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Just around the corner from Ipswich train station is an intimate bar that serves as a gallery, workshop, and live music venue, as well as a reminder that intersectional, inclusive spaces can be found everywhere. I’d come to see a punk music show but discovered a beautiful expression of the joy of community. The walls of Banshees Bar & Artspace were covered in art, and a bookcase by the bar had shelves dedicated to zines and selling the work of local artists. Even though I didn’t recognise any faces when I walked in, the pride flags, protest shirts, dyed hair and piercings on those around me let me know I was in good company.
“They’re scared of us because they know we’re strong
So sad we have to be
So strong instead of free
They cannot scare us into resignation
We’re the ones who have survived
When so many of our siblings died
But we fight back”
From ‘Fuck Cops, Punch Nazis’ by Soft Cunts
Sapphic sea shanty singers The Salty Sirens opened the evening with raucous and bawdy sea shanties about strapped mermaids and what to do with that drunken sailor to make sure they get home safely. They’re resident musicians at both Banshees in Ipswich and The End in West End, so if you’re looking for an evening of foot-stomping and singing along to some she shanties, I can’t recommend their performance highly enough.
In a hard world, what else is there to be but a soft cunt? The Soft Cunts’ first full-length set ranged widely from sapphic yearning and love letters to queer spaces, to a song about killer whales exacting revenge on those who pollute the earth with their greed. They blended humour with brutal honesty, unafraid to let emotion sit bare and heavy. And among the thrashing drums, fantastic guitar and bass solos, masterful range of emotional vocals and bit-riffing, the Soft Cunts’ performance had a whole lot of heart.
“When the world outside
Makes you want to run and hide
From the glares and stares and whispers
And the TERFs who hate our sisters
You don’t have to feel alone
I know a place you can call your own
Where do you go?
Where do you go?
Your second home,
Gloria’s Hole”
From ‘Gloria’s Hole’ by Soft Cunts
Finding second homes that let me take a deep breath out and just be has been invaluable. It’s helped me work out who I want to be by opening up what I thought was possible. It’s something I’ve felt more frequently in the last few years, setting foot into Jagera Hall, The Cave Inn, House Conspiracy, Skateaway, Banshees, and the Carden Queer Room. These spaces and those I found in them let me recoup some of the energy I lose trying to bumble through the world. It wasn’t enough for me to just touch grass; I had to discover meeting places and the people who were there for the same reasons. I hope that you too, dear reader, can find your spaces, and let yourself just be for a while.
Written by Jester Roach
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