Gig flyers

I love drawing gig flyers!

Slagheap

Last night we went to The Victoria in Dalston to see Slagheap from Bristol and Nervous Twitch from Leeds.

Nervous Twitch are C86 style with a hint of surf.

Slagheap are my new favourite band! Gav said this gig was the best show we’ve been to this year and I agree. Slagheap sound like The Slits but are better musicians, more funny and more danceable. We bought their LP at the show and played it as soon as we got home. I hope they play in London again soon.

The Schizophonics

We went to the Lexington last night for an incredible and fun show by The Schizophonics from San Diego. The guitarist was all over the stage, doing moves like he was at Wigan Casino, all the time playing groovy fuzzy guitar. It was hard to believe that the band are just a 3 piece. The energy and fun of The Schizophonics is off the scale. My new favourite garage punk band! Can’t wait for them to play in London again!

Chew

At the Victoria, Dalston. Their first show in London.

Pussy Riot, Hagar The Womb, Hetze

Friday 20th May 2022, Het Depot, Leuven, Belgium.

This gig was a dream come true for me. After 6 months of intense learning I got to play guitar on stage with my favourite band at an amazing show.

First band of the night was locals Hetze. They are like a tornado; fast and in-your-face heavy punk, with short, tight songs that are full of energy and aggression. Hetze are coming to London in September to play Chimpyfest 2022, do not miss them!

Next up was us! I joined Hagar The Womb last September and have spent months learning to play their songs on guitar. The Hags were my favourites when I was a teenager, at that time the punk scene was completely male dominated and Hagar The Womb were one of very few bands of the time that I could relate to. I still love them and it is amazing to be playing with them.

We put on a lively and fun show and we had a great time playing. Karen and Ruth made it very clear what the band thought of Boris Johnson and Brexit, Mitch was in full-on show-off mode and the audience seemed to love it.

The lights went out and we were in darkness and then it was time for Pussy Riot. It was the first time I had seen Pussy Riot and I was completely blown away. Their show, Riot Days, tells the story of the Punk Prayer performance and their arrest, trial and imprisonment following it. Visuals including English translation of their words were projected behind them and the packed venue was captivated and in awe. Pussy Riot’s show is one of the most empowering and strong performances I have ever seen. Their strength and conviction is incredible, and it felt especially important to me (as a Brit) as our government is in the process of making protest illegal.

After Riot Days the group returned to the stage for a shorter performance in solidarity with Ukraine and to give a declaration of their opposition to the Russian invasion. Half of the merch sales for this tour will be donated to a Children’s hospital in Kiev.

Rabies Babies gig

Punk women, taking up the space we deserve.

Today we had a fun pre-gig practice with Mike (Dinosaur Skull) who is standing in for Tabi on drums at the Queens Head tomorrow. We are so excited about this gig, we’ve been playing gigs for almost 23 years and for most of that we’ve been the ‘token girls’ in a man’s domain. This is the first time we have played on such a female centric line up (Mike will be the only man on stage all night). 23 years ago we could only dream of this line up happening. Mike organised this gig, and when he was choosing the bands for the night he said that it didn’t hit him until the line up was fixed that he would be the only man on stage all night, and he said that he wants to wear a ‘token male’ T-shirt to the gig, (so I drew him wearing it).

Merry Xmas!

I realised that i haven’t posted for a while, i’ve still got a load of Euro football pics to put up, or maybe it’s too late now… Anyway, i did this the other day, a festive pic of Rabies Babies, for a Loud Women xmas gig flyer.

Euros Childs

Euros Childs and Oh Peas! at the Sebright Arms. 19th Nov 2017.

My first trip to the Sebright Arms since it’s been done up. The gig room is loads better than before, but it is about £6 a pint. Before the gig we had food at a place 2 mins down the road called VegItalian; a cafe on a double decker bus that does vegan & veg food. It was v good.

Rosie Oh Peas! was support act and backing band for Euros. For her set she played guitar and sang (no effects or keyboards this time), and then for her backing band stint she moved between keys, drums and guitar.

Euros Childs plays in London yearly, when he has a new album to tour and each time it is with a different backing band and always different, always good. He played some older stuff, including my favourite song about dog shit from last years album Refresh and a lot of stuff from the new album House Arrest. He’s got some new keyboards and was using his phone as a drum machine, which sounded surprisingly alright.

more Euros Childs reviews on Gigs & Pencils:
Euros Childs at the Boston Arms 2013  Euros Childs at the Red Hedgehog 2014

Womens Euros 2017 #21

England 0 – 3 Netherlands

England was robbed! well, maybe not, but sort of… we should have got a penalty but the ref didn’t give it. Mark Sampson was so cross that he ripped his shirt.

Womens Euro #14

France 1 – 1 Switzerland

I watched this game two days late as a way of getting around the shockingly bad ‘live stream’ from All4. I already knew the final score, I already knew that England will face France on Sunday. I hadn’t caught any of France’s games so far in the tournament, and since they are favourites to win I was interested to see them play. They are amazing and this game had me on the edge of my seat even though I knew the final outcome. What excitement! I must admit that I was quite happy when Renard got a yellow card ten or so minutes in to the game and so will not play on Sunday. Minutes later a red card left France with 10 players on the pitch and they proved that even outnumbered they are a massive force to be reckoned with.

Womens Euros #12

England 2 – 1 Portugal

It was a great game. Portugal almost scored in the final minute of extra time, which would have changed everything. Siobhan Chamberlain saved Spain.

Womens Euros #11

Germany 2 – 0 Russia

We saw a LOT of the Russian goalie Tatiana Shcherbak. She made a lot of saves, and almost saved Germany’s first goal, a penalty from Babett Peter.

Women’s Euros 2017 #8

Italy 1 – 2 Germany
2 drawings for this exciting game – A glorious moment for Italy, and 90 minutes of stress for their goalie. A game of cards, 7 yellow and one red.

Women’s euros 2017 #7

Sweden 2 – 0 Russia
Fast sketch of the Swedish goalie. We didn’t see her until 68th minute. (We only caught the 2nd half). Russia did score, but not in her goal.

Womens Euros 2017 #4

Germany 0 – Sweden 0

This was the most exciting game so far! Lindahl’s save towards the end of the match was great. I can’t wait to watch Germany/Italy and Sweden/Russia on friday.

WOMENS EUROS 2017 #2

Denmark 1- Belgium 0.

A Game of cards. 5 in total. 4 to Denmark and one for Belgium.

(This game was still only available on internet, but at least there was commentary)

WOMENS EUROS 2017 #1

The opening game, I was so excited! But, Channel 4 decided to only show it online, using a server that was possibly last used in 1997, so the live stream constantly jumped and stuck and looped. With no commentary at all.

Can you imagine this happening if it was a men’s championship?

I was so angry. Gav desperately searched the internet to see if we could watch it anywhere else (we couldn’t). The opening game was ruined. Thank you very much Channel 4.

ELECTION NIGHT

We stayed up with snacks, beer and tea til 6am watching the election on TV. Most exciting election this century. Lord Buckethead should have won Maidenhead, he wouldn’t be doing deals with line-dance hating thugs. This is my drawing of the Maidenhead results being called, Last Supper style. #nosleeptilhastings

2017 Calendar

I have set up an etsy shop selling a limited number of calendars here: etsy.me/2gdbgIC

The cover was screen printed by gavin at bigboxoftricks.com and the inside pages were digitally printed. The calendar is limited to 99 copies (only 25 are for sale), each is hand numbered (/99) and signed, and wrapped in tissue with a stickered bellyband and gift tag.

Page size = 9cm x 15.5cm.

Artists featured: Otoboke Beaver, Maid Of Ace, Bix Smith Start, Hagar The Womb, Skinny Girl Diet, Menace Beach, Laura J Martin, MOFAM, Sauna Youth, Hell-O-Tiki, Ela Orleans, The Parrots.

Margaret Atwood

I went to the Royal Festival Hall for the Living In Future Times Festival, to hear Margaret Atwood discuss her new novel Hag-Seed. She is amazing, intelligent, forward thinking, funny and highly entertaining and interesting.
Also at the Festival Hall, was an installation by Zach Lieberman, featuring text from Hag-Seed which interacts with the observer.

my bike

Last weekend I cleaned my bike and took it to the bike shop to have the gears fixed. It’s like new again! I’m so happy!

Sauna Youth, London, Oct 2016

We had to fight through the saturday night life of Shoreditch to get there,
past the moody bouncers, and down concrete stairs,
to a friendly grey basement with a bar and a stage.

Sauna Youth gave 30 minutes of high-energy repetitive-beat punk-rock.
We were compelled to 30 minutes of non-stop head-nod, bruise-collecting arm-flailing, and size 9 docs thrashing scarily above my head as crowd surfers got too close for comfort.

There was no encore, Sauna Youth gave us their all, and I loved every song.

Slowcoaches

The Moth Club August 27th 2016

Slowcoaches were the last band of the night. For the first half of their set there was a big pit of (mostly) women, dancing and good-humoured jostling. At some point the pit was taken over by aggressive men and the singer/bassist of Slowcoaches picked up her mic stand and stepped off the stage and placed her mic stand in the pit and claimed the space as hers. She was thrashing around, all the time playing like a maniac. A guy pushed her and she immediately turned to face him and gave him a don’t-fuck-with-me look. He withered. She won. Don’t mess with Slowcoaches, they own the whole bloody scene. They rule.

The Parrots

Rough Trade East, 25th August 2016

This in-store show was the debut performance of The Parrots’ new album Los Niños Sin Miedo. I love their new album, it’s up there as one of the best albums of the year. The show was early and short, but the Parrots were enthusiastic & tight as ever, and i’m itching to get to their show at the Victoria in a couple of weeks.