Dec. 15, 2024, 9:01 a.m.
Push The Button and Let Me Know
Repetitive Seasonal Anarcho Disorder b/w "The Year"
Repetitive Strain
Oi! From South East London,
So there was a promise we would do a December self-production while Balamii is on a semi-administrative break, and in all honest we’re too tired and busy. Did you see November? Cut us some slack. We had a two-pronged Christmas AGM this week, first seeing the restoration of Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence on Tuesday, and then Hard Skin’s Christmas show on Friday. At one point during the latter approached two friends of ours in the smoking area and produced a full tobacco pouch that contained nothing but mealworms. Punk will literally never die.
Balamii have been putting their energy into doing a run of cypher events in Peckham, and if you’re local you should support those in the meantime. From us, just a Substack this month - but a big boy one. Dig in!
Ben Is Having A Lie Down b/w Oi! Not Jobs
Hello, hello, how’s the family, and so on. We’ve had another great year of radio, my crossfade capabilities notwithstanding, and I’ve got to start with a big thank you to everyone who has listened to the show, popped down to our gigs or asked when we’re printing the stickers again.
The highlight has to be the Guttersnipe, Cuntroaches, Ekstasis and Rubber show we hosted back in April – how often can you say that you helped organise the best show in the city, an absolute din played under a railway arch seemingly soundproofed with only sheet metal? Be sure to play the Cuntroaches LP to your nearest and dearest this Christmas, see their faces light up!
It’s been three weeks since I kicked off Attempting Something and that certainly served as a life-affirming, if energy draining, weekend – a lot of responsibility falls on the shoulders of the Sesh Planner. I’m in two minds about whether to put on an event of that scale again, and if I do it’ll maybe be more collaborative, more of this parish – just know that any DIY festival takes a while, costs a fair bit, and you should give it a whirl regardless if your credit rating is at a reasonable level.
Punk in London continues to delight and give headaches as ever: the continuing influx of younger, gayer and maybe more anarcho bands has given us both a lift – every good scene needs bands you know that out of towners are jealous you’re catching them every fortnight and at the moment those bands are Catastrophe, Grazia and Traidora.
Subversive publishing has come in thick and fast too: there have been two issues of The Pig Catcher, a zine collated and curated by the How To Catch a Pig anarchist punker collective. They’ve both been a fine primer in connecting the dots between radical, abolitionist politics and the idiot music we hold dear, which continues to be vital as the world lurches from genocide to catastrophe. The wider success of Hardcore and indie poppers alike risks diluting outlooks in the quest for radio slots, shoes and franchised restaurant chains - but it has at least been assuring to see minds sharpen and take on the role that platform capitalism plays within DIY and wider musicking alike, dampening the Spotify adverts and looking for ways to express opinions (outside of Meta, AI slop and anywhere where you need to replace letters for numbers). Can’t wait for Liz Pelly’s Mood Machine book next month…
There’s a growing number of worker-owned publications and cyberzines - been enjoying See/Saw, 404 Media (the best AI journalism in the business) and Aftermath a lot this year. Print belongs, as ever, to Demystification, SELOUT and The Fence. Let me know about your zine, obvs?
What else? I joined a powerlifting gym that has both ‘Dragula’ and ‘Push The Button’ on the playlist, and it has been gratifying both discovering how strong I can be and how that will be useful when loading backline into a car boot in the future. I remembered that films existed, thanks to nights like Video Bazaar and the Scala!! documentary, which is a fun and familiar exercise in listening to punks and weirdos talking about their favourite place in the world.
We’ll be back in 2025 refreshed and with tunes in tow - all I hope for everyone is World Peace (Can Be Done), the second year of Luigi and for everything to at least not get too much worse. I just quit my job, so let’s see how that pans out too, ahem! (If you were wondering about top records, I’ll be in Maximum Rocknroll’s year-end lists, crossing my fingers they’ve kept in Still House Plants.)
Merry Christmas, a happy new year, get to the gig.
- - B P
.·:*¨¨* ≈ Vivi Sez! Big In 2K24 ≈ *¨¨*:·.
Year Best of Music Lists - extremely not chic (MRR graceful exclusion). I don’t necessarily wish to write a forced summary of world events where others are doing more eloquent and informed writing - if anything is unclear about our stance, please refer to the multiple times we played “Israel is a terror state” on loop through a PA system this year. Rather than re-tread events of the year’s unending violence and fascism (not to mention what I like to refer to as the current worldwide trans experience of “I’m Just Trying To Live, Bitch”), I choose to look outward to hope and talk about the hardened solidarity and growth of networks I’ve seen this year.
First thing is first to shout out - the girls, the dolls, the gays and the punks who are pushing back on the curse of German DIY/Anarchist guilt cosplay. This year the ripple effect of Deutschepunk’s countercultural horniness for Israel finally travelled beyond those of us who are maybe familiar with sampling concerningly wet speed from a stranger (perhaps in the basement of a famous Mitte housing project at 7am - my mum reads this btw). Many people involved in the resistance to this perverse mass psychosis have seen repercussions, but there is wide-ranging and vital work being done by Network of Friends, Nur Mode, Strike Germany alongside many more behind the scenes. I was happy to contribute in a small way to some material funds for the West Bank by playing a Vanity Crystal live set with Special Interest at 90mil (amazing venue!).
In London, I have to award the prize for Doing The Absolute Most to the dolls this year (when are we not eh). I’d be posing to not shout out CDJ chaos demon and my high-speed homegirl Karlie Marx, who has put every waking moment into community care this year. Regular co-organised night Bodyswap raised £14k for trans healthcare(!), Neurotica’s Trans Pride party opened some kind of space-rift (iykyk) and she recently started Plastyk - a lesbian night where I can see Sister Zo scare people out of the room with spectral dubstep. My personal favourite of her many achievements this year - playing “Next Hype” in a room full of people who are deeply self-serious about dull industrial techno.
I didn’t get to attend them all, but WET remains the best clubnight in London. The brand is so strong they even survived being hardcore ripped off by one of K*nye’s many moodboard artists (CSM fashion grads always two steps behind). WET leads the charge, and the charge is “I want to go to lesbian nights and have Jana Rush play the most uncompromising footwork possible”.
After something like 20 years of doing it pretty much straight I’d wavered a bit from DIY in the post-lockdown zone, which got shaken out of me big time this year. Sunday School crew went from strength to strength combining my two favourite things (idiot guitar noise and idiot electronic noise), Necropolis funded the return of the GOATs Savage Realm in a weekend of no-bullshit death metal, Oh What Fun gifted the many joys of primitive (PIÑEN!), Ben…see above, and finally Damage is Done blessed us with FRAMTID. The total opposite of raw punk musically, but worth re-mentioning the ambient all-dayer ROCA put on in this breath! Impossible for me to overlook that fellow London DIY lifer and Quality Control HQ/Damage is Done head honcho Ola is currently experiencing literal state detention. 1000% support to her, her people and the crew working to help everyone involved.
Not to be a broken record (or sound like Girl Abe Simpson), but something that repeatedly blew my mind in DIY large and small in 2024 is the sheer scale of baby freaks and trans/GNC people in attendance. I think when I attended Limp Wrist at the Grosvenor in 2008 I knew like 2 queer people. Was I even gay yet? Answers on a postcard. Anyway, it completely freaks my nut out. Traidora are IT, catch up. My only notes - I’ve seen a concerning rise in skanking as a mosh move and people openly playing folk-punk, two decisions where all roads lead to skacore.
Personal stuff:
Doing the show duh!!! Our guests this year were EARWORM, Guttersnipe and Grazia! Thank you! We got to fulfil a true banger - putting on Guttersnipe, Cuntroaches and Ekstasis. We also hosted a great (if complex) show for Pink Pound and Catholic Block, two favourites! The bar we hosted the latter at was put up for sale like 4 days later (lol). Someone recently told me they randomly paid into the former (unaware of Guttersnipe) and then had their head completely reworked. If nothing else this is the kind of thing that makes doing your own thing worth it. RUBBER, amongst many other things I loved playing this year, got to rip idiot noise at an experimental jazz show at Cafe Oto.
Very honoured this year for BLUSH to allow me to do a mix of Lesbian DJ Screw Tribute, not to mention I got in some appearances at Dalston Superstore including a basement B2B with top geezer Marie Malarie. Start of the year had the first formal Vanity Crystal release on the Billo compilation “Bildende Künstler*Innen versuchen Musik zu machen Vol.3”. Other news, I have some artwork in the A1(!?) foldout inlay of “The Wound” - the lithe new LP from Qlowski (out now on Feel It and Maple Death) and I also risographed my butt off, some of which you can buy directly from me in badge form at Austerity Realm distro. Peace love u!
2K24 Pick ‘n’ Mix:
Straw Man Army fanclub (UK chapter) • impromptu poetry performance with Arthur and Hesse K in a lime kiln (luv u Pete!) • GISM DVD • True Anon 3hr Kanye West nitrous addiction ep. • E&C Wombat tag • New Year’s Day 8 litre Shin Cup • Black Cilice, Sanguine Relic and SUCCUMB sets at The Black Heart • Enzyme at New River Studios • General Echo Sound Reggae Disco • Azealia Banks projecting Windows Media Player for her entire set • G2G Pogues cover • Kamala Is Brat (heroin to me, a hater) • Tisakorean • not voting • Blank Hellscape monitor video • Sybille Ruppert exhibition at Native Project Informant • BBL Drizzy beat (sorry) • emmy! exhibition at Waste! • Spinal Fluid Fits • ISHA jersey club set at Pelican House • Dark Arts Lost Highway • new DJ Sprinkles (pre-emptive entry) • Klein On The Radar freestyle • Athens gay swimming cove • head acupuncture/sauna membership • Laurel Halo at Volksbühne • Somewhere Press night at Cafe Oto • Still House Plants at Ormside Projects • Demystification #4 (the GOATs!) • giant Plushie Love snoozle hits London • Miley Serious Rinse France show & 99CTS Records • Biogal - Prayer for The Queen (1968): Compilation Side A at The Place • The Spiral Times on Refuge • Pissing In Public on Noods • Alan Resnick at MOTH Club • Kode9, DJ Marfox, I. Jordan, Pearson Sound, Eris Drew & Octo Octa, and Mia Koden sets at FOLD • NAH LP (luv ya Mike!) • Whoever closed Corsica Studios with Crash Course in Science • lesbianism • Wes Baggaley Adonis Underground Resistance drop (real tears/unending sweat) • FITNESSS | LUηG x 2 (crazy) • Baz Luhrmann conspiracy deep dive • Potato gozleme • Anarchy is hot!
Oi! from South East London Ⓐ
BP and VSP play Non-Standard Music every second Friday of the month on Balamii, live at midnight UK time. Available to listen back to on Mixcloud or Soundcloud. Subscribe to the RS Substack for one monthly email of sonic detritus.
Ⓐ Oi! from South London Ⓔ
Repetitive Strain is free every month, both in audio and writing. However, supporting helps us along with radio fees, technical stuff, non-alcoholic beers. Feel free to throw us a little if you wish.