BIG JOANIE

BIG JOANIE/GHUM AT THE JOINERS ARMS, SOUTHAMPTON – 8/1/23

I’m sure I’ve realised this before but big stuff freaks me out. I see a big sign on one of those huge faceless buildings you get nowadays and it freaks me out. The sign says ‘LEISURE WORLD’ and I imagine the leisure facilities inside to be monstrous, grotesque, their vastness quite overwhelming. 

Thankfully, there’s nothing too big at THE JOINERS ARM, and I arrive just in time to catch the last five minutes of GHUM’s set. Ghum are a self-styled “feminist punk band” and I like what I see but I don’t really see enough to form any kind of solid opinion. They finish without any fuss or fanfare. Support bands don’t do encores.

There’s a boy standing next to me, who can’t be much older than twelve, eating crisps. The smell of salt and vinegar is overpowering. When he grows up he’ll realise that you don’t really eat crisps at gigs. It’s just not the done thing.

BIG JOANIE know exactly who they are. They are a “black feminist punk band” who want “loud women” and “rock and roll” and “solidarity, and that’s definitely something I can get on board with. I’m here for this, as wife, and other people, would say. And I think maybe this is one of the boons of identity politics, that people know exactly how to define themselves, which is something I’ve never been much good at. Whenever people ask me what kind of music I make or books I write I always reach for but never quite give a satisfactory answer. They produce a kind of classic indie rock sound steeped in the indie rock of the last thirty years or so, namedropping P.J. Harvey, The Gossip, Sleater-Kinney, and Andy Bell/Ride within minutes of being onstage. There's a song about men being bad in bed, and a song about hustling being bad for the community, and other things too. Drummer Chardine Taylor-Smith delivers a rousing speech about fucking the Tories and this version of Labour and the whole fucking lot of them and standing in solidarity with striking workers. Right on, I think. That’s definitely where I’m coming from. “As a Black feminist punk band,” she explains, “the most important thing for us is solidarity. We stand in solidarity with you and we hope you stand in solidarity with us.” And it seems that everyone pretty much does. I certainly do.

Photo courtesy of Jane Hoskyn (@janeskyn). Thanks Jane!