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.

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).

I Fought The Floor And The Floor Won

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Lyric zine for a Rabies Babies song about a messy night out.

La La La

During the first lockdown I made a video for my band.

Rape is rape, even if the rapist is in a band that you like.

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Illustrated lyrics for a zine to go with a song that I wrote about how men in punk bands seem to be able to get away with sexual assault.

I also used the drawings to make a lyric video for the song.

Rabies Babies zine

I’ve started making a lyric zine for the new Rabies Babies record. All of the band members are illustrating songs, here’s a sneak preview of one that i’m doing….

birthday gig

I made a poster for a Loud Women gig (line up was part-instigated by myself and Rabies Babies drummer Tabi), celebrating many birthdays and anniversaries, with our dream line up.
Can’t wait!

Rabies Babies Tour!

I’m a bit late adding this one up… our oystercards did us well on saturday and we will top them up in time for the next gig back at the Hand in Hand on 13th April.

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.

Dingy Skipper

My band Rabies Babies played at the Hand in Hand in Brixton, with Dealing With Damage, Slow Faction, PCF and Dingy Skipper.
Dingy Skipper turned out to be my very old friend Dick Ugly, formerly of Hackney anarcho punkers Ugly Beat, a band who I shared many a bill with back in the 1990s.
I love Dingy Skipper – sort of like if Johnny Cash and Woody Guthrie were Durham miners. This was his first gig, hopefully there will be many more.

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!

Otoboke Beaver

Otoboke Beaver at the Working Man’s Club, Bethnal Green. 5th May 2017.

Otoboke Beaver blow my mind. They are all absolutely masters of their weapons, they play with exact precision and ease at 100mph at the same time as contorting into acrobatics. They command absolute attention, waiting for silence before launching into a full on punk rock assault.
They promised to return to the UK again next year. I will be counting the days.

Support was from the excellent c86-ish Say Sue Me from South Korea.

more GIGS AND PENCILS Otoboke Beaver:
Otoboke Beaver in the gigs and pencils calendar 2017 (free to download)

Otoboke Beaver  at the Shaklewell Arms May 2016

Badges!

Badges of my drawings to give away to the first 30 people who come to our gig on friday.

Rabies Babies, Slags, MoFaM flyer

We are putting on gigs at the Beehive in Bromley by Bow, every 2nd Friday of the month. This month it’s my bands Rabies Babies and MoFaM, and my new favourite bands Slags. This is the flyer I made.

Calendar Playlist

I’ve uploaded a 90 minute radio show of tracks from the calendar musicians.

The Pukes On Tour

I did some pages for ukulele-punk band The Pukes activity zine, this is the ‘On Tour’ game.

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.

Rebellion Festival

Rebellion Festival at Blackpool Winter Gardens with The Pukes.

7 stages of punk bands, 13 hours a day for 4 days.

Day 1 – Thursday

We were the closing band of Thursday night on the Opera Stage.

In the backstage dressing room there are tour posters for comedians from the 80s, strip lights around the mirrors and a sign on the sink that says “no food washing – this sink is only for wigs”.

The stage is enormous.

It was massive amounts of fun to play.

We all stayed sober enough to play (even drummer Saul), we played well and to a good crowd, sold almost all of our special Rebellion Puke Bag CD/’zines, gave away loads of vodka jelly shots, made new friends, met old friends and had a fantastic night of over-excitement.

Here’s our hard working merch man Adam, selling our t-shirts and ‘zines to pay for our next album. Sitting next to the stall is Swiss Rebellion-friend Andrej Guly.

This year’s Rebellion had a good scattering of not-all-men bands and crew. Each stage had at least a few women performing every day, and in my mind, the most impressive bands had women in the line up, so this year I drew mostly not-all-men bands.

I caught an early train and came straight from the station to catch Werecats at 2pm on the Introducing Stage. I play in The Pukes with Cil, and in Rabies Babies with Mike and it is beautiful to watch them in Werecats. Cil and Pip play off each other’s harmonies and inter-song chat, and they play fun and fantastic mid-80’s pop-punk with fuzzy guitars, smiles and fuck-you attitude, like in the days when pop-punk was great.

I spent most of the afternoon hanging around The Pukes’ march stall, and went back to the Introducing Stage at 6.30pm for The Svetlanas, a tsunami of hair and hardcore, and at 8pm to catch The Tuts. If I was 18 and in a band then I would definitely want to be in The Tuts. They are energy, humour and fantastic pop punk tunes.

Day 2 – Friday

On a sunny day Blackpool is a beautiful place.
I had midday drinks with friends in the bar at the end of North Pier. The organist entertained us with seaside hits and 80 year old couples waltzed.
I wished that I could waltz.

At 1.20pm Maid Of Ace played the new Tower Street Arena open-air stage. They rocked tough and fast. I bought both their albums afterwards.

 

I met up with Aston of Boss Tuneage Records at the Tower St Arena, “I’ll be easy to spot – I’m the one in the black t-shirt” he said.
The Winter Gardens felt hot and stuffy so I went back to the seafront to eat an M&S salad (thanks Karen Hag for the top-tip!), and while I was there I came across this photoshoot (with lights!) of a punk and two old ladies. Later on I bumped into the punk. His name is Andy. The photographer asked him to pose with the ladies. He didn’t even get a quid for it.

I got sunburn after a while, so I headed back to the Winter Gardens and caught a few bits of bands, had a couple of beers, and then went to hear Brix Smith being interviewed by John Robb on the Opera House stage. I learned that Brix Smith wrote one of my favourite Fall songs, Hotel Blodel, and she told entertaining stories of music-obsession, manchester & ‘merica. She returned to the Opera stage a while later to perform an awesome set with her band. Their performance was my favourite of the festival. I LOVED every second of it. I felt the nostalgia of being a teenager in my bedroom listening to Perverted By Language, and loved the new songs they played.

Ramones tribute band Ramonas played the Empress Ballroom at the end of the night. This room is enormous with a sprung dance floor. Very few bands can get away with playing the Empress. The Ramonas OWNED the place. They were easily the most professional, tight and deadly band of the weekend. They didn’t pause for breath. They pretty much did ‘It’s Alive’, as the Ramones did it, but better. They are Ramones-plus. I am still in awe of the musicianship of these women.

Day 3 – Saturday

The day begun with The Pukes’ Blow the Roof Off Rebellion – Biggest Band of the Festival workshop. It was as fun as ever with around 30 people taking part. Two people during the festival told us that they had done our ‘Here’s 3 Chords Now Form A Band’ workshops in previous years and had gone on to form their own bands. Total Punk.

Favourites bands of the day was oi-pin-ups Hard Skin and fab M.D.C on the Pavillion Stage, and on the Introducing Stage, Shot! a multi-nationality London US-style hardcore band, and Amsterdam squat band Cracked Up.

Day 4 – Sunday

Highlight of the day was listening to Dave Dictor being interviewed and read from his book: MDC: Memoir From A Damaged Civilisation.
When asked about sexism/equality in the punk scene, Dave tells that on their current 40+ date European tour they have only come across one band with a woman in (Svetlana). I love Dave Dictor for noticing and caring.

I had a good wander around the Punk Art, and met new favourite printmaker/artist, Zoe Girl Shit. (check out her stuff – it rocks).

My Rebellion was cut short to catch the 8pm train home, but before I left I had a couple of anarcho treats on the Arena Stage. Anthrax UK followed by the best finale imaginable – Hagar The Womb. I love this band so much. They are funnier than Hard Skin, more punk than anyone, and were possibly the only band who were drinking chocolate vodka on stage.

 

Otoboke Beaver May 1st 2016

This was their first show in UK,  as part of the 3 day DIY Pop Festival at the Shacklewell Arms. I feel very honoured to have been there because Otoboke Beaver should be playing massive venues the next time they come to Britain. They have great songs, they are great musicians, they have explosive energy, and have their stage-craft down to a T. No one could not love Otoboke Beaver.

Johnny Moped record sleeve

In print!
I re-drew my Johnny Moped illustration from september 2013 and it is on the back of the sleeve of the new 7″ on Damaged Goods Records.

 

 

Skinny Girl Diet at the Moth Club Hackney

Last night I went to the Moth Club. I saw Parrots there a couple of weeks ago, it is near by, a nice atmosphere, cheap to get in (only a fiver!) and I like the gold ceiling there. Last night Ghost Car and Skinny Girl Diet played, both new bands to me. The gig was sold out and packed. Around 70% of the audience was female. I haven’t been to a gig with so many women for ages (ever?). Both bands were fantastic. Gold Car have an organ player who adds an amazing sound to the band and Skinny Girl Diet remind me of early 90s grunge-punk. An energetic pit was formed on most of the dancefloor for the whole night. I bought records from both bands afterwards.

 

Rebellion Festival 2015 Saturday

Saturday began with the Part-Time Pukes workshop – a massive play-a-long to make the biggest band of the festival, joined by Brunk brass band, a load of drummers, uke players and singers. Celebratory pints all round for the Pukes, and after lugging a dozen guitars & ukes back to the van I watched Goldblade rock the massive Empress Ballroom stage. In the afternoon I went for an ice-cream on the beach with Nipper from Hard Skin. We wanted Fabs but couldn’t find any, so we got a Nobbly Bobbly instead.

I came back to the Winter Gardens to catch Coitus – their first appearance at Rebellion.

Coitus suit the Casbar stage. I stayed at the Casbah for most of Saturday night – it was like an 80s/90s squat party line-up. Culture Shock followed by Hard Skin, then I went for mushy peas & chips so I missed Chaos UK, but I got back in time for the Mob, with a tiny look in to the Empress Stage to see how appalling Boomtown Rats were. (They were doing ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’, I didn’t even stay for the whole song). The Mob did one song with the singer out of Zounds, which was quite special to see, it was obvious how much the Mob love Zounds.

MDC were the last band of the night. (my drawing of Mike MDC is above) During their set a guy got on stage and asked his girlfriend to marry him. I couldn’t think of anything worse than being proposed to on stage in front of hundreds of people by a guy that had downed too many pints of shit lager. MDC singer Dave followed the proposal with dedicating the song ‘Dick For Brains’ to the happy couple, and said “I was married once” with a face that said it all. He then proceeded to tell an inappropriate story about going down on a prostitute. I laughed so much. Dave is a star. MDC rocked.

Rebellion Festival 2015 Friday

I arrived on Friday night at Blackpool Winter Gardens in time to see Johnny Moped, who was fantastic and energetic. After that I watched Captain Hotknives, who orchestrated the best sing-off I have ever witnessed. He got the two halves of the crowd absolutely hating each other, and then declared that each half should battle the other by singing “I hate babies” the loudest. If Captain Hotknives ever decides to become a politician then we are in trouble. I have never seen such manipulation. It was stunning. All of his set, as usual, was hilarious. For some reason he had black war-paint on his face. Not sure why.

After Captain Hotknives I saw a little bit of the Damned, who were quite good but I had to leave their show to go and watch the Restarts, who for me were the best band of the night. Kieran was wearing a ballet skirt, which he looked really good in, and he did a great girls-to-the-front shout-out just before the band played their tribute to Mia Zapata song.

After the Restarts I watched a little bit of Sham 69, but I thought the sound wasn’t very good and they seemed a bit dull after the great Restarts show so I went back to my BnB for an early night.