Coitus are (when they get back together)/were such a damn good band. When I think of the London squatter punk scene of the early nineties they are one of the first bands I think of. Many a year back, maybe around 1992 (...oh christ another old punk reminiscing) they played in Cork. Deco from Paranoid Visions posted a friend of mine Emmet a demo of theirs, saying would he put them on. Emmet said they were kind of like Discharge, so no one had heard their tape before arriving to the gig. But once they started playing the whole place were dancing/jumping around the place. They stayed back in my house afterwards, where we spent the night drinking homebrew and sliding down the stairs in sleeping bags. Enough boring stories on with the interview. 1. So did Coitus ever offically break up, would you give us a history of the band? What has been the high point and lowest point of the bands history? Skinny - Coitus formed in London in 1989 and after a couple of changes of guitarists settled on the line up of Alien-Drums/vocals….Skinny-Bass/vocals……Mik-Guitar/vocals who released several demos,cassette albums and 7 inch singles. We toured all over the Uk, Ireland and mainland Europe Until 1995 when I moved back to Ireland. Keith from Dread Messiah took my place.This line up toured about and called it a day in ‘97 I think it was.So that would be the official end of Coitus as a band. Gamp/Inflammable Material put out a best of retrospective in 2001 called Necrocomical and the same year we were asked to reform and do the “Across the Decades” festival in the which was a sort of document of the history of UK punk and had everyone from SLF to Steve Ignorant to the Damned and Conflict. So since then we usually get together most years and play either the UK or Ireland or both. The lowest point for me was Pato (our guitarist before Mik) dying. As you can imagine that was very sad. Also I suppose would be the severe beating Alien and Mik (and others) received from Dutch police after a squat gig in Arnhem in ‘93. Highlights would have to be touting abroad especially the Basque Country and Eastern Europe. Paying an impromptu gig right beside the Berlin wall is a stand out for me. 2. You’ve all been involved within the UK and Irish punk scenes for a long time, what do you feel has changed for the better since the 80`s? There seemed to have been quite a scene in Hackney when you were going, do you go back much? I was once in The Golden Shoe there, is that still going? Do you think the Dublin scene is worse or better...sorry quite a lot in that question? Skinny - The scene in the early to mid 80’s in Dublin was pretty dismal. The country was still in the iron grip of the church, virtually all pubs and clubs wouldn’t entertain the notion of putting on punk bands and looking like a punk on the streets was an advertising for a hiding.Still in the great punk tradition people made the effort to do bands ,fanzines and small labels but playing live was the problem.When gigs did happen they were events looked forward to for weeks and months.There would often be violence due to the factional nature of punk in Dublin at the time. A lot of the old punks who had been around from the start in the 70’s didn’t gel with the later punks who were very influenced by the UK anarcho punk scene. I had always kept an eye on the London scene and with a mixture of being fed up of the Dublin scene I left Paranoid Visions and catholic bollox Ireland and fucked off to London. People like Deko, Niall Mcguirk who soldiered on really put in a lot of work keeping punk alive and kicking in Dublin. These days you only have to go to Eircore and other sites to see the amount of gigs there are now in any given month. it’s the healthiest I’ve ever seen it [ even if its still a little splintered ] but doesn’t seem to hold the edge and excitement it did for me but maybe that’s just me getting old and tired! Ha Ha. There was a huge amount of Irish in the London scene when I arrived and there still is but when I was over in August last for the Fuk Reading festival there was tonsof young Eastern European punks doing the same shit the paddys were doing 20 years ago,no doubt fleeing the poverty and boredom of their own countries for some London madness.The scene in the early 90’s in Hackney was jumpin’ . There were some great people and bands about and a lot of enthusiasm . I cant really remember the Golden Shoe - there were lots of pubs in Hackney for punk gigs but I don’t remember half of them. I go back every year usually with Coldwar or Coitus and its always a good buzz. 3. I thought the Dread Messiah, tribute to Harry Callaghan was fantastic. How did that come about? Skinny - It was the 10th anniversary of Harrys death and it was Connor from the Freebooters idea to have a gig to mark the occasion. He rang me up and by the time we were finished we had turned it into a weekend thing with 3 gigs , film/photo shows etc . Harrys old band Dread Messiah reformed after an absence of 10 years with big Graham doing a blinding job on vocals.Then you had Paranoid Visions , Coitus Restarts , Freebooters and Coldwar playing and loads of his friends and family muckin in with everything , putting up people etc. Harry was one of the original punks from the 70’s and played in some of the earliest Irish punk bands and of course a few in London and I think the effort everyone put in and the turn out over the weekend showed how much he was respected . 4. Do you get much of a practise before playing a gig these days. As I haven't heard any mistakes yet? Skinny - Yeah we usually get a practice or two together before we play, and things normally turn out alright. Having said that we played grand at the Harry do in Bohs but we were pretty atrocious later that night in the Voodoo .The perils of all day drinking!! 5. Is there any still unreleased Coitus stuff that might see the light of day? Is Darkness on Streets 7" still available? Skinny - Theres a fair bit of unreleased stuff and B sides of singles Ive been kicking about the idea of putting out on one CD so that might rear its ugly head sometime in the future. Ive a few copies of the Darkness 7” about the house somewhere so I’ll send you one up . Otherwise its out of print . 6. Any final comments Skinny - Thanks for the interview Sean and if anybody’s reading this who was wanting to see Coitus at the Fuk Reading festival in London, apologies for not playing.Long story. http://www.myspace.com/coituslondon