We'd talked about her dying in the past. Viv Albertine, welcome to FRESH AIR. But still, I cant help admiring a woman in her sixties who stands by her rage, solitude and self-proclaimed outsider status without blinking or asking for pity. [14] It was a Sunday Times, Mojo, Rough Trade and NME Book of the Year in 2014, as well as being shortlisted for the National Book Awards. It was on the edge of chaos a lot of the time so the exhilaration was when we played together and played well. My mind went blank, absolutely blank. It wasnt the point. Itsuddenly seems so long ago, I say, light years away from todays more gentrified pop culture. I was very sorry to do that, because I wanted my daughter to have a steady family, the one I didn't have. It's terrible. She was so relaxed with herself that shed do things like piss onstage. We were assaulted everywhere we went. I dont worship musicians. [12], In 1991, Albertine wrote and directed the short film Coping with Cupid, a film about three aliens as blondes that come to earth to research romantic love. But to keep soaking up knowledge because where were you going to take that knowledge? And if you're just joining us, my guest is Viv Albertine, who became known in the late '70s as a member of the band The Slits, one of the very first punk bands of women musicians. Its just as well she never expected to depend on a man because, according to her recollections, the men in her life have been just awful, or useless, or both. And that one's called "To Throw Away Unopened.". Your purchase helps support NPR programming. She made a surprise yet brief return to the reformed The Slits in 2009, who tragically lost founding wildchild Ari Up to cancer late last year, is now making up for lost fret time on her own. To me, that is so backwards, so unradical. So it was not an easy decision. [13], Albertine's memoir, Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. How I kept failing and kept trying. Too long. I didnt know how to listen to music so I wouldnt actually have known if they were out of tune or not playing in time. Don't start playing hide and seek. Cynicism and sympathy wrapped in a self-deprecating sneer, it was a distinctly British opening to the brash, sometime brutal story of a working-class girl's coming of age in London in the 1960s . I wrote a book. ALBERTINE: No. When youve fought and fought to keep positive and to keep creative even though there was not a space to be creative, well, you show me any human who is not angry after 60 years of that.. Viv Albertine: A bit like that Channel 4 show Faking It. After a few months of floating around Hastings in a vacant haze, not knowing who I was or how to have a conversation, a stream of seemingly inane little questions was coursing constantly through my head. Aside from their individual idiosyncrasies, their worst quality has been a complete refusal to acknowledge the waning libido of the middle aged male which might, otherwise, have helped to accommodate it within some sort of sexual relationship. [8], Albertine recorded a cover version of David Bowie's "Letter to Hermione" for the Bowie tribute album, We Were So Turned On: A Tribute to David Bowie, which was released on 6 September 2010. This stuff happens all the time in families, it just isnt written about or even talked about., Her sister now lives in Australia, which, I say, is as far away as it is possible to go from Muswell Hill, where their sibling rivalry first began all those years ago. She eventually emerged from it all with her body a battlefield, something to be reclaimed. Music, Music, Music. And I couldn't sing. Viv talks about her books, her life, punk rock, her music and her dysfunctional family growing up PLEASE JOIN MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL 'John Robb is perhaps the be. We had to be together because it was too risky not to. GROSS: Well, let's take a short break here, and then we'll talk more about your life. But it takes so much longer to get to the stage where a man is because all the bands in punk that I knew or beginning to form had all spent years and years practicing with a hairbrush in front of a mirror, with a tennis racket, you know, looking at pictures of other guys they want you to be. She knew me. In 1976, while still studying at Chelsea, she helped form the early punk band the Flowers of Romance. "We were very deliberately not playing 12-bar structures, blues structures, which rock musicians turned into such a clich," Albertine says. There was no way I could flee comfortably wearing VW stilettos. [7] In March 2010, she released a four-song debut solo EP entitled, Flesh, on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace! My mind emptied. You had a daughter together, divorced when she was 8. I dont think I am unlucky. He taught me that any sounds can go together, he really developed my ear and loads of o .more Combine Editions Viv Albertine's books She was so much cleverer than me., One wonders what Pascale will make of the book. She has a different personality to me - much more grounded - but also different times. THE SLITS: (Singing) Don't take it serious. ALBERTINE: No, I didn't think girls did that. How I didnt care so much about money and possessions that I squashed who I was just to have them. A most uncomfortable feeling. It really didnt matter to me. Her debut solo album, The Vermilion Border, was released on 5 November 2012 through the Cadiz Music label. How? Girl bands still do just copy the way men move onstage. GROSS: What did this do to your feelings about men? Oh, Lord. So strong. Remove all of the faults. She was shocked when I tried to advise her and adopted a rude attitude. The following February, he made note of an embarrassing encounter with a neighbour, who reported seeing Viviane with a bad lot in the local Wimpy: The way your daughter dresses in miniskirts and fancy socks and the rest of it, shell end up on drugs or in trouble.. It was a provocation, and I think in a way, she did that to absolve herself of responsibility for what was inside the bag because in the ether, she could always call back to me, I told you not to open it. Why do I prefer the architecture of one style of house to another on the sea front? Never wanted to do it), a statement of intent that set the confessional-confrontational tone of much of what was to follow. There's such a sort of authenticity and the truthfulness to it. We couldnt have been who we were as loud and as mad and as provocative and shocking if wed had dads around all the time, even dads we loved. And on top of that, the two books I've written is me, in a way, leaving two more bombs for my daughter. So you have two great memoirs. So hard. Too long. He said, Youve chosen honesty over happiness, youve chosen misery, you dont see the good in anyone. On and on. She raises her eyes heavenwards. He was 10 years younger than me. Heidi Saman and Thea Chaloner produced and edited the audio of this interview. It is heartening to be reminded of these wild girls, at a time when the media bombard us with images of girls vlogging about beauty products and girls jumping for joy about their A star exam grades, while other girls go into melt down over their less stellar efforts. [9] On 17 June 2013, she opened for Siouxsie Sioux at the Royal Festival Hall in London. My God, this is probably the wickedest thing Ive ever said! She has two memoirs. (modern), Viv Albertine: Im finally in a place where I am making sensible decisions that are good for me., Viv Albertine: I just want to blow a hole in it all. Like her heroine, Le Duc, she spares nothing in the portrayal of self. And I think that's why we had such a strong feminist surge. [citation needed]. Music Music, Music. There was this whole concoction in his head of a young woman or a woman on stage is just attracting male glances, you know, wants to sleep with them, will have loads of groupies. Viv Albertine, the guitarist with the Slits who was at the core of the British punk movement, is to have her life story adapted for a television series. Why was I always drawn to music with a political message. Did it feel like you wanted it to feel? Viviane Katrina Louise Albertine (born 1 December 1954)[1] is an Australian-born British musician, singer, songwriter and writer. I see music as a vehicle like writing or film-making, but I dont think its a very relevant medium for me at the moment. So it was not an easy decision. And I was incredibly shocked. An intimate examination of a contemporary artist couple, whose living and working patterns are threatened by the imminent sale of their home. That's how I connected girls to the world I wanted . And, of course, the young women, especially us, The Slits, who were drawn to being in a band couldn't play because we'd never had role models and never occurred to sit in our bedrooms playing electric guitar. He got me into so many fights, that he was the reason I started wearing Doc Martens. He was going out with - dating, you know, the guitarist from The Slits. I just stared at her open-mouthed. I didnt think I could do it. It does, she says nodding, and I miss that unprofessionalism so much. Both memoirs demonstrate that following her mothers advice has not been a recipe for an easy life. I felt fury with her. I have friends. It's as if your body stores emotions that you can't consciously cope with, and they came flooding out and overwhelmed me, this anger and fury with my mother. ALBERTINE: Yeah. When I was pregnant, I prayed that my daughter would have brown, green or grey eyes. I have a daughter. GROSS: I think it's so interesting that your mother was still reading at the very end of her life. Her freelance directing work included stints with the BBC and the British Film Institute. So at what point does - do things like that lose their meaning, if ever? ALBERTINE: Well, don't forget I hadn't wanted it for so long. And then it had been taken away from them. It's now out in paperback. Are we gonna get thrown off the plane cos Aris too loud or taken into customs or thrown out of the hotel or arrested? Every night, wed end up in trouble. I see music as a vehicle like writing or film-making, but I dont think its a very relevant medium for me at the moment. And this is about what you were thinking as your mother was dying. I dont worship musicians. A couple of years after I returned, a journalist asked me if I thought I was unlucky: So many things have gone wrong in your life, he said. Northern soul scenes are thriving despite the cost of living crisis, The Met police are trying to shut down Brixton Academy, Create your own Tyler, the Creator travel license, Poligraf: Armenian nightclub brutally raided by police. I realised while writing the book that my sister sussed early on that she was going to be squashed if she stayed. Her new memoir is called "To Throw Away Unopened." I dont worship rocknroll. What position should we put our legs in? 141 quotes from Viv Albertine: 'I love that word. I didnt think I could do it. My mother knew I would open that bag. Thank you so much. And the original version of this was recorded in the late '70s. And I think it's interesting that you wanted to know why, why did she still want to learn? A lot of the response from men, straight men especially, in the streets was, if you're not going to look like a woman and play the game and act like a woman as we've prescribed, we're not going to treat you as women. GROSS: So since your music in The Slits was in part a way of expressing your anger and your new memoir is in part about trying to understand the source of your anger - how it's affected your life, how you've dealt with it over the years, how you deal with it now - what did you try to teach your daughter about how to deal with anger? And the way we looked and acted made it more dangerous. They were often spat at and verbally abused. I mean, you know, she was my mom and my best friend. "[11], After the Slits disbanded in 1982, Albertine studied filmmaking in London. [5], She became part of Adrian Sherwood's dub-influenced collective New Age Steppers, and played on their self-titled 1981 debut album. Typical girls, you can always tell. And she's written two great memoirs. When Albertine finally did give birth to a daughter, she found out shortly after that she had cervical cancer. That was before I had a say in, you know, in how I was raised. We fell apart because of the pressures we got as women, for sure. But, in 2005, due to ill health, I moved with my husband and daughter to Pett Level in East Sussex, to a white A-frame house perched on top of a cliff in a fairly isolated spot between Hastings and Rye. So we would jumble up something like S & M dog collars with rubber stockings mixed with a little girl's tutu, mixed with men's construction boots you'd wear on a construction site, hair matted, black eye makeup.
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