Generation Messed Up: Best UP!

Once Upon Another Time (10th February, Chinese Lunar New Year)…

…after the Rough Trade Riot, we all left with an ASBO

Further reading

January:

Straight Outta “CM fuckin’ 2” Essex rock blast, Bilk, sold out half of their ‘Stripped Back & Signing’ gig in five hours. Tickets were soon all gone and discernably hot. WAY to start 2024…

February:

The iconic Rough Trade stage on East London’s Brick Lane has witnessed some memorable live shows. Hold tight Saturday night, we’re at another one!

Changed in the last few weeks to a full electric set, the euphoric, youthful energy of Bilk obviously means a lot to their fans and there’s an excited queue before the doors open.

When they do open after soundcheck, it’s to a virtual installation of Brandon Hepworth’s front cover photography for ASBO Magazine.

ASBO Magazine (@asbo_magazine) • Instagram

ASBO “the street in print” is multi media with stage style, that came to our attention and never left, now with added scene mover shakers, Jean Genie & Jonny giving us all a very warm welcome.

Rock SHOW

Some people still believe guitar music has no power. They don’t appreciate how rich in this culture Britain and Ireland are - from Beatles/Stones, Oasis/Blur to Skindred, Skunk Anansie still KILLING it live/winning awards. Fontaines DC and Nova Twins are internationally in the vanguard of a newer wave. What’s not to love? Loudly.

Young escapism is vital. There are upcoming hopes like ALT BLK ERA, The Molotovs, Noah And The Loners and media star, Arlo the Pint-sized punk - so culture-war fakers can’t fool themselves that guitars ain’t a force for good, for future, forever…

Photographer, Adora, is in the mix of alternative arts blooming adora (@alwaysadora) • Instagram

Poetic bite abounds in these politically dark days in a daze. KILL, THE ICON! BIG SPECIAL - and Bilk are among a mental health boost of wordsmiths who have it in bounds.

The latter, Chelmsford street punks, have been building globally, gradually. Building Noticeably. Perfect for a Rock Show to remember.

Bilk deriders inadvertently fuel the band’s social media algorithms with put-downs amidst what is mostly thrilled feedback from the growing number of invested feelings with a connection to the band. A gang of community.

Rough Trade East, Brick Lane, Shoreditch

10 Feb 23

Exactly a year before tonight’s set, Bilk released a self-titled album that flavoured a chapter.

(Perfect full stop statement from ‘Fashion’ to round off some SXSW clips in Spring). Then festivals and European dates through Summer and Autumn.

Bilk sold out their winter UK tour around the release time of the single/video ‘RNR’, “about living your life as a rock and roll star. Even if you ain’t one, it’s about going out and believing you are”.

10 Feb 24

Tonight those who are lucky enough to have got a ticket are in cheerful party mode. I spot some faces from the newer wave of rock n roll dreams parallel to the world on the news

I spot all generations in the house nodding to Blondie, The Clash, The Jam and The Undertones before Bilk take to the stage like Punk’s Oasis, and raise the energy levels palpably.

Thankfully there were a load of professional photographers in the house, including ASBO’s star snappers

“Trying to be someone else is just a waste of who you are”

‘Fashion’ (from the LP) kicks off and life imitates art as they are ‘RNR’ stars and the set only gets more energetic.

As one of the original melanin punx it thrills my heart to be amidst this ongoing vibe for decades. Weird circles of life, too (my first music job was at Rough Trade). The child inside this vintage rock chick grinned at the noise joys of the crowd.

We need our fun!

Us every day people are trapped under the fash boot of lies and greed. The tories have been in corruption for more than half the lives of the band alone. Steam gotta come out at the boil…

Generation Messed Up, Saturday night Bilking it

Malice-free mosh rowdiness. Bilk’s followers know the score: “If anyone falls over, pick them up, yeah?” - There was a riotous pit or two and a stage invasion, but it was actually the roaring along to the songs, that lifted me most. A deep mine of classic musical references filtered through the reality of broken Britain.

It just lit up the audience. There were children of all ages feeling exuberant from stage diving junior school rockers to original punks and rockers. My fave kinda crowd. Mixing experience with fresh ideas fuels endless possibilities that fuse decades of inspirations with future creations.

In the end, nobody and nothing got broken. I think some of the people in the room will remember as “I Was There” from whatever angle of opinion. Personally I muchly enjoyed.

The signing ended up happening outdoors. Now they’re the Rough Trade banned band (see Bilk’s insta) there’s a newly announced Camden show to help the homeless.

Onwards then. If you’re a “don’t do dull” ‘Daydreamer’, Bilk gonna show you a good time!
(a minute or so of video clips from night)

(Big love/thanX to the JJBirds!)

Just announced and already tickets are selling out

words and almost-pix, Caffy

Nature’s Science of The Arts Life

Unpublished Events Department Archived notes from March 2023. It’s 8th February 2024, and I’m adding some images while proof reading, Events Department thoughts…

I’m writing this on the first weekend of March 2023, Women’s Month.

We’ve a long way to go, (hi, festival bookers!) but let’s keep going there.

Perfectly imperfect, the interdependent music industrious who drive this tale are, nevertheless, pro active in making the world a better place.

Lewisham had been London Borough of Culture in 2022, but Alternative Sounds, weren’t really a feature. No worries, Fox & Firkin is where loadsa top names are calling in. At time of writing (8th February), Bez from Happy Mondays is the DJ on Saturday night 10th February.

The artists, through music and performance, the audiences with support, word of mouth and reaction, media (DIY or mainstream) with the oxygene of publicity and allies like the grassroots, independent gig circuit and all who sail with it.

Despite this dystopian, physical/mental health-fighting era, Music, like air and water, still cares about social justice, environment and a future. We each have differing tastes and politics, but most appreciate the huge economic, educational and reputational potential of new music. We argue about loads but we don’t go to battle about it, on line or in a festival field.

Ah. Screenshots. The People’s Chronicles. January 2023.

At the end of 2022 TheZineUK doc focused on independent venues, Sheffield Leadmill, The Ferret in Preston and Manchester’s Night & Day Cafe in an article. This tapestry weaves formidable talents and their spaces.

In the first quarter of this year we’ve witnessed scary scenes like there’s a nazicentenary jigsaw to complete by the 1930s. Nah mate, sod that. No wonder Spiite-Wing politricks steals good music for their rallies (rebranded as “party conferences”).

The angels have all the best tunes, the devil just asks without taking.

This is literally how tory-types choose how to live next to a grassroots music venue just so that they can then complain about noise. There should be a law that forbids such bollocks. It’s an attack on our culture and heritage, let alone the social collusion of a local community in a nation that has had it’s Youth Centres culled, also, during these crooked years of misrule.

Music World Advances Humanity

Music is a sharing blueprint lifestyle of Nature’s scientific sequences. The human animal is made of music. The arts are our (r)Evolution boost as we adapt at the rate of the tech we can get up our local shops.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Search For The Blue Note. The short film by Jean Genie Hayes & Jonny Hayes was what flavoured Croydon as London Borough Of Culture, 2023 for me. The premiere was packed and hugely applauded. Jean Genie also sang while presenting with Jonny and if time travelled, they could have been S C=T’s parents! Big up Stanley Arts! Documentary Information.

Uni Verse translates as One Song. In conjunction with the celestial skies made of the same Nature as the living globe, is a consistent serendipity that lifts the Islands and Isles just off the European landmass. We need it, we’re literally jailed by a barbed wire fence of sewage. Yeah, you bet Musician, Feargal Sharkey is a leading figure in the fight to put things right, there, too!

Also known as leader of 1970s onwards Derry lifetime-legends, The Undertones, a band whose loved-by-rock music generations anthem, ‘Teenage Kicks’ sealed their music culture heritage by happy (phew!) accident. Bassist, Mickey Bradley, is a music world hero giving airplay to newer wave rock star potential on his BBC Radio show.

The 22nd Century Space Pop outfit, Feral Five, reshaped sounds and thoughts with their 2023 album ‘Truth Is The New Gold’ the multi-sensory launch gig (with special guest, Ms Mohammed) was a veritable ABBA discovery with a DIY-Hackney flavoured plot twist.

Small, independent venues have built the barely visible Irish British dots on the globe to centuries of international giant reputation and achievement. Some balance to the English colonial bollocks of a nation whose new generations are all for saying “sorry”, “thank you”, whatever but the fash fossils ain’t having it.

Between #SaveTheFerret + Music Venue Trust’s #OwnOurVenues campaign and the sparkling video ‘Ray Of Hope (Ferret Forever)’ by Jean Genie’s Massive Hugs (“What a song!” - John Kennedy, Radio X), is a symbiotic uniqulture blue printing the future Entertainments module.

Entertainment arts power has been especially potent from the second half of the 20th Century as media possibilities bloomed - and owes very much to working class power which is also where the most diversity (and therefore possibility) remains.

Grassroots music circuit is where the next industry is creating itself. Obviously. Heck, artist/journalist, Dizzy Spell (TheZineUK’s Editor) bio is Situationist Roma Activist and I don’t know if it’s a queer thing or not, but I (Caffy, Events) am a vintage Black rock chick with a long time career as a Love Pirate on a parallel dimension (Planet Water). Along with the cast, cats and crew (Zeenagers) our tales of the playing class prove what is seeding under the radar to be worth investing time, energy and cash into.

This happens annually. This Feeling is not only Britain Ireland’s No.1 live rock n roll music club it’s also a finishing school of future picks with many perks, a community audience who follow bands on tour, supporting the venues as well as the artists, a creative crew of writers, photographers and hosts/DJs and a cross breeding Zone with a stellar reputation. thisfeeling.co.uk

The Newer Wave Punx of Normal Island

Fast forward to all backgrounds fusing to create playing class friends, while music education and venues feel systematically shut down by design.

Some genuine cult classic songs or even bi-stage worthy live sets grace intimate safe spaces. Affordably. I feel like I’m stepping home to Planet Water from the Maximum Mad Max Mayhem of Planet Earth, when I walk through the doors of a small venue.

Zone Airport. February 2023, coolazfck rockers, The Velvet Hands sold out This Feeling at The Lexington, London (ably supported by Lion Machine 23 - wove into this tale, 2019) and Sasha Assad who became a golden thread that very night. Via headlining TF Stage at Truck Festival then selling out November headline tour they play their biggest London show to date on 26th April 2024 at Omeara, London Bridge. Tickets: The Velvet Hands | (thisfeeling.co.uk)

The fact that so many faces from our pages are surely living a reality that they could initially only dream of, is a beautiful thing. We mean it when TheZineUK states the #FertileEnvironment as a “despite everything” reality. Blue Meanies, tories, can stick their hostile environment up their austerity hole.

2023 started colourfully

#BigInThisFeeling: Our gigging year started at another iconic music tourism space - The Water Rats in Kings Cross - being thrilled by Alien Blaze, Alice SK, Colour TV (James Brookes from the Soccer Six crew was beside himself after their set), Darlings - and more at This Feeling’s Big In 2023 show. (I also loved hearing SHADE in the between sets club sounds).

The Zone travelling circus of rock n roll brings crowds to the circuit and increasingly sells out in advance. Like this evening did. In the crowd were Zone Rangers, Louise Schofield and Jean Genie, multi tasking music women who move and shake new pop worlds.

There’s always a mix of artists, industry and media in “The Zone” and various of the events that we regularly attend and document. “Something Must Grow” (Patrick Jones, TheZineUK original inspiration). What makes the newer wave work is the mutual recommending, staging and witnessing that is outside the boundaries of mainstream manufacture. If it doesn’t grab us, we can’t be arsed to pretend it does. If it does though, uniqulture has a healthy rivalry to keep most of us raising our game, but with respect.

February 2023, #FuturePicks - Anna Wolf, KILL THE ICON! and Feral Five all have an increasing presence in February 2024. Check out Right Chord Music here: https://www.rightchordmusic.co.uk/

Interdependent Circuit Of Recommending Promoters, too

This Feeling, Decolonise Fest, Kick Out The Jams even TheZineUK’s own music socials, where would our next shows be staged without the Music Venue Trust. Genuinely the closest that our dimension of civilisation has to a government that cares about it’s people and their necessary spaces.

Own Our Venues is a people powered initiative. The Independent Venue Community look after and unite the spectrum of local people. The Tonic Charity is one of the mental health charities looking after the music world.

I found Tonic via the Music Industry CUP Soccer Six (whose crew includes an environmental Professor, Mark Maslen) and has included Women’s Football for over two decades (ambassadors Rowetta, Abbie McCarthy, Louise Schofield, Megan Wyn, Katie Owen are Ents world sparklers, on and off the pitch!)

The name Love Music Hate Racism speaks for itself. Forget Westminster on the North West bank of the River Thames. South EAst London has a Ministry Of Sound where Music Venue Trust were originally based and the ace n awesome Featured Artists Coalition still reside.

That’s a short walk from the Temple Of Art And Magic where I ended February 2023, on the night of a "Hmmm, War?” kinda day catching Kosmic Troubadour and friends pulsing PEACE through music with songs like ‘I Believe In Love’. I arrived home humming “We can do it, we can save the world”. But actually, we CAN.

Follow all the above and below - a supernatural magick will manifest.

With a couple of actual wizards (Gavin Monaghan of Magic Garden Recording Studio - The Wizard of Wolvo - and wordsmith, punk legend Bruno Wizard) in our collaborative cast, cats and crew of creative charismas. Lisa Knight PR is one of the bewitching black cat owners of the music world (hi Molotov!) who, like ourselves, offer assistance affordably to help spread the word of emerging acts into ACTion.

Hi £-rich people, there’s enough official data from these and more organisations for worthy investment proposals. Who can help? Help sufficiently and break more than even. (see organic DIY growth reports). Also, Stop eroding and gate-keeping the potential pipeline! Please and thank you. Credit where credit’s due: Appreciation to the access angels.

Meanwhile, in the Temple Of Art and Magic… Love Month 2023

Add Nature’s Science to the arts for amplified public entertainment and we become united by a song, an individual or a group - often like a family extension. Fact - many of the people above meet each other on the future-making smallest venues biggest stories trail. It’s in our Sixth Sense of instinctive Nature.

The Force is strong via music.

Come with the MusicPeopleParty that is ALL happening!

TikTok Tales of January 2023 included at TheZineUK (@thezine.uk) | TikTok

14 March 2023 - Music Tourism Report Research began at the British Music Embassy in Texas

14 March 2024 - Music Tourist Board FOR THE PEOPLE is go! This is a situationist documentary, so no previews are currently available but it will be planned simultaneously as it unfolds.

By February 2024 - Scientifically natural new futures, The Musical!
Zeenagers Expo travelling circus begins in the New Cross backstage bar where TheZineUK was originally born. Come and tell us about YOU and be part of this uniqulture on Thursday 7th March 2024. facebook.com/events/1266437088092220

Alternative music documenting inspirations

#Zeenagers EXPO is go

As a documentary, #TheZineUK doesn’t function on the chart/competition December/January Listmas format of music sites any more than running regular reviews etc. The following names are from on line conversations, What’s App and gig chats. Nowt from December’s version of Twitter.

As usual, doing our own situationist thing outside “how it’s supposed to be done” and social media trends, the story evolves organically outside of major hype but noticeably. From this tapestry, there are Weekend Recovery, Cold Water Swimmers, Feral Five and Cross Wires amidst albums coming in 2023. Bands who are creating notable legacies for their names.

If you’ve ever been aware of our Picture Story Diary Doc (first uploaded Spring 2014), you’ll notice the Fertile Environment seeding in a variety of real time. Some developing into unimaginable moments that, when they happen, make total and deserved sense. Bands come, go, evolve, get on, sod off as things go right or wrong. When wider attention hits, ya love to see it, right?

Decolonise Fest stars Big Joanie, Nova Twins and Bob Vylan playing this year’s Glastonbury Festival and being half of the inaugural MOBO altnernative music group nominations this year, is a strong case in point.

There are so many more of our cast and crew from TheZineUK pages and socials! We couldn’t make it up. We don’t have to. Bang Bang Romeo toured with Pink, False Heads in the charts, Benefits all over the place. Here’s 42 Seconds of The Mysterines by Monefa Walker for her interview with them for TheZineUK, early 2020. They’re on tour with Arctic Monkeys in 2023.

2017: Monefa Walker (astrologer, writer, witch and, most recently recorded and released and acclaimed classical musician) and Katie Owen (DJ host of TheZineUK + friends #MusicPeopleParty No.1, presenter and since this pic BBC Radio 1, Leeds Festival host, World Cup 2022 reporter and so much more). That’s just in short. Big up all our cast and crew. Image by Caffy at Minx Media HQ, cheers Heather Minx!

Working Class women powered (with Tory-unfriendly-heritages and political views) TheZineUK’s 2023 adores the diversity of backgrounds and foregrounds of generation tremorists (i.e. all ages, it’s the 21st century!) in the vanguard of newer wave music industrious movement.

Big up the grassroots venue circuit, the likes of Music Venue Trust and Independent Venue Community and please play respect to all the technicians, promoters, producers, presenters, DJ and expanded fun-fam of media/industry and audiences support that makes this a genuine game changing era. The documenting by photographers, writers and film makers is incredible. The illustrations and graphics are part of the exhibiton. We need each other.

This music site x events creator may be only a small “Rocking Pebble” or “New Whimsical Express”, but our inclusion ain’t delusion. Everybody’s invited, watch all their/our spaces.

2018. That time the legendary promoter and connector, Kick Out The Jams (rock n roll circus) hosted a night of good mixing that has become one of music’s “I Swear I Was There” moments. Roger Kent of Kent and his extended fam of fun signed off with a final event in December 2022 but is a space worth watching for future hopes. The line ups helped to fuel what is happening. It’s All Happening!

Uniqulture’s tapestry weaves through the interaction, co-promotion and collaboeration of friends, strangers or otherwise. We’ll document 2023 with a view to creating the Zeenagers Expo from the reality of soundtracking escapism from dystopia’s now and next…

Gen and the Degenerates wowing This Feeling’s Leeds/London festival ReWired in August. Spotting members of JW Paris in the crowd, this is one of the live music clubs where musicians and their followers make friends with like minded souls. Another reason for the fertile environment starting to really take seed.

Some 2022-flavouring artists to look out for in 2023

Anna Wolf
Arxx
Bugeye
Cobain Jones
Coco and the Lost
Colossus
Dictator
Eternum Joy
Fitzroy Holt
Gen and the Degenerates
gglum
Glytsch
Hotwax
JW Paris
Kill The Icon
Lime Garden
Lufe Tempo
Mango In Euphoria
Megan Wyn
Nadia Sheikh
Noah and the Loners
Ramona Marx
Ruby J
Small Miracles
Something In The Lake
Spangled
Teenage Sequence
The Dead Freights
The Kairos
The Molotovs
The Now
The Outers
The Velvet Hands
Venus Grrrls
Weekend Recovery
Wharves

February 2022, caught Arxx at The House Of Vans Next Generation shows and later in the year at Croydon’s As The Cro Cro Flies. Exceptional bands that rock with credible composition and performance abilities. There’s a lot of DIY development since the new world began in 2020 vision. As we adapted together we have created brighter possibilities for balance.

Albums

Adwaith 'Bato Mato'
Arctic Monkeys 'The Car'
Asylums 'Signs Of Life'
A Void 'Call Of The Void'
Bait 'Sea Change'
Beabadoobee ' Beatopia'
Berries 'How We Function'
Big Joanie 'Back Home'
Black Country, New Road 'Ants From Up There'
Bob Vylan 'The Price Of Life'
Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard 'Backhand Deals'
Deux Furieuses 'Songs From Planet Earth'
Dry Cleaning 'Stump Work'
Enjoyable Listens 'The Enjoyable Listen'
Fontaines D. C. 'Skinty Fia'
Ghum 'Bitter'
Gwenno 'Tresor'
Johnny Marr 'Fever Dreams'
Kid Kapichi - 'Here’s What You Could Have Won'
Louis Tomlinson 'Faith In The Future'
MOSES 'I Still Believe! Do You?'
Nova Twins 'Supernova'
Peaness 'World Full Of Worry'
Pillow Queens 'Leave The Light On'
Rina Sawayama 'Hold The Girl'
Sinead O Brien 'Time Bend And Break The Bower'
Soccer Mommy 'Sometimes Forever'
The Assist 'Council Pop' 
The Linda Lindas 'Growing Up'
The Shop Window 'A 4 Letter Word'
The Snuts 'Burn The Empire'
The Smile 'A Light For Attracting Attention'
Wet Leg 'Wet Leg'
Witch Fever 'Congregation'
Wynona Bleach 'Moonsoake'

We doff our documenting cap to Simon Williams of Fierce Panda. In the newer wave are a wealth of 1990s shapers involved with guiding, while learning from, up and comers of the scenes. The beauty of generation tremorists is ideas and experience exchanging excitedlly. A revision of the widespread zoomer-v-boomer division. Instead, the tunes go zoom, results go boom. Woven into our tapestry, respect to you all!

Thanks for reading/creating/performing/supporting this genuine arts movement.

Dizzy Spell (Editor)/Caffy St Luce (Events)

https://linktr.ee/thezineuk

JPGs of above mentioned artists: