Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys.

by Viv Albertine

  The boys at Hornsey aren’t as interesting as the girls. They’re fun and a good laugh to hang out with, but it’s the girls I’m looking to for the first time in my life. There are a couple of interesting guys, like ‘Groovy Graham’, the social sec (Graham Lewis, who later formed the band Wire). He puts on loads of bands, Dr Feelgood, Kilburn and the High Roads, Brett Marvin and the Thunderbolts … he tried to get Pink Floyd once but it fell through. Graham wears very tight trousers that show every bump – we call him ‘The Bulge’ – and he dances like Mick Jagger, strutting around the hall jabbing his finger in the air with the other hand on his skinny hip, he’s full of life and enthusiasm. There’s a sweet shy guy called Stuart in the year below me (Stuart Goddard, he will later transform himself into Adam of Adam and the Ants), he’s pretty and serious, works hard, doesn’t say much.

  My favourite tutor is Peter Webb. Once a week he gives a lecture on erotic art in the main hall. He’s so passionate and captivating about his subject that he sparks an interest in sex and erotica in me that never goes away. He wears a purple suit and is convinced he’s Theo, the reincarnated brother of Vincent van Gogh. He’s so clever and charismatic that we all believe it too.

  One lunchtime, as I’m walking down a corridor to Peter Webb’s lecture, I hear very accomplished, live improvised jazz piano music floating out of a room. I slip in and watch the back of the person playing. She has shoulder-length, poker-straight, silky light brown hair and moves sensuously as she plays. Her back muscles ripple as she moves, emphasised by her tight blue-and-white striped T-shirt. I’m entranced, but I have to leave before she stops playing to go to the lecture. Later in the day I see her in the canteen, from the back. I watch her, I want to know what her face is like. She turns. She’s a boy. His name is Jan, Jan Hart. Wow. I go after him even though I find out he has a girlfriend, Sue, who is at art school in Bournemouth. I don’t usually do that. (She’s forgiven me, she’s very cool, I still know her.) He introduces me to jazz – Mingus, Coltrane, and also Loudon Wainwright III. He lives in a shared house with a bunch of older, bearded guys. They’re middle-class, very political and earnest, no sense of humour. They think I’m stupid because I’m not very confident or articulate.

  Jan, who turned out to be a boy

  One weekend Jan takes me to Bournemouth, his hometown, to meet his family and friends. We visit Robert Fripp, the guitarist from King Crimson. I’m excited to meet him because I have seen him live and have his record In the Court of the Crimson King, and this will be the first time I’ve met a real musician in his home, as someone’s friend. Jan and I walk into the front room, to find Fripp surrounded by a group of young people. He looks up and, without smiling, asks Jan, ‘Where’s Sue?’ Then he looks straight at me and says, ‘You shouldn’t have broken up with Sue, Sue was great, much better.’ He doesn’t speak to me, or look at me again.

  I’m broke, so to supplement my grant I get a job working behind the bar at the Sundown, a massive music venue in Edmonton. During the week there are underage discos, the kids fuck on the floor with a huge crowd around them egging them on. It’s animalistic. At the weekend, live bands play. All the bar staff are excited because Rod Stewart and the Faces are playing next week.

  We’re not allowed to serve people from the side of the bar, that bit’s for the glass collectors to put the empty glasses on. Whilst the Faces are playing, this sleazy-looking older guy keeps calling out to me and bugging me to serve him from there, so he can push ahead of the queue. I tell him I can’t serve him from there, and he says, ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ ‘I don’t give a fuck who you are,’ I answer. He storms off and gets the manager of the Sundown. Turns out he is a big cheese from the Faces’ entourage. Wants me sacked. The Sundown manager suggests I make myself scarce for the rest of the evening. ‘Go and watch the show and come back tomorrow night,’ he says. So I hang out backstage with my friend Mac who does the lighting. Mac says I can stay in his little lighting room with his friend, a guy called Liam, whilst he sorts something out. The minute Mac leaves, Liam starts trying to touch me. He pushes himself up against me, he knows I can’t leave the room, he’s heard the whole story. I’m always being touched by boys, in the street, in clubs and pubs, even though I haven’t invited them to touch me or hardly know them, that’s just the way it is, but this time I feel trapped, no one will hear me if it gets out of hand when I tell him to fuck off. I know it’s a bit risky but I reckon it’s the lesser of two evils, so I open the door and run off.

  I walk up a few flights of stone stairs and open a door. I poke my head into the room, looking around for Mac. It’s the green room, full of people drinking and talking. The Faces’ Big Cheese turns round, whisky in hand, and clocks me. ‘Get her!’ He charges at me with a couple of bouncers in his wake. I slam the door shut. I have a split second to decide what to do; I can either run upstairs or run downstairs. I think, The most obvious thing to do is run downstairs, that’s what everyone would do, so I run upstairs. I hear the Big Cheese and the bouncers go thundering down the stairs as I hotfoot it up. I feel quite clever until the stairs run out and I’m facing the door to the roof. I rattle the door handle, it’s locked. I hear a man shout, ‘She must have gone up!’ They’re baying for blood now, excited by the chase. I hear them charging up the stairs puffing and snorting like a herd of buffalo. There’s nowhere for me to go. I stand quivering in the corner, a trapped wildebeest awaiting my fate. They’re rough, they grab hold of me and pull and push me down the stairs. I’ve not been handled like this before, I’m frightened. I think they’re probably going to beat me up. Something wet is running down my legs. I’ve pissed myself. Now I know you can piss yourself with fear. Another life experience clocked up.

  The men, their hands all over me, drag me to the back door of the venue, they’ll probably beat me up outside. One of them pushes down the safety bar and I’m ejected with force, into the yard. A gaggle of waiting Faces fans lift up their autograph books hopefully, then freeze, pens in mid-air as I’m tossed into their midst. The door slams shut behind me. Well, at least they didn’t kill me. It’s Christmas Eve by the way. I’m on the streets of Edmonton, no money, no coat, piss dripping down my legs, on Christmas Eve. I start to walk. I start to cry. Then I hear shouting and cursing in the distance, a gang of skinheads is bearing down on me. Oh no. I’m dead. Raped and then dead. The skinheads catch sight of me and start whooping with delight. Bait! I stand still and let them come. The two at the front of the posse lunge forwards and push their faces into mine. ‘Hang on a minute,’ says one of them. He flaps his hand to shush the rest of them. ‘She’s crying.’

  The gang go quiet and gather round me. They want to know what’s happened. I tell them. They say they’re going to go to the Sundown and kill the Big Cheese. I dissuade them from doing that. Then one of them suggests taking me to the nearby police station. I’m escorted by a gang of skinheads to the police station. The policeman on duty looks at them suspiciously. ‘Are they bothering you, love?’ ‘No, no, they’ve been very helpful.’ I thank them and they swagger off, shouting, ‘Merry Christmas, darlin’!’ The policeman drives me home.

  I often dress in flares or platform boots, the glam-rock style of dressing, as a bit of a joke at Hornsey. Glam rock is much more knowing and ironic now. I also wear clothes that reference the skinhead movement, which is the opposite of what art school is about. I like to provoke a reaction. Some days I’ll wear a two-tone mohair tonic coat and opaque white tights, black patent brogues and a grey mini skirt because everyone else is dressed hippyish. I wouldn’t ever wear the mullety hairstyle that girl skinheads have though; I still like to have pretty hair.

  I finish my foundation course, then I do a year of a graphic design degree, then I drop out. I didn’t have the courage to apply for the fine art course, which is what I really wanted to do. I chose graphic design because I thought it would suit my style of drawing – quite cartoony and stylised – but the course is all about typesetting, not creasing the paper and not gettin
g smudges on anything. It’s the worst place in the world for a messy person like me. I ask the college if I can take a sabbatical year, get my portfolio together and then reapply for a different course. They agree and assign me a mentor, a nice bloke who works in admin at the college. I get a bar job at Dingwalls in Camden Town to see me through the year: I want to immerse myself in music and it’s the best small venue in London.

  When I try to get back into Hornsey, I fail. I decide to apply for the fashion and textiles degree because I’m getting more and more into fashion and music and I’ve made some interesting clothes whilst I’ve been at Dingwalls. I’m accompanied to the interview by the nice man from admin. The tutors on the selection panel take against me the minute I walk in the door. They seem pissed off, annoyed about something. There’s tension between them and the suit, who’s nothing to do with me, I was assigned him randomly. This has never happened to me before, I’ve never come across people who dislike me, or won’t give me a chance, without a reason. I don’t know how to stand up for myself, how to fight my corner. They trash me and my work viciously. I know there’s something weird going on, but it doesn’t really matter because it’s obvious I’ve got no hope of getting onto the course. I start to cry with frustration. They look alarmed and ask me why I’m so upset, but I can’t speak, there’s nothing to say, I know the result of this interview is a foregone conclusion. This is the first time I’ve failed at something I want. I’ve failed loads of times before, at maths, on sports day, but those things didn’t matter to me. I leave the interview room choking and hiccupping. Standing in the drizzle on the pavement outside the college, I see my whole life collapsing in front of me. I’ve got no future. I’m just a barmaid at Dingwalls.

  18 DINGWALLS

  1973

  I love your hat.

  Captain Beefheart

  It’s not so bad being a barmaid at Dingwalls. I sleep most of the day and start work at 6 p.m. I like the club best when it’s empty: lights on, chairs on the tables, the smell of stale beer, and I can see the red-painted iron pillars and the little stage, which is usually obscured by a crowd of people.

  Lots of great bands play here, like Kilburn and the High Roads, Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers, Dr Feelgood with their frenetic guitarist Wilko Johnson, some Northern Soul bands – but the band that makes the biggest impression on me is Kokomo. There are ten of them all crowded onto the stage, they aren’t rock, more like funk or soul, but what really grabs my attention is the girl on percussion. There are two girl vocalists in the band, but this other girl plays congas and other sorts of percussion instruments. I’ve never seen a young girl playing an instrument in a band before. I want to be her. I want so badly, for the first time ever, to be a girl I’ve seen on stage. I want to look like her and be in that band and wear her clothes and have her boyfriend and live her life. It’s the first time I’ve ever thought of being a musician. And the reason I can make that leap is because someone behind the bar said to me, ‘Her name’s Jody Linscott, she couldn’t play before she joined Kokomo, she learnt as she went along.’ That’s what’s allowed me to dream for a moment, that phrase: ‘She couldn’t play.’

  One of my best friends here is Brandi Alexander, a petite American girl a bit older than me, pretty with straight shiny blonde hair. Brandi usually wears a black waistcoat with nothing underneath and you can see the side of her boob as she moves. I couldn’t believe it when she told me she liked girls. Because she’s a lesbian, she’s not interested in impressing guys on any level. This attitude makes her appear hard: she isn’t though, she’s very kind and generous. It’s just unusual for a girl not to use her sexuality when interacting with a man. I’m the youngest person on the staff and often feel out of my depth amongst all the worldly types who work here, so Brandi’s friendship gives me confidence. Neither of us take drugs – well, not hard drugs like some of this lot do – so we’re a bit left out. I’ve noticed that people who take heroin are very cliquey, you feel a bit of a loser if you don’t partake. At Dingwalls, a group of them are always disappearing off together, whispering in corners. It’s a passive pressure; nothing’s said, you’re just treated as if you don’t quite exist. Apart from Brandi, the person I hang out with most is a blond, tousle-haired boy with black eyebrows called Rory Johnston. He’s sweet-natured, and has a half-American, half-Scottish accent. He likes me even though I haven’t got much going on at the moment: Rory sees something in me. When he isn’t working at Dingwalls, he’s a barman at the Portobello Hotel, where lots of musicians drink. He’s also an art student at Hammersmith College of Art and Building and the unofficial, unpaid assistant to a guy called Malcolm McLaren who owns a clothes shop. Rory’s a very motivated person. He often takes me to the Portobello Hotel and I sit at the little bar whilst he works. It’s a tiny basement room, not very impressive, just a bit of wicker furniture and a couple of tropical plants dotted around. I like going there because I get to see people like Mick Ronson and the other Spiders from Mars and Ian Hunter from Mott the Hoople, drinking and hanging out.

  Dingwalls is full of characters, like the two girls Robyn and Shawn Slovo: their parents were world-famous anti-apartheid activists, their mother was assassinated because of it. Shawn and Robyn are very creative, they’re writers and are very confident when they speak. No one intimidates those two. I’d like to be like that. The other person who stands out for me is a waitress called Rose. She doesn’t take any shit. Once Captain Beefheart came in for a burger and called Rose over to tell her he liked the way she walked. It’s interesting he noticed that about her: she has a very specific walk, a cross between a swaggering docker and a ballerina, with feet turned out, very purposeful, not traditionally feminine, not trying to be all slinky and seductive. He liked her walk for being strong and militant. I’m very jealous that Beefheart noticed her. It was the talk of the club for the rest of the evening.

  I had my own ‘Beefheart Moment’ a couple of years later. I was in a cafe in Portobello Road and noticed Captain Beefheart was sitting across the room. When he left, he passed my table and to my astonishment stopped and said, ‘I love your hat.’ I was wearing a giant shocking pink silk beret with white polka dots on it that my mum had made for me. It had a fat pink stalk sticking out of the top. I looked back at him with a very serious expression and said, ‘I love your music.’ He looked surprised, he wasn’t a very well-known musician, not the sort who got recognised. He nodded and left.

  The bosses at Dingwalls aren’t like normal bosses. One’s called Dave ‘Boss’ Goodman, he’s a big cuddly guy who used to look after the group the Pink Fairies. Russell Hunter, who was their drummer, runs the bar. They’re both cheeky and irreverent most of the time but occasionally they take their jobs seriously and get strict with us, which is quite funny. I’ve got a crush on Russell – I like his soft voice – but he’s not interested in me. Once he asked me to go upstairs with him to the little flat above Dingwalls to collect some empty crates. Everyone jeered as we walked out because the flat is known as a bit of a shag pad. When we got up there he pulled me down onto the waterbed, and started to kiss me. I was so overwhelmed when he put his hand between my legs that I started to tremble. He stopped and said we should go back downstairs. We didn’t collect the crates, and he never made another move.

  A strange twisted little man who collects the glasses at Dingwalls – he isn’t paid, he just comes early and they let him stay because he works for nothing – has developed an obsession with me. It was annoying at first but now it’s got out of hand. He calls me ‘Tresses’ because of my long wavy hair – which is actually a perm I had done at Molton Brown in South Molton Street, copying Maria Schneider in Last Tango in Paris. He has long black oily hair and bulging eyes and talks like Uriah Heep, all long-drawn-out vowels and whiny intonation, whilst rubbing his hands together. He wears tight black trousers and red scarves tied to his wrist, a cross between Max Wall and a demonic Morris dancer. He starts coming to my flat when I’m not working and waiting outside the front
door all day. I don’t want to be intimidated by him, but I don’t fancy going out whilst he’s there. He pushes notes under the door, written in this flowery, mediaeval script. The other day he dropped some scented soap through the letter-box with a note saying, ‘Dear Tresses, Every time you use this, you will be rubbing me all over your body.’ I chucked it in the bin. I ignore him. I never look at him or speak to him and change my phone number. It’s the only way to deal with an obsessive.

  Growing out my ‘Maria Schneider’ perm. Muslin top from Kensington Market. Waistcoat homemade by me. Boots, Terry de Havilland. 1973

  Working at night brings you into contact with some strange people and puts you in some scary situations. One night I was walking over the little bridge in Chalk Farm Road, just before the left turn into Dingwalls, when I thought I caught a flicker of something ‘not quite right’ out of the corner of my eye. Foolishly, I ignored it. As soon as I turned into the cobbled yard behind Dingwalls, I found myself on the ground. It happened that quickly. Two boys were on top of me clawing and scrabbling at my crotch, trying to tear my tights off. I screamed and fought back but I wasn’t strong enough to fight two of them. Then luckily for me, a big white car turned into the yard; it was Russell, the bar manager. I shouted out to him, he stopped and the two boys ran off. Russell told me later he nearly didn’t stop, he thought it was just a bunch of kids mucking about. He called the police and they came and interviewed me. One of them said, ‘Well what do you expect, going round dressed like that?’ I was wearing a denim skirt, denim jacket and stripy Biba tights. They didn’t follow it up.