No End in View: A Falmouth & Penryn Scene Report
Far from any major cities and never a convenient spot on a touring route, the seemingly sedate neighbouring seaside towns of Falmouth and Penryn are an unlikely setting for a growing punk scene. However, over a long period of time, a local punk community has thankfully become a regular presence here.
Cover photo: Dee Loraine in play_vxn at Fish Factory (photo by Stu Green)
For those who may not be aware, Falmouth and Penryn are in Cornwall, the southwesternmost county in the UK. Cornwall, or Kernow in Cornish, was at one point autonomous from England—it has its own distinct cultural identity, history, and language, which sadly is no longer widely spoken. It’s a beautiful place, but it’s also rife with disparity. It’s often seen as a holiday destination and a playground for the very wealthy. Second homes and government negligence have led to a housing crisis throughout the county. Cornwall’s ex-mining communities in particular are intensely neglected places.
Falmouth and Penryn are where the main arts university for the county is based, and the large student population provides a fertile space for punk and DIY. The turnout at gigs can fluctuate for sure, but normally there’s a steady gang of people who come along. With students coming and going every year, members of the scene strive to make sure anyone who seems potentially interested knows about the gigs and feels they can take part. If you see anyone wearing a jacket with patches on who you don’t already know, you make sure they get a flyer. There’s also the core of people who have been coming to gigs here for years, so the crowds tend to be a solid mix of old and new faces.
Dee Loraine, a noise punk artist who moved to town a few years ago, has become a regular presence playing in Loraine, Skirt, Welt, play_vxn, and Gyyuk, helping to sow the seeds for a growing industrial/synth punk scene here. I asked her what her experience has been like moving here and getting involved. Dee said:
I’ve always found the scene down here super super welcoming. Despite Falmouth’s size, inconvenient location, and general “cosiness,” the semi-regular Offworld, Dimed, or Boulderdash gigs are all such great facilitators for all the freaks to come down and get some very, very needed catharsis. Truly some of my favourite shows I’ve ever been to have been right here in Penryn. Seen some truly wonderful and unique acts, with great and diverse energy in the room. Maybe it’s something about the sparse nature of the gigs that makes each one really unmissable.
Regrettably, I’ve not actually been based in Falmouth for that long, but I’m really, really enjoying the emergence of some really abrasive fast stuff, dirge-y industrial, and weirdo electronics. So much I’m super stoked for in 2026.
The majority of punk gigs in the area happen at a DIY community arts space in Penryn called Fish Factory. It’s a spot that just feels right for punk. I’ve always felt that a DIY space should feel like home to anyone who visits, and Fish Factory is that place in Cornwall. Established in 2011 and located in Falmouth until 2018 when they were evicted by a landlord so clichéd and villainous he seemed like a thinly drawn film character, Fish Factory is now situated on Commercial Road in Penryn, and the newer space works better as a venue, I’d say. Sadly, as with a lot of DIY spaces, keeping it open has been touch-and-go, and there’s been many points where it’s looked like Fish was going to shut. It has managed to stay running, though, and I think it’s fair to say that it would be a huge loss to the whole community here if that were to ever change.
As word has spread more about our scene, Falmouth and Penryn have appeared more regularly on lists of tour dates. It’s provided the setting for some truly memorable gigs over the last few years from artists all over the world. Sets by Muro, Gimic, Can Kicker, Traidora, Keno, and electronic artist Container spring to mind for me, amongst tons of other highlights. There’s also been regular performances from some key local bands—to name a few: Dead Moon-influenced garage punk from Broken Arrow (né Low Harness), who share members (DIY community stalwarts Katja Rackin and Sam Stacpoole) with KEX; outer-world hardcore from F. Emasculata; fun, idiosyncratic hardcore punk from Bobby Funk; “Good Vibrations”-style melody from the Gussets; crusty punk-informed death metal from Thoughtseize; blistering garage rock from TinnedFruit; and fast, Koro-tinged hardcore from my band GAMMA (although technically only two of us still live in Cornwall). I could go on!
The scene exists here today thanks to the endurance of the Cornish punk lifers. Each of the members of the punk band Bangers (active from the late 2000s to mid-2010s) are all still active in today’s scene. Roo Pescod records bands locally, Hamish Adams puts on gigs with me as Offworld Endeavours, and Andrew Horne runs the punk record shop and label Specialist Subject just a few hours away in Bristol. While Dave Decision and Nat Gyll-Murray of the mighty Rash Decision and F. Emasculata (hardcore acts that have been going since 2005 and the early 2010s, respectively) have both played a large part in making sure that hardcore had an outlet in the town. I spoke to them about how the scene developed here.
Nat had this to say:
I spent years playing shows put on by promoters that lumped us with mismatched bands, venues, and crowds, just so I could play. But through grit, friendships, and boredom, Falmouth and Penryn truly has become a DIY community for alternative music. Now we put on and promote the shows that we want to go to. We support and watch our friends’ bands, rather than just waiting for our turn to play. We hassle shops to display gig posters, convince venues that there will be a good turnout, and get our friends to tell everyone about it. I’ve been lucky enough to play all over the UK and across the world, and I can say with confidence that unlike a lot of places, especially city crowds that might have multiple options and can ooze nonchalance, we have crowds that turn up, chat with friends, smoke a rollie, down a drink, and then throw ourselves around until the lights come on. There’s no ego, no judgement, no tolerance of hate, and we know the rules; if someone falls over in the pit, then we pull them up. Falmouth and Penryn shows can feel like the best house party you’ve been to.
Dave added:
The punk scene in Cornwall has changed and evolved over the years. When I first started playing there in 2005 or so, the only way to get a show going was to set one up myself. I didn’t know anyone and it seemed so insular. If I remember right, there was some melodic punk as well as some screamo and deathcore-type stuff being played in Cornwall at that time. The friends I made at the Falmouth gig I put on all those years ago I’m still playing and touring with—the hXc network in the Cornish underground scene is absolutely unshakeable, despite the closure of venues and the ups and downs of the punk subgenres that evolve around it. There are very few “hardcore” bands left in Cornwall, but I think those that keep true to its principles respect change while honouring its roots. Sonically, there’s a resurgence of shoegaze, experimental noise punk, grunge, metal, and indie flavours in today’s punk and hardcore in Cornwall, but the same people involved in our local scene twenty years ago are still involved.
Challenging environments and lack of opportunity creates bonds between people. I know three-fourths of most crowds at punk shows by name, it’s a beautiful thing—the sound may change and evolve, but it’s never going away. DIY will always see you through—hold your convictions high, and be the example of what you want to see, and if you’re lucky, you might help in shaping the future of your scene in the years to come and watch it unfurl in ways you never imagined.
It’s also fair to say that an important event in this timeline was Rob Camp moving to Falmouth from Brighton. Rob was deeply involved in Brighton’s DIY scene, playing in a variety of excellent bands and putting on numerous gigs. He already knew a lot of people in Falmouth before moving down here, and he ended up connecting a lot of people who may not have otherwise met. Rob wasted no time in getting involved, and we both played in Internal Credit and Isolation together along with Jo House and Morgan Lloyd-Matthews.
We also started putting on gigs together as Offworld Endeavours in 2022. The plan with Offworld was to bring new punk music to Falmouth and Penryn—there were out-of-town bands that Rob and I were excited about that we wanted to bring to our area so we could share them with other local punks. Although Rob’s not involved at the moment, that’s still the idea with Offworld, and we’ve continued to put on regular gigs with changing personnel involved in organising.
Something that people often mention when visiting or playing here is how eclectic our lineups tend to be. This is due to a mix of the size of the area—the combined population of Falmouth and Penryn is around 35,000—and the wide variety of tastes you get in a uni town. There just aren’t going to be enough bands for people to only play with bands that sound similar. Still, everyone shares a DIY sensibility, and we’ve built a community around that. I’ve always thought that this has an effect on the way the bands here sound, as it means people are exposed to influences they probably wouldn’t be in a bigger city. And it shows in the breadth of styles covered by our promoters and labels such as Dimed, Kernow Beat, Killi Events, Noisebleed Records, Fuzzbot, Electronics Symposium, ESC, Krautpop!, and Boulderdash, along with punk staples like Autonomonster and Dead Invoices.
The community here has also been unified in its resistance to fascism in all its forms and its terrifying increasing presence in the world. Rubicund, a radical bookshop in Falmouth is a hub for antifascist literature, and Falmouth had its first trans pride parade last year, which served as a celebration whilst also rejecting the government’s appalling persecution of trans people. Katja Rackin (Holiday Ghosts), a longstanding member of the DIY community, has used her platform to create the compilations Women Life Freedom – Music for Iran and Palestine Solidarity Mix to raise money in solidarity with the people of Palestine and Iran during times of unfathomable atrocity. I asked Kat if she feels the DIY music community plays a part in her activism, she said this:
Being so immersed in the UK music scene, it’s always felt really important to try and mobilise bands to use our platforms to spread awareness and stand in solidarity with marginalised groups. The beautiful thing about the Falmouth music scene is that this is something that seems to be organically woven within the fabric of our community. Whether it’s the bands speaking out about issues, organising demos and fundraisers, or venues like the Fish Factory and the Bank that are always vocal about worldwide issues. Being part of such a strong scene makes it easy to be politically active—wanting to make a change doesn’t feel impossibly huge when you have the support of your community.
However the punk scene here mutates, what’s important is its role in providing an outlet for people who wouldn’t otherwise have one and a sense of being held by likeminded people. You see the genuine effect that punk and DIY has on people’s lives here, and it’s been so heartening to see Falmouth and Penryn become more connected with other like-minded communities. Who knows who the bands will be next time someone writes an article like this, but I bet it will mention some of the same people alongside lots of new faces. What’s vital is that there’s a space for this in Cornwall as part of its own vibrant world, where culture can just exist with no end in view.
