodied, or be white to be in a ‘punk’ band. The attitude opened the door to music for many more people than before. I’d never seen a girl play guitar and drums, I thought only boys who were very good at playing guitar could be guitarists (with their boring guitar solos and could be Guitarists fancy jazz chords). It never occurred to me I could be in a band until I saw The Sex Pistols play, I made the mental leap. They were working-class like me (they were better than me, I couldn’t play at all) so all I had to do was to get past the fact they were male to realize I could do it too. I didn’t realize until recently that I was actually poorer and less educated than most other ‘punks’. I thought we were all working-class rebels. We didn’t talk about our backgrounds much (some of them pretended to be working class) it wasn’t a ‘thing’ like now. My mother was very strict about how I spoke growing up because she was a child of immigrants (my father was also an immigrant) and she thought I would get on better in life if I spoke ‘properly’ so most people around me in punk times I was middle class because of how I spoke and carried myself but I was poorer and had a more dysfunctional background than all of them. I can count on one hand the real working class (or poor) people from those days.
Punk Globe: What was it like writing your autobiography?
Viv: It took three years each to write my books- Clothes Clothes Clothes, Music Music Music, Boys Boys Boys, and To Throw Away Unopened (both published by Faber in the UK) and like playing the guitar, I didn’t know if I would be able to do it when I started but again I took the leap. In the early 2000’s, I thought, I’ve lived an unusual life and made a couple of big leaps against the odds, against society, and against class and gender expectations think my story could be interesting, to young people especially, but no one is going to invite me to tell it. I’m going to have to do it myself, same as picking up the guitar. Certain demographics in society, usually not very radical ones, are always being asked to tell their story and being celebrated on TV, in exhibitions etc. I wasn’t in that demographic and nor were The Slits. Even forty years later, it’s the ‘punk’ bands playing derivative versions of our rock n roll that we are celebrating and getting the royalties. The Slits didn’t have any role models and our music and lyrics still sound fresh and original because of that. I’m so glad I put my story-and in some ways a woman’s story-and experiences out there. The books did well which shows if you can get past the gatekeepers, people do want to hear about alternative lives.
Interview with a True Punk Legend - VIV ALBERTINE in PunkGlobe
