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Girls Unconditional: The story of The Slits, told exclusively by The Slits

Ari Up, Viv Albertine and Tessa Pollit speak about how The Slits proved that young women could be responsible for some of the most influential and innovative music of the punk movement

Words by Janine Bullman

Ahead of their forthcoming show at Offset festival in September, I spent two weeks on the trail of The Slits. I’m given a number for Tessa Pollit, the bass player of the band, and arrange to meet her at her home in West London. A few days later I meet Viv Albertine, one time guitarist and Slits songwriter, at the book launch of new biography Typical Girls? The Story of The Slits , and just in the nick of time, after much running around and plenty of patient finger drumming, I finally got hold of band mouthpiece Ari Up, on the phone from her home in New York.

Ari splits her time between Brooklyn and Jamaica and is notoriously hard to pin down. Born in Germany she moved to London in the mid-’70s with her mother and speaks in an accent part German, part West London, part Patois.

“All the people who were in that revolution back then in the punk time, it left something in those people,” she says. “The ones who didn’t die or sell out are incredibly untamed and free spirits, they have evolved into incredible people like when you meet Poly Styrene [of X-Ray Spex] now, she has become an amazing person. There are just one or two who felt so pressured they had to buy into society.”

On May 16 th 1976, Arianne Forster (Ari Up), aged 14, is at the now legendary Patti Smith gig at Camden’s Roundhouse, having a row with her mother Nora (now Mrs John Lydon). Ari soon attracts the attention of Joe Strummer’s then girlfriend Paloma Romero (Palmolive) and Kate Corris, who approach Ari with the idea of forming a group. They begin rehearsing the very next day as the first incarnation of The Slits. Rehearsing in Joe and Palmolive’s squat, they are soon joined by Tessa Pollit who recalls the moment she joined the band.

“Originally The Slits had another bass player called Suzie Gutsy. I met The Slits through this News of the World article that was written about women in punk right at the beginning. Ari came round to my flat and she really liked all this poetry I had written on the wall. Suzie Gutsy got kicked out and I joined, that was it really. I was playing guitar before and so I had to learn bass in 2 weeks for our first gig and that was at The Roxy in Harlesden.”

In the audience that night was Viv Albertine. “I was in the Flowers of Romance with Sid Vicious and Sid left to join the Sex Pistols,” explains Viv. “I saw The Slits play at the Harlesden Roxy and I thought they were amazing. We met up a few days later and played together, and I backcombed their hair like the New York Dolls and that was it, we just clicked.” Kate Corris was next to be given the elbow as Viv stepped in on guitar. Ari Up, Viv Albertine, Tessa Pollit and Palmolive were now The Slits, and in terms of classic lineups, always will be.

Despite being integral to punk’s evolution from the very beginnings in 1976, the band have never received the same attention The Clash or The Sex Pistols have. Yet The Slits were doing something no other band had done before. You have to remember when The Clash’s Mick Jones picked up his Gibson Les Paul for the first time, there was a long line of boys wielding guitars from Elvis to Johnny Thunders to emulate, but as female musicians there was no her-story, all The Slits had for inspiration was Patti Smith.

They were the first group of female musicians doing it on their own terms. Their sheer inability to compromise or sell themselves on their sex appeal was a major inspiration to the Riot Grrl movement in the 1990s, and today their musical influence can be heard in bands from Sonic Youth to The Horrors. There seems to be no other time in rock’n’roll history where women were fronting bands and playing their own instruments. But was Punk really a time of equal opportunity for women? Sat in her basement flat just off Ladbroke Grove, Tessa remembers the reality of it all. “It was incredibly male orientated then, within the record companies, and it was a real struggle,” she says. “I think people forget how much of a struggle it was. I mean there has always been female singers but not women playing their own instruments”

For Viv, “It was a bit like the Second World War, where the women came to the fore because they were needed to work in the factories. It was such a bleak time, three-day weeks, a heat wave, no youth culture on TV or in the media, rubbish all over the streets. Any little rat that could rise up did. It was quite an equal time but it seemed to shrink away after.”

Despite completely rewriting rock’s masculine rulebook and inspiring a feminist revolution in the ’90s, Tessa believes that The Slits never viewed themselves as feminists. “I just hate labels,” she says. “We never set out to be feminists because then there is a set of rules and I don’t want to be labeled on any level.”

But as Viv pointed out, the female punk revolution was short-lived and when I ask Ari if she thinks there has been a progression in women’s roles in music she says, “I didn’t know it would come to this, where everything is like a factory. You see Lady Gaga and she is dressed all crazy in these space age outfits, but she is totally straight, she isn’t a rebel. I can see straight through her, she is business. Her sexuality is so trashy and cheap and she is just singing about having too much and fucking about and being vulgar. People think that is rebellion. When you look at the philosophy, it is scary. Even Britney is on this really sexual out there thing. All these girls are so groomed and polished and are being put out there as an industry or as a gimmick. It is scary to think that this is how women are meant to look.”

But back in the bleak mid-’70s when The Slits embarked on the legendary White Riot Tour alongside The Clash, The Jam, Buzzcocks, and Subway Sect, Viv recalls the rest of the country weren’t quite prepared for the four girls:

“We were like the massive rebels of the tour. The way we looked was much more unusual or far out than the guys, because by now people were used to rock and roll looking guys, but girls in fetish wear, with their t-shirts slashed, hair standing a mile on end and in Doctor Martin boots? They couldn’t stand it and they would say we will only have them in the hotel if they walk from the door to the lift and we don’t want to see them again till the next day. Everyday the tour manager would threaten to throw us off the tour, Norman the bus driver had to be bribed daily to let us on the bus. It was bloody stressful.”

Tessa: “I can’t really think of anyone like us before. I think because we were women it was even more threatening because of the way we looked. Especially when we were going out of London it seemed to cause even more shock. I think we got thrown out of one hotel because I had The Slits graffiti-ed on the side of my case. I suppose you have to look at what it followed, the whole ’60s apathy thing and the fact that it was a movement, it wasn’t just one group. Something had to break at that period. It was probably the worst style ever in the ’70s as far as I can remember, it was vomit-making, the style was so horrible, the haircuts, the clothes, the house design, the avocado green bathroom suites.”

But it wasn’t just The Slits being female that made them different, it was the style of their music too. When all the other punk bands were shouting “1234”, The Slits were playing to a different beat. They were amongst the first bands on that scene to draw their inspiration from reggae music and at the time of the White Riot tour they were being managed by Roxy DJ Don Letts. For Tessa, reggae was hugely inspiring to the way she played. “There were more reggae artists playing live, like Big Youth and Burning Spear, and the film The Harder They Come, which was really influential, and there were a lot of sound systems and shebeen blues clubs. It was just a real time for reggae in the ’70s. Before punks had ever made any records there was reggae. Thank God, because it was hugely inspiring. Don Letts was djing at the Roxy club playing pure reggae so we got to know all these songs and even to this day I love Jamaican music, just love it.”

I ask her how the Jamaican community took to four punk girls turning up to their clubs. “Maybe it was more acceptable to be a white woman than to be a white man and be there. In the Ballyhigh Club in Streatham, Ari would just start dancing and be surrounded by a crowd of people. But somewhere like the Four Aces in Dalston, which doesn’t exist anymore, it, would be much more of a tense atmosphere, like who do these people think they are, coming into our club. Ari used to go on her own from a really young age, she had quite a nerve, she was 15, but you can’t help but like her.”

The Slits were also the first musicians to point out that women played their instruments in a different way to men, quite a revelation but for Tessa it was the only way she knew. “I like the fact that women do play differently,” she says. “For me I was always playing with other women so I didn’t know any different.”

Viv, though, was making it up as she went along. “We, in a way, tried to fit in with boys and how they played,” she says. “I hadn’t been taught an instrument so I was literally making it up as I went along and with things Keith Levene [later of PiL] was showing me, though he wasn’t showing me straight forward things. He was teaching me more the mentality than the actual chords. He gave me the confidence to do what I wanted and I would make things up and he would say, ‘What time is that in? It works but it shouldn’t.’” At the time Viv was going out with Mick Jones. “Mick didn’t teach me anything. Only the guys you don’t sleep with teach you something.”

Unlike the other punk bands, The Slits didn’t sign to a label straight away in 1977. Viv didn’t think the band were ready. “Mainly we didn’t sign because we knew we didn’t sound like we did in our heads. That and the record companies wanted to market us and package us up as sexy punk girls. There really weren’t any other all girl bands at the time. We had to wait till someone took us for who we where “

Finally, the band signed to Island in 1978. What was particularly unusual is that Island Records agreed to give them full creative control on everything, from the artwork to the choice of single, something that is still rare in the business today. The band’s first single, ‘Typical Girls’, was backed with a cover version of Marvin Gaye’s ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’. It was a song that Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records, thought would give the girls more success, but they were adamant they would go with their own song ‘Typical Girls’ as the A-side. Although the band were able to make their own career decisions, they weren’t always the most financially-viable. I ask Viv if the term ‘bloody-minded’ would be a suitable term to describe The Slits’ attitude to the music business at the time.

“I think every decision we made, made it difficult for us. We kept thinking ‘Why aren’t we commercial? Why aren’t we on TV?’ On the other hand, we were so uncompromising on how we spoke to people, how we did interviews, how we looked, everything was utterly uncompromised. So we led ourselves down this difficult cult route. Which actually, 20 years later, worked out pretty well as it kept The Slits pure and now because we were so uncompromising the band has such a strong identity. But it did mean we made no money and we had no commercial success.”

Their success seems on a par to a band like The Velvet Underground’s in the ’60s. Neither bands sold huge amounts of records on release but their influence has been huge and ongoing. But when I ask Tessa about when she first became aware of their now legendary status, she seems blissfully unaware of quite how influential the band have been.

“I wasn’t aware at all till I hooked up with Ari a few years ago. She kept going on about how we had influenced the whole Riot Grrrl movement. I didn’t get it until we started playing in America and we had an audience out there, a young audience. I was quite shocked.”

But long before Riot Grrrl, a young Madonna had been in the audience and you can see the influence The Slits had on her style on her first appearances on Channel 4’s innovative music programme The Tube. But again, Tessa has a very grounded view to this. “I think she must have been quite influenced by the way Viv dressed as she came to see us before her career took off but I don’t like to go on about things like that. I just think, so what? Everyone is going to get influenced by what they see. I just don’t like to blow my own trumpet. I just want to keep moving forward and try and not get egotistical about anything.”

The Slits released their debut album, ‘Cut’, produced by legendary reggae producer Dennis Bovell, on the 7 th September 1979. By this point drummer Palmolive had left the band and had been replaced by Budgie, who later went on to join Siouxsie And The Banshees. On the album’s cover, Ari, Tessa and Viv stare defiantly into the camera lens. Like Amazonian warriors they are caked in mud and naked apart from a loincloth. Pennie Smith shot this now legendary image of The Slits in the summer of 1979, almost 30 years ago to the day. In an era where female role models like Katie Price are most often surgically modified into the cartoon image of a woman, and the teacup-wielding Lady GaGa is considered to be outrageous, that image of The Slits seems more relevant than ever. I ask Tessa if they were aware quite how important that shot of them would become.

“I think we knew it was going to cause a storm. But it was an incredibly liberating feeling splashing around in the mud. I can’t even remember where the idea came from but it was the perfect setting for it. It just had this ambiguity about it, us against a country house with roses growing up the walls. It got very mixed reactions. I think we just liked to push the boundaries. I spoke to Vivien Goldman and she was working for Sounds or Melody Maker at the time and she took it to her editor. They were saying, they are so fat and ugly we aren’t putting that in our paper. They just didn’t want to see women like that.”

At the time the photos caused outrage with one man going so far as to try and sue the record company for crashing his car after seeing the three naked Slits looking down at him from a huge billboard.

After the release of ‘Cut’ the band’s sound became increasingly experimental. In the early 1980s, The Slits formed an alliance with Bristol post-punk band The Pop Group, sharing a drummer (Bruce Smith) and releasing a joint single, ‘In The Beginning There was Rhythm’/ ‘Where There’s A Will’ (Y Records). The Slits released their second album, ‘Return Of The Giant Slits’ in 1981 and in the December of that year, the band decided to split. Ari was 14 when she joined the band, Tessa and Viv only a couple of years older. Tessa believes they did the right thing. “It felt like we needed a break,” she says. “We needed to go off and experience our own adventures. We had grown up together and we had worked so hard, everything was about The Slits. We needed to have our own individual experiences in life. I don’t think it was a bad thing and the whole music scene became so squeaky clean in the ’80s and I think that was what put me off. Something really switched in the ’80s.”

Still, the split didn’t come easy. It left a huge hole in each of their lives. Tessa spiralled into heroin addiction and Viv likened the aftermath to being akin to posttraumatic stress disorder. “It meant so much to me,” she explains. “But by the time we split up I was burnt out. I couldn’t bear to listen to music for about two years, it was terrible. I went down the filmmaking path. I thought that was a better option at the time. In the ’80s music got very careerist, it was no longer about expressing yourself.”

Ari had twins shortly after the split and left England to live in the jungles of Belize and then Jamaica.

Ari Up and Tessa Pollitt reformed The Slits with new members in 2005, and in 2006 released the EP ‘Revenge Of The Killer Slits’. The EP featured former Sex Pistol Paul Cook and Marco Pirroni (ex-Adam & the Ants, and Siouxsie & The Banshees) as both musicians and co-producers. In fact, Cook’s daughter Hollie is a member of the current line-up, singing and playing keyboards. Other members of the reformed band are German drummer Anna Schulte, and Adele Wilson on guitar. I asked Tessa what led her and Ari to getting The Slits back together.

“I hooked up with Ari about five years ago, we hadn’t seen each other in years. She had been all over the place in the jungle, in Jamaica and America. I went to see some of her solo gigs and I just got itchy to get on stage again and play some of our old songs. It was like there had been no time gap and we got on like we had just seen each other yesterday. We have led very parallel lives and have been through similar experiences. She had lost her son’s father, he was shot in Jamaica, and I had lost my daughter’s father, Sean Oliver, when she was five, we have both been widowed.”

Viv Albertine joined the group for two gigs in 2008 but decided she didn’t want to reform. “That sealed it for me. I didn’t want to go back,” she says. “I felt awkward singing songs like ‘Shoplifiting’. I am a woman now and still have stuff I want to talk about but I can’t be playing songs from 25 years ago.” Viv will be releasing a single of her own later this year and an album though US label Manimal Records. When I ask her what she thinks of The Slits now, Viv tells me, “You watch Ari on stage even now and she still comes over as something absolutely amazing and different. She has no fear and no body consciousness. She still does something for sexuality and women that I don’t think any other woman does.”

2009 is a big year for The Slits. Not only is it the 30 th Anniversary of their cult album ‘Cut’, but this year also sees the release of the first Slits album in 28 years. ‘Trapped Animal’ will be released in October. The band recorded the record in Los Angeles earlier this year. A superb biography on the band written by journalist Zoe Street Howe ( Typical Girls? The Story of The Slits ) was also released in April.

Ari takes her role as a Slit very seriously and is still hugely conscious about not being pushed into a position she doesn’t feel comfortable with. “I am constantly worried about The Slits and haunted about The Slits, that The Slits do not have to sell their integrity or their principles or about being pushed into something we don’t want to do. I mean that is a struggle we all have to deal with all our lives anyway.”

I remind her how Joe Strummer had praised them for managing to keep hold of their integrity.

“The Slits have become something beyond The Slits, bigger than life, bigger than our personalities,” she says. “They have become very mythical. The responsibility to stay true to ourselves is huge. People need something like The Slits, even if it isn’t us. Every time we play, there is always a girl who says, ‘I am going to start a group’. There is always someone who tells us that we have been an inspiration or life changing.”

18 Jul 2009

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Viv Albertine (The Slits)

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Past Events

Here are the most recent UK tour dates we had listed for Viv Albertine (The Slits). Were you there?

October 2018

• Wed 3 Oct Gateshead, The Glasshouse International Centre for Music Viv Albertine (The Slits)

September 2018

• Thu 27 Sep London, Archway Methodist Church Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Thu 6 Sep ➙ Sun 9 Sep Portmeirion, Festival Site Festival No.6 The The, Friendly Fires, Franz Ferdinand, Jessie Ware, The Charlatans…

August 2018

• Thu 16 Aug ➙ Sun 19 Aug Brecon Beacons Green Man 2018 The War on Drugs, Fleet Foxes, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, John Grant, Grizzly Bear…
• Thu 26 Jul ➙ Sun 29 Jul Saltash, Port Eliot Estate Port Eliot Festival Baxter Dury, Gaz Coombes, Gwenno, Danny Goffey, Chris Difford…
• Mon 14 May Manchester, The Dancehouse Theatre Viv Albertine (The Slits), Jeanette Winterson
• Mon 7 May Leeds, The Wardrobe Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Wed 11 Apr London, Cafe Oto Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Mon 8 May London, The Social W1 Viv Albertine (The Slits), Hisham Matar, Eimear Mcbride, Edna O'Brien, Andrew O'Hagan, Heavenly Jukebox …

February 2017

• Sat 25 Feb Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens Viv Albertine (The Slits), Marie Nixon

October 2016

• Sat 15 Oct Norwich Arts Centre Viv Albertine (The Slits), John Robb
• Thu 12 May ➙ Sun 15 May Focus Wales 2016 The Magic Numbers, En Garde, Camera, Anelog, Billy Bibby Band…

January 2016

• Fri 29 Jan Scunthorpe, Cafe INDIEpendent Viv Albertine (The Slits)

October 2015

• Sun 18 Oct London, Nightclub Kolis & The Lounge 666 Penny Arcade, Viv Albertine (The Slits)

September 2015

• Tue 22 Sep London, The Social W1 Kevin Rowland, Andrew Weatherall, Joe Goddard (Hot Chip), Jeremy Deller, DJ Die, Pete Fowler, Heavenly Jukebox, In Light Of Aquarius, Caitlin Moran, Viv Albertine (The Slits), John Niven, Pete Brown (3) …
• Fri 24 Jul ➙ Sun 26 Jul Topcliffe, Baldersby Park Deer Shed Festival 6 John Grant (US), Billy Bragg, The Unthanks, The Wedding Present, Dan Croll…
• Mon 15 Jun London, The Social W1 Edna O'Brien, Viv Albertine (The Slits), Harry Parker
• Mon 25 May London, Conway Hall Irvine Welsh, Viv Albertine (The Slits), David Spiegelhalter, Itay Talgam, Leslee Udwin

December 2014

• Thu 18 Dec London, Rough Trade (East) Viv Albertine (The Slits), Thurston Moore

November 2014

• Fri 14 Nov ➙ Sun 16 Nov Manchester, The Palace Hotel Louder Than Words Guy Garvey, Edwyn Collins, Mary-Anne Hobbs, Tim Burgess, Zoe Howe…

October 2014

• Fri 24 Oct Dundee, Bonar Hall Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Sat 11 Oct Sabrina Mahfouz, Viv Albertine (The Slits), Mahtab Hanna, Silvia Ziranek, Goldpeg, Paula Chambers, Rachael House, Maryam Mottaghi, Natalie Boatfield, Betsy de Lotbiniere, Miss Pokeno, Electra Read-Dagg, Jade Montserrat, Jimmy Cauty, Sophie Polyviou, Zanna …

September 2014

• Thu 4 Sep ➙ Sun 7 Sep Portmeirion, Festival Site Festival No.6 Pet Shop Boys, Beck, London Grammar, Bonobo, Jon Hopkins…

August 2014

• Fri 29 Aug ➙ Sun 31 Aug Salisbury, Larmer Tree Gardens End Of The Road Festival 2014 Flaming Lips, Wild Beasts, John Grant (US), Gene Clark No Other Band, The Horrors…
• Tue 12 Aug London, York Hall Irvine Welsh, Kate Tempest, Viv Albertine (The Slits), Doc Brown, Bill Hillmann
• Thu 17 Jul London, Wilton's Music Hall Jon Ronson, Sam Lee, Viv Albertine (The Slits), Gruff Rhys, Jocelyn Pook
• Fri 27 Jun London, The Tabernacle Nikesh Shukla, Kamila Shamsie, Viv Albertine (The Slits), Sara Pascoe
• Tue 17 Jun Shoreham-by-Sea, Ropetackle Arts Centre Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Wed 11 Jun Liverpool, Waterstone's Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Tue 3 Jun London, The Lexington Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Sun 4 May Brighton & Hove, The Old Market Viv Albertine (The Slits)

February 2014

• Fri 28 Feb ➙ Sat 1 Mar O2 Victoria Warehouse Manchester The 6 Music Festival Damon Albarn, Midlake, Kelis, Haim, Luke Sital-Singh…

September 2013

• Thu 12 Sep ➙ Sun 15 Sep Portmeirion, Festival Site Festival No. 6 Manic Street Preachers, My Bloody Valentine, AlunaGeorge, Bob Delyn a'r Ebillion, Boxed In…

August 2013

• Fri 16 Aug ➙ Sun 18 Aug Ottery St Mary, Escot Park Beautiful Days Andy C (2), Arrested Development, Babylon Circus, Banco De Gaia, Brother & Bones…
• Sat 8 Jun Brighton, Sticky Mike's Frog Bar Viv Albertine (The Slits), Laetitia Sadier
• Fri 7 Jun London, Sebright Arms Viv Albertine (The Slits), Laetitia Sadier
• Sun 26 May Manchester, Dulcimer Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Sat 27 Apr Stockton on Tees, The Green Room Viv Albertine (The Slits), Support
• Fri 29 Mar London, The Windmill Viv Albertine (The Slits), Thee MPVs, Mickey Gloss, Flowers, Big Wave, No Cars, Arthur Gunn, Simon Love, Vuvuvultures …
• Sat 9 Mar Glasgow, SWG3 Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Fri 8 Mar Newcastle-upon-Tyne, The Morden Tower Viv Albertine (The Slits), Rachel Lancaster (Chippewa Falls), Wilt Wagner
• Wed 6 Mar London, KOKO Wilko Johnson, Viv Albertine (The Slits)

February 2013

• Wed 27 Feb Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Sat 23 Feb London, Nambucca Viv Albertine (The Slits)

October 2012

• Fri 26 Oct Bristol, The Thunderbolt Viv Albertine (The Slits), Rita Lynch, Drunken Butterfly, Gary Smith
• Sat 24 Mar Hyde, The Cheshire Ring Viv Albertine (The Slits), Gina Birch, Helen McCookerybook

November 2011

• Fri 25 Nov London, O2 Academy Islington Alternative TV, Viv Albertine (The Slits), Gertrude
• Tue 15 Nov Nottingham, Rock City The Damned, Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Fri 4 Nov Dundee, Beat Generator Live! Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Thu 3 Nov Edinburgh, The Voodoo Rooms Viv Albertine (The Slits), Aggi Doom

September 2011

• Wed 28 Sep London, Nambucca Vic Godard & Subway Sect, Viv Albertine (The Slits), Television Personalities Vic Goddard & Subway Sect
• Fri 2 Sep Hebden Bridge, Trades Club Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Wed 22 Jun ➙ Sun 26 Jun Glastonbury, Worthy Farm Glastonbury Festival 2011 3 Daft Monkeys, Admiral Fallow, Barenaked Ladies, CW Stoneking, Chumbawamba…
• Sun 5 Jun London, Stoke Newington Town Hall Newton Dunbar, Colin Grant, Tim Burrows, Viv Albertine (The Slits), Danny Kelly, Tim Wells, Mistah Brown …
• Sat 21 May London, The Windmill The Mekons, Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Fri 13 May Bristol, The Thunderbolt Viv Albertine (The Slits), Rita Lynch, Drunken Butterfly, Gary Smith
• Mon 2 May Preston, The Continental The Wave Pictures, Sonny & The Sunsets, Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Wed 13 Apr Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Sun 3 Apr Leicester, The Musician Viv Albertine (The Slits)

February 2011

• Sat 26 Feb London, The Roundhouse Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Fri 25 Feb Gateshead, The Central Viv Albertine (The Slits), Gina Birch, Helen McCookerybook, Pauline Murray

January 2011

• Mon 17 Jan London, The Windmill Austra, Viv Albertine (The Slits), Daughter
• Thu 13 Jan London, The Enterprise Viv Albertine (The Slits), Catherine A.D., She Makes War

November 2010

• Sat 27 Nov London, The Windmill Bobby Conn, Viv Albertine (The Slits), Barringtone

October 2010

• Sun 17 Oct York, The Fleeting Arms (Formerly Stereo) Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Sun 10 Oct Brighton, Madame Geisha Viv Albertine (The Slits), Healthy Junkies, The Dogbones, Sumerian Kyngs, Monty OxyMoron, ASBO Retards, Anal Beard, Another Day Lost, Dirty Scavenger, Cracktown, Goldblade, XX Cortez, The Priscillas …
• Sat 31 Jul Norwich Arts Centre Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Fri 23 Jul London, The George Tavern Vertical Smile, Viv Albertine (The Slits), Blue On Blue Blue On Blue (2)
• Thu 17 Jun London, Bush Hall Gaggle, Viv Albertine (The Slits), Fiction (2), Club Mother F***er DJ's, Jeff Leach
• Mon 14 Jun Glasgow, Munro's Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Sat 5 Jun Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Sun 30 May London, Je Thames Viv Albertine (The Slits), charly blue and the colours, Debbie Smith, Girls Girls Girls DJs, Gaggle (DJ Set), DJ Heaven And Hell, DJ Alex Gibson, DJ Amy …
• Wed 26 May Chelmsford, Bassment Bar Viv Albertine (The Slits), Artgruppe
• Fri 14 May London, The Miller Viv Albertine (The Slits), Charly Blue and The Colours, Monroe Transfer, Arthur Brick
• Sat 8 May Macclesfield, The Heritage Centre Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Fri 7 May ➙ Sun 9 May Minehead, Butlins Matt Groening, Iggy & The Stooges, CocoRosie, Built To Spill, Thee Oh Sees, The Boredoms, The Raincoats, Toumani Diabate, Danielson, James Blackshaw, Anni Rossi, Viv Albertine (The Slits), Panda Bear, The Residents, Deerhunter, Broadcast, Daniel Johnston, Amadou & Mariam, Shonen Knife, Ruins …
• Mon 3 May London, The City Arts & Music Project (C.A.M.P.) Talk Normal, Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Sat 1 May London, The Old Blue Last Wet Dog, Viv Albertine (The Slits), Girl Germs, Dance Magic Dance DJs
• Fri 30 Apr London, The King & Queen Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Fri 9 Apr ➙ Sun 11 Apr Laugharne, Festival Site Alasdair Roberts, Martin Carthy, Bill Drummond, Roddy Doyle, Keith Allen (2), Mark Olson, Gentle Good, No Thee No Ess, Richard James, Viv Albertine (The Slits), Katell Keineg, Trembling Bells, Anthony Reynolds, Charlotte Greig, Will Hodgkinson, A.C. Grayling, Howard Marks, Nicky Wire, Stuart Maconie, Lots More! …
• Sat 13 Mar London, Bull & Gate False Flags, Ghosts of Men, Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Mon 8 Mar Brighton, The Albert Viv Albertine (The Slits), Little Eris and The Molecules, Wet Dog

February 2010

• Thu 18 Feb Bangor, Blue Sky Cafe Viv Albertine (The Slits), Jeb Lot Nicholls
• Thu 18 Feb Bangor, Gwynedd Museum and Art Gallery Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Wed 17 Feb London, Chelsea College of Art & Design Viv Albertine (The Slits)
• Sat 6 Feb Oxford, The Cellar Viv Albertine (The Slits), Little Eris and The Molecules, Baby Gravy
• Tue 2 Feb Cardiff, Buffalo Bar Viv Albertine (The Slits), Little Eris
• Mon 1 Feb Bristol, The Crofters Rights Viv Albertine (The Slits), Little Eris and The Molecules

January 2010

• Thu 21 Jan London, The Gladstone Arms Viv Albertine (The Slits), Charly Blue & The Colours, Jess Bryant

December 2009

• Tue 1 Dec London, The Macbeth Viv Albertine (The Slits), Monroe Transfer, The Rayographs

October 2009

• Sun 4 Oct London, The Lower Third Viv Albertine (The Slits), Creation Rockers, Bince & Candy

September 2009

• Sun 20 Sep London, The Windmill Viv Albertine (The Slits)

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FOUNDED IN 1977 ☆ PUNKGLOBE.COM ☆ ONLINE MUSIC ZINE

November 2023 – An Interview With A True Punk Legend Viv Albertine of The Slits

An interview with a true punk legend viv albertine of the slits, interview by: john wisniewski.

In this interview, the fabulous Viv Albertine speaks about the early days of The Slits, the working class in England, her adventures while growing up and being in The Slits, writing her autobiography, and her solo record.

Punk Globe: When did The Slits form, Viv? What was the idea for forming the band?

Viv : The Slits were already a band when I joined. I saw them play at Harlesden Colosseum in 1977 and thought Ari and Palmolive in particular were fantastic. I called them up the next day to say how much I enjoyed the gig ( there were so few of us in this new ‘movement’ that we all knew each other) and they laughed because they’d asked me to join the band six months earlier but I’d said no. I was in a band with Sid Vicious at the time, called The Flowers of Romance but Sid chucked me out and then he joined The Sex Pistols, so by the time I saw The Slits play I was free. There was no big idea about forming the band as far as I know there was a general ethos in the air called (now called punk) that you didn’t have to be able to play, or be male, or be able-bodied, or be white to be in a ‘punk’ band. The attitude opened the door to music for many more people than before. I’d never seen a girl play guitar and drums, I thought only boys who were very good at playing guitar could be guitarists (with their boring guitar solos and could be Guitarists fancy jazz chords). It never occurred to me I could be in a band until I saw The Sex Pistols play, I made the mental leap. They were working-class like me (they were better than me, I couldn’t play at all) so all I had to do was to get past the fact they were male to realize I could do it too. I didn’t realize until recently that I was actually poorer and less educated than most other ‘punks’. I thought we were all working-class rebels. We didn’t talk about our backgrounds much (some of them pretended to be working class) it wasn’t a  ‘thing’ like now. My mother was very strict about how I spoke growing up because she was a child of immigrants (my father was also an immigrant) and she thought I would get on better in life if I spoke ‘properly’ so most people around me in punk times I was middle class because of how I spoke and carried myself but I was poorer and had a more dysfunctional background than all of them. I can count on one hand the real working class (or poor) people from those days.

Punk Globe: What was it like writing your autobiography?

Viv : It took three years each to write my books- Clothes Clothes Clothes, Music Music Music, Boys Boys Boys, and To Throw Away Unopened (both published by Faber in the UK) and like playing the guitar, I didn’t know if I would be able to do it when I started but again I took the leap. In the early 2000’s, I thought, I’ve lived an unusual life and made a couple of big leaps against the odds, against society, and against class and gender expectations think my story could be interesting, to young people especially, but no one is going to invite me to tell it. I’m going to have to do it myself, same as picking up the guitar. Certain demographics in society, usually not very radical ones, are always being asked to tell their story and being celebrated on TV, in exhibitions etc. I wasn’t in that demographic and nor were The Slits. Even forty years later, it’s the ‘punk’ bands playing derivative versions of our rock n roll that we are celebrating and getting the royalties. The Slits didn’t have any role models and our music and lyrics still sound fresh and original because of that. I’m so glad I put my story-and in some ways a woman’s story-and experiences out there. The books did well which shows if you can get past the gatekeepers, people do want to hear about alternative lives.

Punk Globe: What were the early days like for The Slits?

Viv : For me who hadn’t traveled, to go to other countries (and around the UK) not as a tourist but as a working person, playing music, meeting other musicians and audiences from all of these places, it was a fantastic experience. Wherever we went we were taken straight into the heart of the city that was my favorite part of being in the band. In other ways it was very difficult and painful, the sexism, the violence ( we were physically attacked and threatened on a daily basis) we made no money, we were treated badly, not taken seriously in any way, and not even looked at (literally) by sound-engineers and other industry/record company types. In the end, we became exhausted and burnt out, and in some ways turned on each other. Even Ari who was young and very robust, said years later that she felt as if she’d been through a war.

Punk Globe: What was the experience like recording your first solo album?

Viv : Musically it was a very exciting recording ‘Cut’. We kept putting off recording until we felt we could reproduce what was in our heads, what we thought the songs should sound like.

We kept practicing and after about two years (1979) we went into the studio, Ridge Farm, for a month with a fantastic producer, Dennis Bovell, who I’m still friends with to this day, and made what I think is an extraordinary and ground-breaking record. I hope it’s ok say forty years later-l almost don’t feel like it was me because it was so long ago! The record has won acclaim since. When I listen to the live John Peel sessions we did in the years before, we recorded the album, they actually sound incredible too. Busting with energy and so intense, they’re as brilliant as ‘Cut’, just different, raw, bloody, high octane.

Punk Globe: Any interesting stories about being in The Slits that come to mind?

Viv : Only the hard times stick out, like with any life, difficulties resonate longer, human nature I suppose. I don’t want to go into them.

Punk Globe: any favorite punk bands?

Viv : None that I can think of.

Punk Globe: What are you working on now?

Viv : I’m writing two books. One is a pictorial history of the visual work I’ve made over the years starting from 1973 when I first went to art school. Going to art school was considered to be a complete waste of time in the early seventies- something your parents would be ashamed of. I’ve been to lots of art schools. I kept dropping out or getting chucked out of them. I didn’t fit in anywhere, not even there. I think it’s interesting to show how much failure and poverty of someone trying to be an artist. Someone working-class, female, born in the 1950s with no private income or backers,  supporters that is. Most of us didn’t make it as artists. I think it is an interesting hidden story. Also, the artists have been decimated by the Tories and capitalism (and Brexit) in the UK, so it’s also a shot of a different time when being an outsider was a path some of social misfits and undesirables could take and just go about surviving or at least find some like-minded people to hang out for a while.

Punk Globe: Thank you for the very informative interview, Viv. It was a pleasure to get to know you.

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The Punk Legend Viv Albertine Tells All

In the 1970s, Viv Albertine was fully entrenched in the English punk scene, a world defined for her by music, blokes and, often, violence. Albertine befriended now-infamous figures like Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols (Vicious unceremoniously kicked her out of their band Flowers of Romance). She dated the Clash founder Mick Jones after noticing his flamboyant dress in the cafeteria at their art college. And in the late ’70s, Albertine joined the legendary band the Slits as guitarist and they released “Cut,” one of the most influential punk albums of all time. All that, and Albertine wasn’t sure that these memories would make for a fascinating memoir.

“I didn’t think it was interesting, and no one seemed interested, to be honest, at 25 years,” says the author of her experiences in the ’70s. Still, she’s collected those moments (and many, many more) for her new book, “ Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. ” (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, $27.99). As the title suggests, Albertine largely focuses on those three great loves. Within, she candidly covers disastrous love affairs and bookends most memories with descriptions of what she was wearing. And then there’s the music — Albertine charts her experiences as a woman in a male-dominated industry, the universal struggles of being in a band and coming back to guitar decades after the breakup of the Slits (and after many years as a housewife). Albertine also goes postpunk, as it were, writing about her tumultuous journey to motherhood and a cancer diagnosis and even providing a snapshot of a dissolving marriage.

The term “warts and all” may as well have been invented for this memoir. “I absolutely knew that it wouldn’t be an honest book that would resonate,” she says, “if I was trying to seem like a nice person or an attractive person or a cool or a sexy person.” Listen to some of the songs that inspired Albertine — and a handful of her own — in the playlist below.

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Viv Albertine Concert Setlists & Tour Dates

Viv albertine at spiegeltent, norwich, england.

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Viv Albertine at The Mouth Magazine at Cafe Indiependent, Scunthorpe, England

Viv albertine at the social, london, england, viv albertine at bbc radio 4 studios, london, england, viv albertine at down arts centre, downpatrick, northern ireland, viv albertine at city library, sunderland, england, viv albertine at sound & vision 2016, viv albertine at lyricull festival 2016, viv albertine at the british library, london, england, viv albertine at golem, hamburg, germany.

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I Do Not Believe In Love: Viv Albertine On Life Post The Slits

Viv Albertine talks candidly to Will Parkhouse about her musical reawakening and the release of her excellent new EP Flesh, on Ecstatic Peace

In the cosy confines of Borough’s Gladstone pub, Viv Albertine is singing a song, a percussive Nico-like chant in which she declares: "I believe in granite/ I believe in mud/ I believe in mountains/ I don’t believe in love." As the performance comes to an end, her eyes appear to have welled up, an odd contrast to the song’s denial of emotion. The second track from her excellent new Flesh EP, out on Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace label, it’s the most affecting moment in a set which has its bumps evened out by assurance and humour. "Legends do that, you know," she tells the audience after forgetting her guitar capo. Later she warns: "Here’s where it all comes out. Confessions of a milf."

Certainly the most glamorous of The Slits, Albertine quit music for film school and directing and raised a daughter before the chance to play with her old band came up in 2008. She’s here solo after choosing not to go down to reunion route taken by former bandmates Ari Up and Tessa Pollit. When we interviewed them a few months back, they didn’t want to comment on her fledgling solo career – but they spoke of her with affection: "She was really articulate and really cutting and really caustic," said Pollit. Perhaps Albertine’s not as acerbic as she was back then (fine by us) but she’s a bright-eyed, engaging conversationalist, as willing to talk about the old days as the new. Judging by the size of the venues she’s tackling, there are still plenty of dues still to be earned, but the post-Slits-y lo-fi and lyrical honesty of Flesh ("I’m quite shocked about some of the things I think now," she tells us) should win her more than a few followers.

You’ve said you were traumatised when The Slits split up in 1981. Why was that?

Viv Albertine: We went everywhere together, we were like sisters in a gang. We were just absolutely knitted together and for all the pain of that – the squabbles, the competition between us as girls – at the same time, we were as one. After losing that identity overnight, I had to rebuild Viv Albertine as a person. That purpose, to make people understand about The Slits, had been my mission every day and that had gone. It’s not like it was a mission that I was broken-hearted to let go of because I didn’t believe in it any more anyway, but it was a painful separation, like a terrible break-up between lovers.

And you didn’t listen to music for three years afterwards?

VA: Music was my life and it was gone. Keith Levene, who I grew up with, was the same after PiL broke up, he was so broken-hearted.

Has the way it ended coloured your memories of the band?

VA: No, because it didn’t end in a horrible big argument, us trying to stab each other or anything. Things just shifted: Ari was pregnant, musically we didn’t fire off each other and financially everything changed. Thatcher got in, people were making music to make money and it was totally not the medium to be in any more. The Slits didn’t fit in that. It was a natural end, just like in a relationship, but that didn’t make it easy. Humans find it so hard to let go, even if it’s the best thing to do. These invisible ties we have to things.

What made you decide to get back into music?

VA: I never in a million years thought I’d ever play again. I thought, I’ve done that, it’s passed. Then this thing happened where I just felt a shift. We were so sectarian about what we liked when we were young, but I suddenly felt like people were open to all types of music again. Zoë Street Howe [ Quietus writer who was writing a book about The Slits ] came into my life, and the fact that a girl as intelligent and knowledgeable as her thought The Slits were relevant had a huge effect on me.

Tessa asked me to come and play with the band, but told me I had four months to learn all the songs again. I hadn’t touched a guitar in 25 years! I got a Squier from the guy down the road and sat at the kitchen table, and my husband’s going, "You’re fucking mad, what are you doing?" But I’d been here before. In the Slits days, people I knew, good mates, said to me: "Viv, you can’t play, stop it, go and do something else." For people to say it to me again now, I was like, I’ve heard that before and look what happened. You idiots. Don’t underestimate me.

So I just plonked away for about six weeks or so and then one day as I played, I just sort of lost it and my hands started going mental. From somewhere the old style of Viv playing came, the weird, slightly atonal, slightly oriental thing that I do, and I wrote a song. Then it was like an avalanche, the songs just came pouring out. I became like a teenage boy, who had to be in his room playing every day. Nothing else mattered. It’s quite strange for a woman of a certain age to feel like this and I realised I hadn’t known what was going on in myself until it all came flying out from the guitar. I hadn’t realised how fucked up I was.

By the time I went on stage with The Slits in 2008, I’d written all these songs and played some gigs in small pubs and it didn’t feel strange to be on stage with them. But I didn’t feel any affinity to what The Slits were doing, which I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t been doing my own stuff. The songs were great, but I couldn’t be singing something I wrote that long ago, because it’s just not relevant now, to me.

The new EP is pretty personal – was it challenging to bare your soul like that?

VA: I was horribly honest and it was a hard thing to do, because people around me weren’t happy about that. But as I said to my husband, there’s no point in doing it if I’m not telling the absolute truth about my situation. If you say what you really think and you fail, you have no shame. There’s absolutely no choice, I had to say what was happening, I had to say what I was going through…

What was happening, what were you going through?

VA: [Laughs] I don’t know how deeply I want to go into it, it’s in the songs, but… a total reassessing of life. Not only my life and how I was living it, but all my thoughts and concepts about love and life got turned on their head, because I’d reached a certain age, I’d gone through a marriage, I’d had a child, I’d loved, I’d lost.

On one of the tracks on the EP, you sing, "I don’t believe in love…"

VA: Yeah. My dad died and I wrote that song the day I found out. We’d had a very difficult and fairly estranged relationship, so it wasn’t like I grieved him dying – I’d grieved a very long time ago. But the possibility that I’d ever have that nice dad who loved me and who I loved had gone. I started ruminating on love. Did he love me? Then I started thinking, has anyone ever really loved me? Have I really ever loved anyone? Is it actually just a made-up construct? I was in an emotional state that day and I just thought, fuck it, I’m not going to believe in this shit any more, I’m just going to believe in what I can see and what I can touch.

Was that a passing phase or…?

VA: No, I’m still… I’m still really, really reassessing love. I don’t know if it’s ‘cos I’m a girl, if it’s because I’ve been raised on these bloody books and these fairy stories. I’ve got a 10-year-old daughter who’s being brought up on a lot of that rubbish as well. I just don’t want to be duped. I’m probably the most romantic idiot you’ll ever come across, and all my life I’ve wanted and hoped and believed in the big love and the soulmate and… I’ve lived with that concept since I was about nine-years-old, and believed in it since I discovered The Beatles. I’ve listened to the words of every song I’ve ever heard believing in it. If I’m going to let that go – and I am kind of letting that concept go – it’s terrible for me. It’s like my religion gone. But at the same time, comes the birth of something else. I don’t what that will be yet, whether it’s a more practical or a more honest way of living. Maybe out of the… I don’t know, the dregs…

VA: The ashes, exactly, will grow something more real and I’ll go to my next phase of life. Maybe it needed to be trashed. When you experience the death of a parent, whether you’re close to them or not, you reassess your life, because you see an arc that’s part of you. I saw my father’s arc of life and it had a profound effect. And that’s the gift they leave you, if you choose to take it.

Keith Levene originally taught you to play the guitar – what did you learn from him?

VA: Keith’s the most sensitive person I’ve ever met in my life, man or woman. He can feel vibes in a room, he can practically read minds, so he was an incredibly intuitive teacher and helped me channel myself through the guitar. But also, one thing about Keith was that he said: "You must start with the guitar in tune. I don’t care what the fuck you do with it afterwards, but start with that guitar in tune." And he still says that today. No matter what he plays, no matter how ugly, mechanical or industrial the noises he pulls out of that guitar, it’s got to be in tune. Isn’t that funny?

Yeah! Do you still see him?

VA: I saw quite a lot of him last year and we did actually try to start a band together, but it didn’t work out. We’ve known each other so long, we’re more like brother and sister, squabbling away. [Laughs] No, but he’s an amazing guy, still.

You went out with Mick Jones from The Clash – did he teach you any guitar?

VA: I always think as soon as you sleep with a guy, he never teaches you anything – you’re only actually learning with guys who want to sleep with you… Of course, me and Mick met at art school before I played guitar, so he wasn’t going to teach me anything, he already had me. But I would see Mick every day on the pay phone in the lobby all day long, arranging rehearsals and so on, shoving money into that pay phone; what he did teach me, without knowing it, was how to run a band. There’s always one in the band who does that – who takes all the responsibility, the love of the band and the work of the band.

Mick’s very supportive and a humble, nice guy. All through the whole punk thing, which had very strong ways of thinking, he kept to his own thoughts, he didn’t follow the crowd. Malcolm and Vivien were like the priest and priestess of it all, and I was interested in their unusual takes on things, like, we don’t believe in love, or sex is just squelching about or whatever – but Mick had such a thinking, intelligent mind, he wasn’t swayed by the latest wave of thinking or what was trendy. That’s what’s so great about Mick. Yeah. Brain in there.

Before The Slits, you and Sid Vicious were in The Flowers of Romance, which must be one of the most famous bands never to have actually recorded anything or played a gig – can you tell us a little about them?

VA: The first time first time I met Sid, we were outside a pub and even though I couldn’t play I said, "I wanna get a band together," and he immediately said, "Oh, I’ll be in a band with you." And I was so touched, because at that time, guys didn’t want to do what girls did. For a cool guy like Sid to want to be in a band with a girl was forward-thinking. I don’t think Johnny Rotten, Mick, or any of those other guys would’ve answered that.

We arranged to meet, went to a squat and rehearsed all through the summer of 1976 – the hottest summer on record for a long time – and emerged at the end of it absolutely white, and without one song. Nothing. [Cracks up] And we were in that basement for hours every day. I remember Sid jumping up and down, doing that pogo thing, tooting away on the sax, and Palmolive [Paloma Romero who later joined The Slits and the Raincoats] was on drums for a bit, and a girl called Sarah [Hall] on bass. I couldn’t play guitar at that stage and we were thrashing about and it’d be a bit embarrassing. And that was it, the whole summer, nothing, not one song.

Is there a side of Sid we don’t hear about, do you think?

VA: I think it’s been readdressed a bit more now, that he wasn’t an oaf. He was probably the most broad-minded person I’ve ever met: he could keep two hugely diverse views in his head and accept them both. I don’t really know anyone else who could do that. So open. And he was so open he took anything that came, whether it was heroin or Nancy Spungen or whatever.

John Lydon recently said he regretted bringing Sid to the Sex Pistols…

VA: Well, he just went for it, didn’t he? I remember me and Sid watching the Pistols at The Screen on the Green and saying, "Oh my God, this band is the best band we’ve ever seen and will ever see, and what is the point of ever doing anything musical now we’ve seen them?" Because if you can’t be better than them, what’s the point? And about a week later, John did ask him to be in the band, and he said: "Should I do it?" I said: "Hell yeah, of course, you must." And he knew he couldn’t turn it down. But he did actually think about it – whether he should do his own thing, or go into something that was already happening and he hadn’t really been a part of. But he did it and… I don’t know, that’s just Sid. Just took it to an extreme.

Viv Albertine’s Flesh EP is released on 1 March through Ecstatic Peace – listen to tracks here

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Viv Albertine’s Memoirs to Be Adapted for Television

By Madison Bloom

A new television show is in the works based on two memoirs by Viv Albertine —author, musician, and former member of the Slits . As The Hollywood Reporter points out, the series will be based on Albertine’s 2014 memoir Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. , as well as her 2018 book, To Throw Away Unopened .

Elizabeth Karlsen and Stephen Woolley, who acted as producers on the film Carol , are slated to helm the project via their Number 9 Films company, alongside producer Rachael Horovitz, THR reports.

“I’m so happy that Rachael, Elizabeth and Stephen are bringing my books to the screen,” Albertine told THR . She continued:

Right from the start they were sensitive to the extremely personal nature of the work and I knew the books were in the hands of producers with integrity. Their vision is perfectly in tune with the work, they understand the subject and the times, I can’t wait for the project to get started and to see all the characters in my story come to life!

Karlsen, Woolley, and Horovitz added: “What an exciting and exhilarating prospect to re-explore a time when music, fashion, political ideologies and sexuality were turned on their heads. So beautifully evoked alongside personal insights and frank reflections of an extraordinary woman’s life in Albertine’s two incredible memoirs.”

Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. focused on Albertine’s experiences as a part of the 1970s punk scene in London, where she made history as a guitarist for the Slits, while also befriending members of the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and more. To Throw Away Unopened delves more into the author’s family relationships and personal life.

Read Pitchfork’s Sunday Review of Public Image Ltd’s The Flowers of Romance .

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In conversation with guitarist, film maker, artist and author, Viv Albertine

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Out of the Centre

Savvino-storozhevsky monastery and museum.

Zvenigorod's most famous sight is the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery, which was founded in 1398 by the monk Savva from the Troitse-Sergieva Lavra, at the invitation and with the support of Prince Yury Dmitrievich of Zvenigorod. Savva was later canonised as St Sabbas (Savva) of Storozhev. The monastery late flourished under the reign of Tsar Alexis, who chose the monastery as his family church and often went on pilgrimage there and made lots of donations to it. Most of the monastery’s buildings date from this time. The monastery is heavily fortified with thick walls and six towers, the most impressive of which is the Krasny Tower which also serves as the eastern entrance. The monastery was closed in 1918 and only reopened in 1995. In 1998 Patriarch Alexius II took part in a service to return the relics of St Sabbas to the monastery. Today the monastery has the status of a stauropegic monastery, which is second in status to a lavra. In addition to being a working monastery, it also holds the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum.

Belfry and Neighbouring Churches

Located near the main entrance is the monastery's belfry which is perhaps the calling card of the monastery due to its uniqueness. It was built in the 1650s and the St Sergius of Radonezh’s Church was opened on the middle tier in the mid-17th century, although it was originally dedicated to the Trinity. The belfry's 35-tonne Great Bladgovestny Bell fell in 1941 and was only restored and returned in 2003. Attached to the belfry is a large refectory and the Transfiguration Church, both of which were built on the orders of Tsar Alexis in the 1650s.  

To the left of the belfry is another, smaller, refectory which is attached to the Trinity Gate-Church, which was also constructed in the 1650s on the orders of Tsar Alexis who made it his own family church. The church is elaborately decorated with colourful trims and underneath the archway is a beautiful 19th century fresco.

Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is the oldest building in the monastery and among the oldest buildings in the Moscow Region. It was built between 1404 and 1405 during the lifetime of St Sabbas and using the funds of Prince Yury of Zvenigorod. The white-stone cathedral is a standard four-pillar design with a single golden dome. After the death of St Sabbas he was interred in the cathedral and a new altar dedicated to him was added.

Under the reign of Tsar Alexis the cathedral was decorated with frescoes by Stepan Ryazanets, some of which remain today. Tsar Alexis also presented the cathedral with a five-tier iconostasis, the top row of icons have been preserved.

Tsaritsa's Chambers

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is located between the Tsaritsa's Chambers of the left and the Palace of Tsar Alexis on the right. The Tsaritsa's Chambers were built in the mid-17th century for the wife of Tsar Alexey - Tsaritsa Maria Ilinichna Miloskavskaya. The design of the building is influenced by the ancient Russian architectural style. Is prettier than the Tsar's chambers opposite, being red in colour with elaborately decorated window frames and entrance.

At present the Tsaritsa's Chambers houses the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum. Among its displays is an accurate recreation of the interior of a noble lady's chambers including furniture, decorations and a decorated tiled oven, and an exhibition on the history of Zvenigorod and the monastery.

Palace of Tsar Alexis

The Palace of Tsar Alexis was built in the 1650s and is now one of the best surviving examples of non-religious architecture of that era. It was built especially for Tsar Alexis who often visited the monastery on religious pilgrimages. Its most striking feature is its pretty row of nine chimney spouts which resemble towers.

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