VIV ALBERTINE
(THE SLITS)
answers the MUSIC WORKS Questionnaire
photo: Mel Smith
1. QUALIFICATIONS?
BA honours degree in film and television which I did as a mature student in my late 20s/early 30s. Up until then I mucked about rather than study but was I feeling cold and hungry all the time so got qualified so I could earn some money in my 30s and eat better and buy a flat.
2. CAREER HIGHLIGHTS?
I haven’t got a career. I’m always changing what I do. film, writing, music, mother, ill person, careers are for entertainers which is fine but not for creative people taking risks.
3. AMBITIONS?
A healthy relationship with another adult would be great, companionship love and all that.
4. SONGS YOU WISH YOU HAD WRITTEN?
Heard it Through The Grapevine, Burt Bacharach’s stuff, Letter to Hermione – Bowie, Now you’re Just Somebody That I Used to Know, Take me to Church. I love a good pop song.
5. DESERT ISLAND DISCS?
None. I like natural sounds and silence. No ned to fill up the air with recorded sound all the time. Would listen to the birds, the sea etc
6. FAVOURITE ARTISTS/BANDS OF ALL TIME?
I don’t like rating them like they are breakfast cereals.
7. WHAT MUSIC ARE YOU LISTENING TO NOW?
Natural sounds, traffic, keyboard tapping, shouting in the street, don’t listen to much music.
8. THE LAST BOOK YOU READ?
Elena Ferrante – Troubling Love
9. HOBBIES?
Yuk, no
10. VINYL, CASSETTE, CD, MP3, WEB STREAMING?
Vinyl
11. INDIE MUSIC IN THE AGE OF THE INTERNET?
all a bit middle class not activist
12. WHAT IS YOUR PERSONAL MOTTO?
Eat Less Bread
The Slits
I Heard It Through The Grapevine
Island Records 4766321
Vinyl 10″, 45 RPM, Clear
I Heard It Through The Grapevine
Love + Romance
Typical Girls
In The Beginning There Was Rhythm
Τhis Ltd 10″ Slits vinyl is a RSD 2016 release
and is available at Music Works
Viv Albertine
Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys.
Paperback: 432 pages
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Language: English
[Albertine’s] book is both a bold chronicle of her personal ups and downs and a historical document that blows holes in the established punk narrative in which men are the major players and women merely window dressing. (Independent)
A brutally honest book about the blood, guts, sweat and tears that went into becoming a woman in the Seventies. You don’t need to be a fan of the Slits or even punk to be gripped from the off. (The Telegraph)
With a title that is an incantation and a picture of the gorgeous author on its cover, Viv Albertine’s autobiography is quite something…maddening and magnificent all at the same time – rather like her band, the Slits. (The Guardian)
Her voice is important in the back story of women in British rock, but she is now as original and interesting an entertainer in words as in music. (The Times)
Albertine’s music has never offered easy answers or comfortable conclusions. This brave, funny, honest autobiography doesn’t either, and is all the more admirable for it. (Mail on Sunday)
A frank and fearless account of sex, drugs and life on the cultural frontline. (Esquire)
If Clothes, Clothes, Clothes…was simply a rock memoir, it would come recommended for the fearless was Albertine challenges the orthodox male histories of punk. But in the context of her own personal tragedies, her subsequent recovery and the rebirth of her music career, it has a much wider resonance. (Uncut)
