Wild, defiant and startlingly inventive, The Slits were ahead of their time, embodying the creative fire of punk music and rebellion like few others. Although they created unique hybrids - dub reggae and pop-punk, funk and free jazz - they were dismissed as being unable to play. Their lyrics were witty and perceptive, their debut album challenged perceptions of punk music and female bands, and their infamous album cover, with the group appearing topless and mud-daubed, provided as bold a statement as the Sex Pistols’ Queen. Yet the first ladies of punk were destined to be marginalised and disregarded. Now, forty years on, author Zoë Street Howe speaks to The Slits themselves, to former manager Don Letts, mentor and PIL guitarist Phil Levene, and many others who swirled within their cosmos to discover exactly how the Slits phenomenon erupted and to celebrate the legacy of a seminal band long overdue its rightful acclaim. Too long seen as a note in the margin of the history of rock, The Slits at last get a fair hearing.
A feminist musician icon, Viv Albertine reveals the rocking, uncompromising story of her life on the front lines at the birth of the British punk movement and beyond in this exciting, humorous, and inspiring memoir. Selected by the New York Times as one of the 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years Viv Albertine is a pioneer. As lead guitarist and songwriter for the seminal band The Slits, she influenced a future generation of artists including Kurt Cobain and Carrie Brownstein. She formed a band with Sid Vicious and was there the night he met Nancy Spungeon. She tempted Johnny Thunders...toured America with the Clash...dated Mick Jones...and inspired the classic Clash anthem “Train in Vain.” But Albertine was no mere muse. In Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys., Albertine delivers a unique and unfiltered look at a traditionally male-dominated scene. Her story is so much more than a music memoir. Albertine’s narrative is nothing less than a fierce correspondence from a life on the fringes of culture. The author recalls rebelling from conformity and patriarchal society ever since her days as an adolescent girl in the same London suburb of Muswell Hill where the Kinks formed. With brash honesty—and an unforgiving memory—Albertine writes of immersing herself into punk culture among the likes of the Sex Pistols and the Buzzcocks. Of her devastation when the Slits broke up and her reinvention as a director and screenwriter. Or abortion, marriage, motherhood, and surviving cancer. Navigating infidelity and negotiating divorce. And launching her comeback as a solo artist with her debut album, The Vermilion Border. Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. is a raw chronicle of music, fashion, love, sex, feminism, and more that connects the early days of punk to the Riot Grrl movement and beyond. But even more profoundly, Viv Albertine’s remarkable memoir is the story of an empowered woman staying true to herself and making it on her own in the modern world.
What's it like growing up as the offspring of rock royalty? Living through bizarre backstage – and onstage – experiences, unconventional childhoods, drugs, debts and mad babysitters, the subjects of this book may have grown up quickly but their backgrounds shaped them in very different ways. In this frank and affectionate book, Zoë Street Howe meets the children of iconic music figures and discovers if a rock star parent really is a blessing or a curse.
As the Sex Pistols were breaking up, Britain was entering a new era. Punk’s filth and fury had burned brightly and briefly; soon a new underground offered a more sustained and constructive challenge. As future-focused, independently released singles appeared in the wake of the Sex Pistols, there were high hopes in magazines like NME and the DIY fanzine media spawned by punk. Post-Punk, Politics and Pleasure in Britain explores how post-punk’s politics developed into the 1980s. Illustrating that the movement’s monochrome gloom was illuminated by residual flickers of countercultural utopianism, it situates post-punk in the ideological crossfire of a key political struggle of the era: a battle over pleasure and freedom between emerging Thatcherism and libertarian, feminist and countercultural movements dating back to the post-war New Left. Case studies on bands including Gang of Four, The Fall and the Slits and labels like Rough Trade move sensitively between close reading, historical context and analysis of who made post-punk and how it was produced and mediated. The book examines, too, how the struggles of post-punk resonate down to the present.
Poly Styrene was a singer-songwriter, an artist, a free-thinker, a post-modern style pioneer and a lifelong spiritual seeker: a true punk icon. But this rebel queen with the cheeky grin was also a latter-day pop artist with a wickedly perceptive gift for satirising the world around her. Based on interviews with those who knew and loved Poly (whether personally or through music) this honestly and openly explores her exceptional life, up until her untimely passing in 1991. It is about her growing up mixed-race in Brixton in the 1960s, to being at the forefront of the emerging punk scene with X-Ray Spex in the 1970s, to finding faith with the Hare Krishna movement, to balancing single motherhood with a solo music career and often debilitating mental health issues.--
'No Feelings', 'No Fun', 'No Future'. The years 1976–84 saw punk emerge and evolve as a fashion, a musical form, an attitude and an aesthetic. Against a backdrop of social fragmentation, violence, high unemployment and socio-economic change, punk rejuvenated and re-energised British youth culture, inserting marginal voices and political ideas into pop. Fanzines and independent labels flourished; an emphasis on doing it yourself enabled provincial scenes to form beyond London's media glare. This was the period of Rock Against Racism and benefit gigs for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the striking miners. Matthew Worley charts the full spectrum of punk's cultural development from the Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks and Slits through the post-punk of Joy Division, the industrial culture of Throbbing Gristle and onto the 1980s diaspora of anarcho-punk, Oi! and goth. He recaptures punk's anarchic force as a medium through which the frustrated and the disaffected could reject, revolt and re-invent.
With its own fashion, culture, and chaotic energy, punk rock boasted a do-it-yourself ethos that allowed anyone to take part. Vibrant and volatile, the punk scene left an extraordinary legacy of music and cultural change. John Robb talks to many of those who cultivated the movement, such as John Lydon, Lemmy, Siouxsie Sioux, Mick Jones, Chrissie Hynde, Malcolm McLaren, Henry Rollins, and Glen Matlock, weaving together their accounts to create a raw and unprecedented oral history of UK punk. All the main players are here: from The Clash to Crass, from The Sex Pistols to the Stranglers, from the UK Subs to Buzzcocks—over 150 interviews capture the excitement of the most thrilling wave of rock ’n’ roll pop culture ever. Ranging from its widely debated roots in the late 1960s to its enduring influence on the bands, fashion, and culture of today, this history brings to life the energy and the anarchy as no other book has done.
‘When was the last time you heard an all-girl band on the radio? Why don’t all-girl bands get attention they deserve?’ In Women Make Noise musicians, journalists, promoters and fans excavate the hidden story of the all-girl band: from country belles of the 20s–40s and girl groups of the 60s, to prog rock goddesses, women’s liberationists and punks of the 70s–80s; from riot grrrl activists and queercore anarchists of the 90s to radical protesters Pussy Riot and the most inspiring all-girl bands today. These aren’t the manufactured acts of some pop svengali, these groups write their own songs, play their own instruments and make music together on their own terms. All-girl bands have made radical contributions to feminism, culture and politics as well as producing some unique, influential and innovative music. It’s time to celebrate the outspoken voices, creative talents and gutsy performances of the all-girl bands who demand we take notice. Including commentary from members of the original 60s girl groups and classic punk-inspired outfits like The Raincoats and The Slits, as well as contemporary Ladyfest heroines like Beth Ditto, this timely exploration shows the world that sidelining all-girl bands is a major oversight. Contributions by Victoria Yeulet, Elizabeth K.Keenan, Sini Timonen, Jackie Parsons, Deborah Withers, Jane Bradley, Rhian E.Jones, Bryony Beynon, Val Rauzier, Elizabeth K. Keenan and Sarah Dougher This book is a celebration of girl bands in all genres: girl bands who make music on their own terms. With a unique focus on the talented girl bands of the past 50 years rather than casting female musicians in the typical solo ‘singer-songwriter’ mode. New perspectives on each genre – from 1960s Motown groups to 1970s prog rock and punk to 1980s protest music, 1990s queercore, riot grrrl and beyond – written by musicians, performers, journalists, promoters and fans. Contents Introducing the All-girl Band: Finding Comfort in Contradiction | Julia Downes 1. Female Pioneers in Old-time and Country Music | Victoria Yeulet 2. Puppets on a String? Girl Groups of the 50s and 60s | Elizabeth K. Keenan 3. Truth Gotta Stand: 60s Garage, Beat and 70s Rock | Sini Timonen 4. Prog Rock: A Fortress They Call ‘The Industry’ | Jackie Parsons 5. Feminist Musical Resistance in the 70s and 80s | Deborah Withers 6. You Create, We Destroy: Punk Women |Jane Bradley 7. Post-Punk: Raw, Female Sound | Rhian E. Jones 8. Subversive Pleasure: Feminism in DIY Hardcore | Bryony Beynon 9. Queercore: Fearless Women | Val Rauzier 10. Riot Grrrl, Ladyfest and Rock Camps for Girls | Elizabeth K. Keenan and Sarah Dougher Epilogue: Pussy Riot and the Future | Julia Downes Notes Bibliography Reviews “Tales of race riots, intimidation and abuse by male music fans and management, and inspiring moments of in-your-face activism provide fascinating background to some of your favourite bands (and many you’ve never heard of). The greatest strength of Women Make Noise is that many of the contributors were themselves part of the bands they are chronicling. These women offer up inspiring, funny and enraging stories of being radical activists and prolific musicians in a world that worked constantly to push them down.” – Gender Focus “Women Make Noise is a wonderful collection of essays, taking the reader from the days of Sassy country and Western women carving out a place in a horrendously sexist fledgeling music industry, all the way up to the Riot Grrrl movement of the 90s and beyond. Each chapter is written with such boundless enthusiasm for the subject matter that it’ll keep you enthralled until you drift slowly out of your comfort zone without even realising it. Read the book cover to cover, have your eyes opened, discover your next favourite band and perhaps think about the role of Women in music a little differently from now on.” – Intuition, review by Owen Chambers “Fascinating, diverse and, most importantly, inspiring – the title alone is as much a rallying cry as a joyous statement of the truth.” – Zoe Street Howe, author of Typical Girls? The Story of The Slits, and other music titles “It’s exhilarating to learn about different generations of female musicians from such diverse, strong voices.” – Kathleen Hanna, American singer, musician, artist, feminist activist, pioneer of the feminist punk riot grrrl movement “A very important and timely contribution to the debates about “women in rock”. All-girl bands have too often been written off as novelties, and this exciting book sheds new light on an under-researched area.” – Lucy O’Brien, author of She Bop: The Definitive History of Women in Rock, Pop and Soul
Listen to Punk Rock! Exploring a Musical Genre discusses the evolution of punk from its inception in 1975 to the present, delving into the lasting impact of the genre throughout society today. Listen to Punk Rock! provides readers with a fuller picture of punk rock as an inclusive genre with continuing relevance. Organized in a roughly chronological manner, it starts with an introduction that explains the musical and cultural forces that shaped the punk genre. Next, 50 entries cover important punk bands and subgenres, noting female punk bands as well as bands of color. The final part of the book discusses how punk has influenced other musical genres and popular culture. The book will give those new to the genre an overview of important bands and products related to the movement in music, including publications, fashion, and films about punk rock. Notably, it pays special attention to diversity within the genre, discussing bands often overlooked or mentioned only in passing in most histories of the movement, which focus mainly on The Sex Pistols, The Clash, and The Ramones as the pioneers of punk.