Kneecap's FENIAN delivers Chemical Brothers-influenced bangers and political contradictions in equal measure. A track-by-track breakdown of their Chalk album party from someone who stewarded them through court—complete with mixing critiques, socialist accountability, and why Mo Chara's back is officially broken.
Read MoreAn Alt Rock Community meets New Creator Platforms (with soul) and Subculture Melting Pot Events (with heart). Here Comes The ALT-ered Future.
It’s all connected. From being down the front for Brooke Combe at the British Music Embassy (SXSW, Texas) when TheZineUK took on Music Tourist Board, to Sam Crowston’s art brilliance design for her 2026 tour dates (via the cast and crew youtube (“the musicpeopleparty begins”) to five year’s of dystopian adventures in the Multi Verse via grassroots artists, music venues and awards to the rising creators facing platform. Playhuman. Let the stories begin. Get involved in Alt Rock, The Movie!
By Spring 2026, there’s almost too much going on, (which is necessary, as attention needs to quickly turn back to humans). An alternative to “putting all our eggs into one (digital) basket” (Debate is overloaded with already failing generative theft from artists by the computers of the bot brained billionaires tech manosphere).
AI exists in the modern world as an aid to efficiency or a alternative to thinking/creating - but the whole “generative” theft of creator’s work, went too far even before it was so widespread and rudely blatant. A powerful tool when used ethically and transparently but the protections aren’t developing at a matching rate.
TheZineUK doc is talking under the radar musicians, mostly, in the highly political every day lives of everyday people. Major artists can afford to register their likenesses against unauthorised digital content with specific sounds and images but as they say on Twitter;
Nature’s Colourful Springtime LIFE forms - definitely NOT robotic!
2026. How did we get here from a backstage bar venue, writing about bands, fashion, events and self opinion? WHAT a (best/worst of times) ride, though. Especially since lockdown.
Industrious, innovative DIY professionals are creating a genre-clash, completely different arts world - grassroots outwards. This 50th Year of Punk’s may be it’s punkiest, yet as resistance rocks dystopia.
Our story is woven from golden threads including the current, increasingly inter-locking jigsaw puzzle of passion that includes Music Venue Trust, Decolonise Fest, Kick Out The Jams, The Musos Awards, Cro Cro Land, Culture Reverb, This Feeling, Featured Artists Coalition, End Of The Trail, LOUD WOMEN, Playhuman, Flare Audio, Scruff Of The Neck, Soccer Six, The Crocodile Collective and whimsical WTFness as very human examples.
They are in addition to supportive groups and individuals, a multi media network of writers, photographers, film makers, illustrators, creator-first platforms, singalong choirs and dancers! The Chaos Twins have given the resulting music tourism a boost, this year, too.
How do we record and interact with such a posterity? This is where music tourists like Nina and Mark Chappell come in. Where Rhona Murphy, Gary Walker, Olly Bromidge, Jeanie Jean and many more come in. How the writers and presenters - at any level - who support unhyped artists make all the difference.
I’m only one person (but an attendee or contact at the above collectives), this year already feels busy.
Away from the high profile, mainstream end/start of year “Listmas” tips is also worth investigation.
Bah, goodbye hibernation. Thank you, Sonny Green. There needs to be a series called Southenders. The Cool Thing Gang and Travellers Tunes are friends of TheZineUK. Can we make it so?
Playing class friends represented at Tim Burgess’ second Merch Market in Limehouse.
The MVT Report Launch at Kensington’s V&A Museum (they’ve back at this grand venue on 3rd May).
Caught the truly cracking Pedestrian Band at Independent Venue Week (courtesy of photographer, Gary Walker),
This Feeling’s Teenage Cancer Trust shows at The Outernet’s Lower Third then later in the month we were packed in for the Big In 2026 TF tour the same weekend as more (also sold out shows) the illuminating Panda Power in Croydon Stanley Arts and The Bands Come Out To Play finals at Dublin Castle.
All of the above are six degrees of separation and three degrees of celebration in a true story that’s just as unlikely as what passes for reality these dystopian days. Keep fighting for the right to PARTY, our escapism is no fantasy.
Playhuman at the Events Department start of year Music Tourist Board social at The Waiting Room. See that list of collectives all connected to yet more collectives? Well, we are all on a kindly mission. Yeah, this is going to work if we’ve got soul…
Personal Love Month highlight? A grand night out, The Musos Awards. Future-shaping live show, celebration and social that proves the (non-corporate) power of interdependence (winners voted for by their musical peers, some of them turn up on the green carpet in support. (here’s 100 seconds from The Electric Ballroom on YouTube) - yes The Musos Awards event names were on a BuildHollywood billboard!
Soho Calling where Music Venue Trust launched Everywhere At Once music festival (26th-28th June in your local grassroots music venue) at The 100 Club during the Independent Live Music Conference. Explosive live show uplift in the mix was a bonus.
Alfie Clayton of The Bands Come Out To Play 2026 winners, A.R.T. with ELLiS D after his set, part of the explosive live Music Venue Trust show at The 100 Club.
It was also another landmark for this, the International Women’s Century, with the BPI’s Seat At The Table report launch by WOMEN IN CTRL. It’s not all plain sailing, as you can read.
Then possibly the vibiest Venues Day so far at Shoreditch Town Hall. “This One Goes to Eleven” (Music Venue Trust). Much appreciation for the after party hospitality and convivial company, MVT.
A Panda Power/CroCroLand fae fave, Gabi Garbutt (now signed, like Bugeye, to independent INH Records) played a beautiful release show for the single ‘Radical Love’, which will be the title track of their June album). Special guests were, The Outers. (‘The Choir Crowd’ project opening scene is Gabi going to hug Ade Seriki of The Outers at an End Of The Trail show in November, I didn’t mean to voyeur, the silhouette show happened in front of me in a rocking cellar bar, I’ll ask them both if I may add it to the DIY TikTokTale notes, tho)
Jemma Freeman (The Cosmic Something) and Gabi Garbutt have been creating together. More golden tapestry threads.
The month finale, Together Day, is a holiday for all humans, in my humblish opinion. The biggest anti-fash march in history for all there in person or spirit. (my day included New Cross New Cross music tourism walk with author, Neil Gordon Orr. The heart warming Deptford Lit Fest Fringe in the afternoon (me, impostering with real artists at The Birds Nest) then over the river to The Dome where The Velvet Hands, like Bugeye, were very live/loved on stage).
Waiting for The Velvet Hands who brought a full on Saturday night finale, for some rockers, to the Together Alliance Day
April means that the second quarter of the century’s second quarter has begun. Pucker up, we are in…
I had a pinch-myself week at the invigorating Cultures In Resistance in Sheffield that Dizzy Spell articulated so well in her preview and epitomised in presence as a Manifesto Press star turn. “Music and culture are not the side show here. They are the engine.”
Incendiary musicianship, Pedestrian Band are about to roar at This Feeling Big In 2026 (The Water Rats, Kings Cross)
The Fourth Portal associated Cultural Reverb is becoming a net working networking reality at an endearing rate and the Crocodile Collective (fronted by audio art brothers, New Commercial Product) are “interested in developing a fair and non-evil way of working” to release music. Nature is healing.
It feels like the universe wishes us to connect with an ecosystemic movement of ethics (that’s a genuine human power, not a county in England!) during these nebulous days…
This is, indeed, blurred. Thankfully the cinematography skills of https://www.handrewsfilm.com/ at The Lexington will not be!!!
Alternative Rock, The Movie, loaded
It feels like most of the above were represented in Bridlington Spa at This Feeling By The Sea’s massive weekender of chart and rising bands.
Either there or at the M O S E S show at The Lexington proving their secret-star status. Kudos to the platform, Playhuman, who recognised this via JJ Eringa’s video for ‘SUPREME’ (produced by the award winning Gavin Monaghan). As if Dizzy Spell’s review of the new album, ‘CAPITALISE this’ was the first page of a book… “a working-class band with no interest in playing the game, only in burning down the board…”
Of her own book, also, for TheZineUK Editor, is newly announced as a published author - with a book tour this Summer onwards.
So tonight is, then, a second page of the new album’s tale. A tenacious but virtually unheard of rock band of this ecosystem. Though many profiled hopefuls have come, given joy and gone (if feels like so many, just lately Whitelands and The Luka State goodbye announcements), being the tortoise, not the hare, this band are writing, demoing and recording a fourth album. “Never give up” says Victor, introducing ‘Waiter’. Well, until AI can perform live and connect emotionally, maybe…
Special guests, the Wunderhorse/Thin Lizzy influenced, Undici, made some new admirers during their set - with more than one audience member citing tints of Interpol. The Bands Come Out To Play finalists are through to the Isle Of Wight festival semi finals (best wishes) and are playing The Alt Escape in Brighton on 15th May.
Undici Live At The Lexington. Photography credit: Chris Patmore https://chrispatmore.co.uk/
Fans had also travelled from more than one country in Europe just for this show. New followers were there by word of mouth. MOSES want to play more, can this exciting new platform be another of their calling cards? Feedback was exciting, so who knows?
“That was an absolutely fantastic performance - it was a real honor to hear you live! Can't wait for next one! Greetings from Poland!” (thanks for the use of your posted quote, BB)
Pass this key litmus test and they really can play human. If you’ve witnessed them live, try to imagine it!
We recognised some of the playing class there, including Moonbow John of Culture Reverb (beyond listings to lastings https://test.culturereverb.co.uk/ ), Jean Genie & Jonny of Panda Power (with an exciting new venture up their glittery sleeves), Futureproof PR (another of the Merch Market stall stars with Futureproof Records), art popsters, The Outers, cool events face, Sonja The Blur Fairy, resistant punks Craic Killers (as recently heard on KEXP and witnessed ripping it up at a moshing stately home!), the eloquent Wired Weird Productions and - with a new single, ‘This Is It’ released on 6th May, Alexandra Leaving. Until the next time, then.
Come what May… (when many of the above can be found rocking out at the seaside and, at some point, calling into The Font (where God Is A DJ) for the Brighton Rock n Roll Circus. Right now it’s time to, Kick Out The Jams…See you there. See you where? https://instagram.com/kickoutthe_jams/
Photography with kind permission of Chris Patmore who is also no stranger, woven into many of the above stories and friendships.
Join in with what’s being made. Gonna leave ya at the location where TheZineUK was first dreamed up. A few miles from Kneecap Hill, is Nova Twins Corner. How did we get here? Mostly, whimsy and rhythm supercharged with a compulsion to love, most of all.
NX, Costa del Thames. 50 Years Of Punk ®Evolution
Cultures In Resistance, an international multi generational and cultural festival of activism with a parallel youth programme. Entertainment, education. discussion, a variety of ideas and opinions. Award winning/deserving performances - a spectrum of senses delivered by Manifesto Press Co-Operative (publishing from a working class perspective) and Hans Hess Foundation, understanding art in social justice. A DIY, alt rock music promoter fell in love with it all.
Read MoreSpace is no conceptual luxury: it is the primary site of state violence. From the shuttering of grassroots music venues to the hollowing out of Westminster, the enclosure of our commons is nearly complete. Will Dry joins Manifesto Press at the Marx Library to dissect the necropsy of the two-party system and demand a hostile takeover of the structures that serve only speculators.
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