Date: October 31st
Venue: The Woodmill
Bands: Straight Jacket Nation, Mob Rules, No
Benefit: This was a benefit for HollabackLDN
The Woodmill is a huge space for artist’s studios that kindly let me takeover one of their warehouses. SJN’s only UK show was incredible. The sound was very echoey due to very high ceilings but the setting was super cool and there were some excellent Halloween costumes, too.
Date: October 9th
Venue: The Threshold centre
Bands: Coke Bust, Abolition, Hooghwater, Joshua’s Song (Abolition replaced Harbour)
Benefit: Having spend £100+ on PA hire for every BTO, I bit the bullet and bought a PA with the proceeds of the gig as a resource for London DIY promoters and events.
This was a gamble on the venue front, a community centre in the heart of Hackney usually used for Zumba classes, but it worked out.
Date: 31st August
Venue: the Ratstar
Bands: Urban Blight, Shitty Limits, The Hardway, Pettybone, Ripped to Shreds
Urban Blight were super awesome at this gig, it was another rammed one. Pettybone totally band of the night. We raised over £300 for No Borders.
Date: July 31st 2010
Venue: The Ratstar
Bands: Glam, Hygiene, Saturday’s Kids, The Lowest Form
Benefit: Spanish Anarchist prisoner support
Glam were amazing and The Lowest Form played their first ever gig at this show.
Date: 17th July
Venue: The Hayward Gallery
Bands: The Love Triangle, Black Mamba Beat, the Haxan Cloak
I received an email out of the blue asking if I wanted to help programme a BTO as part of an event called ‘Daily Action Poetry’ happening in the Hayward Gallery, which hilariously/bizarrely is part of the same cultural complex in which I was, at the time, selling ice creams to Opera buffs as a temp on whatever shifts I can beg. There were zine and record tables and the bands played outside, quite high up, parallel to Waterloo Bridge, so people waved down at us from the double decker buses.
Date: April 23rd 2010
Venue: 195 Mare Street
Benefit: Asylum Aid Women’s Project
Bands: Deal with it, Ark of the Covenant, Nowhere Fast, Clean Slate
A second time in 195 Mare street, the show was packed. Lots of people’s first time in a squat. Squatters did a slamdance, Moshers got their trainers dirty, Nowhere Fast covered Void, Clean Slate (who would become Tremors) played their first set and Ark of the covenant did some 90s. A guy got turned away at this gig for having no money and being wasted, and while it was donations on the door, I received a hilarious rambly set of emails from him shaming me for my use of handstamps – “tools of the bourgeouisie.” I especially loved this gig because it showed to many people who didn’t know this as a fact just how much more exciting hardcore punk is outside of boring bars.
This show never happened. (I wasn’t even in the country and left it to my good friends who tried their very best, but the seemingly cool venue, in a warehouse in Hackney that had been turned into artspace, had bad neighbours who somehow claimed they had a legitimate noise grievance even though their was a railway between the venue and their house.)
Date: July 9th
Venue: the Ratstar
Bands: Punch, Hammers, Ekai Keshiki, the Sceptres, Can’t Relate
Benefit: Brixton Refugee Support centre
Between the epic fail of the previous BTO and me being in the USA for a month, a huge new social centre squat had sprung up in Camberwell. The Ratstar’s huge outdoor roof terrace was awesome way of not having to worry about people spilling out into the street. The singer from Can’t Relate shouted ‘Big Up Dalston’ during their set. Ekai Keshiki were loud as hell, and that kid Sean knocked Meghan from Punch’s front tooth out ¾ of the way through their set. The Sceptres jumped on this gig because we were meant to play with Punch in Manchester the previous night, but nearly died in a car crash on the way there. Bumtimes. It was a sweaty and very busy gig.
Date: May 13th 2010
Venue: The Drop, Stoke Newington
Bands: Canadian Rifle, No Slogan, The Human Race, Only Fumes and Corpses, Wake Up Dead
Benefit: London Coalition against Poverty
This was basically a bar show, which I regret to this day, but crossed wires and lack of time meant I had little choice. No Slogan talked a heap of shit on stage and moaned about equipment, then tried to back out of it claiming the singer wasn’t actually a douche, just ‘in the zone.’ Okay! they played well though. Wake up Dead were unreal this night. Only Fumes and Corpses were solid dudes and loaned out a whole bunch of amps. I only really remember epic stress when I think back to this.
Date: Friday 30th October 2009
Venue: Lower Clapton road Squat
Bands: Social Circkle, the Wankys, Skiplickers, The Sceptres, Methodist Centre, also Nowhere Fast (who were billed to play but couldn’t make it down in the end)
Benefit: Calais Migrant Solidarity
Despite suggestions that putting on an event of this nature four doors up from Hackney police station was a fool’s errand, nearly 200 people showed up and it was awesome.
Date: April 7th
Venue: 195, Mare Street
Bands: Facel Vega, The Sceptres, The Love Triangle, Bird Calls, Flats (who replaced BOW359 who couldn’t play in the end)
Another Squatted space in Hackney with an incredible history – read about it here. The group who squatted it were really cool, open and easy going and they had the run of a total palace, a gem in the midst of rapid gentrification. This show was the first gig to be all UK bands, and I was a bit worried the turnout might be less than normal, but it was pretty rammed. Ping Pong and punk rock. I booked Flats based on a couple of cool sounding mp3s, giving them their second ever show. They showed up with ten people looking to get on a guestlist and were generally a bit odd. I hear they’re the only punk band in the world now, who knew?
Benefit: U Turn project
Number Two.
Location: The Rampart, amazing anarchist social centre that would be raided and shut down within a few weeks of this show. Whitechapel, East London
Bands: Vogue, Sex Dungeon, Black Mamba Beat, Guilty Parents, Moat
BTO finds its home in squatted spaces and this and every other show from then on is a benefit. This one is for Croydon Rape Crisis. An evening of good vibes and Belgian ragers, Greg and his mate sell food and Lenny keeps me calm.
