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.

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.

Postcard for Juniore

Last year I saw Juniore play at the 100 club, i did this drawing and posted it on twitter. The band saw it and asked if they could use it on a postcard to be included in the vinyl release of their fab new album Un Deux Trois.

 

 

 

gig poster

I made a gig poster out of an old crisp packet.

 

Emergency Bitter

March 23 2018 Basingstoke Irish Centre

Rabies Babies played a gig in Basingstoke with a few bands, including Emergency Bitter.
To be honest, from the look of them I thought that they would play boring old style punk, but they were really good and funny. I absolutely want to see them play again. I hope we do more shows with them. I was very impressed with the look of their fantastic shoes and leads, so this is what I drew.

Jane Weaver

Ramsgate Music Hall, 20th Oct 2017

Not the first time seeing the fantastic Jane Weaver, but our first time in Ramsgate.
The music hall is brilliant, it was a joy seeing Jane Weaver there.

This quick sketch was done in the bar afterwards.

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

Xavier, Snapped Ankles

At the Shaklewell Arms, London.

I can’t find any information about Xavier, they sound a bit like Boredoms but more groovy. I loved their set and I hope I get to see them again.

Snapped Ankles remind me of an 80’s squat party band; anarchic, visual and drum heavy. I’ve never seen the Shacklewell Arms so packed and everyone was dancing. You can’t not enjoy Snapped Ankles.

Argonaut, Rabies Babies, Thee Dinner Ladies, Militant Girlfriend

All ages/family friendly daytime gig put on by Loud Women at the Lexington.
Saturday 30th September.

All ages kid-friendly gigs are the way to go for so many reasons!

1. You get to hang out with your friends who have kids and can rarely come along to gigs.
2. Kid-friendly gigs are in the day time! You can also fit another gig in later in the evening, so doubling your gig-going potential.
3. Kid friendly gigs are just MORE FUN! Where else do you get offered sherbet dib-dabs or Love Hearts as you walk in the venue? Where else is the promoter of the event dressed as Wonder Woman? Where else do you find yourself enthusiastically making lightning shapes while watching the excellent Argonauts?

I’d never been to such a fun gig. The kids had a great time, and so did the adults.

Argonauts kicked off the afternoon with a fantastic set and lots of props, and everyone loved them. They handed out kazoos and gave us dancing instructions for audience participation, encouraged a stage invasion for ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ and passed around bananas for their singalong version of ‘The Banana Splits’ theme.

In between bands there was stories for the kids while the grown ups drank beers.

Next on was my band, Rabies Babies. This show was the second time that our guitarist Laura’s toddler son has been at a Rabies Babies gig, he doesn’t really like us. We are too shouty and he gets frightened. This time he didn’t cry for the whole time we played, so we are slowly winning him over. We re-worked out set – we dropped some of the inappropriate sweary songs and added some kid-friendly songs. Our drummer Mike ended up playing guitar and drums at the same time for one song so Laura could run about on stage pretending to be an elephant. There was a boy of 5 or 6 who was right at the front and slam danced and pogoed non stop all the way through our set.

Thee Dinner Ladies are just plain and simple brilliant garage. Musically they are right up my street, they are garage punk with equal measures of punk and garage. Shouty fun male & female vocals with flirty lines like “you’re only shopping cos you fancy me”. All this, plus the whole band are dressed spectacularly as dinner ladies. Who doesn’t love a dinner lady?

Sadly I missed the final band, Militant Girlfriend, as I had a train to catch to get me to a wedding in Sheffield, hopefully I’ll get to see them soon.

Roll on next Little Loud Women show!

DAM at Kamio

London had a shit week. I want to cry and scream with rage. And it is over 30 degrees. London is too crowded and dirty and sad for hot weather. It is sunny, and there is a big cloud of sadness and anger. The cloud of the Finsbury Park Mosque attack the day before, the cloud of Grenfell Tower, the cloud of London Bridge, the cloud of disappointment that we still have a government that we do not agree with or vote for, the cloud of Brexit, the cloud of Westminster Bridge. Too much. Give us a break. We are all being nicer to each other to ease the pain, but we hurt. If any other band had been playing on tuesday night then I wouldn’t have gone.

I’m sure Dam know a thing or two about rage and sadness and being attacked. They are from Palestine. They are Palestine’s longest running hip hop band, they’ve been making music for around 20 years. I only came across them a couple of years ago, when they released the excellent anti-gender violence song Who You R.

Within minutes of Dam bounding on to the stage all of the tension I felt inside started to melt. They were medicine for my soul. This band are so full of positive energy, hope and catchy tunes. It was impossible not to dance. They preach a serious ethic with a smile and a wicked sense of humour. “We are Dam, from Palestine. Our country is occupied, but we have a scene… Hey, you should all move to Palestine, I hear London isn’t so good lately”.

 

 

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.

Girl pool at the Lexington 16 Feb.

It was rainy and I was a bit tired and almost didn’t go. I sat at the side for most of the gig but as soon as Girlpool started playing I stood on my seat and had a massive smile on my face and felt energised.

Ela Orleans at Wharf Chambers, Leeds

I loved this gig. As soon as it was over I wanted to experience it all again. It was beautiful. Wharf Chambers is a lovely place to see bands – the sound is good, the locals and staff are friendly, there’s table football and nice beers. 

Rebellion Festival in Blackpool

Rebellion was fun. The first band I saw was Guida. They soon had the room full of spikey haired punks doing the ‘Quo dance. They were ace.

Guida. Rockin all over the punks.

I led a ‘Here’s 3 chords, now form a ukulele band’ workshop and taught 12 people the chords for Part Time Punk by the TV Personalities. The Pukes played later and we got the dozen Part Time Pukes up on stage with us to perform Part Time Punks. We congratulated ourselves on having the most people on stage. After the Pukes played we were supposed to hang around the merch stall but I seemed to drift away from the merch stall and into the middle of the crowd watching the Men They Couldn’t Hang. Their set ended with Green Fields of France, and most of the audience ended up on stage singing along. The prize for most on stage definitely went to Men They Couldn’t Hang. Stiff Little Fingers played in the main room downstairs so I went to see a bit of them but I thought they were a bit dull so I came back upstairs and caught the fantastic Dinner Ladies. They were so good that I bought their CD and 2 badges.

The brilliant Dinner Ladies

Hagar the Womb are without doubt the best and most punk band ever in the whole world. They are so punk that their guitarist can wear a tiger-print onesie and crocs and still look more punk than anyone in the whole punk festival. I love Hagar the Womb with all my heart. (i used my ink pens with this drawing, so there is an ink splot over Ruth’s microphone)

Hagar the Womb. The most punk band in the world.

I saw a load of good bands over the weekend. Highlights were Guida, Dinner Ladies, Men They Couldn’t Hang, TV Smith, Hard Skin, Left Over Crack, Captain Hotknives, Hagar The Womb and the old man playing organ at the end of the pier on the sunny saturday afternoon.

 

Last weekend of the Grosvenor featuring Hard Skin

It was a sad/happy weekend. The final weekend of our favourite venue. The ONLY reason to go south of the river. I loved the Grosvenor for the following reasons: 1. they had a great selection of herb tea. If you were off the beer then you could sip a sorel & ginger tea whilst watching Doom or the Restarts. 2. They always let us put on gigs there, even though we always made gigs with french or german bands that no one had heard of and our gigs always lost money. They still gave the bands free beer tickets and never seemed pissed off that the venue was empty. 3. There was a house backline, which made playing there very easy. 4. They gave free beer tickets to bands. 5. There was a big disco mirrorball – an essential item for any pub/gig-venue. 6. John the landlord is a really ace person, and so are all the people who worked at the Grosvenor. One time they took my band Rabies Babies on holiday to Bath. John the landlord drove and we took the backline of the pub and played a gig in a crappy pub in Bath.

The final weekend of the Grosvenor was Hard Skin fuelled. They played on the friday and saturday. They were the perfect band for seeing off the Grosvenor.

My drawings of Hard Skin always seem to make Scott’s face look weird. In this one he has an ink blot over his face. I got some ink pens for my birthday and I’m still getting used to using them, so they blot quite a bit. I like the feel of using them though.

The Grosvenor is now destined to get swallowed up into the gentrification of Stockwell and will no doubt become a fine-dining bistro with luxury apartments above it. Hard Skin are playing again in December. I’ll try again with Scott’s face.

Fat White Family at the Buffalo Bar

 

The Fat White Family at the Buffalo Bar, Highbury.
16th April 2014.