Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys.

September 1, 2014
An undercurrent of low self-esteem runs through this episodic, mannered memoir by former punk rocker Albertine, guitarist for the Slits. In spare, frank prose, she recounts her early infatuation with Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten, her success as a guitarist in an unheard-of all-girl band in the late 1970s, and her later troubles, when her marriage failed and her career stalled out. Growing up in the 1960s in Muswell Hill, North London, as the child of an unstable marriage, Albertine found a revolutionary, exciting “new world” in music by John Lennon and the Kinks. Her Corsican-born father criticized her when she announced that she wanted to be a pop singer: “You’re not chic enough.” So she settled for being a groupie: cadging fab clothes from Kensington Market (“glam rock”), attending Hornsey Art School, and dating Mick Jones of the Clash, who helped her buy her first guitar. Dressed in tattered punk wear from the Sex shop at the end of King’s Road, she played with Sid in her first band, Flowers of Romance. Once Sid drifted to the Sex Pistols, Albertine joined the Slits, fronted by the classically trained 15-year-old, Ari Up. Albertine tracks the halcyon days of the band, touring and recording, which lasted until Tessa Pollitt’s overdose in 1982. In “Side Two” of her memoir, Albertine writes about years of uneven romance, trying to get pregnant, and trying to find fulfillment as a Hastings “housewife.” At the end of this bold, empowering work, Albertine returns to playing guitar to give her life direction again.

November 15, 2014
Viv Albertine was a guitarist for the seminal female English punk band the Slits. Her memoir addresses three of her greatest obsessionsclothes, music, and boysin what she calls a scrapbook of memories. Born in Sydney to a French father and Swiss mother, Albertine immigrated with her family, including her younger sister, to England and was raised in Muswell Hill, a suburb of north London (the same area, she proudly points out, that the Kinks hailed from). Her father was abusive; his behavior left her with lifelong emotional scars. She recalls hearing the Beatles for the first time and regards the music that she grew up with as being revolutionary. Numerous chapters discuss her troublesome teenage years of hard partying, art school, run-ins with skinheads, her marriage and divorce, and her successful struggle with cervical cancer. This pioneer and pivotal punk rocker discusses her relationships/friendships with fellow musicians Joe Strummer, Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious, and Johnny Thunders in this fascinating insider's look at the punk scene from a female perspective.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)