Pop Of The Tops 2023

Our situationist music socials and their stars, are never “just a gig” then over and finished with - but always an unfolding story’s chapter. Consider this an invitation!

20/4 - Pop Of The Tops 2023 - London

18+ event. £10 on the door, £8 in advance or OTD w/ NUS
(NHS staff card free entry). Grab a £3 early bird entry: https://www.wegottickets.com/event/573847

(Artist support (industry/media) please DM Events Department in advance)

#PopOfTheTops Spotify playlist of #RocklandsParty alumni

A one-off celebration of the club (2003-2004) that started a season of “New Cross scene” with DIY arts and a punky live music social. If anybody’s around in 2043, celebrate this evening’s 2023 live musical gems, again!

The plan is some visuals from 7.45pm - so come early doors if you wanna experience the full audiovision (live sets until 11pm, after show tunes, then the venue is open until 2am). Trains nearby until past midnight. Buses all night (A2, Continent to The Capital main road).

Sonja The Blur Fairy is our welcoming host and one of the #MusicPeopleParty fam who are gonna be out to play. Come for joy, to scout, to connect, whatever. It’s an inclusive/effusive early start to the weekend and we’d love to see you.

Dizzy (Editor), Caffy (Events) + TheZineUK cast n crew

Mango In Euphoria

“It is time to do what you want while the ones who look down on you keep on doing what they can.” (Mango In Euphoria).
Photography for the single, ‘Hollywood’ by Neil Anderson.

Since catching her last-minute addition to a Kick Out The Jams on the famed Amersham Arms stage (Autumn 2021, TikTok clip) been following the UK’s glam-star, Mango In Euphoria.

Fast forward to Spring 2023 where the “Dark Disco Queen” isa released (and highly praised) recorded, reviewed and radio played artist/One To Watch. (Gonna let you into a not-secret: Every name on this event’s line up is acclaimed and tipped. If may be an affordable night but you’ll more than get your money’s worth to support new music and our beloved grassroots venue circuit).

Electro-pop on the Amazing Radio playlist. Here’s the brand new video for the recent single, ‘Hollywood’ (So Far So Good Records)

Friends! Coming? Do the Mango tango and bring your own #StageStyle to Pop Of The Tops - we love to see it!

Mango In Euphoria songs on Spotify

The Outers

TheZineUK being a situationist music movement documentary, it felt like serendipity when checking out and falling for the soaring tune ‘Danger Signs’ by up comers, The Outers, late last year, courtesy of the Bad Apple Club launch at The Old Blue Last.

Uptempo engagement of the alt-pop tuned, rocked out kind. Their live show is infectious and performed with a stylish edge that mixed Blur, Jefferson Airplane and Blondie, maybe, but is all their own sound. We were introduced by gig photographer, Mark S., (who we met at our Amersham Arms show last summer). It was meant to be, then.

The Outers ended 2022 with an interview on established music site Joyzine. 2023 started with an again well received show supporting Vandal at a packed Belfast Sunflower and new recordings to step up an even busier year. post-punk-pogo-pop having FUN in the video for ‘Nobody’s Fool’

Woohoo, we’ve also nabbed one of the ultra-groovy Big Richard Records rosta. The pulsing young-n-happening label/promoter and band, Brie, introduced into this tale by Andy at Amersham Arms.

Describing themselves as “Post-Punk cheese music” the lively gigging gang are in the process of finishing off their next project, a 5-track studio EP recorded last year. Their musical output so far vacuums you into their dairytale of beats, bops and dynamics.

Over the last year, Brie have concentrated on making friends, playing shows around London and the UK (some sold-out) and are now it’s the build up to releasing their record. Catch them live and make fondue memories of the “I Was There” type! Descend into happy madness.

“Brie are bringing the rocking party” says Gouda Than War. You bring the cheese puns, then. See You, Mate! Video for ‘CuM8’ by Brie

Brie songs on Spotify

Jean Genie’s Massive Hugs

Massive Hugs = Magick hugs!

Creator, Jean Genie, is The Bringer Of Sunshine and a great supporter of musical peers, the grassroots scene and a key mover shaker musician, member of the band Alex & The Wonderland, presenter, producer, promoter, booker, music world community leader and connector while the short film she co-wrote with Jonny Hayes ‘Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Search For The Blue Note' was screened in January to amazing response.

In February 2023 on the Bandcamp Friday of Independent Venue Week, Jean Genie’s Massive Hugs offered Preston’s top independent venue, The Ferret a Ray Of Hope with a brilliant pop single rof the year, ‘Ray Of Hope (Ferret Forever)’.

The release is in support of Music Venue Trust’s first nine lives (grassroots gig spaces) of the brilliant #OwnOurVenues investments/donations campaign. A sparkling tune, it’s picking up widespread support (Independent media, + Radio X, Loud Women on Louder Than War, Get In Her Ears and BBC Introducing plays and interviews).

March 2023 ended with #SaveTheFerret a triumph (yay!) and Music Venue Trust going to the line. Will they? Won’t they? By midnight deadline they HAD made the £2.3 million required to start buying venues for the music world to own. (yay!) Get involved, this is just the start!

April 2023, Jean Genie is live on stage at another of her regular independent venues and has a poptastic way with a story and melody. “What a song!” (John Kennedy, Radio X). A sparkling video by Robin Hill:

OMG, so excited that this entire line up can come and play!

TheZineUK

Documenting DIY music movement serendipity. A “story being lived through the arts and poetic actions at the austerity inflicted end of broken brexit britain. The one with the best rock n roll”.

The multi-media Expo, Zeenagers, is being made in twelve parts. The first was March 2023. Pop Of The Tops 2023 is Chapter 2. Be here in person or virtual media spirit? Draw/Take a pic? Wear a chic? Applaud loudly? Dance? Make a video? …or not. We’re doing love, anyway.

Zeenagers - the early seeds (clips), then, this pic: CroCroLand Spring 2019 supergroup: Weekend Recovery, Nova Twins, Tiger Mimic
Spring 2023 links to feedback. The Fertile Environment returns to Sarf London on 20th April

This is a slideshow of the doc’s 2021 cast and crew between 2014-2017. With more people in the story by 2023, let’s make newer-news together! Yes?

Pop Of The Tops?

Yeah, like Top Of The Pops; diverse popular music variety show of 20th century prime time BBC1 TV viewing fame. But 21st Century DIY punked! Independent artists / venue / promoter and creativity welding alternative rock, electro punk and disco pop tuned performances with a creative crowd.

Let’s make a Hallo Gallery on the second stage in the TARDIS of New Cross backstage bar where years of gigs, parties, clubs, theatre and shenanigans (like TheZineUK being born) have taken place – especially over the last decade while musician, Andy Palmer has been making heritage with a staff of mostly musicians as staff. Come, have a laff.

2003, Sarf East London - a community of artists, locals, students, fairys etc. at a weekly live music social.

By the time it was killed off in 2004 Pop Of The Tops (“The CBGBs of SE14”) had spawned acclaimed/widely screened films, an NME compilation of the year, ‘The New Cross’, an Oxford Street riot, a John Kennedy radio special and the Rocklands Party of creativity.

Over the years of shows, festival stages, sessions, collabs and expos, invited music lovers to witness, early or intimate shows by Kae Tempest, Howard Marks, Nova Twins, Anna Wolf, Art Brut, Bloc Party, gglum, Deux Furieuses, MOSES, Feral Five, Ebony Bones, Something In The Lake, Tinie Tempah, Glen Tillbrook, The Heavy, Beans On Toast, Too Many Ts … ah, so many more.

TheZineUK has officially staged and co-promoted at many events/festivals since 2014 and is always looking at the NOW and the NEXT. So come tonight!

An art rock opera in real time. Kicking against the hostile environment pricks – and despite everything – the uniqulture of the Fertile Environment is seeing talent seed and bloom. A pipeline of potential, which the interdependent music world feeds into wider attention. Often works.

Amersham Arms
388 New Cross Road, London SE14 6TY
https://www.theamershamarms.net/

Yes, of course our “2023 is inspired by 2022” TikTok short features Amersham Arms the most!

Buses: 24 hours. Stop by the venue and a minute away outside Goldsmiths Uni.
Trains: Opposite New Cross Station, 5-10 mins to New Cross Gate (both are National Rail / East London Line), 5-10 mins Deptford Bridge (DLR), 10-15 mins Deptford High Street (National Rail/Thameslink).
Access: One-level venue and toilet.

Welcome to New Cross!

Early Pop Of The Tops-ness: "A congregation of creatives lighting up the darkness of south-east London, with musicians, filmmakers, comedians and artists coming together to conjure a modern-day Haight-Ashbury." (Time Out Magazine) * "In London, New Cross and Deptford attract the hip." (New York Times). * "The rock n roll borough" (NME) * "The new Montmartre" (Italian Vogue) * "Forget Buck Palace get down to Deptford." (The London Paper). * "You gotta be kidding!" (Daily Mail)

The Fairies Band of the naughties are now also widely exhibited and acclaimed visual artists. Pop Of The Tops DJs like The Heartbreakers, Unemployable Welsh Scum and Dirty Sounds keep creating and inspiring. Some of the original amazers can make it on the night to check out the new sounds. Very happy about that. “Rocklands”? - Where Lover’s Rock Meets Rocker’s Love: #SELondon postcodes.

TheZineUK music social is a safe space.

We will not tolerate any gropeytwat or bigotty BS and neither will this inclusive venue - so please be respectful to each other/yourselves - (tho tbf, we’re whimsical and don’t tend to attract wrongs uns).

HOT NEW TUNES - Vol: 10

#HotNewTunes by Music Industry insider,
Kelly Munro (End Of The Trail Creative).
Got (HOT!) tunes, want featured?
Scroll down for contact.

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The Color Forty Nine - Another World

https://www.facebook.com/mirabellemusicofficial/

https://www.instagram.com/mirabelle.music

Bridget Rian - Trailer Park Cemetery (ambient goth country version)

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Contact END OF THE TRAIL CREATIVE online

The Future Fest ethos punches up!

“There are SO many amazing and exciting bands within the UK alone, if anything the hard task is narrowing it down!” says Ghost Road Fest, an exciting new addition to the independent rock music festival circuit that debuts this November. More on that to follow.

Ah, but mainstream festivals…

Generic fame reflects society at mainstream level - and sells tickets.  The pandora's box of pandemica exposed so much socially and politically, music industry included, that without change from the top, an eternal circle of conversations about rebuilding better, go nowhere. With fear and loathing in las plagus, we’re a nation that needs to party, sing and dance together. Tickets will still sell if some credible curve balls thrown in, enhance reputation.

Corporate sponsors of the biggest events may see otherwise to the statements of good intent or presume that us DIY girlies ain't as good at entertaining or scouting.  The fact is, smaller festivals activate the cultural shift guidelines. “Cro Cro Land felt like a platform for tomorrow’s headliners to play a festival crowd. You know; the ones who haven’t necessarily come to see you but who fall in love with your band regardless.” (London In Stereo, whose reviewer fell for Nova Twins April 2019 - they play the main stage at Reading/Leeds Festivals this autumn)

There is often dismay at post lockdown bill announcements at a time when even next level talent is struggling. With up to three decades of the same names, old guard thinking looks dated without emerging star-turns injected as lifeblood. “Ironic there is a band on there called Scouting For Girls, which is how I feel every time I look at a festival poster.” noted Tiger Mimic of one event. This band (on the forthcoming Brits & Pieces II CD) are a face-the-stage commanding, alt-rock proposition who mix a little Queen into their tempo tangent punk. They play Jam On The Farm festival in July (tickets)

By 2021, when artists deserve acclaim for just surviving, the friction of mixing in a little risk invites extra thrill. Cosmic new discoveries please, or it's not a festival - it's just an outdoor concert in cosplay.

Impassioned independent media can decry, but still enjoy, major events. Mainstream journalists don't write/(know?) about art punky party love via a spectrum of scenes. True festival spirit is here:

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Organic pioneers, the previously mentioned CroCroLand (2019, pix above), DecoloniseFest, Kick Out The Jams, This Feeling Club, Loud Women Fest etc. gift a (proven succesful) wealth of possibilities.

Eventually the “prickstock” mentality will go tits up as audiences change. “We are the future, stop fucking ignoring us”, Ms Mohammed told The Guardian newspaper (a clip from her set at the awesome and inclusively welcoming DecoloniseFest) - or, ignore and bore.

Bigger bookers, select your 2022 entry level artists with guitars from ground level curators. There’s wide acclaim to select. Hard work, talent (and (r)evolution) has EARNED it. #SaveOurVenues alumni contain (disproportionately fab) future heritage acts. Thank you John Kennedy (Radio X), a swathe of BBC Introducing/6 Music and a wealth of independent  music media who are getting this noticed.

Also take note of how the fresh scenes fizz femme power. Never mind the bollocks, here's all the genitals. At the skint bottom of some imaginary heap, largely being talked over. But… being talked about in crossbreeding spaces.  

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Our voices are 4REAL. Agreeing to disagree, keeps it interesting, an all happening flourish of diversity in adversity amidst an array of achievements, often for good causes. Interdependence is where the true thrills-and-results-per-week exist. Says a DIY documentary of the action fraction.

Flavouring this surreal decade are affordable festivals with cracking guitars inclusion. Jam On The Farm (July 30th-31st) looks like a wow-some pick n mixed mix.

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Autumn includes Wide Awake, (3rd September) Modern Age Music’s Soma Fest (4th) and before then, rad female fronted new ventures: ReclaimTheseStreetsFest in Sheffield on 7th August and No Man’s Land in Manchester on 14h August.

At #TheZineUK doc we are stoked to be involved in this Leeds and London weekender debuting in November…

“Ghost Road Fest was born out of an excitement to change how things are done post lockdown. I feel like with this much time off there's a real scope for change in how the industry is run. It's really disappointing there is still in 2021 an outcry for (god forbid) inclusivity within line-ups.

I've seen a few festival line ups released and it's still very male heavy - and it's not like there is only a handful of bands with female and trans representation that are 'good enough' to be playing these events! There are SO many amazing and exciting bands within the UK alone, if anything the hard task is narrowing it down!

Our festival has an 82% balance of acts with female or trans representation in - and I'd love to say I'm proud of that - but that should simply be the norm and not something to be highlighted. Alongside the festival we are also running a mentoring programme to encourage young adults to pursue their career within the music industry - something I think is very important - as they are the future of this industry and I strongly believe if you're educated within the correct surroundings then that is how you'll carry on that ethos.”

Lori of #GhostRoadFest

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Written by a vintage West Indian rock chick who has promoted/booked artists and events at all levels, and is excited by the Fertile Environment.