Happy, Happy Hardcore

To the Old King’s Head! …on a wet Transpontine Sunday evening for a LIVE recording of South London Hardcore.

Well I never.


It was a momentous occasion in allowing the audience to eyeball Jack and Steve of SLHC. This was the 100th episode of the weekly podcast that has the balls to stick up for South London in a way that most mainstream media wimps out of.


Often the only reference to life south of the great divide is when the likes of Time Out rolls out that old hairy-arse lazy journo crap about North Vs South. Transpontonia is reduced to a piss poor punch line about cabs south of the river ( ha, bloody ha) or some wankfest about bloody cupcakes.

SLHC has reclaimed what it truly means to live in South London.

TELL IT LIKE IS, etc, which doesn’t always involve realms being read off from Wikipedia with a corny joke crowbarred in at the end.

The sheer vast expanse of the SW postcode-defining patch takes you from Kew [eww] across to Catford. Centuries of folklore and the relevance to contemporary Transpontine living are explored in each episode. It’s a topological podcast for folk who aren’t up their own North London arses.

Which brings us back to Sunday night at the Old King’s Head and a location that was dangerously close to north of the river.

Whoops.

Jack and Steve were rewarded for their effort with a full house. Flushing out the loose network of Transpontine types is one of the many achievements that the pair can be proud of.


There is no identikit feature for any SLHC fan. A North London Hardcore parallel would no doubt have a tight trousers / shit haircut door policy.

Producing *anything* online is bloody hard work. Those tireless tweets don’t just spunk themselves out Comrades. You need the ideas, the words, the endless linking out - the true social currency of the modern interweb - the time to make the online and offline connections, the 4am coding sessions when you screw your template up, the belief in what you’re doing when everyone else is stuck on the settee sending out not very tireless tweets about how crap you are.

Anyone can do that, mate.

Yeah, but we’re doing it.

But anyone can do that, fella.

Yes, but we ARE doing it. Fancy some online DIY online action yourself, my friend?

Back to yer settee then.

To keep this effort going for 100 hour long plus podcasts is chuffing ACE. All killers, no fillers either. Who can forget the five-hour South London boxing special with the Tooting Terror?

It soon became standing room only at the back of the top bar room. Mishi, Wolfgang, Owen Pomery - it was great to see so many folk who have been given a platform by SLHC all coming together to continue to make new connections.

And so shortly after 7:30pm, a nervous hush filled the space as nobody was really sure what was going to happen next.

Not even Jack and Steve.

The blippy blippy bleepy bleepy theme tune then started.

“Are we recording?”

You won’t hear that as an introduction on yer Guardianista podcasts, folks.

listen to ‘.@SLHC LIVE! #Transpontine’ on Audioboo

What then followed was a format that was familiar, yet equally alien. The backstory of SLHC was told, and then a Q and A session. Trains rolling into London Bridge added to the ambience [urgh] as the natural comedians and absolute amateurs (or is it the other way around?) delivered an hour long live podcast in front of an audience of 100 plus.

But it didn’t feel like a pre-planned recording - probably because it was nothing of the sort.

It wasn’t a cosy, cosy fireside chat, but an exploration of why we are all proud of South London with some of the themes addressed in the previous 99 episodes given a little more substance.

Biscuits factories are BIG in South London.

Who knew?

Jack and Steve did.

listen to ‘Who is your favourite South Londoner @SLHC?’ on Audioboo

What I personally love about SLHC is that I always learn something new, yet I never feel like I am being lectured.

“Is anyone in from New Cross?”

…um.


The mighty Dulwich Hamlet, the Walworth Road and pie & mash all featured. A genuinely quite gripping auction for some SLHC artwork closed the podcast, with the respectable £52 helping to fund future bus journeys to the likes of Bromley and back.

You can stick yer BBC cabs, Comrades.


But that actually is the only disappointment about SLHC. The BIG boys of BIG Media could learn a hell of a lot from the bedroom amateurs of SLHC:

How to build an audience; how to invite the audience to become part of what you set out to achieve. How to talk about Transpontine life in a way that is relevant to how we go about our business, and not some twaddle of reducing a working class life to a crappy lifestyle supplement feature.


The pause button was pressed just after 8:30pm and SLHC was complete for another weekend.

Job well done.

What are you researching and recording next week, fellas?

Mighty, mighty fine work.

listen to ‘Celebrating @SLHC’ on Audioboo








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