Punk survivor: Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys by Viv Albertine

With their backcombed hair, dreads, tutus, ripped tights and Doc Martens, the Slits were the most anarchic and badly behaved band on the “White Riot” tour.

By Tracey Thorn

(Photo By Making the cut: Viv Albertine, Ari Up and Tessa Pollitt of the Slits in 1981)

Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys
Viv Albertine
Faber & Faber, 304pp, £14.99

In 1976, aged 21, Viv Albertine inherited 200 quid from her grandmother and bought an electric guitar. Though she was already a member of punk’s inner circle – the girlfriend of Mick Jones, the best friend of Sid Vicious – this was an audacious act. As she writes in this gripping memoir, “Who’d done it before me? There was no one I could identify with. No girls played electric guitar. Especially not ordinary girls like me.”