Wharf Chambers

Contort Yourself
2025-01-18 23:59 (Europe/London)
After a successful night at the beginning of 2024, Contort Yourself finally returns to Wharf Chambers, Leeds, for another all-vinyl DJ set spinning all the best floor-fillers from across the world of no wave and post-punk.
Presented by DJ Benfrombradford, the event will start at 23:59 on Saturday 18th January and run through until 4am on Sunday morning!
Expect to hear the likes of: James Chance & The Contortions, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Suicide, ESG, Sonic Youth, The Slits, Liquid Liquid, Gang of Four, and much more!
TICKETS HERE

Free Music Lessons - Zhu Wenbo, Zhao Cong, Sun Yizhou
2025-01-18 19:30 - 23:00
Hey hey we’re back in the new year with some of the most amazing musicians going right now over from Bejing. Genuinely unmissable night this one!
Expect some top non-music-music, object action.
Zhu Wenbo: runs Zoomin’ Night https://zoominnight.bandcamp.com/, releases all over the place, collaborations with Li Song who played our outside gig 2024.
Zhao Cong: releases on Zoomin’ night, presses précaires, Hitorri, master object, no-input manipulator.
Sun Yizhou: runs Aloe records https://aloerecords.bandcamp.com/
has collaboarted withe some FML favourites such as Tim Olive, Zheng Hao, (and upcoming Yan Jun). Check out his feature in The Wire this month.
(poster by https://melatonin.straw.page/)

Psychogroovey Geodance Eternal: An Exploding Rock n roll Roadshow Starring Pseudo Cunt
2025-01-17 20:00 - 23:00
PSYCHOGROOVEY GEODANCE ETERNAL: An Exploding Rock n roll Roadshow
starring PSEUDO CUNT

Kicking off our sordid soiree is -THORN WYCH-, lo-fi fragmented folk with instruments handmade from tree branches. Haunted, sinister drones, glitched electronics and vocal incantations that reestablish the coordinates for England’s Hidden Reverse. Sounds and song that pull post-industrial and traditional music into a ghostly, mesmerising fog that’s wholly unique.

Next up we welcome -VIVID TADPOLE-, an audiovisual storyteller trio who use performance, sound and projection to invoke lurid rituals of sex, the internet and crude cyber-paganism.

For the grand finale, the night will descend into a cacophonous crescendo with superstars -PSEUDO CUNT- taking to the stage for the final stop on their world tour. Freewheeling hep cats in a funky apocalypso. Go babies go! Unspool them signifiers in spectacular collapse! Keep on grooving down you freaky beatniks!

Wharf Chambers
Seventeenth of January
Eight Til Eleven
Eight Quid Waged, Four Quid Unwaged
None one turned away for lack of funds

GET TICKETS HERE

Katya Shirshkova // Odie Ji Ghast & David Birchall // Bird Brains // Local Bliss
2025-01-16 19:30 - 23:00
Midwinter Whining abound as per. Another free-wheeling collection of the musically confused. This time all rooted in the gob. Choral layering, free rock improv, mouth sounds and computer slurp and operatic drama hurrah!
no one turned away for lack of funds as alwasy
4 to 8 quid sliding scale
Katya Shirshkova
Vocal resonance relooped and layered into slow building choral pieces from the echos and fragments of religious harpings on in grand spaces transformed into something focused and shifting. Timeless in a way that if you found it etched into an Edison tube you wouldn’t bat an eye
“Katya Shirshkova is a France-based performance artist, vocalist, composer and lecturer. She works in the field of experimental music on the border between academic avant-garde, sound-art and folk traditions, mainly with voice and choirs, applying interdisciplinary methods in her practice.
Katya is going to perform a vocal piece “Le Heron”, minimalistic in its approach of work with only voice and looper. Katya re-records her own voice and creates a type of sonoric clusters, which give an effect of synthetic sound, but reached only by resources of the voice, its natural beatings and electric amplification.
“Le Heron” was created and produced at La Box residence/ENSA Bourges (FR) and was recently released as a split album w/ David Maranha on Stellage label (GR).”
Odie Ji Ghast & David Birchall
Two maestros of the freeeeee-rock-music. Dipping into the endless running water of human expression with a pail or two of pure sound. No genre studies or wry jazz-brain-addled noddling. You just feel it yano
Bird Brains
Slowly untangling murk and residue off the inner-brain-wall through activating the computer and brainstem to mouth direct soundfeedback and response. Gestering towards tape wonk self-burnt CDrdom and Minton huff but to doom metal atmos ends
Local Bliss
Baritone drama in the deep abyss. It’s so cold. Infrared! What if I freeze? And drop into the darkness?

Karlsen // Mainwaring // Reuben + Casling //Clarke // Blandina // Milling +Rory Maslen
2025-01-15 19:30 - 23:00
Opener
Rory Maslen – Bass, electronics (@rorymaslen._)

Group #1

Casling //Clarke // Blandina // Milling

Iris Casling – Upright Bass (@iriscasling)
Desmond Clarke – Wind, electronics(@des_r_clarke)
Alex Izaak Milling – Guitar, electronics(@alexiizaak)
Gaia Blandina – Cello (@baiaglandina)

Group #1b
Karlsen // Mainwaring // Reuben

Emil Karlsen – Drum kit (@emil__karlsen)
James Mainwaring – Saxophone (@jmainsax)
Federico Reuben – Electronics (@fedreu)

FUCK ME I'M OLD: Queer, Single, and Over 40 (and that's FINE)
2025-01-12 20:00 - 22:00
Being LGBTQIA+ and over 40 isn’t easy. Especially when you’re trans, single, and A Bit Weird. A one-person show about getting older without growing up.

From shagging disrespectful twinks to embracing your inner Golden Girl, ‘Comedian’ River Scott shares stories and jokes while exploring how attitudes to life, sex, and relationships change in middle-age. (It was this or therapy, and this was cheaper.)

Includes: gender-neutral dirty talk, dealing with grey pubes, and how it feels to be the same age as grown-ups. Also, lots of nob jokes and swearing.

River Scott is a multi-award-winning writer, broadcaster, and tart. They host the long-running podcast Probably True: Stories of Queer Life and Even Queer-er Sex, they identify as non-binary, and they genuinely didn’t expect you to read this far.
GET TICKETS HERE

Seven by Seven
2025-01-12 15:00 - 21:00
Seven by Seven is a friendly open decks vinyl playing session. You can bring along and play us seven of your 7” 45rpm vinyl singles – hence Seven by Seven – or just come and listen to others play. The 7” 45rpm format is the only limitation. We don’t dictate the type of music – you can play whatever you want to, and we relish that variety!

No DJ skills are needed, and our ethos is – no pressure, no competition, no egos.

Please get there early to put your name down. We draw names out for the running order and later arrivals may be too late to be drawn. We also sometimes reduce the number of records that some people can play if we have high numbers attending – but we do try to fit in as many seven record sets as possible.

Seven by Seven is a non-commercial operation. We run our sessions purely for the joy of playing and listening to records as a shared experience.

Stuart Pearce // Nervous Twitch // Cry About It // The Richard Nixon Project
2025-01-11 19:00 - 23:00
I’m Not From London presents…
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Sat 11th January at Wharf Chambers

STUART PEARCE
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9.45 pm

The Midlands’ premier beat combo. Composite: dialectical materialism w/conventional instrumentation “As a Forest fan, I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t got around to seeing the band Stuart Pearce before! The already packed room seemed to suddenly expand and make room as more folks arrived, eager for them to take the stage. It may have been cold outside but The Chameleon crowd were turning up the heat for this sold out occasion and the chance to see their final Nottingham show in 2023. How best to describe the Stuart Pearce band: I’m settling for ‘The Fall if they were still around’, a band I’ve always loved. An explosion of brash aggression and raw sounds, think of Mark E Smith on one of his best nights and you’re somewhere near these guys. Raucous Rock collides with gritty chaos; however the anarchistic sounds are all managed into a near perfect delivery every time. If you’re making a list of must see bands in 2024, please consider these guys at the top. ” – Bassey/ Leftlion Magazine

https://stuartpearce.bandcamp.com/

NERVOUS TWITCH
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9.00 pm

Blending 1960s pop with a classic punk sound and ethos, Nervous Twitch have been a staple of the local music scene in Leeds since the release of their first EP, ‘Bad Reputation’, back in 2013. In the intervening years, the group has undergone various line-up changes and have released multiple albums and singles via various different independent record labels, including Odd Box and Punk Fox. Stalwarts of the Leeds music scene, lovely people and a must for fans of The Beatles, Shangri-Las, The Kinks, The Ronettes, TV Personalities, Jesus and Mary Chain. https://noisedelaysrecovery.com/nervous-twitch/ https://nervoustwitch.bandcamp.com/

https://linktr.ee/Nervoustwitch

CRY ABOUT IT
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8.15 pm

Your new number favourite melancholic indie punk band from West Yorkshire!

https://linktr.ee/

THE RICHARD NIXON PROJECT
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7.30 pm

The Richard Nixon Project is an indie punk band from the UK, forged in the fiery crucible of a ruthless Tory regime. With a mix of irony and outrage, these self-proclaimed “gentle old men” channel their unrelenting fury into catchy, provocative anthems. Their sound is a playful yet piercing critique of the political landscape, embodying the spirit of a boyband you never knew you needed. A standout track, “Eric Pickles is a Tory Cunt,” perfectly encapsulates their irreverent style and biting humour, making them a beloved fixture in the underground punk scene. Don’t look for them on the internet. They don’t want to be found.

£7 advance/ £10 on the door

Get your advance tickets here!

https://www.gigantic.com/stuart-pearce-tickets/leeds-wharf-chambers/2025-01-11-20-15

Licensed bar
Don’t Be A Dick
WHARF CHAMBERS IS A SAFE SPACE

Wharf Chambers Members’ Club is committed to creating an environment in which we prioritise each others’ safety and harmful or marginalising behaviour is not tolerated.

https://wharfchambers.org/safer-spaces/

Cellar Messiah // Deathtrippers // Die Schöne Familie
2025-01-10 19:30 - 2025-01-11 01:00
Join us for a night of psych that will throw the mid-winter blues into oblivion:
Die Schone Familie deconstructs song structure through processing and layering of sonic repetition, delivered with casual poetic self-deprecation.
Deathtrippers are a mix of goth and shoegaze.
Cellar Messiah includes ex-members of Leeds/Bradford bands Rent Boys and Jon Jones & the Beatnik Movement. They create noisy shoe gaze psychedelia that throbs off the radar.
GET TICKETS HERE

Conscious Pilot
2025-01-09 19:30 - 23:00
Birthed from a love of immersive beat-driven soundscapes, Conscious Pilot’s raw DIY sounds have made for incredible shows on every visit to Leeds. This time returning with Glasgow’s Bikini Body in tow, the band hit Wharf Chambers for what will be another rowdy night
GET TICKETS HERE

Mosquito Farm // Dolmen Dweller // Becky Mahay // Mic & Stand
2025-01-09 19:30 - 23:00
Heinous Whining congeales into 2025 with a braod sweep of the net through unpopular music. Lots of inventive self made instruments or self discovered self-sounds abound
No one turned away for lack of funds as always
Mosquito Farm – Electro-acoustics from self-built instruments and machines assembling and dis-assembling sounds and themselves
Dolmen Dweller – Solo vocal drone mission from Watts (of Lump Hammer, Plague Rider, Friend noise rock/metal fame) sounding huge and depp earth resonating. Like wind making a bridge sing
Becky Mahay – Longterm traveller through the thick viscous trench of unfiltered brain-stem to sound music. Psyched and spaced in different brains and locations to your normal fare. Buzzing synths, chimes, murmerattions and field recordings congeal you feel?
Mic & Stand – a mic on a stand making the sounds of a mic on a stand

Jingle Bell Frock
2024-12-21 19:00 - 22:00
Christmas is the most magical time of the year, and Frock Events is thrilled to present Jingle Bell Frock! Join the flabulous plus-size Barbie, Sian De Paul, and an extraordinary cast of drag performers for the ultimate Christmas party! Get ready to be enchanted by live vocals, campy comedy, and dazzling dancing divas. Plus, a percentage from each ticket sale will be donated to Make a Wish!

Note: This event is for a 16+ audience. All individuals under 18 must be accompanied by a responsible adult.

GET TICKETS HERE

Lilac Unknown: Momentum II feat. Girl Called Sim and Lotus Phaze
2024-12-20 23:59
Lilac Unknown returns on Friday December 20th at Wharf Chambers (11:59PM-4:00AM). We can’t wait to play some bassy, multi-genre goodness all night long! We have our Leeds-based co-founders Girl Called Sim and Lotus Phaze on the bill, and there might be a rumour that this event may be a F2F battle or just a b2b all night long; gotta be there to see it!. Early bird tickets are only £4 for a limited time before they go up in price to £8 Final Sale/OTD. Safer Spaces will be in effect. Reminder that this event series is for Female, Femme, and NB attendees only! This event is 18+ and we will be checking IDs. You must be a member or a guest of a member of Wharf Chambers to attend. Memberships are only £2 and more information can be found on https://wharfchambers.org/membership/ .
TICKETS HERE
INSTAGRAM

Wharfmas
2024-12-20 19:00 - 23:00
Whether it’s the most wonderful time of the year or the season you try to avoid, we’ve got the Christmas event for you.

Join The Hangout for Wharfmas, an Alternative Christmas night of Drag, Live Music, stalls, festive food, and our very own drag Santa! Think Nightmare before Christmas, goth snowmen, or edgy Christmas elves.

Celebrate the holiday season your way, all whilst raising money for LGBTQIA+ youth in Leeds. Dressing to the alt Christmas theme is strongly encouraged, so come dressed to impress.

Ticket Link: www.outsavvy.com/event/23924/wharfmas

Solidarity Saloon
2024-12-19 19:00 - 23:00
Them There Cowboys bring you a night of entertainment, raising money for organisations developing anti-imperialist solidarity and peace.

GET TICKETS HERE

EWY + CHEAP DIRTY HORSE + RAT PAKK
2024-12-18 19:30 - 23:00
three DIY punk bands!! only one will make it out alive!
come join for a show that is definitely not a pilot for an upcoming ewy tour, featuring:
Ewy is an explosive queer punk project based in Leeds that prides itself on aggressive vulnerability and DIY ethos. Their latest EP ‘SCREAM LIKE A DOG’ is a departure from their previous folk-style work into a screamy and distorted fast paced critique of relationships and politics. They take inspiration from bands such as Jeff Rosenstock, PUP and AJJ.
Cheap Dirty Horse are a big rowdy queer trash folk-punk band from Nottingham. Blending acoustic and electric guitar with banjo, accordion, bass, drums, and sometimes mandolin, they write energetic, joyful protest music. They sing about trans rights, dead billionaires, and the importance of doing the things you love. They sing about grief, washing machines, and stealing shit. Angry, but always empowering.
Rat Pakk are a Leeds based anarchist-queer-punk collective. Combining aggressive punk sounds with discordant noise, their music reflects the social realism and emotional disconnection of life in the post industrial north.

MESMAC QUEER CLINIC
2024-12-18 17:00 - 19:30
The Queer Clinic is a monthly sexual health drop-in service run by Yorkshire MESMAC and hosted at Wharf Chambers on the 3rd Wednesday of every month 5pm – 7:30pm. At this event you can access Sexual Health Screenings, The Gender Outreach Service & Free Sexual Health Resources in an inclusive and non-judgemental environment. We also offer referrals for PrEP, Contraception and 121 Peer Support. Further info: J.Keating@MESMAC.co.uk

Paul Taylor // Klôvhôvve // Amon Ra Collective
2024-12-15 19:30 - 22:00
Ambient Leeds: Paul Taylor // Klôvhôvve // Amon Ra Collective

Join us at Wharf Chambers and immerse yourself in a spellbinding night of ambient and jazz music!

Paul Taylor

Paul Taylor is an accomplished pianist and keyboard player specialising in improvisation. The music is evocative, alluring and unique, combining unusual harmonies and sonorities with an original and fluid technique.

https://paulstephentaylor.bandcamp.com/track/the-long-process-of-incus
https://paulstephentaylor.bandcamp.com/album/avalon-of-the-heart-soundscapes-at-st-johns-church-Glastonbury

Klôvhôvve

Fragments of sounds, some known, some unknown, are processed and transformed into something recognisable or unrecognisable

https://dretskivor.bandcamp.com/album/is-it-it-is

Amon Ra Collective

composed and improvised music painting pictures of exotic worlds in space by combining jazz instrumentation and techniques with ambience and storytelling

Ticket link: https://skiddle.com/e/40371898

Dolls VS Twinks
2024-12-14 23:59
Na’ then, get ready t’serve cvnt… Dolls vs Twinks: Leeds We’re packing up our bags, putting petrol in the pvssypvssypvssywagon, and braving the hardy northern winds to come bring Leeds a taste of our unique brand of diva on diva violence. The DJs, putting the Dolls in the Dales and the Cvnt in God’s Own Cvntry:• ZESTY (@zest.y_) • Eveliz (@eveliz.dj) • NSFW (@nsfw______) • Mandy & Friends (@mxndyandfriends) • Karlie Marx (@karlie.wav)• Our delicious gogo girl: Antonia (@antoniaia_) Curated by your favourite dolls favourite doll @czech.hunter.schafer & the inventor of cummunism @karliemarx.wav <3Tickets available on outsaavy. Limited tickets available on the door.
TICKETS HERE
INSTAGRAM

Heinous Whining Presents: Annelies Monsere // Christian Rock // Goldscammer // Bop it
2024-12-14 19:30 - 23:00
Heinous Whine on company time with another troubador squad from the rayed edges of music. Four acts all skimming on genre and form to disarming and quasi-dream-inducing effect whether lifting from early music from some cavernous church, US country storytelling parable, blissed off and sunned out noise pop or broken system laptop DAWsaster soundzzz
£8 or 4 low or unwaged
not one ever turned away for lack of funds just any donation is fair game xx
Annelies Monsere
From Belgium to B…Leeds Bringing Blurry visions of what was once folk? religious prayer? vaguely forgotten and re-rememebered and re-imagined into something gothic but for late afternoons rather than full nights.
Christian Rock
Nottingham sonic iteriteriterator Hannah Banana in country rock duo formation as vehicle for strange sprawling tales and fables. Get off your horse and drink
Goldscammer
Mysterious psychy fuzzy guitar and fumbled electronics
Bop-it!
Blownout laptop beats and synth fizz and performance art? who knows? from local artgenerator Seren Oakley

Nox
2024-12-13 23:59
Gothic queer clubnight playing underground cryptic classics spanning dakrwave, industrial, post-punk, coldwave and all things GOTH
Expect: Goth, darkwave, industrial, post-punk, deathrock, no wave, experimental
EVENT PAGE

Xylitol + SDEM + Anna Peaker
2024-12-13 19:30 - 23:00
Xylitol (Planet Mu) is up from Brighton with her magnetic concoction of cosmic transfemme Junglist energy!! With support from local oldskool “Chavantgarde” badboy Tom Knapp aka SDEM + local eldritch seer of sonic shadow realms Anna Peaker!
GET TICKETS HERE

Cum to the Cabaret - Let's go Swinging
2024-12-12 19:30 - 23:00
Cum to the Cabaret is a queer-only night of burlesque, club singing and drag …..back again from our first SOLD OUT show we’re here to bring you even more seduction, sex and degeneracy 😉
Produced by King Butch, featuring performances from some of the North’s most devilish and decadent queer artists and performers.
Let’s Go Swinging will be channelling the energy and love of the 1920s Harlem Renaissance and the famous Cotton Club; featuring a swing dance tutorial and a night of phenomenal performers xxx
Free glass of wine or cola with every ticket !
Disclosure: This is an 18+ event, for LGBT+ individuals only (this means we ask cis-heterosexual individual to consider if this is a space for you before attending)

tickets here

Green Carnation Film Club Presents...BOOM!
2024-12-11 18:30 - 23:00
Got the winter blues? Tired of Christmas tyranny? Join us for a night of explosive cinema at Wharf Chambers!
Based on the Tennessee Williams play, The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore, BOOM! is a tour de force of late-1960s weirdness. Elizabeth Taylor plays an erratic widow wafting around a lush Mediterranean villa in an array of fabulous outfits, before being visited by a sinister Richard Burton. Bizarre, melodramatic and immersive, this is a classic of camp cinema – and John Waters’ favourite film.
We will also be running a raffle raising money for the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, with themed prizes!
GET TICKETS HERE
