Gary has plenty of other projects from over the years under his belt. These include work with Hope Not Hate, his graphic novel project ‘The Invasion Of’ with Heroes writer Jim Martin, and his record label 25 Hour Convenience Store, which has helped keep him up to date with new and relevant music over the past ten years. When we spoke, he was keen to show off a potential new signing and was waxing lyrical about existing band Purest, who he describes as having a “very kind of New Order-esque sound with a tint of something else”.
His stereo is currently pumping out the likes of Fontaines DC and Rex Orange County, and his Boogaloo Radio show keeps him checking out what’s new. “It’s just given me so much more time to investigate new music and new artists. So every week, I get to cherry-pick all this new music, and it’s all non-genre specific. The only thing that I’d say is genre-specific about the show is that I’ll play some jazz on the hour because I love jazz”.
Gary highlights The Astoria (“but they’ve closed that down, the bastards”) and Brixton Academy when talking about favourite venues. “I like shows at Brixton, and I especially like the crew at Brixton. They are really good - when we did my show for Unity Rocks, they really looked after me there. Brixton were very much of the mindset that this is for a really, really good cause, and we’re going to back you 100%. So even when Pete did graffiti on the walls, and that needed to be paid for, they didn’t take it from any of the fees whatsoever. I think they actually covered it for me, so shout out Brixton!”