Oi! from South East London,

Another hour of non-standards and live broadcasting under the influence of additional layers and wondering what Voices’ mixer is trying to tell us this time. Rectangle music taken to its conclusion, freak tunes beyond ‘Freak’ and a composition for dogs - it’s all here this month.

If you want more, and wish to bathe in a mixture of dry ice, stark electronics and Welsh Noise - then we are putting on a show this Wednesday (24th) at Spanners with Megzbow & Vinegar Tom and Middex, our tour friends for the week ahead (see below). £7, 8pm, we play music in between, not too late a finish. Come down: tickets are on sale now (come anyway if you haven’t got the funds).

01. Lippard Arkbro Lindwall — Timing
02. LFO — Blown
03. Phoenecia — Soul Oddity Rhythm Box Version
04. New Order — Confusion (Pump Panel Floatation Mix)
05. Astral Social Club — Ginnel
06. Middex — Tongue Holds Back
07. Mayyors — White Jeep
08. Gang of Four — I Will Be A Good Boy
09. Adverts — Great British Mistake
10. Chronophage — Anti-Miracle
11. Blue Zero — Lemon Year
12. Laurie Anderson — For Electronic Dogs
13. Autechre — Chenc9
14. Bendik Giske — Slipping (aya been caught Mix)
15. Milanese — Dead Man Walking (Distance Remix)
16. Godflesh — Permission

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 19th October at 20:00 UK time.

A Thousand Bands In A Darkened Room

Holiday, celebrate.

I’ve been in a degree of hermitage this month pre-show, mostly preparing for a return for study and our imminent tour. One thing I did do? Go on a massive Coil binge. Whenever you feel like you’re at a loose end, this is honestly a great way to spend your time. How much do you know Coil? There’s a lot to parse, many useless compilations, not exactly something you’d hear in (most) clubs. It’s an investment.

While John Balance’s issues and death tend to overshadow the humour in the duo’s later period of lineup expansion and live performance, I feel few write-ups cover the duo’s see-saw of humour and severe horror better than Jeremy Reed’s reading of his friendship. Worth spending an hour with if you want to hear about opium salad dressings, bidding on your own band’s work on Ebay and the grossest piece of William Burroughs gossip I’ve ever heard. Swim squid-like and squalid.

Since their reissue in 2019, much has been covered about the band’s weirdly funky soundtracks for, uh, educational videos Sara Dale’s Sensual Massage and The Gay Man’s Guide to Safer Sex already. At the risk of repeating Quietus articles, the short version is that those soundtracks have been recently reissued, although ironically the films were lost to time. Gay Man’s Guide…’s masters going AWOL is particularly maddening, as it stands as a pillar of Section 28 history. Naturally, it caused tabloid outrage. Naturally, it sold tens of thousands of copies.

Gay Man’s Guide… is the first film to (legally) show explicit gay content ever in the UK. I didn’t know this. It was released in 1992, 11 years before Section 28 would be repealed - a law that spanned much of my lifetime. Talk about the elephant in the room. My knowledge of these films exists purely because of Coil, whose relentlessly organised archiving of their own material meant the names carried on and the films have an enduring cult status. 

Ten years ago, we helped open a space on Old Kent Road after spending an entire summer learning how to insulate walls and use power tools. Maybe you went sometimes. Personally, my life became a 5 year blur of ear damage, urinal repair and alcohol residue that shaped practically everything currently happening in my life. Its closure in 2020 was awkward and muted and while I came out of it with a slightly mangled grief-euphoria that I had my own life back, the experience of doing creative work now as opposed to when I had frequent access to a space like this is extremely stark.

A group of former organisers (myself and Ben included) are currently building an archive of that space, DIY Space For London, right now. If you have material related to the space, digital or print, get in touch. While it seems almost too obvious to say things have not improved in the city, I believe nostalgia to be a poison and point towards a litany of social spaces opening up and reforming in South London currently including IKLECTIK returning and our friends opening Multi Story in Peckham Levels, Shai Space, a new TBC Peckham venue, Sister Midnight in the build phase at long last and Piehouse Co-op (currently using the DSFL PA, no less).

5 Times I Looked Up At The Moon With Coil (and friends) last week:

1. Pride Video’s 2018 remaster of a VHS rip of Gay Men’s Guide… on the Internet Archive [VERY NSFW].

2. Cyclobe’s alternate soundtracks for Derek Jarman’s super-8 work, Sulphur - Tarot - Garden.

3. My introduction to Derek Jarman’s work was the first film screening we held at DIY Space For London in 2016. Lux’s screening of Jarman’s 1981 In The Shadow of The Sun, infamously soundtracked by Throbbing Gristle, is seared into my pupils for eternity. DIY Space’s opening weekend was ten years ago last week.

4. Erasure’s Stop! music video, directed by Peter Christopherson.

5. If you ever think the current moment is the most insane we’ve ever got, please consider this 1996 video of d-grade Nine Inch Nails offcuts Filter playing Hey Man Nice Shot for a catwalk of supermodels on MTV, while the singer has a broken arm. Nice shot, man.

✸

Other unrelated ideas to enjoy:

LV Sandals by EsDeeKid, the George Clinton-presented sci-horror anthology Cosmic Slop (directed by the guy who made House Party), Pasolini’s dickmatisation tribute Teorama, Jim Legxacy’s I just banged a snus in Canada Water video. Until October, do balloons and listen to some bangers (not legal advice).

Ben’s Prompts of the Month

I’m glad Vic has already run through the list of actually existing (with more to come) venues that are still making loud night happen in south London - after posting the opening weekend’s flyer on social media, I did just want to reply to many with an ‘all is not lost’ klaxon, even if we aren’t going back to selling cans for £2.00 at a bar any time soon. The October issue of Another Subculture has over 80 events that I am currently squeezing into a sheet of A4, we have things to do, let’s keep it all going please.

Looking forward to going up north again and seeing what D-i-Y infrastructure awaits us this weekend. I visited my family up in Lincolnshire earlier this month and it’s cheering to see the cathedral city bolster several gig promoters, including the Fenland Hardcore Collective, whose almost weekly gigs have been attracting bands from further afield (your Ritual Errors, your Sex Germs) recently. I think they put gigs on in a video game bar, and would like to see acrobatics and spinkicks alongside the MAME cabinets sometime soon.

One thing for you and me to consider: I have found myself thinking about how to react to the inevitable wave of sheer gob that will be Fifty Years Since Punk. Prepare yourselves for a jukebox musical and the sight of Louder Than War editors suddenly gaining new conservatories, and carry on doing what you’re doing regardless.

RUBBER / MIDDEX / MEGZBOW & VINEGAR TOM TOUR

Aforementioned RS event above on the aside, catch us at these dates should you be near Yorkshire or London. Of particular importance is the New River Studios date on the 28th, which is RUBBER with Swaraj Chronos, Jotnarr, Carthage Must Be Destroyed and Gross Misconduct. It’s our last show for the forseeable future (in a chill we’ll be back way rather than a severe way) and is a benefit for the Masafer Yatta Solidarity Alliance combatting colonial settler violence in Palestine.

As always, full details to be found on our website:

Ⓐ 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.