6. New BloodsThe Secret Life
I was at a Morris dancing convention playing with the folk band that me and Rachel [Horwood] from Trash Kit used to have. I was in this weird field with Morris dancers and I got a text from my partner at the time, being like ‘we’re all about to go to the New Bloods show’ and they were really excited.
I was so sad that we didn’t go, but then my partner got me a copy of Osa’s [Atoe, violinist] zine Shotgun Seamstress and it was that zine that inspired me to start Trash Kit. I already wanted to start a noisy guitar band but it was getting that zine and reading about the history of other Black punks and people like Sun Ra and Black weirdos that really inspired me and made me think I can do this, we need to start a band.
It was so nice to discover the New Bloods. They were explicitly talking about race and community. It was important to me, even though Osa lived so far away, to make that connection. I reached out to her and maybe we started writing to each other, I can’t remember how it happened. It was really important for me, because I didn’t know many other people of colour in my music community in London, which is pretty crazy when you think about it.
