Some Gigs From Memory

cw: homophobic slurs Fred joined our junior school halfway through year three. He had curly dark hair and was a short arse like me. ‘What’s on your Walkman?’ Prince. He also had StreetSounds Electro in his schoolbag. I liked Level 42 and Simple Minds but I thought ‘robotics’ looked cool. He wasn’t really called Fred but he preferred it to Francis. His surname started with an X and Miss Dunn did her best when it was time for register.  Vitbe is sliced brown bread fortified with 33% of your recommended daily intake of vitamins and iron. My sandwiches were cheese and pickle in brown bread so there was no chance I could swap them. I’m not sure what Fred had in his lunchbox but it looked suspect, was it even food? I was going to go round to his house for tea and I was worried. He lived round the corner from the school with his nan in one of the council houses and he had a video. Nan, about the same height as Fred with an olive complexion and abundant white hair, asked me if I wanted fis...

The first time I got punched in the face was in 1988. Ben was determined to get Jamie to man up so he arranged a fight after school between the two biggest pussies in the third year. We both ambled disinterestedly towards home, Ben following behind trying to gee us up. After twenty minutes of studiously ignoring the twat, Jamie snapped and punched me on the cheek out of obligation. I was a bit shocked and I cried. Ben left for his mum's house bitterly disappointed at this display of manhood while Jamie and I carried on walking up Sandridge Road 10 metres apart in awkward homoerotic silence. This wouldn't be the last time I would be punched in the face or spat at. I couldn't attend the conference on megaliths and psychogeography because I had a shift at the bookshop and no-one wanted to swap, so I just made it to the Conway Hall for the evening performance by Coil. Balance was sat at the bar with Peter, evidently pretty pissed. He'd grown an expansive beard since his las...

London, the summer of 1996 and what were the hip kids listening to? Gene? Ed Rush 12"s? Add N to X? Fuck no! They were clutching hold of their copies of Julian Cope's 'Krautrocksampler' pocketbook with the enthusiasm and fervour a previous generation had held for Gadaffi's 'Green Book' and turning over provincial records shops across the land to try and score rare Popol Vuh and Amon Duul II LPs. The previous year I'd picked up a copy of The Faust Tapes for the princely sum of a fiver from the record stall on St Albans market. I was drawn to the trippy Bridget Riley op-art cover and the fact it was only a fiver. Having fought in the hardcore trenches during the Progressive House wars of 1992 and despite occasionally attending the Megadog I was very much opposed to anything that smacked of hippy whimsy: I'd lost too many friends the previous years to Eat Static and The Drum Club. 'This better not sound like fucking 'Gong' I thought to myse...

cw: transphobia, adolescent horniness Autogynephilia is a term that refers to the autoerotic thrill experienced by fetishist males at the thought of being female bodied. Coined by Dr Ray Blanchard during a study whose meticulous research methodology centred on perving at ‘shemales’ in bars and sex clubs, it’s not really an accepted psychological term and many cis women – by Blanchard’s own terms – experience their sexuality in precisely the same way. But none of that matters because the thoughtworm remains lodged in every trans woman’s brain serving its intended purpose to repress any enjoyment in our own burgeoning sexuality and to turn desire into guilt and self-hatred. I’m laying outside a white marquee, the August sun beating the back of my head. I’ve had half a can of Merrydown and the rest of the world has disappeared and I strip successive blades of grass of their seeds and a pair of incredibly well stuffed white leggings that show everything has just stepped onto the stage hold...