Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. - Softcover

Albertine, Viv

4.29

11,996 ratings by Goodreads

9780571297757: Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571297757 ISBN 13: 9780571297757

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2014

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SUNDAY TIMES MUSIC BOOK OF THE YEAR

ROUGH TRADE BOOK OF THE YEAR

MOJO BOOK OF THE YEAR

Let others who were there tell their versions if they want to. This is mine.

In 1970, Viv Albertine knew she wanted to be in a band, but had never seen a woman play electric guitar. Seven years later, she was the guitarist in the hugely influential all-female punk band, the Slits. This is the story of how, through sheer will, talent and fearlessness, she forced herself on to a male-dominated music scene and became part of a movement that changed music.

Everything is here, unvarnished and unwashed: art school, squatting, hanging out in Sex with Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, spending a day chained to Sid Vicious, on tour with The Clash, and being part of a brilliant, pioneering group of women making musical history.

The result is a raw, thrilling story of life on the frontiers, and a candid account of what happened post-punk, taking in a career in film, IVF, illness, divorce - and making music again, twenty-five years later.

This is a truly remarkable memoir, told in Viv's frank, irreverent and distinctive voice. Utterly shocking, very funny and ruthlessly honest, it is the story of a life lived unscripted, told from the heart.

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Review:

[Albertine's] book is both a bold chronicle of her personal ups and downs and a historical document that blows holes in the established punk narrative in which men are the major players and women merely window dressing.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)

Rarely can a book be so personal yet still resonate with a whole movement - and beyond. (Alexandra Fullerton Stylist)

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. (Suzanne Moore The Guardian)

Love or hate the punk movement, this memoir of those turbulent times by The Slits' guitarist is infused with humanity and vulnerability that gives it far broader appeal. (Holiday Reads Recommendations Sunday Express)

The Slits were perhaps the most subversive punk group of all . . . Their adventures, musical and otherwise, are a the heart of this searingly honest memoir. (Sean O'Hagan Observer)

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 fresh, insider's take on punk. (Evening Standard)

A frank and fearless account of sex, drugs and life on the cultural frontline. (Esquire)

Book Description:

'Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys.' (Viv Albertine's mum, to Viv, in the mid-70s.)

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