CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE ISSUE 2: PLATFORM

CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE

THE TUTS | FRESH | HAPPY ACCIDENTS | DREAM NAILS | VELODROME | KERMES | THE SPOOK SCHOOL | THE BABY SEALS | CRUMBS | BABE PUNCH | WITCH FEVER | COLOUR ME WEDNESDAY |

PLATFORM: THE EXCLUSIVE ISSUE ON REPRESENTATION IN MUSIC

Hi everyone, Just wanted to say thank you for your patience and support during the time it took me to complete this zine. I so appreciate all the talented and lovely people who took the time to sit down for interviews with me and let me stick a camera in their faces for this project.

In the time since I completed the last interview, I got a job, moved to New York, lost a job, and overall just have had a lot going on. With everything that’s happened in the world since then - most recently the Kavanaugh debacle, the proof of XXX’s abuse finally coming to light, Trump’s attempt to denounce trans people’s entire existence - makes the topics here, sadly, still relevant, and they will continue to be so for a while.

It does give me hope that there are people like those within these pages who are advocating for safer spaces and better acceptance in the world. I am grateful for them all, and know their impact will be long-lasting.

Special thanks to everyone who supported me through this exceedingly long process, and especially to Charlie, who proofread all the words here.

Love, Fran

Table of Contents the spook school

the tuts

dream nails

babe punch

p. 006

p. 017

p. 066

p. 078

kermes

WITCH FEVER

happy accidents

CRUMBS

the baby seals

FRESH

COLOUR ME WEDNESDAY

VELODROME

p. 026

p. 036

p. 046

p. 052

p. 088

p. 094

p. 100

p. 108

THE SPOOK SCHOOL

Edinburgh power pop heroes The Spook School always inspire a crowd as they jump and sing along to their upbeat and glittering songs about mental health, the spectrum of gender that is far from binary, and celebrating the sadness that comes with life. Something that will never go amiss at a Spook School show is the comedic banter between the band and the crowd (not surprising considering three of the four members met at a comedy course at university in Edinburgh), and was gleefully apparent when sitting down with them for an interview.

The Spook School

Entertainment is one of their greatest goals in performing live, as guitarist Adam Todd describes.

“I don’t think any of us have particularly long attention spans for watching music or in a live setting, so we try and make sure that a show that we would do would be a show that we wouldn’t get bored by.” Especially considering the heavy topics covered by their songs, things that the crowd might be going through themselves and finding it tough to get through, it’s important to them to offer not quite an escape from them, but a celebration in spite of them. “We really like making sure that the people coming to the show know that they can celebrate and be joyous and that kind of stuff,” drummer Niall McCamley adds; “It’s easy to wallow, when it’s really fun to fire tiny party glitter things on yourself and roll about on the floor.”

In addition to that, they write songs for people to relate to and feel less alone when they hear them, and then take the next step to make the space feel safer for everyone involved. Diet Cig, who they toured around the UK, Europe and the states with for a good couple of months last year and

Drummer Niall McCamley at Belgrave Music Hall in Leeds on their album release tour (May 2018)

at the start of this one, are wellknown for being one of the many bands now requesting gender-neutral toilets to be made available for attendees, and it’s there that The Spook School learned just how far they can take control of not only the show but the venue they play it in. “Trying to do things at our live shows, even if it’s not a part of the

actual show,” guitarist Nye Todd says, “to make the space welcoming for people is important.” Niall agrees, and links back to Adam’s point on taking what would make them feel comfortable to implement in to the entire atmosphere of a show.

The Spook School

“It’s easy to wallow, when it’s really fun to fire tiny party glitter things on yourself and roll about on the floor.”

The band have recently released their third album, Could It Be Different?, receiving widely-spread and well-deserved critical praise for another record that handles topical issues ranging from finding the empowerment to walk away from an abusive relationship (see the infectiously catchy and teeth-grittingly angry “Still Alive”) to mental health in various forms (see the sweet indie-pop in “Less Than Perfect” and “Body”).

Recorded and produced by the talented MJ from Leeds’ Hookworms, he brings a new shimmering shine to the band’s grit but without hiding it away. “He gives us the time and he doesn’t treat us like kids, even when we act like it,” Niall says with a laugh. “It was a very welcoming environment.

It felt more comfortable in terms of less of an imposter syndrome maybe, being in this magical studio where you shouldn’t touch anything should it break.” Nye agrees: “It’s also working with someone who’s excited about the music that you’re making, and believes that it can be good, which is nice. That definitely helps.” As a band that finds an accessible atmosphere such as this important in many other aspects, it’s important to find someone who

The Spook School

implements that same control and acceptance in a space they might not feel comfortable.

Accessibility in other forms, however seemingly unattainable at this point, is something else the band points out when asked what they would change about the industry as a whole. Adam wishes there would be more funding going to the arts that aren’t just classical music and ballet (a place where a large majority of it is going to at the moment), in order “to make doing music in a professional fashion something that’s attainable,” he explains, “particularly for people from lower-income backgrounds.” Bassist AC Cory agrees, and builds on the idea of taking pop music more seriously: “There’s also that culture of music not being proper work. As in, you should be grateful you’re doing this and enjoying it in your spare time, and you’re not deserving it; it’s free money or whatever, because it’s a hobby. It’d be nice

to see an attitude of it being real work that is good for society.”

Seeing how hard this band, and the others around them, including those behind the scenes making the festival run, it’s no wonder they’re still working towards and hoping for better treatment from onlookers who consider them to be “hobbyists.”

For now, though, the band are just hoping to continue to write and continue to tour, though whereabouts after their album tour might well be unknown. “We tend to be a band that says yes to a lot of things,” Adam explains (which is how they ended up continuing their tour with Diet Cig, only meant to be in the UK originally), “so a lot of the time, we’ve not particularly planned what we’re doing that far in advance, but someone will say, do you want to do this thing? And we’ll be like, oh yep!” No matter what they do, though, no doubt it’s going to be just as fun as the band always are.

Guitarist Nye Todd at Belgrave Music Hall in Leeds on their album release tour (May 2018)

“Trying to do things at our live shows, even if it’s not a part of the actual show, to make the space welcoming for people is important.”

DREAM NAILS Dream Nails, a four-piece riot grrl band out of London, are enthusiastically DIY and selfproclaimed “punk witches,” at each famously riotous live show putting a hex on misogynistic figures and conservative politicians with their deeply infectious riff-heavy tune “Deep Heat.”

Their mix of chunky basslines and sparkling harmonies are reminiscent of “The Ramones meet Bikini Kill” with a whole new updated outlook on the industry, and how their songs and actions as a band can change it for the better.

DREAM NAILS

For their song about “hating your job,” they recall an event at their Leeds show opening for Cherry Glazerr where a member of the crowd dropped to his knees, raised his arms to the sky, and exclaimed, “That’s my life!” Three months later, he messaged the band to say that he was inspired to quit his job, and then at Christmas time informed them that he now runs a pet-sitting business and it’s the best decision he’s made in his life. It’s this kind of deeper change that Dream Nails are working to inspire in everyone, from quitting a corporate job, to hexing horrible politicians, to creating a safer space for women and nonbinary people.

They advocate for a “girls to the front” initiative, taking time in their set to invite women and non-binary to approach the front of the crowd, and sending men to the back, in order to encourage a safer and more fun atmosphere, in the setting of a punk show where the weight of a patriarchal society is often emphasized. Bassist Mimi Jasson notes that creating that safer space at the front of the crowd is for the band as well: “When you see the women and nonbinary people coming to the front, it actually is so mutual, because I feel a lot safer with them

being there as well. This is our space!”

Creating that safe space at shows is top of the list for them: “I want women and nonbinary people to feel safe, to feel that is their space and no one else’s, and to feel like we are on their side,” says lead vocalist Janey Starling. If that can’t be achieved on the side of the men in the crowd, the show will be stopped; “We’ll take our instruments off and refuse to play,” bassist Anya Pearson explains. If they can’t create a safe space physically, their songs can’t complete the process emotionally, by encouraging a release of anger and emotions in a fun environment that is their greatest pursuit by performing these songs. Screaming along to “Deep Heat” (“nobody cares if your dick is on fire”) or “Joke Choke” (a song about how rape jokes are not funny) are two completely different releases of emotion, but either way are two “really extreme releases of emotion that are really therapeutic when you do it publicly and collectively,” Janey explains. Crafting a breathable space for people who perhaps struggle to find that in this world is so powerful, and so important to them.

dream nails

They take using their platform as a band in the public eye very seriously, which Anya points out scares off a lot of bands in fear of losing popularity, somehow. “It’s important to write songs about someone’s emotional space and communicate that side of things, but I think it’s weird to, once you establish yourself as someone with a voice, not to use it to share the stories of other people, or to identify campaigns that need attention and help and energy, because that kind of thing can really help.” They are currently proving this by using their platform to sell a zine (something they make to go along with every release) about reproductive justice and raise money for Abortion Support Network, an organization that raises money to support women coming over from Ireland to seek a safe and legal abortion. It goes much further than that, however, and the topics raised in the zine range from this, to parental rights to women who go to jail while pregnant, to healthcare rights as a trans person.

“Our whole approach to feminism is a lifelong journey of learning and listening,” Janey explains, and she wants the people listening to

“Our whole approach to feminism is a lifelong journey of learning and listening.”

them to partake alongside them.

“I want people to learn about this stuff and to think about things that they haven’t considered before, and to understand the scale of violence against women and the diverse oppressions that women are facing.” Drummer Lucy Katz notes how often bands use this pursuit of

activism in their music (alone) as a branding exercise. “We’re all quite cautious of a lot of bands appropriating certain political movements or ideas or even feminist ideas and concepts, and then taking them, sanitizing them, making them empty,” she says. “It feels such a shame and such a waste,

dream nails

Dream Nails playing The Bread Shed stage at Manchester Punk Festival (April 2018)

because for us, it’s so important to have substance behind that, and that’s something that we’ll never, ever let go of. And the minute we let go of that, we won’t be a band anymore.” Janey’s still very aware of the fact that art is not nearly enough in regards to activism or

political movements. “It’s a really important cultural platform,” she admits, “and it’s an incredible way to reach a lot of different people in different locations, but ultimately, it doesn’t really contribute to that much structural change. It doesn’t really put the work in motion that’s needed for liberation. It’s a step on the journey, but I think it’s pretty preliminary.”

For now, they’ll continue pushing for the safe spaces and the breathable spaces, while calling out people who treat them wrongly (shout out to mansplaining sound engineers). They have each other to rely on, to laugh it off with, but it’s still so much more of a slog than for men. “You have to be a lot stronger,” Mimi points out, “and you have to deal with a lot more shit, and so it’s just like walking through mud or something, whereas the guys just have a nice paved road.” “And are worshipped,” Lucy adds. But they’ll keep slogging, and fighting the good fight, because that’s what it takes to be a woman in the music industry. For now, we have a new album to look forward to, which they can promise will be “all killer, no filler.”

Here they come, the emphatically funny and incredibly talented four-piece band Kermes, out of Leicester. With a debut album out from earlier this spring and a drive to make music that invites those most marginalized in society to feel at home and welcome, they’re making long strides.

KERMES

kermes

“There’s a meme that’s a panel from an anime,” Emily, lead singer and guitarist from Leicester fourpiece Kermes, tells me, “and it’s the two men wearing the same trilby, and they’re both going ‘SAME HAT’ and that’s what I always think of. ‘SAME HAT!’” She’s speaking about visibility and representation of queer people in the music scene, and the importance of recognizing yourself in a setting that perhaps you wouldn’t normally, what with the cishet white dudes permeating the stage as of late.

We’re sat in a circle just outside The Red Shed, a Labour clubhouse turned music venue for Wakefield’s Long Division festival, on a cool early summer evening, giggling at a slew of silly anecdotes that seem to be one of two levels acting as the theme for this interview. The two levels seem to mirror Kermes’ outlook on how they hope to impact their audience – share that feeling of ‘same hat!’, feeling a connection between two people in a room full of the majority where you’re the minority, but also have a whole lot of goddamn fun while doing it.

As a band with a wide pool of influence, each member drawing on their respective and unique

backgrounds and interests in music, they’re creating content that doesn’t quite sound like anyone else. With a synth-esque guitar sound that Cass, bass player and newest member of Kermes, describes as somewhere between K-pop and eighties hair metal but with a boogie, a depth that adds a swampiness, plus angry screaming over the top, there’s an onslaught of influences that have brought them to the sound they’re playing with now. “I think in a lot of ways, we’re just a rock band, but on a more granular level, I don’t think we sound like one thing specifically,” Emily says.

When Emily first started making music as Kermes, it was as a folk band, mainly focusing on sadder and slower songs. “I was just doing solo stuff that was really miserable and slow,” she tells me. “It was sad boy jams, because I was still pretending to be a boy, and I was sad. And then I got angry.” What’s stayed the same is Emily’s journalistic approach to writing lyrics, taking her experiences as a queer person and trans woman, both positive and negative, and pouring them into heartfelt songs over groovy tunes. Now, they’ve released their first full-length album, We Choose

KERMES

Pretty Names, full of urgency and tumult and sheer loudness, something that defines their live shows like nothing else.

“I think because we started so quiet and slow and almost folky, that was part of why I started screaming,” Emily says. “You’re just trying to get people to listen, trying to make yourself heard. Volume is a radical, political act.”

Experiencing a visceral connection with someone in the crowd, that ‘same hat!’ feeling when you recognize yourself in another human being, especially when you’re a minority in a crowd, is a big goal for their shows. “Sometimes at gigs, you’ll just see a person who’s really into it and, not to stereotype, but they’re obviously queer,” Emily explains. “They’ve got an undercut or colored hair or something, and you just make eye contact and it’s like, yeah, this is a shared moment of just understanding.” Feeling less alone in a crowd full of people who might not understand or accept you encourages these people, especially younger people, to put themselves out there more, to have more fun if they observe other people they re

Kermes playing The Red Shed at Wakefield’s Long Division Festival, June 2018

“Volume is a radical, political act.”

KERMES

late to doing just that.

“With about 90 % of our gigs, there will be a point in the evening where someone will come up to you and they’ve obviously really vibed with what you’re doing,” guitarist Tom says. “They’ve obviously really connected with it on an emotional level, an almost primal level where they’ve just gotten really involved in it.” Whether that be with the music, with the atmosphere they create, the acceptance, it doesn’t matter so much; where that feeling can’t be explained by rational or critical reasoning, it’s just important to them that the audience feels something.

Even barring their insistence that, as small of a band as they are, they don’t truly have a platform (at least in the sense of how some musicians do), the stage gives them a certain “hierarchy of power,” putting them in the forefront of everyone’s eyes for twenty to forty-five minutes of a set. Even something as simple as “oh, yeah, the trans woman can do a cool thing that I’m on board with and respect,” says Cass, “it can change their mindset about how they see trans women.

If it’s just something as basic as, I really liked the guitar or the bass,

saying that was cool, just reshuffle my head about just how the representation is.”

“Most people are nice and most people are well-intentioned,” Emily points out, “but they don’t understand stuff because they have never been presented with it.” And with the high concentration of middle-aged dads at rock shows, it’s important to have this sort of information to be accessible to the demographic who might not have been privy to it previously.

“That’s the thing about platforms, though, as well,” Cass says, “about palatable platforms.” Bringing up these issues and speaking out about the marginalization of queer and trans people is important in any form, but putting it in a pleasingly consumable form attracts an even wider audience. “When I just sat down and read all the lyrics on the Kermes vinyl, it just hits home; it’s really powerful. I think it’s just better for being put over a groovy thing,” Cass explains. “It almost sticks in your mind better, as well, the important stuff.”

As many people come to Kermes shows for the serious and the sad, drummer Jordy points out, just as

KERMES

Kermes playing The Red Shed at Wakefield’s Long Division Festival, June 2018

many come because of the fun the band have whilst playing. “I think if we just go onstage and try to be as positive and as loud and as energetic as possible, then that’s all you can really ask for in a live band,” he says.

Come the next eras of the band, one may not recognize Kermes as the band they are now. Constantly in flux, they hope to explore new genres and sounds as they progress forward in their careers. “Our album is so much different to anything that we did before, in a good way,” Jordy points out. Not only do they hope to go new places musically, but physically as well, he continues. “Personally, I just like seeing new places all the time, and just lingering in places you haven’t been.”

“We just really love doing this, and every time we do it, it gets better, and we get better as a band,” Emily says. “I think we just want to keep playing and meeting people and having a connection. I’d play a hundred shows to drunk middle-aged dads for every show where you can an actual connection with a queer person in the crowd.”

Look out for Kermes; they might just be wearing matching rainbow dungarees at their next show.

Also, Emily asks you bring your dog. “There’s not enough dogs at shows.”

HAPPY ACCIDENTS On the tail end of a UK tour in celebration of their sophomore album, Everything but the Here and Now, released earlier this year, the summery indie-pop band out of London-via-Southampton are on the way to something great with stunning growth into themselves and expanse into a new place sonically. Appropriately, then, they’ve nestled themselves amongst decorative house plants onstage, both a beautiful sight and a metaphor for the path they’ve found themselves on towards something new and bigger.

H A P PY ACC I D E N T S

Happy Accidents are long-standing members of the Southampton DIY scene, starting their career playing shows at the coastal city’s stronghold The Joiners. From there, they were invited by El Morgan (of Personal Best and & the Divers) to play a show in Portsmouth, and from there began playing in London, where they’re now based.

This is something so important to DIY scenes between cities; play one show, and it leads to another, hopefully connecting the dots across the UK. “One little spark, which leads to another spark,” is how Rich explains it. “I think it is important to have that scene in every city,” Phoebe says, “but it’s just scary. More cities are seeing it die a little bit, and you can’t connect the dots as much.” With important collective venues shutting their doors, not only in the UK but across the world as well – Silent Barn in Bushwick held its last show at the end of April, adding to the growing list of spaces in New York shutting their doors, amongst places like Shea Stadium, Palisades, Death by Audio, and 285 Kent – many bands and people connected to these venues are losing their connections that allow them to pursue music

“There’s a lot of little things that don’t seem super harmful, but they do still,”

for fun on a smaller scale. “Without those small, sort of grassroots venues, you just don’t have places for people to learn to play live and just have a go,” Phoebe points out.

“It’s a great way to grow organi-

cally.” Rich agrees: “If you didn’t have that base layer of live music on the smallest scale, it just seems unattainable. You don’t have anywhere to start.”

It’s here they’ve met all the people inspiring their music, and experienced all the social interactions that Rich takes into account when writing lyrics. “I get influenced watching other musicians, and

“Calling them out has a negative connotation, but it’s just standing up for yourself.”

H A P PY ACC I D E N T S

then I get a creative energy from other people,” Phoebe explains, “so I guess when you (Rich) are in a good creative mindset, and we’re both writing together, that’s where I’m at my best, and we’re creating something cool.” Playing shows, getting involved in the politics of DIY, and meeting people all over the UK and Europe where they’ve toured has been a big inspiration not only for their writing and their creative drive, then, but for the movements they follow. “The DIY community is so supportive in getting in people from all walks of life,” Phoebe says. “I don’t want it to die, so hopefully it won’t, because I know there’s a lot of people kicking back against that.”

Happy Accidents aren’t outwardly political, at least in songwriting content compared to other bands playing the festival, but that doesn’t mean they can’t take their platform for good use in the industry. “I feel like it’s important to, not send a message straight-up, but to lead by example,” Rich says, “live what you want; rather than say ‘this is the message’, show people.” For Phoebe, it’s the same; by playing drums, onstage, as a woman, it’s hard to avoid politics by simply that, and by pursuing this in a world where

she faces prejudice, she’s setting an example of empowerment for other women watching her.

Referencing an interview with Gem from Colour Me Wednesday from the film So, which band is your boyfriend in?, Phoebe encourages overcoming the double-whammy of stage fright and sour looks from sour men who think non-male performers can’t do their part for the others like her in the crowd watching. “You think maybe there’s a kid or a girl in the crowd who is also scared to play, and then if I’m scared to play and not showing them that it’s fine to play, then there’s no hope,” she says. “So sometimes, just being there and me playing, as a woman, I guess it’s good for me to be doing it. Because I know it took me so long to get in a band, when probably should have been in a band from, I don’t know, age eleven.” Where Rich was jamming with his brother from that age, Phoebe didn’t take part until she was eighteen, but she hopes setting the example will inspire just one more person to do the same.

While the politics aren’t so much apparent in the music – “it’s a part of the scenery of the music,” says Rich – they’re still working on be

H A P PY ACC I D E N T S

ing strong enough to call people out. As a woman, it’s not a surprise that Phoebe’s simple presence has caused uncomfortable comments from staff and concert attendees.

“Calling them out has a negative connotation, but it’s just standing up for yourself,” says Rich. “You have to just maybe be disliked, but stand your ground,” Phoebe says.

“People might just want to know they’ve said something that’s not appropriate.” In another instance, seemingly innocent but threatening all the same, a fan in Germany came up to compliment Phoebe on her drumming skills, but finished off his sentence, again, unnecessarily, with, “I just love watching while you play, you just look so sexy.” It’s little bits and pieces like this, things that are absolutely inappropriate in these situations because not only are women being treated differently to (and as lesser than) guys, but it becomes threatening and discouraging for young women to continue to pursue music. “There’s a lot of little things that don’t seem super harmful, but they do still,” Phoebe says. “The broader picture is, there’s a lot of sexism around. It’s important to try and change it.”

For now, they’re going to make more music for the future, though it looks like what they’ll make will be an even bigger step forward than Everything but the Here and Now. Having just started work at a recording studio, there’s been a big change for Rich in that his job also touches on his creative output, instead of just office jobs. “I feel like there’s not as much pressure on the band now,” he says, “because there’s loads of other aspects in my life that have come together a little bit more. It’s not all or nothing, which means I feel like it can be more creative and less stressful.” Within that, something he’s hoping to do is make a record in terms of “how someone in other art forms might think about it – just detach every other aspect of being in a band form it. I just want to make things for the sake of making things.” Happy Accidents are moving forward in a beautiful-sounding way, and hope they bless your ears with their sweet sound very soon.

The Baby Seals are all about making genres to call themselves; for their first and only EP to date, they call themselves “empower/pop/punk,” which sounds a lot like “Spinal Tap with tits” (a compliment in many minds, and really quite accurate).

THE BABY SEALS

THE BABY SEALS

For the next EP, which lead vocalist and guitarist Kerry Devine confirms as being “an-femme-ic” (anthemic), a name her sister and drummer Amy Devine came up with, will sound a lot more like the closer on the aforementioned first EP, the bluesy bass-driven “It’s Not About the Money Honey” about equal pay in the gender gap. Above all, however, it’s in the band’s greatest interest to go back to their roots of just “dicking around” in a pub, not giving a fuck and having a good time, as well as embracing your body as it is; “Don’t worry if you’ve got hairy nipples or lopsided labias,” Kerry explains; “It’s fine. Embrace it.” And if you don’t find yourself singing along (na-nana-nipple hair) to the related songs, you might need to extra embrace it.

“Porn has got really shit over the last ten years,” Kerry says to a tittering crowd before launching into “Yawn Porn.” “It’s really formulaic. We know how it’s going to end: he’s gonna come in her face.

Let’s make it more female! Come on her elbow!” It’s like this a lot of their songs are introduced, before moving into a grinning crowd singing along to lyrics celebrating

the carefree attitude in which many of their songs are written on observations made as women. The band were searching for songs that were “joke-y, not man hate-y songs,” as Kerry says, when they decided to come together as The Baby Seals.

Now, though, they’re looking to move forward to something per-

haps not serious, but something you can more get your anger out to, as is exemplified in “It’s Not About the Money Honey.” “It has quite a heavy feel, and it allows me to kind of express myself in other ways as well onstage,” Kerry continues.

“It’s evolved as still having a message, but just playing with the

THE BABY SEALS

sound a bit more.” Bassist Jasmine Robinson agrees: “It’s hard to get your frustration out when you’re just doing ‘la la la la,’ whereas, with the last one, you can rock the fuck out.”

On a deeper level, when writing about heavy political topics like The Baby Seals hope to do, it’s hard to be sensitive and appropriate when your sound goes along those lines. “This year, there’s been some really big political things in the news that we wanted to reflect on, and doing that in a poppy way can sometimes undermine what you’re trying to say,” Kerry explains.

“We’ve written about the Harvey Weistein thing, and that’s definitely got more of a dangerous sound.

Having a song about sexual harassment, you can’t be like, ‘la la la!’”

Conveying humor and a fun atmosphere through their songs about below-average porn and body hair seems to be working well for them, though.

It’s refreshing for a crowd to hear songs about these observations, especially when they themselves have perceived them and felt alone in their self-judgment. After a show in Peterborough, a woman approached the band to express

her gratitude for writing a song about something she had been so ashamed of in the past. “She was nearly crying, saying she’d been worried about her body and nipple hair, and hearing us play that song made her feel better,” Kerry says, “and I said to the girl, that’s why we’re doing it. That’s it – that’s the whole thing.” It seems taboo, talking about things like body hair and the shapes of genitals in public because of how society has perceived these topics for so long, but when people do begin to talk, just as The Baby Seals have, it opens up the floodgates, encouraging conversation and acceptance. The beautiful thing about delivering such messages in a fun manner, then, is reaching an audience in an accessible manner that doesn’t come across as “teaching” them anything. “You have to remember the audience you’re delivering that message to probably already know that message,” Kerry explains.

“It’s like me sending a message on Facebook saying ‘racism is bad’. Everybody who I’m friend with knows that it’s bad.” Instead, they’re reaching out to the people who are also searching for that validation, and pursuing an attempt at reevaluating their own internal misogyny.

COLOUR ME WED NES DAY

Presenting the genre-bending, the anti-capitalist, the provoking Colour Me Wednesday, a four-piece band out of Uxbridge on the edges of Greater London attempting to breathe life back into the area’s arts and culture scene and bring hope to those pushed out by the machismo of politicallycharged music.

C o l o u r m e w e d n e s day

“It’s kind of interesting that the people who criticize anti-capitalism or anarchism or communism or whatever’s being too idealistic, that we don’t have a clear idea of what it is that we want. But I think the unrealistic thing is to have a clear idea,” Jaca, drummer for the Uxbridge four-piece Colour Me Wednesday, tells me. “You can point out the bad parts about what’s here, and it’s good to have a good, clear plan to what your ideal world would be, but that’s also the unrealistic part of it as well, so it’s pointing out the flaws but being like, well what would be left over? Maybe it would just be nothing.” We’re talking about the ideas that emerged from their sophomore album, Counting Pennies in the Afterlife, a genre-bending, immersive glance into the anti-capitalist and feminist ideals that the band hold dear to themselves, and subjects that rise to the surface often for a band made up of a group living in an area of London that’s all but been leached of its DIY music and arts culture.

The very last stop on the Metropolitan and Piccadilly lines – a full hour’s journey from where I was staying in Putney – Harriet tells me on our quick drive to their home from the station about their

attempts to bring a spark of culture back into the area where decreasing arts funds from the council have made cuts to these programs, leaving many of the youth in the area high and dry without any community centres or creative outlets. “People talk about a scene or community in Uxbridge, not realizing that it is just us,” she says, then laughs. “I always fantasize about, imagine if there was somebody we didn’t know about…” We’re truly on the edge of London, the edge of the scene that exists within what many may consider the greatest hub for music in Europe, even the world – perhaps over the edge itself? It’s what’s inspired ‘Edge of Everything’, one of the songs vocalist Jennifer Doveton wrote for the newest album, existing in this space many people ignore or have never even heard of.

We’re sitting on various pieces of furniture in Jen’s canalside home, perched on the edges of her bed, nestled in an armchair, and me sinking into a beanbag on the floor.

Gray sunlight is trickling through the many windows on this overcast early-summer day into the oneroom accommodation that was an extension from the family’s boathouse just a few steps from the door here, where Jen and her sister/band-

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Harriet grew up. Jaca and guitarist Laura now live in the neighbourhood as well, near enough to Harriet’s other bandmates from The Tuts, and they pride themselves in having attracted more and more musician friends to move away from central London out to Uxbridge.

The majority of people living in London, especially those who moved into the city and are living centrally as transplants for the convenience of closeness, are completely unaware of the outer boroughs like Uxbridge. Where East London has the culture of EastEnders and cockney accents, easily recognizable by most of the wider world, West London seems to get lost in the crowd, some believing Westminster or even Chelsea are the furthest western reaches of the area, even though the majority of the workforce in the centre commute from similar distances. It’s not as though West London hasn’t had its due influence on the culture, despite it being erased in the last few years: the EMI factory where the Beatles’ vinyl was pressed is just up the road, the BBC centre is nearby, and Southall had its thriving years

as a hub of the punk scene, churning out bands like The Rats but now having fallen into oblivion in that regard.

With Ealing Council in one of the biggest deficits of all councils, due to the Tories’ continuous victories driven by the promise not to

raise council tax, the plunging of the council into deeper and deeper debt means funding for the arts has been all but completely decimated.

Youth centres, days centres, music venues, anything: it doesn’t exist here in West London. Events may happen in Shepherd’s Bush or Ealing itself, mainly larger concerts

that forget about the local scene, but Uxbridge seems to exist as an island high and dry away from the saturation of arts and culture, at least disregarding bands like Colour Me Wednesday and The Tuts, attempting to breathe new life into the area and put Uxbridge back on the map. “About every ten years,

some naïve idiots like us will try and make something happen,” Harriet explains. “We’ve tried to put on gigs, and we put up fliers at the schools and really encourage young girls to come to things, and it’s just so tricky. Don’t regret doing it – it was cool – but hard work.” Even with all their drive and dedication, it’s still difficult to draw a crowd from the area.

Even with Brunel University near-

by, supposedly a perfect pool of eager young adults to pull to shows, they’re fighting against the greater desire to go all the way into the city.

“They’d be spending all their money going to London because they think nothing happens here,” Jen says. “Stuff does happen here, but you have to go to it – you can’t just keep going into London.” Laura will put the odd house show on, and look out into a crowd consisting of only the band members playing

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the night, and a few friends having commuted in from central London.

Where the local scene there is dying, Colour Me Wednesday and their friends are trying to prop it back up, giving it more life.

“A lot of people say we’re in the dystopia now. This is the dystopia,” Jen continues on from Jaca’s thoughts. “Can we get any much worse than this?” Harriet adds. Jaca chimes in, “Yes,” then laughs. “Anti-capitalists. That’s us.”

Jen’s lyrics on Counting Pennies in the Afterlife handle a lot of capitalist ventures, from the draining of funds from the arts and culture programs in their area, to the “general critique of things like capitalism thriving in the patriarchy,” Harriet describes. “The whole album is critiques of things that are consuming people.” In a world where you can’t turn your head two degrees in any direction and not catch a glimpse of detrimental capitalist pursuits breaking someone down, it’s a tempting idea of many to blow it all up and start anew, hence the focus on a post-apocalyptic theme throughout the album, but, like Jaca said, what would be left over? Destroying Uxbridge’s council, the cause for the lack of arts programs

in the community, might get rid of whatever is holding their citizens back, but may also destroy any communal structure needed to support the arts in the first place. Perhaps destroying the world will vanquish corrupt politicians, greedy businessmen, bigoted and horrible people in power, but will any good be saved in its wake?

A song-by-song explanation reveals depth and analysis behind Jen’s insightful lyrics, with varying levels of thematic content which are clearly well thought out and show civil intelligence around social issues. ‘I Thought It Was Morning’ deals with seasonal affective disorder, paired with the “abstract anxiety that it brings out in you,”Jen explains.

“You then have nightmares about the end of the world, because that’s how anxiety works. It’s nonspecific, and then you’ll have a nightmare about something that’s the worst thing that could possibly happen.

But then, in some ways, you quite enjoy apocalyptic dreams, because it feels like everything’s so tense and everyone’s working so hard, and it just would be nice to be free for one night.”

‘Boyfriend’s Car’ handles this subject through the scope of this

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machine, working perfectly and smoothly for those it benefits, and detrimentally for those who conveniently don’t have a voice to speak out against it. “The people who it’s going wrong for don’t have a voice,” she says, “but they’re the people that could take it down.”

Namely, the band and others like them using their platform in the public eye to speak out against the situations and people marginalizing those less powerful, by making others feel less alone.

There is a kind of power in a community like this, empowerment through a group of similar-thinking people, especially when their peers speaking about similar anti-capitalist ideas are part of the niche group of men in punk. Aggressive and “shouty,” as they have been for decades, they’re not exactly inaccessible, but the oft-violent nature of their shows push people away. Colour Me Wednesday, all quite femme and making less classically angry music, work in the hope “to subvert that aspect of what punk means to lots of people, that it doesn’t have to be fighting each other in a mosh pit to really fast, loud, heavy music,” Jaca explains. “It can be fun and supportive and catchy, and that hopefully women and trans people

“The people who it’s going wrong for don’t have a voice, but they’re the people that could take it down.”

can feel more included in the stuff that we’re saying, which, we know from all the millions of documentaries and articles and whatever about how inaccessible male dominated punk scenes are, that there needs to be more of that. We’re hoping to sort of be that, or be able to have that sort of conversation with people who listen to our music with

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people like us, queer women and trans people.”

“And the way of sending that message out is something that’s not relatable to a lot of people, but it’s the same in activism,” Jen continues.

“Feels like the only valid form of activism is one that’s supposedly fueled by anger, but if you want to be a good activist, you can’t exist in a constant state of anger. It’s just not possible. You won’t get anything done. You have to have moments of calm and clear-headedness to be able to actually tackle issues like that. It feels sometimes disingenuous when people say that the only way you could get that kind of ant-capitalist message across is through aggression, and a lot of it is machismo, isn’t it? And, in that way, it’s hard to be taken seriously, even if we have the same messages.”

They’ve faced misogynistic and strange adversity in the face of concert-goers, especially when grouped with other bands that perhaps speak on the same subjects, but perhaps don’t sound so similar.

Recently having supported Propaghandi, a show which they enjoyed despite much of the crowd being white cis men (a commonality at

“If you want to be a good activist, you can’t exist in a constant state of anger.” these kinds of shows), reviews written afterwards detailed a message that was no doubt a product of that crowd. “’It was just a bit too nice, they sound too nice for me,’” Harriet sneers, quoting the reviewers, “and this man had clearly just rejected our messages because it wasn’t masculine enough.”

Women and nonbinary people in bands will recognize this: the very same compared them to Blondie, a lazy point of reference that seems to be the only one in the repertoire of these men absorbing music like this. “It’s so lazy, but it just goes to show they can’t connect with it because they’re so stuck in that way of being able to connect with critical punk music, it has to be coming from mostly men to them,” Harriet says. “They’re almost like, no, it’s too sweet, it’s too nice, it’s frivolous.”

Jen agrees: “It’s like, it’s feminine, therefore it’s soft, therefore it’s ineffective, otherwise our message isn’t strong enough.”

Others find solace in accepting the messages as their own. “Our fans are actually quite shy,” Harriet

“It’s feminine, therefore it’s soft, therefore it’s ineffective, otherwise our message isn’t strong enough.”

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says, indicated by the soft-spoken nature of their responses to the band’s songs and lyrics. “Online, I wouldn’t say it’s not like there’s hype hype hype with loads of interactions, but when you do find them, it’s like finding someone’s diary entry.” Self-searching on Tumblr, for instance, means they’re met with a slew of under-the-radar blogs detailing how they’ve found a theme to relate to in Colour Me Wednesday’s lyrics. ‘These lyrics are me!’ “They listen to it in a very personal-to-their identity way,” she continues. “They pay real attention to the lyrics, and don’t reject our messages.”

The music itself helps listeners relate their own experiences in a broader sense, especially with the band’s knack for making contradictory atmospheres between serious topics and catchy melodies. “It’s good because you can write a song that’s essentially quite sad-sounding in terms of the lyrics, but then have it in a major key, makes it sound a bit more hopeful,” Laura says. “Listening to sad songs is nice as well, and cathartic, but listening to some lyrics about maybe something similar to what happened to you as an experience or an identity thing, and then it being in a pop,

uplifting sound could bring you out of - I dunno,” Harriet continues. “I just feel like it could help people, maybe mentally. I feel like it helped me, anyway.”

There is no doubt that Colour Me Wednesday have touched a great many people across the globe, their reach extending across continents in an attempt to lift up those who perhaps do not realise they have a voice against marginalisation, in any form. They’re facing erasure as a band in an area of withering arts, and in the face of the largely male, cishet music world, but they’re doing everything in their power to change that. “It’ll go down in a little niche bit of history. It’ll be like, oh, yeah, in Uxbridge there were these bands!” Harriet says. “Footnote. We reference stuff like that in our stuff, like “Heather’s Left For Dead” about women in musical history as tiny little niche. Man, man, man, man, man, and then the footnotes at the bottom: everyone else.” Moving in these great strides towards greater change will hopefully mean change for the better – Uxbridge and Colour Me Wednesday will be going down in history through this group’s efforts, and not only as a footnote.

THE TUTS Today, The Tuts are dressed like TLC and Destiny’s Child in matching white/pink/purple camo, singing “No Scrubs” through the course of the short photoshoot as the sun emerges in perfect timing. “We love fashion, and we can make a conscious effort with our fashion and still be taken seriously for our music and our message,” lead singer and guitarist Nadia Javed says enthusiastically. It’s in this passion and dedication that they project their signature message on tri-tone activism and intersectional feminism, delivered with a healthy dose of empowering bubblegum pop/indie punk fusion.

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They’re not just limited to that, however; not only do they play the more obvious punk and indie festivals, but are delving into various crowds. They’re popular within the ska crowd because of a tour they did with The Selector, and are playing more South Asian events in order to access a demographic that is, sadly, sorely lacking in straight up-and-down punk circles. “As a three-tone band, we also want our audience to look three-tone,” guitarist Nadia Javed says, “because we want to make a movement and send this message out of uniting the races and cultures together from all minority backgrounds.” By bridging the gap here, they’re attracting people – specifically women, and more specifically, women of color – to their shows who, not too long ago, were absent at these shows.

Their greatest goal is to empower people listening to their music, to pick up instruments and play themselves, to become a part of something bigger, to feel safer and more comfortable. “We want women in the crowd and people from minority backgrounds to feel like bad bitches,” Nadia says. “We wanted them to feel empowered.

We want them to think, look,

there’s a brown girl onstage. I’ve never seen a girl like that before playing guitar. I want to do that.

And just to feel confident and do shit they’d only see white dudes doing.” They’re well aware of the importance of representation in the arts, as well as in wider society, but while we’re seeing an influx of women musicians taking over places that were previously composed of entirely male lineups, it’s still almost entirely white lineups. It’s notable to comment on the fact that, amongst all the bands interviewed over the weekend, Nadia and drummer Beverly Ishmael were the only women of color I encountered and spoke to, and some of the very few involved in the festival.

It has to be something to do with pigeonholing that happens too often within the music industry.

Within the genres that see more of a diversity in ethnicity – RnB, hip hop, grime – helps people of color feel less out of place. The Tuts have gone completely against this in an attempt to bring greater representation to more guitar-driven music genres, which is why they find it so important to use their platforms as musicians in the public eye to speak on these

topics, and encourages others to do the same. “What’s the deal?

I could be watching anyone, I could be doing anything, but why should I be watching you?” Bev says. “What’s your message? Why should I care about you? You need to give something for people to care about, because the world is a

bit fucked up right now.”

It’s important to seek out this same representation and appropriate use of platforms within journalism and the media, because many reporters are still white and from upper-class upbringings, “so probably won’t have that under-

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“As a three-tone band, we also want our audience to look threetone.”

standing of what to represent and what needs a platform, because they haven’t felt it,” Nadia points out. Bev agrees: “Then that doesn’t get the word out about certain things that need to be highlighted.” Behind the scenes is something that’s harder to control, though. Subconscious prejudice and institutionalized racism and misogyny is still rampant. “People come up to us and start talking in an Ali G accent,” Bev says, “and that is just… what are you doing?

Assuming that’s what we’re into.”

Not only do The Tuts fight the battle of being women in music, but have to fight the battle of being women of color as well. “It’s not just about being girls,” Nadia says.

“It’s about taking into account our race, our religion, our culture, our class, all that.” It’s at the highest levels of corporate greed in the music industry that these considerations (for the worse) are seen: by not being hired, by being fired, by being paid less or not at all.

That’s one of the many reasons The Tuts pride themselves on being completely DIY, managing all admin work for the band on their own, a decision taken, understandably, after the inspiration for one of their songs. “1982” was written

THE TUTS

about a past manager who promise to get them connections, but did nothing up until they fired them after realizing he hadn’t known anyone of importance since ’82.

Living in London as well, where, as bassist Harriet Doveton points out, “you think every gig is a corporate con,” finding the DIY scene there allowed them to take part in a system where promoters were actually paying people fairly.

It does take a toll, however; as many in a DIY scene can understand, and as another proudly DIY band Dream Nails said recently, being a band that runs yourself means 95% admin and 5% actual music. The Tuts realized this with the release of their debut as well: “When we released Update Your Brain, we were so busy emailing people about magazine features and stuff, that we fucking forgot about being a band and writing new music,” Nadia explains. “We almost took the fun out of it for ourselves, and The Tuts is about friendship and having fun, and the three-tone message, and so we felt a little bit overwhelmed.”

While they are working on new music, though, they’re avoiding

the same course and focusing more on the music. “We didn’t want to fall back into bad habits in the anticipation of releasing new stuff,” Harriet says, “and if we do it, we have to go into it with a healthier mindset.” That’s why, where often they say what’s next for them is world domination, this time it’s “world domination, but have mental sanity as well,” as Bev says. “Instead of Update Your Brain,” Nadia confirms, “Take Care of Your Brain,” which might mean everything from taking time for themselves, to spending more time with their friends and family, or putting more of themselves into the music. Nadia wants to make more material, but also “making sure that it’s true and genuine, and comes from a good place, because, when you’re constantly on social media, you can start to compare yourself to other people, and you get jaded with what you’re seeing online. I don’t want to produce stuff of what is expected of me. I want to produce stuff that I want to do, and is true to me.”

For Nadia, on top of work with The Tuts, that means delving more into an acting career. Recently,

she was approached by ITV to be interviewed for a new series called Young, British & Muslim, which has aired now since the festival, and is another facet of encouraging other young people of color to pursue paths they might not have because of a lack of diversity within them. “They’re delving into breaking stereotypes of how Muslim people can actually have

different and cool careers without their religion interfering,” Nadia explains. Other than that, she’s been offered two roles – one of which, as it seems, is the story of a possessed bride, shot entirely on Super8 film – and is expanding her reach past music and into the other art forms as well.

Image by Iona Skye

BABE PUNCH the Nottingham punk outfit taking back the power with dreams of conquering the whole world in the process.

Images by Iona Skye

BABE PUNCH

There’s laughter and chatter coming from the room we’ve rented out at Dance Studios Nottingham for the day. Glitter, flower petals, and chalksketched posters sporting empowered feminist messages litter the floor. We’re filming a video for Babe Punch’s song “Stanford,” and fans and friends have come out in droves to support the project.

Written “many, many moons ago” and recorded in 2017, “Stanford” was forged in outrage against rape culture as a whole, inspired at the time by Brock Allen Turner and the Stanford rape case as it developed in California in 2015 and concurrent years. “We were getting to that age where a lot of stuff like that was going on, and we were hearing a lot about it,” vocalist and lyricist Molly Godber tells me later on that day. We’re sitting at a bar down the road from the dance studios, gear piled up on a table behind us, in a sort of euphoric daze after the five-hour shoot. “Even in our hometown,

everywhere, not just in America, it just seemed to be everywhere, and I think that case was so horrific, because it really just opens your eyes to how corrupt the system is.

“It really just shocked me into action. I think we couldn’t ignore it and not talk about it anymore,” she continues. “We just couldn’t ignore it and not talk about it anymore. We need to raise awareness about that sort of thing, because the words just came out so easily for me, because it was something that was bubbling up over time. the conversation wasn’t being had, so we just needed to take it into our own hands.” They wanted to bring the conversation into the music, especially into a scene saturated with women being taken advantage of: that strange feeling of privilege male audience members seem to get by watching women onstage that somehow allows them to touch the performers, or to punch and push women in the crowd because it’s at a concert.

VELODROME

Putting these values into practice, not only in their music but their lives as well, is important to the band. They’re embodying the role models they looked for growing up, not only in the messages they send but in the way they act between each other. “We’re very odd people, so I think I wanted someone that was a bit more like what we are and how we interact with each other and stuff like that, and I didn’t see anybody like that,” Molly says. “I think we’re filling a little gap there for someone, because if I saw a band like us when I was a kid, I think I would have been pretty happy, and I’d have felt like there was somebody like me in the industry.”

“If you want to make people aware of matters like that, then you can do it,” guitarist Carys Jones adds. “Like how we were maturing and forming these opinions, if there’s young people listening to us, we can send them that.” Whether it be about feminism and basic respect for fellow humans, or important things in our current climate like voting, the band can use that platform, in person or on social media, to speak out about it. “If

you’ve got people listening to you, then you might as well try to make a difference.”

For the “Stanford” video, they wanted to speak up about assault, but their working idea of a narrative-led story didn’t quite fit

the message they hope would come across. To achieve more of an empowering, unifying feeling, focusing on the support they hope is available for victims of sexual assault, rather than the act itself, they put out an open call to their friends and fans to participate in their own way. “I think that was the most important part of it as well,” Molly continues; “it’s not the actual act that matters. It’s how we as a society take it and do what we do with it afterwards, and we want to be a part of the positive movement that comes from these horrendous things.”

With the Kavanaugh debacle permeating all our minds at the moment, it’s important that we take the time to stand in solidarity with those who have experienced this, or are at a risk of falling victim to it. Stand in solidarity with us, and revel in the glitter and flowers we went through during the filming. Keep an eye out for Babe Punch’s inevitable world domination, as well; this is a determined group of talented people.

Images by Iona Skye

WITCH FEVER

There are few bands who can stand up to the unapologetically fierce energy that is Manchester four-piece WITCH FEVER. The riff-driven punk group are a staple of the local punk scene, despite only having two songs recorded and released to date. As a live band, they are infamous for their raw, thrilling honesty and entrancing performances full of punchy in-your-face riffs and shrieking vocals.

Their shows, as you can guess, always seem to offer a rush of empowerment, which is exactly what they aim for.

Moving to Manchester to do music, as the whole band seems to have done, they all discovered that things were sorely lacking in quite a few key things: a punk and metal scene, and women in music. “I was keen to be with girls and make loud

music,� lead singer Amy Walpole explains, and so WITCH FEVER was formed, and does just that to this day. Branding themselves as all-girl punk is important to them, she explains, but they still face issues as a band, as many bands do with one or all female

WITCH FEVER

“It’s difficult because you’re trying to please every kind of feminist.”

members, in the formation of genres simply in regards to gender. They often get placed on the same bill as bands who sound nothing like them, just because there’s a girl involved.

Just as others before them have experienced, they use their platform to talk about these experiences, amongst others in the same vein, but do feel the pressure from their peers and audience. “I feel like we’re scrutinized, like people are waiting for us to call something out or something, and they just want us to be a hypocrite,” Alex explains. Amy goes on: “Someone commented on one of our posts saying that we were the maidenhead for the ship of feminism. And as much as that’s really lovely and really nice, I read it and was like, oh god! I don’t want this kind of responsibility, because sometimes it’s difficult because you’re trying to please every kind of feminist, every kind of woman or nonbinary person.” While using a platform is important for many,

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it’s also incredibly important to remember that music is what these bands are doing, and they can’t be expected to cover everything, without any mistakes; they are human, too, after all.

Recently, though, the band did use their platform to call out behavior at an all-dayer in Bristol.

It seemed like classic behavior for men towards women in a band, only to a whole greater extent – quizzing them on whether or not they knew how to use their equipment, asking them to take off their shirts and give the crowd members lap dances, saying they were going to wank off at their set – but what was so shocking to them was how “it was such a large amount in such a short space of time,” explains Amy. “Usually, it’s just one incident a gig, but it was so many all at the same time.” Alex agrees: “It felt like a really negative space.”

“It just seems that as soon as women onstage show any part of their body, they’re considered a sexual object in some light, or

people immediately start to think about shagging them,” Amy points out. “I get that you’re attracted to people and you fancy people, and that’s fine, but it’s not cool to come up to us and say you’re going to have a wank over us, because that’s just really threatening.” Many have shown their support for the band during this time, despite a few disrespectful comments on the post they made about the incident, but it’s occurrences like these that prove there’s far to go for women in the industry facing these wrongdoings.

WITCH FEVER are far from scared off from performing, however, and have a string of live dates lined up through the summer, attempting to hit as many cities as possible before they reenter the studio. An EP is in the works, Amy confirms, along with videos to go along with the songs, and an album within the next year (we hope!).

CRUMBS Leeds/York poppy post-punk quartet Crumbs doesn’t quite fit in with any one genre, with influences from a variety of different sources.

With the fractioned-yet-intertwined scenes that exist in Leeds, between various venues hosting their own respective styles of music, Crumbs are one of the few bands within the city actively achieving cross-pollinating. They have had a longstanding hold in the Leeds music scene, with drummer Gem Prout putting on DIY gigs in the city for over a decade and the rest of the band being equally as involved in both Leeds and Manchester for the course of their music careers. With a bass- driven, funky and fuzzy grab-bag of rhythmic unique sounds, complete with just enough cowbell and energetic snarling vocals, they easily win your hearts and ears with toe-tapping goodness.

They aren’t governed by what others want to hear, which might be partly because of their long-standing relationship with the music scene, amongst many other reasons. “It’s like that with any kind of creative thing,” bassist Jamie Wilson says, “if

you’re not going to be happy with what you’re doing, then what’s the point? I think that’s why, a lot of the times, we end up being the ‘weirdest’ band on the bill; not a conscious thing, but as in, we don’t fit with the same structure.” That means they’re

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“If you’re not going to be happy with what you’re doing, then what’s the point?”

invited to play a load of shows and get involved with a variety of scenes, playing with punk bands at this festival, but delving into more and different scenes in other circumstances.

They’re currently in the process of writing their second album, in between touring with Cowtown, another Leeds powerhouse, this summer, a slower process than Mind Yr Manners, they tell me.

“All the songs we have on our first album are all the songs we wrote since we started,” Jamie explains, “and I guess it’s not really a time pressure thing then.

Suddenly, everything that we did became a song, but now it’s more comfortable.” Many of their songs now are about “quite bleak subjects,” Gem says, “but they’re covered by the poppiness;” in the past, they’ve described their debut album Mind Yr Manners as dealing with “the art of coping with not coping” and the anxieties that come along with this. Vocalist Ruth Gillmore is also the lyricist of the group: “I’m just saying things that are

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really important to me,” she says, “but I like to leave it open to people to listen themselves.”

As with others, Crumbs are more about letting their actions do the talking than their song lyrics. “It’s about not taking shit at shows if something happens, like calling people out,” Jamie points out, something Ruth references as the golden rule: “be the person that you want to see at gigs.” Ambiguity in the songs, while sometimes getting them strange reviews (a song about death being mistaken as a song about turtles?), gives them the flexibility of delving into the more pop side of the songs.

“There’s plenty of politics in the songs and in the lyrics. Just, consciously, I wouldn’t describe ourselves as an anarcho-punk band or anything; it’s never been a political thing in that sense,” guitarist Stuart notes, but it’s in other ways that they get involved. “There’s a political element, especially in the scene we’re involved in. It’s more of a

DIY thing, the fact that anyone can do it.”

The DIY scene, especially in Leeds, as they tell me, is extremely supportive. “You can be in the best, biggest band, or you can be the newest band in Leeds, and it doesn’t matter because everyone is like, that was really great! Keep doing it!”

Gem says. Watching their friends start and play in not even necessarily good bands is an encouraging way of getting engaged and feeling like you’re a part of something. “It makes you feel like everybody has got something to say,” Ruth points out, “or everyone can have a go at playing an instrument or putting something together, and it doesn’t have to be amazing. Anything is valid.” Gem notes that the DIY scene creates a call-out culture far apart from the toxic one that’s been building itself online, and instead creating an honest atmosphere of learning together. “It’s not phony; it’s real in that sense.”

FRESH

FRESH

Fresh play an enthusiastic set of “scrappy,” “bubblegum-grunge,” a diverse combination cobbled together to execute their short and punchy songs about mental health and sexual identity. In both lyrics and in action, they advocate for equality in the industry and strive for the strength of DIY within it.

They’re on tour for all of summer and fall, supporting names like The Beths and Camp Cope.

“We just feel like playing shows is the best way to write and learn songs,” says lead singer and guitarist Kathryn Woods, “so it kind of goes hand in hand; shows first, and then the work comes out of that, because that’s how Fresh started.” Barring even Kathryn’s impending move to Switzerland to teach English there, they’re still planning to tour, using the opportunity to play around

mainland Europe as well, which they’ll be doing for the first time this summer at various festivals.

It’s a great goal of the band, as they tell me, to travel and to continue to learn more from the DIY scene, more about people and “identity politics,” that they never would have done outside of it.

With all the touring coming along, it’s inevitable we’ll be hearing more from Fresh, because they’re planning to record new things as a follow-up from

their debut self-titled album from last September. “Traveling and meeting people and being open to new things is a really good way to keep your brain always thinking about stuff,” Kathryn

says; “I don’t think I realize how much it influences me until I’m writing. Just hearing a turn of phrase or something, there’s no way you can plan that or seek it out.” Drawing from their mem-

FRESH

ories as such – even though Kathryn writes the songs, she brings them to the group to collaborate so, as bassist George Philips says, “we’re able to add a little bit of ourselves to them” – allows them to paint a picture in people’s minds by triggering the senses that memories always seem to be made up of.

Being a songwriter, especially as a young woman, can be quite daunting, as what Kathryn thinks is often considers a “gatekeeper” of the ideas she presents in her songs, even though some songs might be about absolutely ordinary, mundane experiences that should be accessible for any to listen to. “Whether I want to or not,” she admits, “if you’re a woman playing punk, everything you do is going to be political, so might as well make it your own politics and roll with it.”

“If you’re a woman playing punk, everything you do is going to be political.”

Drummer Daniel Goldberg points out, “Kathryn, being a woman with a microphone, doesn’t have the luxury of not being questions on anything that

FRESH

often than not, it seems that, when given a platform as a woman or nonbinary person (or of another minority identity of any kind), you become the spokesperson for everyone also within that minority. They reference Em Foster, lead singer of punk band Nervus, as being treated as the spokesperson for all trans people in music (along with a plethora of Against Me! Comparisons, despite sounding nothing like them). A DIY space is a safe space to avoid such questioning eyes, where “people look at me like I’m a lab specimen or something,” Kathryn says; even fellow women seem to show misogynistic attitudes, no matter how subconsciously, as they reference an instance where a woman praised Kathryn for not wearing makeup or showing cleavage, “because that’s apparently what women in bands have to do,” says Dan. But it’s not only middle-aged women who grew up in “that time” who experience these ingrained misconceptions; even Kathryn, along with no doubt countless others still have to deal

with internalized sexism and homophobia thanks to these perceptions still running amuck within and outside of this industry.

It’s good, then, that Fresh’s goal is to inspire those watching and listening to them play. “I want other people, especially other women and nonbinary and queer people, to just know that being in a band, anybody can do it,” Kathryn explains. “You don’t need to have some kind of innate talent even; you just need to have a bit of confidence.” Just as many bands in this DIY scene do, she has other, older people within the scene to thank for where she is now, and hopes to take a place in encouraging others to pursue this rewarding path. They reference Ducking Punches, a Norwich band that played just after Fresh, who spoke about looking after younger people within the crowd. Too often it seems that older fans in a punk crowd will look down on newer additions to the scene, but it’s in a punk attitude to protect impressionable younger people looking to fit in.

Katherine Christie Evans, previously a bassist in Dream Nails, is pursuing her solo project under the name Velodrome by mixing a wide variety of genres. From funk to garage rock to psychedelia to classical roots from her training as a youth, her pursuit of a blurring of the lines between genres also extends to her medium as well; in the spirit of DIY that many others also work their art through, she’s putting her arts degree and experience in theater design to practice by incorporating theater into her live shows and videos, truly the definition of interdisciplinary.

In May, Kate released her first of a series of singles: the flexible and dynamic Baroque-influence “His Physique.” Where the genres she incorporates into her songs transcend traditional boundaries, the topics on which she writes also cover a wide variety of experiences and disciplines. Mental health awareness, feminism, economic status, the impact of all of these on Kate’s art, are just a few of the topics she writes into her music.

“It’s hard not to be intersectional, because you’re writing about all your perspectives,” she says.

“There’s a lot going on in ‘His

Physique’, but it’s a whole bunch of issues colliding for me. It’s a bit of body dysmorphia, which is from my anorexia, and then there’s also the gender issues.”

In the video she starred in and wrote herself, Kate dresses up as men from various paintings ranging from medieval to renaissance eras, as well as more modern icons, to play out her gender fantasies and explore the interplay between dysphoria and dysmorphia. “Anxiety, I feel it comes across in my music; it’s very complicated, layered music, which really is me.”

VE LO DRO ME

“It’s hard not to be

intersectional because

you’re writing about all your perspectives”

VELODROME

Her next single, “Steady Girl,” deals with the interplay of OCD and anxiety and how those impact living as an artist with limited funds, something that still seems a bit of a taboo around it.

“People don’t want to talk about how they’re poor, because there’s a shaming attached to it,” Kate says, “and it’s really important for people from underrepresented groups to be out in front of people. I don’t always find it easy performing, but I think it’s empowering.” Coming from the margins of society and standing in front of a crowd both makes her visible and encourages others from these underrepresented groups to pursue such a noticeable career path, inspiring them to be confident with who they are.

This goal extends beyond the physical stage for Kate as well.

PR in a DIY manner means handling everything herself, and that took the form of teaser videos in Instagram and Twitter posts speaking about the topics covered by “His Physique,”

which also means admitting to struggles some of her friends didn’t know about previously.

“I’ve come out with my sexuality years ago, but I feel like I’m only coming out to my friends now around this release,” Kate explains. “I’ve had to dig really deep with the social media campaign to put across what the song’s about, and I’ve been posting stuff on Instagram, like eating disorders and mental health, and I’m realizing a lot of my friends probably don’t actually know this. They’ve known me for ten years, but they don’t know Kate’s had anorexia since she was seventeen. Only my closest friends know that, and it’s just not something we talk about.” As Velodrome, Kate is putting herself on a vulnerable stage, literally and figuratively, in order to bring better to light the importance of mental health awareness.

Being in a band has to make it somewhat easier, just as it makes performing more comfortable; you’re up there with friends,

VELODROME

and you have someone to turn around to share a smile with and to bring your hopes up. When you’re a solo musician, especially a solo female or nonbinary musician, it’s so much more discouraging. Kate can see the difference clear as day. “There’s no one to turn around to and say, I feel really shit, and, maybe he’s right, I don’t know anything,” she points out. “Knocks still hurt me, but I think I’m just a bit more rational about it now, and I’m more aware that a lot of people talk shit. People have a lot of confidence in their own opinion, and I’m just aware to take it with a bit of salt now. I think it’s just being a bit more thick-skinned as a solo artist. It is hard, and it’s the same thing with going onstage; it’s fucking hard. I wouldn’t ever claim anything other than that - it’s really hard.”

Much of these knocks come from the idea that women carry different standards than

men. “If you’re a woman, you might be called something like ‘cocky’, whereas if you’re a guy that would be called ‘assertive’ or ‘confident’,” Kate notes. “I think I’m just learning from past experiences, so whereas before I might have let something really knock me, something that a guy said to me about a song, like this isn’t good enough, and it’s been so long since I wrote my songs now, and I really let it put me off for so long, and I’ve just got to this place where I’m like, actually, no? You’re not going to stop me. I think I’ve just kind of reached a place now where I’m a little bit older and I’m more self-assured.”

Kate is also pursuing another facet of music wherein women are sorely lacking: production.

Currently in the process of completing a B-tech in music production, she hopes for her future music to avoid going through a man before reaching an audience, something her next single

“It’s really important for people from underrepresented groups to be out in front of people.”

“His Physique” actually did. “I really want to be more and more in control of my music, because I’ve played all the instruments on it, I’ve written it, I’ve written the lyrics. It’s all mine, and then

there’s this kind of irony that you then take it to a guy,” she says.

Not that guys are incapable; it’s just too often that songs like this pass through some kind of “male filter” before reaching the outside world. Tove Styrke, an up-and-coming pop artist from

Sweden, spoke before about how she’d only work with one other female producer in the past, and this seems to be the same for all musicians. There just aren’t enough women producers working on others’ music, and not just they’re own (not knock-

VELODROME

“If you’re a woman, you might be called something like ‘cocky’, whereas if you’re a guy that would be called ‘assertive’ or ‘confident’.”

ing you DIY ladies producing your own music; keep it up!). “I think it’s literally just girls aren’t cultured,” Kate notes. “We don’t tend to be given a drum kit or we don’t tend to be given music production software, and then it just gets harder and harder, because the older you get, you’re intimidated, because guys are using all these technical terms. I think, oh my god, I’m never going to catch up, but then luckily there’s this stronger half of me which is like, no! This is why I must catch up!”

It’s time to find and encourage more women to pursue these career tracks; it’s hard now to find even a woman sound engineer at a gig, and many note they’ve only worked with one in the past. Creating this more comfortable and integrated atmosphere would greatly benefit more women looking to pursue this career.

contributors The Tuts

Members: Nadia Javed, Beverly Ishmael, Harriet Doveton thetuts.bandcamp.com Instagram: @thetutsband Twitter: @TheTutsBand

Babe Punch

Members: Molly Godber, Abbie Roberts, Carys Jones, Adam Fletcher soundcloud.com/babe-punch-1 Twitter: @BabePunch Instagram: @babe_punch

Witch Fever

Members: Alisha Yarwood, Alex Thompson, Amy Walpole, Annabelle Joyce witchfever.bandcamp.com Instagram: @witchfever Twitter: @WITCHFEVER

Dream Nails

Members: Mimi Jasson, Janey Starling, Anya Pearson, Lucy Katz dreamnails.bandcamp.com Instagram: @dreamnailsband Twitter: @yourdreamnails

Fresh

Members: Kathryn Woods, Myles McCabe, Daniel Goldberg, George Philips freshpunks.bandcamp.com Instagram: @freshpunks Twitter: @freshpunks

The Spook School

Members: Adam Todd, Niall McCamley, Nye Todd, AC Cory thespookschool.com thespookschool.bandcamp.com Instagram: @thespookschool Twitter: @spookschool

Happy Accidents

Members: Rich Mandell, Neil Mandell, Phoebe Cross happyaccidents.band

happyaccidents.bandcamp.com Instagram: @happyaccidentsuk Twitter: @HappyAccidentzz

Velodrome

Members: Katherine Christie Evans

velodromemusic.bandcamp.com Instagram: @velodromemusic Twitter: @VelodromeMusic

The Baby Seals

Members: Kerry Devine, Amy Devine, Jasmine Robinson soundcloud.com/thebabyseals Instagram: @thebabyseals Twitter: @thebabyseals thebabyseals.co.uk

Kermes

Members: Emily, Jordy, Cass, Trigg kermes.bandcamp.com Instagram: @kermesforever Twitter: @kermesforever kermesforever.com

Colour Me Wednesday

Members: Jennifer Doveton, Harriet Doveton, Jaca, Laura colourmewednesday.bandcamp.com Instagram: @colourmewed Twitter: @ColourMeWed colourmewednesday.com

Crumbs

Members: Gem Prout, Jamie Wilson, Ruth Gillmore, Stuart crumbscrumbs.bandcamp.com Instagram: @crumbsband Twitter: @crumbsband

All portraits, interviews and layout design completed by Francesca Tirpak unless otherwise noted

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