Of Inherent Value: Viv Albertine

Last summer, I saw three movies in one go by Joanna Hogg, including her latest, Exhibition,which stars Viv Albertine. Albertine’s performance compelled me to pursue her further, and conveniently, her memoir was released last November by MacMillan Publishing. I don’t often read memoirs but when I do, it’s usually by a singer who also happens to be a woman. In the last four years, I only read two memoirs that I really liked: Lady Sings the Blues byBillie HolidayandI Put a Spell On YoubyNina Simone. Both books were ghostwritten by white male writers.

Viv Albertine’s memoir Clothes Clothes Clothes, Music Music Music, Boys Boys Boys is entirely self-penned in what Dwight Garner dubs “an honest, lo-fi grace. If it were better written, it would be worse.” (New York Times). As a matter of fact, Albertine dedicates an entire chapter in the book to why she didn’t go with a ghostwriter and the resulting conflict between her and her former manager based on her decision; the chapter ends up becoming a heroic anecdote for all women who wish to write their own stories everywhere. (Women everywhere: Write your own story! Let it not be mediated through some poorly executed process that’ll water it down to some lame rhetoric that lacks your substance (your touch, your smell, your memory, your voice) and is instead a list of general events and public people that have all been written about again and again for years and years by the same old big ass corporate media channels that tell you that those same events and people are important when in fact they really have nothing to do with your touch, your smell, your memory, and your voice.)

Reading Albertine’s memoir feels like a long chat with an attentive friend—one who is older, wiser, more experienced and infinitely cool—the kind that’ll tell you that some awful things may happen in life but it’s fine because you’re an alright gal. Her voice is precisely the kind that I keep searching for in life. It’s good to have role models, especially one that offers instructions on how to be fearless in a world that is disdainful of women who think and create. There are not too many places women can look to for such instructions. As I read, Albertine’s illustrations of her own struggles, anxieties and triumphs spanning nearly six decades became a kind of soundboard for me to work out my own navigation of this life courageously.  

Albertine’s memoir examines the stifled culture of her time filled with boredom and social atrophy that she and her peers revolted against—a “movement” which was eventually labeled the umbrella term “punk,” although Albertine herself doesn’t recognize any of those incidents under a light of such Romance. She has a frank way of elaborating on her scuffles, battles, tender moments—all the complexities that come with young relationships and collaboration. My favorite story of hers is the one about Sid Vicious asking her if he could wear her jeans but she tells him ‘no’ without mentioning why (a period stain). He later goes into her house with the excuse that he needs to use the toilet and returns wearing her jeans anyway, grinning, as if he then knew why she said he couldn’t wear them. The moment is so telling of each personality and the dynamic of their friendship.

Albertine knows full-well that the pressures around her reader will always disagree with who and what she is, but her memoir implicitly seeks to make the reader feel empowered, understood, and granted permission to trust her own instincts first.

Grace Jung is the author of Deli Ideology and producer of feature documentary A-Town Boyz, directed by Eunice Lau. Her translation of Lee Cheong-jun’s The Abject (벌레 이야기) is forthcoming at MerwinAsia Publishing. She is currently developing her first feature narrative and writing her second novel. She is a former Fulbright scholar and lives in New York. Follow her on Twitter. 

This post is the first in a series curated by Grace Jung, guest editor of Literary Mothers in the coming weeks.

Billie Holiday - I’ll Be Seeing You (1944)

Happy birthday, Lady Day.

Btw… Andra, Viola, and Chadwick was snubbed! But a heavy congrats to H.E.R, Daniel, Terrence J, and the Make Up Crew for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom!!! ✊☺️

Billie Holiday (2019)

M. Ward / All the Way (Billie Holiday)

Celebrating Jazz Architect, Genius and Legend Louis Armstrong to Close Out #JazzAppreciationMonth (LISTEN)

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)
We end our celebration of #JazzAppreciationMonth today with a short tribute to a seminal architect of the sound, the legendary New Orleans son, Louis Armstrong.
To read about Armstrong, read on. To hear about him, press PLAY:

https://goodblacknews.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/GBNPADpod043022.mp3
[You can subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop…

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OBSOLETE RECORDS-New Releases/Restocks for early June:

**all items are currently available for sale at Obsolete Records - 2454 Agricola Street (Halifax, NS Canada)

alt-j   relaxer   cd/lp
arrhytmia   s/t   tape (hermitofthewoods)
beach fossils   somersault   cd/lp (limited edition clear vinyl)
bert jansch   living in the shadows v1   4lp box set
bert jansch   living in the shadows v2   4 lp box set
billie holiday   strange fruit   lp (violet vinyl repress)
childish gambino   awaken, my love   cd/2lp box set
cigarettes after sex   s/t   lp
crimpshrine   dust tape soup   lp (repress)
crimpshrine   sound of a new world being born   lp (repress)
dan auerbach   waiting on a song   cd
danny brown   atrocity exhibition   cd/2lp
drums   abysmal thoughts   lp
helium   ends with and   2lp (colored vinyl)
helium   dirt of luck   lp (repress)
helium   magic city/no guitars   2lp (repress)
higher state   s/t   tape (EMC/hermitofthewoods)
interpol   antics   lp (repress)
interpol   turn on the bright lights   lp (repress)
jason isbell/400 unit   nashville sound   cd/lp (180 gram vinyl) (release date june 16th)
jeff buckley   grace   lp (180 gram repress)
judee sill   heart food   lp (180 gram repress)
judee sill   s/t   lp (180 gram repress)
moondog   s/t   lp (white vinyl repress)
new pornographers   whiteout conditions   cd/lp (blue vinyl)
nick cave/bad seeds   lovely creatures: best of   2cd/3cd+dvd/3cd+dvd+book box set/3lp (180 gram vinyl)
nick cave/bad seeds   one more time with feeling   blu-ray
nick drake   bryter layter   lp (180 gram repress)
nick drake   five leaves left   lp (180 gram repress)
nick drake   pink moon   lp (180 gram repress)
phoenix   ti amo   lp
pinegrove   cardinal   lp
pinegrove   everything so far   2lp
slowdive   original album classics   3cd
soundtrack (angelo badalamenti)   blue velvet   lp (repress)
soundtrack   v1 stranger things   2lp
soundtrack   v2 stranger things   2lp
stereolab   dots and loops   2lp (repress)
stereolab   emperor tomato ketchup   2lp (repress)
sufjan stevens/nico muhly/bryce dessner…   planetarium   cd/2lp
swans   great annihilator   2cd/2lp (repress)
swirlies   blonder tongue audio baton   lp (repress)
swirlies   they spent their wild…   2lp (repress)
tony conrad   ten years alive on the infinite plain   2cd
tragically hip   day for night   2lp (repress)
tragically hip   fully completely   lp (repress)
tragically hip   live between us   2lp (repress)
tragically hip   trouble at the henhouse   2lp (repress)
walrus   family hangover   lp (white vinyl)
wu-tang clan   wu-tang forever   4lp box set (180 gram repress)