UGZ Magazine

These photos date back to the second annual Urban Guerrilla Zine birthday weekend, day one, which took place on April 19th and 20th, 2002 at 924 Gilman and Burnt Ramen Studios respectively. The headliners and co-headliners for the day one show at Gilman were Ludicra and Watch Them Die, who played a bunch of shows together back in 2002 and 2003, and whose photos are featured here in this post. Between the years 2001 and 2005, UGZ Presents booked and promoted a bunch of shows at Gilman, but was never invited to become an official booker at the club until the tail end of 2006 (we still managed to book the biggest show of the year at Gilman in 2006). Be that as it may, we had complete control over our bills at Gilman, and night one of the 2002 birthday weekend was a perfect example of that. The bill from top to bottom was: Ludicra, Watch Them Die, Sbitch (Texas), Beware (Los Angeles), Hatemail Killerz, and fire breathing courtesy of the Crimson Baboon, and all of that for only $5! Back in 2002, that was the door price still at Gilman. The first couple of photos are Watch Them Die, then a cool photo of Jen (I Love A Parade), Pamela Hell (Cruevo, ACDShe), and Amanda (Lava Booking), and of course we have a few photos of our headliner Ludicra. The last couple of photos are one of yours truly, followed by a crowd shot featuring Adrian from Beware.

All of these photos were taken by Sam Bortnick, who was a staff photographer (and friend) for Urban Guerrilla Zine aka UGZ Magazine at that time. We had to greyscale many of Sam’s photos for the zine, so this might be the first time you are seeing these shots in their full color glory.

Both of these bands were staff favorites for years, and to think that this all went down a little over 8 years ago is pretty mind blowing.

-Jay Unidos