A previous incarnation of #TheZineUK logo but always the spirit of #zeenagers (i.e. all generations, genders, generalisations… united)
Mid March 2024 TheZineUK is ten years old. Since Mid March 2023 we have pondered… “2018, Where Do You See Yourself In Five Years Time?”… So how was it for you to the end of December 2023, and what’s next for you?
To the rock show - with Stage Style!
Wait. WHAT THE… A DIY, multi-media creative documentary of alternative rock on the grassroots circuit - lived as lifestyle. On Line. On Land. On a roll…
Contributors, Cast, Cats & Crew: Many Stars!
Editor: Dizzy Spell, Events/Diary: Caffy St Luce.
2014-2017 Season 1:
Starting Something. Our 2021 cast and crew have come a long way. Diary Picture Slideshow 1: “The Road To The Music People Party” on YouTube.
This once excellent grassroots venue, Camden Monarch, (where our #MusicPeopleParty was held Decembers 2018+2019) is no longer blessed with gigs. The Velvet Hands opened the first Music People Party at The Hawley Arms in Camden when Katie Owen DJ’d and Music Women (Heather Minx, Rachel Brown and our own Dizzy Spell) hosted. The band started 2018 at This Feeling’s “Big In” show where Katie Owen conducted her first filmed (by Electric Owls) interview, with them, for TheZineUK.
2018 onwards - Season 2: Zeenagers.
Rise of the #NewerWave - the rock / electro / pop / art punk musicians and interdependent allies invest passion in DIY plants. Uniqulture goes beyond backgrounds and seeds a consistently proven #FertileEnvironment
All despite the hisstablishment’s hostile environment of Brexshit-deranged corruption. We live through moments.
Escapisms from “Plague Island” / “Normal Island”, we love to see the Britain/Ireland (world map dots) talent pipeline bloom.
This Feeling Stage host, John Kennedy (Radio X/The Remedy) is a driving force of the Newer Wave of rock and pop stories and an absolute hero who so many music lovers can not thank enough. This pic: Summer 2023 introducing The Velvet Hands about to play their Friday night rock and roll headline set at Truck Festival. Photographed by Sarah Gibson.
The friends in our pages, on and off stages, have weathered and created storms with profiles and hits still rising. We embrace the artists stories as their threads weave a tapestry and simultaneously new favourites new faves are found and/or recommended. It’s a situationist tale.
Yeah. That’s us alright. the “New Whimsical Express”, “Rocking Pebble”. Ha ha, having too much fun too often - rebelliously with added magick.
Season 2 inspires something different for Season 3 (mid March 2024 onwards).
As ever, it’s an inclusive invitation to add positivity. Earthlings need to know that the good WILL out!
On hands research began at the British Music Embassy (SXSW, Austin, Texas), Mid March 2023 - nine years after TheZineUK was first uploaded.
Further Reading
From teens to legendary pensioners, zeenagers are Generation Tremorist (i.e., all ages exchanging new ideas and knowledge with experience and “was there” anecdotes). We stage events, create, perform, blog, dream and socialise or shyly observe.
“Something Must Grow” (Patrick Jones)
Mourning Birds introduced the one-woman powerhouse, Abbie McCarthy of BBC Radio Kent Introducing. TheZineUK attended the (January 2016) launch of her live music event Good Karma Club which included The Sherlocks at very close range (fast forward, they’re now an established tour/festival band). In March, we were jumping at one of Abbie’s multiple events/DJ sets and appearances (including Rolling Stone) at #SXSW2023. Reading Festival host and SO much more… Fertile Environment, right?
Kinetic Kismetic stories of exciting talent and innovation under radar. Austerity skint, gentrification and #CostOfGreedCrisis inflicted. If you want to pay somebody who loves what they do well, we can hopefully recommend a creative, a performer, a consultant. So much talent, fresh ideas and experience are ways of life, here.
End Of Daze episode, Winter 2016. Visual genius, Eugene Ankomah photography (c) with permission from the essential Stefon Grant. Eugene and Little Death Machine (seeds of the amazing Birthmarks) collaborated on an Art Gallery and Dark Live Music extravaganza (included Deux Furieuses) at a #MusicTourism tip location Brixton Windmill. These artists are all world class creators. https://stefongrant.com/ and Eugene Ankomah - Wikipedia and Birthmarks Facebook
What #TheZineUK lacks in £ we make up for in hope and adventures. Thank you so much all that support with mentions, guest list, feedback, hugs, access, cases of booze and long putting-the-world-to-rights conversations. We truly appreciate it. Even the smallest acknowledgement of what grassroots endeavours are capable of.
Lori of Weekend Recovery, Nova Twins and Jess & Bram of Tiger Mimic a virtual supergroup at the Newer Wave of rock and pop MOMENT, Cro Cro Land by Angela Martin of Bugeye and Julia Woolams of 31% Wool. Three stages inside a Croydon Hotel. We’ll never be able to express how humbled we are to have been part of 6th April 2019.. There is no limit to what the DIY plants who are seeding the Fertile Environment, can achieve.
Nowadays it’s more a case of sharing news than introductory articles and interviews. We’re skeleton staff and guest contributors since lockdown but there are so many milestones and moments happening for artists who have come into this tale, early doors, that we’re celebrating not being able to keep up!!!
Uniqulture is such a strong bond of respect, friendship and mutual peer support that on March 24th 2020 - one day after official UK lockdown began - Joyzine had organised a gang of interdependent multi media into the Balcony Online Music Festival streams raising thousands of pounds with six Spring/Summer events. This was the second event for #ourNHS
None of that payola fake passion bolloocks though. Some of the events that we relentlessly plug, we can’t actually afford to attend. That’s not the point. It’s the cyberspace age where we can see clips and pictures and share the next chapters of this tale.
The talent that inspires our (working class females of tory-hated heritage - yay!) is growing in reputation and achievements. We might be on to something…
Summer 2021. We’re here for Kick Out The Jams (live music cred scouting and presenting) an Amersham Arms rocking social, TheZineUK’s expanding community represent the newer wave of music industrious. Interact and invite yourself to be part of this tale. #MusicWomen - Anaiah M. Davis, Robyn Skinner, Jean Genie, Kat Five, Caffy St Luce, Sonja Amoretti.
Issuu did the crapitalist thing of making our previously uploaded pdf picture books unreadable unless we pay. We have no funding or advertisements, so don’t want to charge people as we can’t fund a writing and photographing team to deliver consistent high quality… BUT we did screenshot loads of the pages so they will form the basis of the Expo, still.
As 2021 started, we’d kept note of our photographer talents. There have been many more since, thank you, for instance, Rhona Murphy has since added to our blessings, but this below is a snapshot image of recommendations for the expo.
If anybody would like to fund photographers, writers, film makrs to create sessions and/or document artists behind the scenes, live performancee, event atmosphere - then please do contact TheZineUK - it’s an Expo aim.
Back Story
Pre Brexshit, the scene was set for newer and bigger adventures through poetry, fashion, design, visuals, theatre, technology, film, literature and ideas mixing with seminal music star turns at ArtBeat Amersham Arms events where regulars travel monthly (with Bowie-esque teen queen Dizzy Spell - from various locations, to New Cross). It lights fuses.
TheZineUK was born in the “backstage bar” (thank you, venue manager, musician Andy Palmer) through ideas exchanged at these music socials.
Our 2014 HQ, five to ten minutes walk from Amersham Arms, was a secret warehouse, gallery and creating space run by Menace & McNaughty which became known as The Ministry of Fluff n Dreams. Hit The Floor kindly brought tea and a teapot before we had a kettle. Fast forward to 2023, The multi discipline artist, Emily Magpie, is a sold-out-gigs, BBC Radio etc, festival gracing recorded artist in her own right. Dizzy Spell multi tasking artist and member of the plain singing austerity pop outfit, Weather Underground. Situationism power, baby!
Experienced Entertainment Industry professionals, who had gone underground for kicks, harnessed this potential. Making Rocklands (i.e. S.E.London postcodes) a reality – an impromptu photo session at Fordham Park’s inaugural Party In The Park with teen band The Otherside, behind the scenes snaps at TryLife TV filming (Georgia of Floodliners became half of Nova Twins), a fashion shoot with Rhiannon The Nightmare (RTN Makes Music) in Little Nan’s Bar at The Bunker in Deptford and New Cross Inn, behind the scenes at Soccer Six Fest in the 02) + interviews with rock bands CuT (by Dizzy Spell) via Andy Ross and Mourning Birds (by Caffy St Luce) via a tweet from a Bird, Bill, I kid you not! = Chapter 1.
There is physical evidence (video clip) of this phenomenal appearance that stunned the great hall, the statue of Charles Darwin AND the giant dinosaur skeleton!
Photographer Rupert Hitchcox (now part of the team with our friends, Joyzine) had 15 minutes to get a low lit shot which graced the Chapter 1 picture book cover uploaded mid March 2014. We’re not “the music press”, this is a free style, instinctive way of choosing and doing things driven by sixth sense instinct.
TheZineUK launched January 2014
The year began with punk and poetry on Tin Pan Alley. We called it a “roadshow” of uniqulture. (We only had two dates!)
The calibre of our first event earned an official stage at the Camden Crawl finale that mid-Summer’s day and night when the festival head, Lisa Paulon, caught the show. Situationism, that’s how we roll.
We host/co-promote inclusive gatherings, where the aces n faces of the alt/arts underground share ideas, tips and hugs.
Zeenagers started 2022 by socialising at AMP Studios on the Old Kent Road. A minute, soundtracked by Monefa Walker, begins with Sonja The Blur Fairy. (TikTok)
It was the same night that there was a wake for our dear friend and inspiration, Andy Ross, at The Good Mixer in Camden. Uniqulture lives in many dimensions of gracing the future.
In Summer 2023, Andy was there in spirit at the Blur stadium shows. He remains Lord Camden and is one of our inspirational lost friends who live in our story.
It’s aimless or is there an aim?
More of a dream… We seek to connect marketable, personable and engaging musical and fashion talent with recognition and hopefully employment.
Our modus operandi for this collective is to create a hybrid agency of potential with an edge, inspired by excitements pertinent to the audio/visual industries and our contributors.
By 2023, an increasing proof of dreams achieved.. Onwards.
Mid-summer 2022 - our music social packed out the iconic Water Rats Theatre in Kings Cross. Music fans travelled from two European countries and across Britain for MOSES and special guests The Great Leslie and KILL, THE ICON (whose first live show we witnessed at Fierce Panda Records fest Pandamonium at the end of 2021).
Here is (L-R) lead singer Nishant Joshi, with musician/creator, Jonny Hayes, the afore mentioned John Kennedy, in the background John McKiernan of The Fourth Portal/Platform 7 Events and our own multi talented star, Jean Genie Hayes.
Another landmark, future-making evening.
Incidentally, there were so many background heritages in the show (nearly sold out when the rail strike was announced, but hey, solidarity). It’s time to look at punk / rock / pop / electro whatever with fresh ears and also EYES.
2023… Repped KILL, THE ICON! t shirt at SXSW and savoured the Peachy Protest Sauce and the band (who graced #TGE23 weekend’s ALT-alt-Escape with Kick Out The Jams) released the world’s first AI protest video and have just added a second drummer to their synth punk fierce-force presence.
Unique Selling Points? We’re outside looking out.
#TheZineUK fuses bands and brands (musical equipment, clothing, accessories, musical equipment footwear, tech, politics and lifestyle). Threads include Flare Audio, TryLife.TV, Underground Shoes and even Google HQ.
Through our travelling circus, editorial and co- promotion we soundtrack design and vision towards new possibilities. Our live music events are installations as board meetings to new futures. We are performance art experiments.
Documented since 2014-2016 in chapters. Over ambitious ideas (including successful 2015 and 2016 Expos) without boundaries. Then a year after Brexit re-broke Broken Britain… we rebelled, with FUN.
2017. The game changer summer for working class rock n rollers. April our punky take over of St. Paul’s by Jeff Moth. May The Blinders + 485C after-the-aftershow after Good Karma Club, June This Feeling Stage at Isle Of Wight Festival during The Assist’s set. Both by Caffy St Luce. Big back story central.
In December 2017 femme power as Katie Owen, Heather Minx, Rachel Brown and Dizzy Spell presented the first #MusicPeopleParty at the Hawley Arms, Camden.
2018. The whole game changing year in one issue
Thank you Bands FC for the use of the artwork in a world cup year. The #FootballMusic thing is as much cultural theme as illustration, design and the political background of the stories we document. A year of uplifts and upheavals.
No way could we have predicted the journey we’ve been through if we made it to this point. It’s a virtual movie:
2018 Where Do You See Yourself In Five Years Time?
The Safety First (for Equity and Environment) Future Is Female. Fact.
By 2019, we are a stand alone documentation of beautifully soundtracked creativity blessed with kindness.
Who?
Diversity in our DNA. We come from every background / orientation, genre, generation, gender and other generalisations. Uniqulture is like multi culture, but without any labels other than human. Unique Culture.
A musical magical mystery tour of pictures, words and friendship has proved a useful algorithm of ‘Ones To Watch’, as talent weaves this tale. We are Live Music Event Promoters to spiritual and actual stars.
“Worried you’ll miss the next big thing in sound? They’re probably here.” @LdnAtLarge previews one of TheZineUK’s artbeat music socials.
We were allowed time outdoors in lockdown. One day we found art by Jelly who kindly let us use this image for the 2020 issue which would have seemed surreal if we hadn’t adapted to the alien heartd bullshit of Planet Fash mentality. Art and Music is for the human soul.
Team? We are eternally grateful to the talents (some established, some up and coming) that share our vision. The Zine UK is an ongoing digital and analogue promotion of their work. They raise the bar of this cut n paste project.
Degeneration, Degentrification, Declassification.
We are often behind the scenes and connected to various aspects of industry and arts as employment.
Rebellious Joy is not only escapism from the dystopia of “Normal Island”, it is also hands on market research proving that DIY is a professional business investment for getting results. The future’s key sector to invest in. (Oh, and what a soundtrack we have if you’re not already publishing the newer wave stars).
Sometimes just go with the madness where Moderner Life Is Rubbisher but there’s more freedom to be a bit bonkers because our mental health is being attacked by baddies. The above pix were taken at Dagenham Anti Racist Festival and it was such a beautiful day… Enjoy every wonderful moment that you can to boost your anti-baddy-batteries!
Rock Chic!
#FuturePicks The Outers - thrilled at First Sight (end of 2022), snapped up for our Pop Of The Tops 2023 event (Spring) and gaining wider recognition for sparkly tunes and sparkling times.
#StageStyle – A roller coaster of exhibition and entertainment driving a movement where DIY catwalks on stage and street alike.
ArtfulFest and Music Tourist Board fuse with TheZineUK documentary during October 2023. Never has Peacemas been more necessary. The world changes, yet again and we are neither violent or silent.
From the Events Department x New Cross Scene (2003) to New Cross, SEEN…
BUGEYE called into Amersham Arms while on tour with The Bluetones. #ArtfulFest 2023 - image (c) Keira Anee Photography
The Artful Party - We wage civilisation via a gathering of good souls from the power of the arts. Our friends Bugeye, Colossus, Feral Five, Jean Genie’s Massive Hugs, Sonja The Blur Fairy, Joyzine, God Is In The TV and Amersham Arms are joined by Hurtling and (playing their London finale gig) Fonda 500. The music industrious are out in force with love - Anita Maj, Keira Anee Photography, Kick Out The Jams, John Kennedy of Radio X, Brian James Photography, 122 Music Management, Don Blandford Photography, T.A.R.G.O. Music Management, Rory Lyons (King Kurt musician, 1990s Manics tour manager and local legend) are in the mix. The night is MAGICK.
Colossus at #ArtfulFest Party, Amersham Arms, 26th October 2023. Wanna see a clip on TikTok? Course ya do!
It’s a basis for an Expo of 2018 onwards cast, crew, charismatic adventures.
By now we are as upcycled as our clothing and as surreal as life in a climate emergency during an ongoing pandemic with threats of World War 3 while the rich consistently steal everything from the poor to create a slave class in time for the 1930s Planet Fash Centenary.
The greedy sadfux have so little soul that they still need to steal songs for their events while they steal arts from the working class education and access. Political? Us? Whatever.
You gotta dig that Just Stop Oil were at KILL, THE ICON! gig
….We have no choice but to be resourceful!
