Earlier in the year, the Slits brought their whacked-out mix of punk, reggae and avant-funk to the Star and Shadow. As wonderful as they were, one crucial element was missing; main songwriter Viv Albertine.

"I was asked to rejoin the Slits about three or four years ago" she says. "I absolutely said no. No way. I didn’t feel that it was relevant at all"

In fact, it had been nearly twenty years since Albertine had even picked up a guitar, when she started to play solo shows again last year. Having felt that the Slits had become "Ari's band", she still acknowledges the profound impact that the band, and the punk movement, had on her life.

"Everything that I write really comes back to the Slits. We were very strict, as were a lot of punks, that every note that you played and every word that you wrote had to be true and I still hold to that maxim". She says she can only write about love and sex, but her songs now reflect her experiences as a 55-year old artist and mother.

While less intensely "out there' that Ari Up's new Slits, Albertine's solo work is still aggressively visceral, and none other than Courtney Love recently acknowledged Albertine's place in the riot grrrl pantheon when she said "Viv established a place for women in the punk scene way before ‘girl’ became ‘grrrl’"

Albertine will play at the newly refurbished Star and Shadow, supported by Dominican / Jamaican / New Jersey funk duo Ladies of Midnight Blue and Newcastle's highly rated Iceni, on an all-female bill.

www.vivalbertine.com

Star and Shadow Cinema

October 16 2010

Tickets £7