Bitch, Please return for second anniversary

“Seeing the crowd at our first ever party was amazing. There were trans-people bearing their scars dancing next to ordinary office jocks. It was exactly the LGBTQ+ event we wanted to create in Bristol.,” says Bitch, Please co-founder Liam John.

Together with Lewis Winter, Liam is gearing up for a second anniversary all-day extravaganza, which welcomes a diverse crowd and has created a beloved house scene for the community. “What we do is important because we need to ensure that Bristol’s LGBTQ+ scene is more than just a ‘gay’ scene,” Liam adds.

This month, Bitch, Please are welcoming Mike Servito and Octo Octa, two legendary DJs from the New York queer scene. “We book a lot of US acts,” Liam says, “because we want to communicate the broad array of LGBTQ+ ideas to people here. The community doesn’t need to acknowledge borders.”

The Summer Day and Night party also welcome the Chocolate City Sisters, Princesass and House of Lavolta, which fuses the international queer perspective with Bristol’s own boundary-pushing performers. “We’re delighted to have Em Williams back. She was the talk of the night last year and she’ll be one of our all-female line up that starts at 10pm,” Liam says.

Liam John (right) DJs at the Bitch, Please Pride Party on July 14 © Photography by Khris Cowley (fb.com/wearehereandnow)

“Last year, we booked Honey Dijon to DJ and many of my friends didn’t know she is trans. I think it’s important that people know that Octo Octa is trans as well. It shouldn’t be important, but it is! They really are doing something we don’t get to hear about,” Liam explains.

There are a handful of nights across the UK like Meat Free in Manchester and Little Gay Brother in London that creates alternative LGBTQ+ spaces and in Bristol – from Coochie Crunch to Thorny – there are more queer nights than ever.

The Chocolate City Sisters are Bristol drag queens who regularly perform at Bitch, Please © Photography by Khris Cowley for Here & Now (fb.com/wearehereandnow)

Bitch, Please are, like many of the alternative LGBTQ+ nights, hosted by predominately straight venues. Liam and Lewis were also invited to host the first LGBT stage at Love Saves the Day. In venues like Old Market Assembly, The Fleece, Thekla and Smoke & Mirrors, nights like Brizzle Bois, Category Is… and Thorny have found allies in creating spaces that don’t exist within the rest of the LGBT scene.

“Motion has been so helpful to Bitch, Please,” Liam says, “and it’s very important because what has been lost in the music industry lately is an appreciation for how much of modern music, like Chicago House and Studio 54, comes from our community. People don’t know that. It has been taken over by white, hetero-males. We love working with Resident Advisor because they stopped compiling their ‘voted for’ lists because they weren’t a true reflection of where music and culture came from.”

Bitch, Please have an all-female DJ line-up from 10pm © Photography by Khris Cowley for Here & Now (fb.com/wearehereandnow)

Bitch, Please sold just over 400 tickets to their first ever summer party; their latest, featuring Black Madonna, welcomed over 1,000 people. “We don’t want to swamp it. We want to keep the aesthetic. That’s the challenge,” Liam admits.

Keeping a balance between the queer aesthetic and atmosphere whilst welcoming like-minded people from outside the community is something Liam works at very hard. “The ethos behind our night was integration. The marketing is key and when you’re working with a non-LGBTQ+ event you’ve got to work hard to make sure that the message comes through.”

The party at Motion promises fantastic LGBTQ+ performers and house music 4am © Photography by Khris Cowley (fb.com/wearehereandnow)

Bitch, Please were seen in stunning form at Bristol Pride hosting their own official Pride Day party at the foot of the Christmas Steps. “It was mega exciting to have performed at Bristol Pride and I like that Pride is reflecting that the scene becoming more diverse; it’s not just gay. The director, Daryn Carter, has been really great at doing that.”

Liam thinks that it could hold the key for the future of Pride in Bristol: “I think when there are so many tens of thousands of people in Bristol for Pride, it’s good to have additional areas to explore but it’s hard to incorporate Old Market and Stokes Croft. So hopefully events like ours will help spread the party over the whole city the next time Pride hits the streets.”

Bitch, Please Summer Day and Night Party will be held at Motion on Saturday, August 4. Tickets are on sale from £18.40 including booking fee. Details of their future nights can be found at @b.please.bristol.

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