Rock Book Club #5: ‘Clothes...Music....Boys’ by Viv Albertine

Long before the history books cleaned up the narrative and turned punk into a safe, museum-ready aesthetic, the original 1970s scene was a genuinely volatile, dangerous, and chaotic experiment challenging politics, the monarchy and puritan values. For the women who dared to enter that space, it wasn’t just about the music, but a daily, high-stakes battle to claim their own noise and carve out an identity in a fiercely male-dominated industry where even holding an instrument was treated as an act of defiance. Style became their ultimate armor, and the subversion of fashion was just as loud as the music they were making. It is this exact unapologetic, unfiltered cultural landscape in which we get to experience the inception of the mythologized movement through the eyes of one of its true pioneers.

Viv Albertine, the guitarist of the all-female punk band The Slits, tells her story of how, through talent and fearlessness, she pushed her way into the very male-dominated industry of 70s English punk, making musical history along the way. It is a punk rock coming-of-age story of what it was like to be a girl at the height of the movement, filled with all the sex, drugs, unapologetic appreciation of boys, and of course, as the title promises, Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. The clothing descriptions of the history of punk fashion play such a pivotal role in describing the cultural landscape that was London in the late-70s, where Albertine treats style less like a trend and more as a battle uniform, from the DIY customized bondage gear to the legendary pieces coming out of Vivienne Westwood’s shop on King's Road.

What makes this memoir stand out from the typical rock biography stack is her bracing, almost uncomfortable honesty. She lays bare the crippling self-doubt and the logistical nightmare of trying to learn an instrument when the world is constantly telling you it isn’t a girl’s job, and watching her figure out how to pull sounds out of her guitar through sheer willpower is just as thrilling as any backstage anecdote. That determination is matched only by the sheer force of their fourteen-year-old, dreadlocked, German frontwoman, Ari Up, who absolutely refused to be ignored by a world that didn't know what to make of them.

In this absolute five-star read, there are plenty of juicy rock n’ roll anecdotes and iconic cameos that stretch from the 70s close to the present day. You expect the encounters with Sid Vicious—the scene when he leaves Nancy Spungen, the ultimate Jersey girl, at Viv’s house is pure rock comedy—or her complicated, competition-driven romance with Mick Jones of The Clash, or cross paths with a strung-out Marianne Faithfull in a London squat, but it is the unexpected, later-life collisions that really throw you. She recounts how decades later, a notoriously eccentric Vincent Gallo tracked her down because he was a massive fan, and their strange dinner encounters shook her out of her quiet domestic routine, ultimately helping to spark her realization that she was still an artist at her core.

I discovered The Slits back in 2005 when their album Cut was newly released on CD in the States, functioning as a staff pick at L.A.’s original Amoeba on Sunset Boulevard. Just seeing the cover with the three bandmates covered in mud and loincloths was enough for me to take a $12.99 chance on a group I had never heard before, though I knew they were crucial influences on the bands I already loved, from Bikini Kill to Nirvana, so that specific stamp of approval definitely moved the decision along. Years later, dropping the needle on that record for the first time was a total revelation because it sounded so fresh to my early-2000s ear with that scratchy, angular guitar work layered over deep reggae and dub basslines. It has since become a classic on heavy rotation for almost two decades in my life, eventually leading me to upgrade that initial CD to vinyl.

The album captures brilliance from start to finish but if I had to choose standouts, I’d say the reggae-inspired album opener “Instant Hit”, which winds around you with its heavy groove, followed by “So Tough,” which is unapologetically English in its biting snarl and snark, then there’s the very relatable “Ping Pong Affair” penned by Albertine about her on-again, off-again relationship with Mick Jones, and of course “Typical Girls” (video below), which remains the ultimate subversion of what society expected young women to be. Then there is their version of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”, which tears the Motown soul blueprint apart and reconstructs it with scratchy, brilliant post-punk friction, cementing it as one of the best covers of the song ever to be recorded.

Viv’s memoir is a fantastic companion piece to one of rock’s most important records, and its massive, ripples-in-the-pond impact is on full display here. Carrie Brownstein provides a beautiful foreword that sets the stage for Viv's legacy, and later in the book, we see Thurston Moore step into the narrative to champion her music when she finally makes her triumphant, solo return to the stage at New York's Knitting Factory. Reading this book is a beautiful, vivid reminder that before the history books cleaned it up and sanitized it, punk was a dangerous, thrilling, and beautifully messy space for women to claim their own noise.