This Is Our Battlefield

We're This Is Our Battlefield, a Glasgow DIY gigs collective. The particular numpties involved are Sarah, Toe, Kenny and Nick. We miss him. What's the name all about? It's part of something Guy Picciotto (Rites of Spring, Fugazi) once said (the full quote's above); we had no idea what to call ourselves and we liked it. Tom was so inspired he almost shed a little tear. Tell us about these gigs, the

n. Basically, we just want to put on some good bands, get some people along and have fun. But we want to make sure we do it fairly at all times; and fairly not just to the people that come to our gigs by keeping prices low, but also to the bands we get to play. How do you do that? We pay them as much as we can. This whole thing is not for profit, so we can afford to, even with low door tax. At each gig the first thing we need to do is pay for the venue (unless it's somewhere awesome and free like the Note), and if there's a touring band playing we'll need to make sure they can afford to get to their next gig and eat and whatnot, but after that we'll split up the cash between the other bands. So you don't take any money at all? Well, we cover our costs: posters and flyers, food for the touring bands, that sort of thing. But that's it. We even pay in to each gig ourselves. We enjoy ourselves at these gigs as much as anyone, so it's only fair, really. But more importantly Mike Watt of the Minutemen had a famous door policy: if you're not playing, you're paying. We try and stick to that - no guestlist means less bu****it going on with cowboys at the door - and we're not playing, so we pay up. (PS. we absolutely, 100% don't do guestlists.) What about merch guys / girls with touring bands, the sound guy, the bar sta... -
Yeah, alright. We're not daft. Do you get bands to sell tickets? We've only ever done one ticketed gig (the alldayer, to reassure people travelling from Dundee that they'd get in), and despite a hundred people turning up we only sold something like three tickets in advance. We don't have a particular ideological objection to tickets, but we don't find we often have any use for them. You're not pay to play then? Definitely not. p2p is not cool, and anyway, if we're not making any money from it, what would be the point? True. How do you choose what bands play? We get emails from various tour bookers letting us know who's touring, but far more often there's someone we really like and we just chance our arm and email them or whatever. What about supports? Obviously we try and put together a gig where the line up makes sense - we're probably not going to put on a black metal band with some solo acoustic dude or anything. We probably won't put on a black metal band at all, mind you, that's maybe not our kind of thing. What is your kind of thing? A pretty broad spectrum, really - we've put on all sorts from metalcore to post-rock, and confused ourselves no end with lovely folky stuff at Hangover Club!, but mostly we do punk / hardcore / screamo / emo sort of stuff. Will you put my band on? Maybe. Usually we'll have someone in mind but there's no harm in asking; stranger things have happened. (But assume we'll probably say no because we've already got someone - don't hang your hopes on it. Also, we do try to get back to everyone but that's not always possible, so if we don't reply to you, we're sorry, it's nothing personal, we just get a lot of messages.) But we've toured and / or played with a series of mediocre but semi-popular bands! This is of absolutely no interest to us whatsoever. If we like you, we like you, if we don't, we don't. I'm one of those many agents trying to flog currently fashionable bands with no substance and a huge guarantee, should I contact you? No, thanks. I'm that crazy agent that represents the likes of Paul Daniels, Gina G and Pat Sharpe that keeps on emailing, should I still contact you? Yeah, keep those ones coming, we like them a lot. How do you promote your gigs? Online, of course - here on Facebook, and various forums that we post on (we try to avoid spamming sites we dont generally use ourselves), on myspace (kinda, it's terrible now), on last.fm, and obviously out and about at gigs and such. Did you bastards take my poster down to put yours up? No, we didn't. We're quite keen on our posters staying up ourselves so we're not going to mess with anyone elses. Is this FAQ not a bit over the top? Yeah, maybe. I mean, if you're at all involved in the DIY scene then none of this will be anything especially new or revolutionary to you, we realise that. It's all pretty standard DIY practice. But we do want to make our gigs as open and accessible as possible so I suppose this is maybe a good way to introduce the idea to newer people. Also, it's a handy quick reference for bands to check us out when we're offering them gigs. I like the concept behind it, but I can't be doing with the loud screamy bands you put on. That's a pity. Give them another chance, they're all great, we promise. Plus, we totally don't just do loud stuff - the periodic Hangover Club! gigs in particular. But there are loads of awesome DIY people in Glasgow you should definitely check out, like Wolf Among Wolves, Hansei, Unthank, Cry Parrot, Drive Carefully, Hard Work, The Organisation, the Croc-y people, Winning S***m Party and loads of others.

13/06/2024

✊

🚨 BREAKING 🚨

Our members at the 13th Note have just lodged their formal bid to take over their former workplace under workers control.

A comprehensive plan to re-establish one of Glasgow’s most iconic music venues for people to eat & drink sustainably sourced produce, where profits are invested in the venue and community outreach programmes.

Bring the 13th Note under workers' ownership!

11/05/2024

Get your signatures on this, pals, in support of the former workers of the 13th Note and their efforts to take control.

Bring the 13th Note under workers' ownership! The Glaswegian Hospitality sector is renown for its poverty pay, precarious working conditions and habitual breaches of health and safety. Workers are often treated with a lack of respect and consideration by employers. In the wake of our industrial dispute against such conditions, a worker-owned 13...

19/04/2024

Artists/Bands! Please sign our open letter! As we have found out publicly from Glasgow Times, City Properties are in “advanced negotiations to lease this vacant property [formerly the 13th Note] to an existing tenant who is expanding their business." Despite contacting the landlord multiple times over the past months showing our interest in re-opening the Note as a workers co-op we have been totally ignored and it seems City Properties are at the moment completely uninterested in even meeting with us to discuss our ideas and plans for what a worker ran 13th Note could look like!

By signing this open letter you are showing that you support us, the workers and would want to see The 13th Note reopened and ran in a way that favours the staff, artists and punters that made the Note the special place it was in the Glasgow cultural scene.

Link in bio where there is more information and can sign!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1R5p4ecbCRl_agSd844rTf00fP9q7PN49w9hJH6R8vI0/edit?usp=sharing

08/03/2024

We’ve had a ton of new likes recently for no obvious reason that I can discern. I take it you’re all bots or spammers of some description?

Photos from This Is Our Battlefield's post

07/01/2024

Doing some tidying today and discovered a copy of I-on Glasgow magazine from April 2007, which was a free fashion and culture rag back in the day. In among articles on 100 years of the bra and the best sunglasses of the year was an ‘interview’ with your pals, I think because the writer was one of Nick’s mates.

I seem to remember that our plan was to see how many DIY tropes we could get into this publication. Pretty sure this was the first and only time Guy Picciotto was referenced in I-on but evidently “no gods, no masters” didn’t make the cut. And all references we made to ‘punk’ were changed to ‘indie’, entertainingly.

18/08/2023

If you can buy tix in advance, pals, please do. I think a lot of people in DIY circles have an almost ideological opposition to tickets, mostly because of the middleperson companies that so often flog them adding outrageous fees, but tickets direct from DIY promoters (sans those fees) is now so much more common and helps them all so much.

18/08/2023

NEW ALBUM "BIG NOISE" OUT NOW!!

Includes singles "Tank" and "Hollowed Out" along with another 10 new songs, self-recorded and produced by the band, with incredible cover art by Wolf Mask Art

Stream or download for free / pay-what-you-like on Bandcamp (link below) along with the other 10 releases in our back-catalogue!!

Also available on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube and all other streaming platforms.

Vinyl release coming soon courtesy of the good people at Brassneck Records (UK) and Bloated Kat Records (USA).

Thanks so much to everyone who still supports us after all these years, we really hope you like this one!!

thekimberlysteaks.bandcamp.com

Support for victims of Nudieland shooting in Mpls, organized by grace birnstengel

15/08/2023

There was a horrific shooting at a punk house in Minneapolis over the weekend.

Support for victims of Nudieland shooting in Mpls, organized by grace birnstengel This fund will be distributed among the victims who were shot and … grace birnstengel needs your support for Support for victims of Nudieland shooting in Mpls

19/07/2023

A random selection of Note bits, mostly from our later years. Show us your TIOB Note pics!

19/07/2023

Devastated to hear about the closure of the 13th Note, made all the sadder by the ignominious circumstances in which it’s gone. Without question our number one choice of venue, it felt like the anchor institution of Glasgow DIY. That it has closed due to ownership failure to acknowledge reasonable staff requests is heartbreaking.

Solidarity with staff and here’s to a new Note returning under better ownership.

The Kimberly Steaks - Empty Vessel (Official Video)

18/11/2022

New K. Steaks for your aural delectation.

The Kimberly Steaks - Empty Vessel (Official Video) The Kimberly Steaks - Empty Vessel (Official Video)From the split 7" with No Matter, available from Brassneck Records on 25/11/22.Video and song recorded by ...

06/10/2022

Thirteen years ago today. Maybe now Algernon Cadwallader are back together we’ll get a chance to do it again sometime?

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Scottish International Piano Competition
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The 2023 competition was held 1 - 10 September. Congratulations to 1st Prize Winner Jonathan Mamora!

This Is Our Battlefield

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