Oi! from South East London

Thanks to everyone saying kind stuff about the newsletter and the show recently! A little delayed getting the show out to everyone this month, as we had a completely mysterious audio issue with the recording of the show and had to re-record it. The show was also perhaps our most shonk-filled in some time, so perhaps a blessing.

MUCH to chat over this month. We are doing a lot! And so, in order:

We are hosting an intimate little FREE night of playing the less-abrasive end of our USBs at Multi Story Peckham, on Thursday 20th November. Some angelic friends of ours took over what was Peckham Levels recently and have begun making it anew, including giving a new home to Iklectik as of last weekend! Truly amazing. Come down for £4 pints and us playing a lot of Japanese technopop and Studio One reggae. RSVP on RA here.

We are bringing Oakland shoegazers Blue Zero to London on Thursday 4th December. Sitting somewhere between the pre-’Loveless’ My Bloody Valentine, Unwound and the Bay Area indie rock lineage, this one is purely extended RS family with connections to Marbled Eye, Public Interest, Sucker, Lower Grand Radio and all things Oakland DIY.

Also on the bill, the careening and manic death rock of Moist Crevice and (new formation of old friends) Crude Image slinging a Cleveland-style hardcore frenzy. Gonna be sick. Grip it!

Finally, the house band: RUBBER plays one last show this year, a sad farewell to our close friends in Es.

Hard to even begin to count the amount of times we’ve seen Es play (first show at DIY Space!), so this is going to be a tearjerker. An incredible bill of mates, and Vic also spinning after. Tickets here.

Listen: Voices Radio • 19.10.25

01. Delia Derbyshire – Blue Veils and Golden Sands
02. Aphex Twin – Wet Tip Hen Ax
03. Shakti – Maut
04. Stick Men With Ray Guns – Scavenger of Death
05. Upsidedown Cross – Battalion of Rats
06. D’Angelo – Devil's Pie (Acapella)
07. Pallette – All the Demolished Palestinian Homes of East Jerusalem
08. estoc – No Glory
09. Sonic Youth – I Love Her All The Time
10. Flesh World – Are We Saved or Are We Damned?
11. Sonic Boom – You're The One
12. Felinto – Sol Na Cabecça
13. Ink and Dagger – 13th Dream (JG's Remix)
14. Sam KDC – Indra's Net
15. SUNN O))) – Descent/Ascent
16. Songs: Ohia – Trouble Will Find You

You can hear the show on our Mixcloud and Soundcloud. Links to tracks available on Bandcamp can be found on our Buy Music Club.

We will be broadcasting live again on Voices Radio next month on Sunday 16th November at 20:00 UK time.

A1(M)K Ultra

Touring in your late thirties involves listening to your body a little more, drinking a fair bit less and remembering to bring some sensible shoes. The last weekend of September was a pleasure, our house band Rubber sharing a van with Middex, Megzbow and Vinegar Tom as we set aside a long weekend to play Yorkshire three times. (Of course, we pre-empted this with a hazy, cosy night at Spanners - a big thanks to everyone who made that night a success; Mary, I shall return your cashbox soon, I promise!)

We played at a fine ale bar in Todmorden to one man and his dog, but it was worth it to potter around Hebden Bridge and make the climb up to Gaddings Dam. Finally stepping foot in HATCH, one of Sheffield's abundance of DIY facilitators and formerly the Audacious Art Experiment, was one to savour and we turned out a great racket next to Blundell Park. Leeds followed up with an afternoon watching Sky Sports News in a cask-fuelled slumber, and a night performing with a band that was a little Brontzman, a little black metal? And then it was the M1 all the way home (well, New River).

Megzbow and Vinegar Tom's set was a pleasure every time, meditative and pastoral with noise passing through water pails and those wooden frogs you see sometimes, and Kev's Middex set just grew in confidence every night, those piercing droll tales of provincial life coming into focus more with every set. That's always the way isn't it - playing the same set tightens you up, and you're left wondering what to do with it once you're back home to count the Zettle deposits. But we made it work, practically broke even, and there are so many other venues and scenes to travel to in this damp wreck of an island.

Since that weekend, it's fair to say I've just been getting on - prepping a new USB (formatted correctly, I will not be tricked again!), getting work out of the way, getting the zine out. I became an uncle this month too, welcoming a nephew before Halloween and awaiting a niece any day now, so Christmas will be an exercise in starting them young on noise not music: I’m thinking ear defenders, anything that makes a clang or a click, and Shadow the Hedgehog.

This month I played something from the Shakti LP, my favourite punk release this month - taking a Killing Joke sorta swagger, reminiscent of the Belgrado members making up half of this band - with a sarky, defiant vocal and sample turn throughout. 'Pruvichi Acchan' is an absolute floorfiller. Expect me to play something from Unmaking's demo on the November show too because it is an absolute wallop of a demo. \ m /

Tales of the Atavistic Warriors of Dalston Rio

This month was a month of returning to ground, figuratively and literally after a whirlwind four day spontaneous trip to see a giant pipe organ built into the Croatian seafront. Having never visited the country before I have learned a lot about old German men in cargo shorts, nazi ultra graffiti and the local squat’s lack of toilet. As a result, life’s been slightly disordered.

Things had been difficult for me to move through a lot of this month, which maybe contributed to this month’s show having an oppressive tone. While I didn’t quite get to play a bunch of the raw black metal I’ve been listening to in my spare time (my kingdom for an Iron Firmament tour), I do think that Pallette record, Samurai Records’ ouput and Songs: Ohia feel spiritually in the same vein.

Elsewhere I’ve been putting myself through the abject debasement of watching several music documentaries, with only one that I would truly recommend - The Big Johnson. I caught this new film about 80s/90s NYC drag legend and all-round wind-up merchant Dean Johnson at Dalston Rio last week, it’s a ball. I laughed, my partner cried, there’s a section where everyone confirms the size of his cock. Also an incredibly anti-Drag Race drag documentary. I only relate to queer non-fiction film when the talking heads are promoting actively taking part in the decline of society. Brief flash of Limp Wrist playing at Johnson’s HOMOCORE night features!

Other life recommendations:
Skintern live (that’s not corn syrup), Slums of Beverly Hills (1998) starring Natasha Lyonne, Traidora LP, Demystification Radio Hour (haaadcawwww), binge-watching The Shield, lentil soup with potato gozleme, Radical Roasters’ Popayan espresso, sending me a screener copy of the Coil documentary I couldn’t go see this month because I deserve it.