Following the success of A gig for Isaac(and it was a huge success! we raised £800), I’m very excited to announce Glasgow Summer, on Sunday 30 August.
I am fully back my nonsense, once again co-organising the gig and playing a set with wormboys. Because why not. Also I made a ridiculous poster, for which I am sure you will observe precisely zero genAI was employed.
There’s no specific cause this time. Or rather, the cause is: good music, good times. And it will be completely free to attend! We (Rolling Head Promotions) have teamed up with the fantastic Glasgow Southside record store Some Great Reward, who are supporting us to host the afternoon gig in the outdoor courtyard at The Cooperage (complete with a good bit of cover in case of rain).
The event will feature live folk, punk, pop, and grunge music from:
Pat’s Soundhouse Legendary bedroom pop multi-instrumentalist – stepping out of the bedroom and into the street (well, courtyard) for this very special occasion!
Accessibility: The Cooperage is an outdoor courtyard location, with level access from Pollokshaws Road. The entrance does however feature somewhat uneven pavement and pavestones: you can see an image of this on google maps here. The courtyard has paving, gravel, and a handful of benches – you can see photos on the Cooperage website.
This will be an outdoor gig, although if there is much rain forecast we should have a marquee (obviously if there is a horrendous thunderstorm we will have to cancel). Food and drink is available from many local outlets, including the Cooperage’s very own Boca sandwich shop. All-gender toilets will be available, including an accessible toilet at Boca until 4pm.
We have several very exciting wormboys shows coming up over the summer, the first two of which have been announced. Both will be in Wharf Chambers, the most excellent venue in the most excellent city of Leeds.
The first of these gigs takes place on Saturday 25th July. I’m actually also co-organising this one, as part of the crowdfunding efforts for Isaac, a Black trans kid whose family are raising money to pay for his healthcare costs.
We’ll be playing alongside three other brilliant West Yorkshire acts. There’s the alt-rock crew Faded Alchemy, who we played alongside for the incredible We Can Kick It football fundraiser at The Attic; Lucas Assagba,a singer-songwriter who pens biting rock tunes which I’m really hyped to hear live; and bughotel, who plays lofi folky indie music which has just got better and better since we last shared a stage a couple of years or so back.
We’re selling tickets on a sliding scale: £10 standard, with alternative rates for people on low income (£5) and those who can afford to give a bit more (£20). We’ll be charging a bit more on the night, but also no-one will be turned away for lack of funds.
The second gig will be on Sunday 6th September. I’m very excited that we have been booked for a Youth Anthems show, as this long-running series of family-friendly gigs really is a Leeds institution. I really admire that the organisers create this regular space for people of all ages to watch live music together, and respect their commitment to the idea that all kinds of music are appropriate and relevant for children to enjoy.
For this matinee show, we will be playing alongside indie-punks Gravel, who also feature wormboys drummer Jake on the skins (he’ll be having a busy night!), plus electro-pop artist No Slugs, for that maximum garden vibe.
It’s a bargainous fiver for adults, and free for under-18s to attend (when accompanied by an adult). The organisers say over half the tickets have sold already though, so get in there quick if you’re hoping to come!
Like I said, there’s a lot more coming up for wormboys, both over this summer and beyond, so keep an eye out!
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The event will also feature performances from drag artists Medea and Fair Verona, more spoken word from Nat Raha, and DJ sets from Husane and Arcadio.
We’ll be fundraising for Brooklyn, a Cherokee two spirit woman and recent graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. She is currently is trying to raise money for a graduate visa to stay in Glasgow, where she will be safer than the USA.
If you’re free on Thursday and live in or near Glasgow, join us for an excellent night of performance and dancing! Medea, a true pillar of our community in Glasgow, has been doing an incredible job running Oestrogenesis nights over the last couple of years. So I am super excited to be taking to the stage for this one.
I’m currently in the middle of a busy fortnight for work-related travel (more on that soon!) But last night, I managed to make the most of a brief return to Glasgow.
The occasion was There Will Be Blood! a fundraiser at Stereo for the brilliant group Trans Healthcare Access Glasgow. They are helping to provide free laboratory testing for bloods. This is really important for trans people on HRT who are increasingly denied monitoring by GPs. If you couldn’t make it but would still like to donate, you can do so here.
The organisers put together a fantastic lineup and there was a great turnout – especially for a Monday night. It was exciting to see so much talent from within our community, and loads of people come out to support both the cause and a pretty eclectic collection of artists. And exciting for me to be a part of it, performing a DJ set as ROGD.
In which I am going for it. Photo by Onni Gust.
The night kicked off with a luscious set from singer-songwriter and drag artist Sersi. He’s probably the first person I’ve ever seen sport a Britney mic at a DIY gig, which was very cool but sadly couldn’t quite capture the sheer dynamic range of his vocals on the night. At the same time, it enabled him to completely own the stage for a series of ballads that were by turns beautiful and strange. Sersi was ably supported by a pal with a laptop, and Johanna Kirkpatrick (of trad folk bands Chanterelle and Madderam) looking dead dykey on acoustic guitar.
Next to take the stage were Deep Filff. I hadn’t had a chance to look them up before the gig so had zero idea what to expect, although they did arrive with an absolutely enormous inflatable swan. Deep Filff turned out to be a two piece, with Nadia Fiffsky playing bass and belting out epic sun-baked vocals, while Jenny Tingle methodically destroyed the drumkit. As purveyors of some of the dirtiest psychedelic grunge-punk riffs I think I’ve ever heard, they were extremely well-named. It was engrossing, hypnotic stuff. Eventually the swan came out and bounced around the audience, most likely representing a serious hazard to some of the important-looking wires and glitterball hanging from the ceiling.
Local heroes comfortnever fail to disappoint, and this evening they truly tore up the stage as the final live act of the evening. The sibling duo have a truly unique sound, with Natalie’s staccato vocals punctuating a skitterish soundscape of totally artificial electronic sounds, underpinned by Sean’s assertive drumming. It was impossible not to dance. My favourite moments came whenever the band’s weird, abrasive noise would suddenly gave way to a transcendentally beautiful synth melody for a minute or two, before we all dived collectively back into the tumult.
Finally, following a quick raffle, I was up! The gig was due to end at a remarkably civilised 10pm, so I had a tight half hour DJ set.
I’ve thought a lot since returning to DJing that the landscape of queer and feminist music and activism has completely changed. Back in the day, I used to do quite a few “Women’s Voices” DJ sets, especially for feminist events such as Reclaim The Night afterparties, and the woman-only Women’s Aid and NUS Women’s Conference discos. The idea was that every song played (sometimes for sets of up to four or five hours) had a woman on lead vocals, and ideally women also playing instruments. Finn Mackayalways used to refer to me as “feministDJRuthPearce” (all in one breath!) which was never failed to be delightful.
Unfortunately, many of the people who were only too happy to join the dancefloor for those events are now either actively backing trans-exclusionary politics and the grossest forms of transmisogyny, or otherwise failing to speak out again them. (Junior equalities minister Liv Bailey, I’m looking at you – remember when you hoped I’d DJ your wedding one day?!) It’s odd to reflect on just how normal it was for trans women to be involved in woman-only politics spaces in the UK, given the extremity of the post-2017 moral panic.
Anyway, I digress.
Another thing that has happened over the last decade is the enormous influx of excellent trans artists to both underground and mainstream music scenes. We live in an age where I listened to jasmine.4.tfor the first time because my mum told me she’d done a good interview with Craig Charles on BBC 6 Music(!) So, while I’d like to do more Women’s Voices DJ sets in the future, for the first time it felt realistic to put together a Trans Voices set, with a mixture of tunes fronted by trans women and men, and/or non-binary, genderqueer, or genderfluid people, that I could reasonably expect a large number of people in the audience to be familiar with.
So, here’s what I played:
Shopping – The Hype My Chemical Romance – Teenagers 100 gecs – mememe SOPHIE – Immaterial underscores – Locals (Girls Like Us) [with gabby start] Kae Tempest – Move Ada Rook – BURY YOURSELF Janelle Monáe – Make Me Feel jasmine.4.t – Guy Fawkes Tesco Dissociation G.L.O.S.S. – Outlaw Stomp Against Me! – True Trans Soul Rebel
Obviously I could have kept going a lot longer, but I’ve got to say, it was one heck of a half hour. I have such enormous love for everyone who joined me to dance their arse off on a Monday night. And if you’d like me to DJ your event – I’m officially back behind the decks, so do get in touch!
In the wake of the Football Association effectively banning trans women from playing even at an amateur level, it’s been heartening to see a lot of serious community organising happening around inclusive football. A lot of this has been led by women who have already been frustrated for years with the institutional sexism of the FA, and their effective control over many local pitches.
This gig will be raising money for those fighting back against a corporate, exclusionary approach to football, and working to build something much better in its place.
Plus, it’s a stonking line-up. If you’re local, come and see us all play!
We have a couple of very exciting events coming up for wormboys in a couple of weeks!
First, on Wednesday 20th August we will be playing a fundraiser gig at Hyde Park Book Club in Leeds. Themed around the film I Saw The TV Glow (which promises to be…weird) the event has been organised in support of The Hangout, a super awesome LGBTQIA youth project. We’ll be sharing a stage with oli reeves and Leeds Queers Against Fascism.
Secondly, for the weekend of 22-24 August we will be whizzing down to the countryside near Kettering for Greenbelt Festival! This will be my second time performing at Greenbelt, as I gave a talk about trans feminism in 2023. The whole event had thoroughly excellent vibes, especially the Rebel Rouser stage in the woods. I’m excited to be returning there with wormboys this time around for a full set of live music – including lots of material written for our forthcoming debut album. I can’t wait for us to share it!
Reminder that I am playing Wharf Chambers in Leeds as part of wormboyson Wednesday. We have written a lot of new material recently, and are excited to share it with a live audience. We’ll be supported by Tiger Island and Etheriel, with live visuals from Kit Watson, so it’s going to be a great night.
On Thursday 12 December I will be speaking at the University of Stirling for the Punk Scholars Network UK annual conference!
In-person bookings appear to be closed, but you can still register for free to attend online.
In my talk, I am planning to draw on the history of trans movements, trans studies, and trans punk to argue that we can and should be using creative DIY skills to change the world. Trans experiences show the power of genre-crossing, which can be applied to knowledge exchange within and beyond both universities and punk scenes. From gigs to zines to academic talks and self-archiving, trans punk pedagogy can help us work through our complicity, and build solidarity across difference.
Dr Ruth Pearce 