Typical Girls: Women in Punk/Post-Punk/Underground Music (Circa 1975-1980s)

[Joly MacFie <joly AT punkcast.com>]

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/showbiz-and-lifestyle/showbiz/2010/02/02/music-preview-viv-albertine-buffalo-bar-cardiff-91466-25738482/

The Sydney-born, UK-raised product of French and Swiss parents, she
ground out one album, and a John Peel session before quitting the band
and rather dropping off the musical radar.

Now she’s back with a collection of spare, wry songs produced by
Dennis Bovell, the man behind the echoey vibes of The Slits’ seminal
first album Cut.

These days she’s a mum, with a 10-year-old daughter, and based in the
leafy quiet of Hastings, a world away from the decaying, squat-ridden
1970s London chronicled by her earlier work, Albertine is still mining
the same earnest vein as her earlier work.

Much like her songs, she’s funny and painfully honest by turns,
self-possessed and vulnerable. It’s a winning combo, something that
the people of Cardiff can experience at the Buffalo Bar tonight.

But despite the fact that her new songs have been positively reviewed
and she has been playing gigs since last September, Albertine says
it’s only recently she has started to feel comfortable with thinking
of herself as a musician again.

“The point at which I really felt something was starting to happen was
when I started playing shows,” she says.

“Before that, I was sitting at the kitchen table, trying to learn how
to play the guitar again. I was like some teenage boy desperately
trying to come up with some songs so he could get out of his bedroom.
It was a bit tragic really.

“Anyway, when I started playing gigs again, they were just open mic
nights at first, but people would come up to me afterwards and tell me
how much they enjoyed the whole thing, how much they got the songs.

“And it was all sorts of people, from young women to 60-year-old guys,
which I was very surprised about.”

Despite her pleasant surprise at finding out her music has appeal for
the pub-rock set, she says she never sets out to make
female-orientated music.

“Well, I don’t set out to make ‘women’s music’ or anything like that,
if there is such a thing even,” she said.

“But since what I write about very much comes from inside me I was
surprised that someone like that would necessarily relate to it.

“Thinking about it, I have led a bit of a life and it’s not all been a
great amount of fun.

“It’s shaped me, made me the person I am and I wouldn’t change any of
it, but equally well, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone either.

“Really there have been great periods of instability in my life,
financially, creatively, emotionally, in terms of my health.”

She’s not kidding. An early intimate of the punk scene, she went out
with Clash guitarist Mick Jones, who wrote the song “Train in Vain”
after their break up, was taught to play guitar by Keith Levene, who
went on to form PiL with John Lydon, and wrote songs about Sid
Vicious’ heroin problem.

A certain amount of respite from the hurly-burly of the music business
came when Albertine returned to university and trained to become a
director – taking charge of several episodes of classic sci-fi drama
The Tomorrow People after graduating.

“That was probably the longest period of financial stability in my
life for sure. But I wasn’t necessarily happy,” she says.

“When I started directing, there was only really one other woman
working in that industry doing a similar job to me that I knew. And
it’s not a supportive industry to work in, it’s known for being very
backbiting and bitchy and for people actively setting you up to fail.

“So while, yeah, it was a great job and I’m very proud of having done
it, it wasn’t necessarily the most rewarding thing to do at the time.”

Understandably, it’s her work with The Slits that has had the most
influence over the present music scene, something she says she has
mixed feelings about.

“I find that young girls will come up and say ‘thanks so much, you’re
a great influence’ but, and this is one of the reasons I actually
ended up deciding to make music again, very often I don’t hear
anything that reminds me of The Slits in music they make now,” she
says.

“What you have to realise is we were exactly those girls, all the
time. All the songs we wrote were about being truthful about the way
we lived our lives, and we were just as crazy and just as strict and
just as wild in all the other bits of our lives.

“I mean, I couldn’t really play guitar and I didn’t care, I just
wanted to make noises and get something truthful and real out there.

“And it was hard work and it wasn’t a lot of fun sometimes, but I
don’t see that in a lot of people these days.

“That’s why I’ve got my cape back on, and I’m here to save music.”

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